“We Lived, as Usual, by Ignoring.”*

So I was trying to pick a place for dinner this week, a celebration dinner, and I was cruising through Yelp…one of the restaurants that I was considering (and now am not) was Bo Beau, one of the Cohn Restaurants here in San Diego. They have great food and interesting restaurant environments, but on their menu is a statement, a political one for sure, that I just don’t agree with…so I won’t be eating there. Ever. It’s that statement that they will be including a 2% surcharge to cover increased minimum wage and health costs for their employees. You know, most grownups who run a business realize that this is a good thing for the people they employ, that even if you don’t personally want to pay for better wages, for wages that actually might support someone, you should keep your mouth shut to your customers. Because you just lost one…well, and since I influence a few others, a few others will also not go to your restaurants now. Any of them. Good job. I teach the children of some of those minimum-wage workers, Cohn Group, and your lack of respect for their needs and for the vote of the majority is telling. Telling me to go somewhere else.

Don’t get me wrong…wrap that surcharge into increased prices without making it sound like you object to paying your lowest-paid employees more? I have absolutely no problem with that. I want them to be paid more. But stop whining about it. I’ll go somewhere more mature about people’s rights to a fair wage.

I’m in political brain mode at the moment, drawings slamming into my head. Wish I had time for that. Part of it is the next birthday, age 50. I’m OK with achieving cronedom in general (wish my uterus would get the hint), although in the specific, there are things I would change in my own life. But that’s a work in progress, always. But the daily wham of stupidity and disregard I see in my elected officials? Sheesh. Meanwhile, my book club is reading The Handmaid’s Tale, which I read when it came out or soon after…1985…the year I graduated high school.

Here’s my cover…it fell off this time I started rereading it…

Now I just marched in January for women’s rights…because I’m tired of being told I’m not worth as much, I’m not as smart, I can’t make decisions, I’m too emotional or illogical, or whatever other bullshit you’ve come up with about my DNA that makes you think you can decide for me…

The variety of covers for the book over the years is intriguing…how they decide to depict what the story is about. I’d forgotten about the personal part of Offred’s story. I remembered the main part. It’s been a while since I read it last…

Pears. Pears?

I also marched for women who couldn’t march. I marched for more equality for ALL women. I realize being white makes a lot of things easier for me than if I were any of my students, women of color, women with disabilities, women of a variety of religions, immigrant and refugee women. It doesn’t make sense to just fix it for the rich white chicks. It’s been unfair for so long…even more so for others. I’m tired of it.

Don’t tell me to smile, to laugh, to ignore. Don’t shut me up. Don’t tell me to be nice. Don’t apologize for me.

Some women having more rights than others for any reason doesn’t make sense. A bunch of rich white men making that decision doesn’t make sense. Why would we want to go backwards?

This cover completely creeps me out. It’s from the first edition hardback released in Canada in 1985, artist Gail Geltner…a collage artist and feminist.

I watched 10 Cloverfield Lane last night and there was a creepy moment in the movie when the male character couldn’t come up with the word “woman” with regard to the main female character. Although she was obviously an adult, he used “girl” and “princess”. As creepy as the movie was across the board, that moment sticks in my head. Like YIKES.

No video for you though…sorry.

Yeah, I enjoyed my foray into the Prisma app.

This is a nice cover…except why flowers? Because she’s fertile?

And they’re calling the 1980s vintage again.

This cover…there’s pills and syringes and umbrellas and gloves and nooses? With your umbrella? The bleeding heart flowers…those are from the book.

I actually think this is the best cover of all of them.

If you haven’t read this book, you should. It’s relatively short. And Atwood is an amazingly eloquent and psychic writer.

Here’s the whole picture of the wall (a WALL?!) that’s on my cover. A wall? Controlling women? Controlling immigration? Getting rid of the constitution? Protests? Oh sigh. It’s going to be a long presidency. At least I know there really was a conspiracy against those with uteri…I didn’t imagine it. It just wasn’t in my face all the time. Now it is. Thanks.

With that, I’m going to wear what I want to the grocery store and read the signs and buy what I want, even lotion if I like it, and I’m going to come back and make some political art with a uterus in it (oh wait, dammit, there’s no uterus in this one…just a vulva big enough to hide the world in). And you can’t stop me. Yet.

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale