Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

I Wept At My First Bernie Rally

My protest partner Barry and I drove to Rindge, New Hampshire, where Bernie was speaking at Franklin Pierce University the day before the first Democratic primary. Because of an unanticipated light snowstorm, it took us two hours to get there. The campus was one big traffic jam, but the cops found us a convenient disability parking space. We were greeted by a young volunteer who, on seeing the button on my backpack that says “Ask me about my book,” asked me. She said she was an English Literature major and hoping to become a novelist. I said one of my books was a novel about a woman who at 84 falls in love with a dyke who is 79. Excitedly, the girl said, “I’m queer too!” What a sweet greeting.

Inside it was crammed with people, but the volunteers had put aside seats for elders and people with disabilities. We were two rows back from the podium. The first row was reserved for people enjoying the services of a sign language interpreter. There were swarms of press – microphones and cameras everywhere. C-Span broadcast it (you can catch Barry and me as they panned the crowd). Barry and I and an old guy sitting next to us were interviewed by Nightline . I explained why I think Bernie is the only candidate sure to beat tRump.

Later edit: A little part of the interview was broadcast on Nightline in the evening! Here it is. Bernie coverage starts at 2:00. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npCS1FFTI6E&feature=youtu.be&t=149&fbclid=IwAR3gU0diSTTHO1FvcBmydloKXeE9pz7pi0Qh3dDNPDh_avvxhWPKUhWhSTc

Two women students were the first to speak. The first was herself hard of hearing from early childhood. She described the isolation she felt and how this campaign had embraced her and how life felt so much richer working for Bernie’s vision. She said that in 2016 she had been 19 and instead of using her first chance to vote, out of confusion she didn’t vote at all. She has spent her time since making up for that mistake.

The second student talked about growing up poor. She said her mother went to college at age 30 and was still paying off her student loans, just as this girl was accruing hers. She identified as LGBTQ.

Next was Nina Turner, a former Ohio State Senator and now a national co-chair of Bernie’s campaign. She is a remarkable speaker, skilled at call/response, and practiced in getting the crowd excited. Plus, she was rocking a fantastic animal-print floor-length dress. When she said that this may be the last chance in our lifetime to achieve the kind of country we want, I wept. It is certainly the last chance in my lifetime.

Nina was followed by the Sex in the City actor Cynthia Nixon, who also said she “identifies as LGBT.” She was quiet, even halting, as she explained her own journey. She said she voted for Hillary last time, not because she didn’t find Bernie’s policies exciting, but because people insisted that the middle-of-the-road was the path to beating tRump. When she said the name “Hillary,” the jubilant, animated crowd of students went dead silent. They didn’t boo or hiss. They were focused at the job in hand, and I found it quite moving. Cynthia introduced Bernie.

He came to the stage with his wife Jane who seems to stay on the campaign trail, but quickly leaves the limelight to him. He gave a speech I have seen on tv many times – but with such vigor and energy and conviction that one believes utterly in his sincerity and focus.

My takeaway from the day is that I am not doing enough and must do more. We cannot be lulled into paralysis by the fascistic wave overtaking our lives. We must fight the tendency to drown in a good novel – whether reading or writing one, or to overeat as we watch any of an infinite number of entertainments available on our every device. It’s now or never. Let’s kick each other into gear and stop this maniac by electing someone who is so consistent, so sure, so progressive that no mere bully can shake him from his beliefs. As Cynthia Nixon said, I’m all in for Bernie.

Book Review: The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain in 100 words

I could not put down this potent, compelling book. Two schoolboys with opposite personalities bond in a small town in Switzerland in the aftermath of WWII. Gustav is steady, poor, and devoted to Anton, a talented Jewish pianist. Gustav’s impoverished homelife is set against the warmth and plenty of Anton’s family. Throughout five decades, their relationship endures, adapts, and wrings the reader’s heart. Ultimately a love story, Tremain – an award-winning British author of prodigious skill – explores the choices individuals are forced to make during and after a genocidal war while struggling for a love that dares not speak its name.

Film Review in 100 words: Little Women

Greta Gerwig's enthralling Little Women is a creative retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s book, incorporating a ton of flashbacks and hugs. I welcomed the emphasis on Jo March as a writer trying to sell her work: her doubts, her process, her setbacks, the moment she holds her first book in her hands. Other than Laura Dern as the mother, the acting is strong. Gerwig has given the sisters a decidedly 20^th C consciousness about the role of women, but when Jo sells her hair for money for the family, their shock is every dyke’s delight. Highly recommended, but bring tissues.

New Credenza: It Takes a Village

I am actually decorating my living room – not a thing I’ve ever done before. I’ve always lived as if in a furniture shop, with lovely 2nd hand pieces lining every wall, things I was given or found on the street or bought on the cheap when I needed more stuff in which to stuff more stuff.

First I did a clear-out – what they now call de-cluttering – giving away many of those old pieces, even lovely art deco oak furniture (on left) that I brought with me from England but which have always been too imposing for my tiny apartment. I dispersed all my precious knick-knacks, picked up from places I traveled, or presents from… well, I hardly remember from whom. I even gave away four or five large cartons of books.

I have always lived in clutter and chaos, leading to my practice of going elsewhere to write for weeks at a time. But as I age, and as the airlines have become so dedicated to propagating misery, I’m less enthusiastic about cat-sitting in South London or Las Vegas in order to have a beautiful calm space in which to write my books. Besides, in thinking forward now that I’m in my 70s, there is not a person in the world who wants to be responsible for disposing of my copious possessions: it’s time to get a head start.

My new living room carpeting provided the excuse to do all of this. The carpet is a gorgeous grey that matches my newish little couch. In order to have it installed, I was required to pack up every single thing from every single piece of furniture and pile it all in my bedroom so that the furniture could be easily moved around as the carpet was changed. That made it easier to eliminate the heavy wooden furniture, leaving my possessions in a gazillion cartons. I had help moving those heavy boxes from Barry and Melsen and Bren and Mags over a couple of months. And on the day the carpet was replaced, Barry heroically unplugged every item that works on electricity, marking each wire, and then re-plugged them all afterwards. This was not a job I could have easily pulled off for myself.

For months and months, I have been searching for a long white credenza with simple lines and a lighter, modern look which will provide 80+ inches of storage and be soothing to look at from my desk. But I’ve found nothing to my taste. I enlisted the help of a long-time friend Debi Levine who roams online auction sites. Still nothing. Then my friend Bren, as we sat in front of my computer searching some more, suggested that I try looking for a color instead of white.

And then I finally came across a cabinet, just 48” – but I could easily fit in two – that came in slate blue. After consulting with Bren and Sandy and Jaya and Barry and Judy and Victoria and Sue O, and after seeing it on multiple sites for twice the price, I ordered two. However, it comes in a box and needs to be assembled, a task far from my own skill sets, which tend to congregate around words – spoken and written, dance steps, and my refrigerator.

Debi, however, has golden hands. Her mother calls her The Mastermind. She agrees to come and assemble them. I change my schedule so that I will be around on Wednesday for the promised delivery – intending to put up all sorts of signs in the building’s entrance to convince the delivery people to bring them up to my apartment for a hearty tip. But to my distress, the furniture arrives while I’m out at a Dr. appointment on Tuesday. They are propped up against the building’s wall of mail-boxes in the entryway, each cardboard container twice as wide as me and a foot or two taller, each weighing 99 pounds. Other tenants are buzzing my flat in fury at being unable to access their mail. I appeal to my landlady in the office and she rustles up two of her brothers – my landlords – and they somehow carry both of them up.

Debi offers to come on the Wednesday to whip them together – hoping to finish in an over-optimistic 90 minutes. However, it turns out that each cabinet has about a dozen planks of various sizes and a huge cache of hardware. Undaunted, Debi wrestles the slate blue participants into perfect order, crawling around the floor, bending over them when they resist, standing them up, screwing them tight, and lord knows what. My friend Judy comes over to offer moral support to The Mastermind, joins us for lunch, and helps me haul out the debris.

I have a chiropractic appointment I must leave for at 4:45. Debi has been working non-stop since 10:30 am, with a quick break for my tuna salad and cranberry sauce. The doors are the last piece to be assembled and they have, for both cabinets, been the hardest to subdue. The clock is ticking: 4:20. 4:30. And then, at 4:40, The Mastermind shuts those doors smoothly, helps me move the two cabinets side by side, as if they were one, gathers up her enigmatic tools, and we leave together – her exhausted by hours of demanding physical labor and shrewd problem-solving, and me dazzled by the brilliance of her competence and confidence.

It has taken a village but now my living room, for the first time in my life, looks like a grown-up lives in it. Now it is time to write those books that long to come alive.

 

Raise Hell: The Life & Times Of Molly Ivins - A Review in 100 words

Raise Hell: The Life & Times Of Molly Ivins

A Review in 100 words

Now here’s a documentary to see, indeed. Molly Ivins started her life of raising hell by resisting her rich authoritarian father. ‘I remember my dad and his friends sitting around fixing the price of oil.’ Later she said, “My teenage rebellion lasted 35 years.” Six feet tall and a devoted intellectual, her young years reading in her bedroom well prepared her to be a rebellious journalist who splintered glass ceilings and spoke truth to power. Her hilarious wit – unfortunately fueled by heavy drinking – and the confidence privileged kids inherit, combined to make her a sterling, popular syndicated journalist and author.

 

100-Word Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I loved this contemporary Japanese novella about an oddball woman who prefers to “under-achieve” by working for decades as a clerk in a convenience store. She is pressured from all directions to marry and to make something of herself, but at 36 she recognizes that the convenience store is the place where she functions best. The rest of the world baffles her, but the store speaks to her. She mimics others to try to fit in outside the store. She tries living with a man – it’s awkward. I listened to this enthralling book in the car and found it fascinating.

Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Editors: Stephanie Schroeder and Teresa Theophano

I know little about the subject of mental health and would have been unlikely to be aware of this remarkable book if I hadn’t already been familiar with the ground-breaking work of one of the co-editors, Stephanie Schroeder, who produced this anthology with co-editor Teresa Theophano for Oxford University Press.

It is a rare collection in which each piece meets, in its own unique way, an extraordinarily high standard. The first sentence of the Foreword by Kai Cheng Thom draws the reader straight into real life: “I am several months behind deadline on writing this foreword: first, there were the implications of a mental health crisis of my own, then...”

Each contributor has an intimacy with the issues of mental health that has turned them into self-aware experts on their own conditions. And each has something illuminating to say about what the co-editors call “the evolution of queer identity as it interfaces with mental health.” Because the complications of being queer and needing help are so “downright crazymaking,” they say, they have reclaimed the word Headcase – a term as strong as the writing and the fight for health we go on to read about.

Through personal essays, professional approaches, graphic illustrations, photos, and poetry, we gain an insight into their worlds, not the least the inadequacies of the healthcare system and the often extended but life-saving search for the right medicines. Stephanie Schroeder discusses these both in her essay “Crowdsourcing my Antipsychotic” – a tale that gallops along like a fast-paced thriller, as she fights past a nauseating array of obstacles in her attempt to find and to fund the drug that can save her, despite the indifference of Big Pharma. Such difficulties in getting what is necessary turn up in many of the book’s pieces. J. R. Sullivan Voss’s emotional graphic story “Sisyphus (Or: Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies)” takes us into mental hospitals where torturous over-medication is the rule.

This is not a collection of dense academics nor is it dripping with jargon. It is a showcase of talented, gripping work. Eliza Gauger’s six complex “Problem Glyphs” are personalized illustrations called sigils that play the role, she says, of “a sort of occult advice column.” Some pieces are written by lovers, friends, and relatives of those struggling to gain their mental health. In “Erasure,” Gabriella M. Belfiglio briefly but potently narrates the experience of visiting her precious sister in what sounds like a high security mental hospital. She tells us: “Cell by cell, I’ve been watching her die for more than two-thirds of my life.” Juan Antonio Trujillo in a half a page describes his own mental acrobatics as he talks with delicacy to a fragile friend, in “Border / Lines.”

For many of the contributors, gaining control of their mental health leads to valuable achievements. I was transfixed by an amazing story of intertwined feminist and lesbian self-discovery by a mother and daughter in “Not Our Fault” by Chana Wilson. Co-editor Teresa Theophano speaks with full candor in a section called Stories of Survival. She tells us in “The Family Legacy Ends Here” that “surviving trauma has freed me.” Later she writes, “Emerging from those years of darkness has enabled me to participate more fully and with much more confidence in the organizing and community-building work that is my passion – especially now…”

Against my initial expectations, Headcase is an energizing read, full of pain and wit and joy. I have kept it by my bed and dipped in every evening, to learn, to be awed, and to be grateful. I have asked my local public library to order it and I suggest you do the same. I have one warning however – and it is a problem I see in many books put out by University presses. To save on the expense (i.e. number of pages), the font is miniscule and demanded my strongest reading glasses. The rewards, though, are humongous.

Review: Legal Tender: Women & The Secret Life of Money by Christian McEwen

I fell in love with this book the first moment I held it in my hand. It’s petite – just 4 1/2” x 6” and has just 142 little pages. It fits into the back pocket of my jeans. And it is filled with the most riveting “confessions” by all sorts of women about money.

I found myself dipping into this pearl of a book, reluctant to finish it. Each woman speaks with the kind of candor that it is rare to hear on this subject. I remember my own mother’s fierce sense of privacy about money – a subject she thought it was rude to bring up. Even when I was applying for college scholarships, she wouldn’t let me see the financial forms she filled in. “It’s none of your business.” My only hint came when my brother, after they had put him through a few college degrees, got his first job. “He pays more in taxes than I make in a year,” my dad said, half with pride, half with resentment.

Money. I was happy to hear other women own up to hiding $5 in every coat pocket, every backpack, every drawer – I do this. I call it my Holocaust syndrome – my “just in case” stash.

Some women talk about how growing up poor impacted their attitude towards money. But remarkably, McEwen even gets people to talk about inherited wealth. Lydia Richardson Pratt, a millionaire from an old money family, complained (boo hoo) that “coming out as lesbian was way easier than coming out as rich.” She brags about how much she adores being affluent.

I liked the bartender who tossed all her change into a big container. “But when I’m really panicky, I’ll sit down and roll my change… You know, I’ve paid my taxes through change I’ve rolled by hand!

A gambler introduces her comments this way: “Most people would rather tell you about blow-jobs they gave to strangers on the highway than talk about money honestly.” She admits that, because of her addiction, “Every day was like torture. I woke up every day and was completely freaked out.”

A freelancer speaks for all of us who write or act or draw or drive for our living: “I think that anyone who works in the freelance world has an inner bag lady who is ready to haunt her.”

Christian McEwen is a writer I have admired since her days in the UK when she was producing very early lesbian anthologies, including Naming the Waves and, with Sue O'Sullivan, Out the Other Side, a book I nearly wore out reading. This little volume Legal Tender from Bauhan Publishing is an utter delight, condensed from 50 interviews, and presented like a gift. Order it here http://www.christianmcewen.com/shop/.

 

An Interview with author Stephanie Schroeder, co-editor of Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Stephanie Schroeder – writer and peer advocate – and her co-editor Teresa Theophano – writer and social worker – have brought together 38 important pieces of writing on the topic of LGBTQ mental health today in their anthology Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness. Stephanie is known for her hard-hitting socially-aware journalism and one other book, her moving memoir.

The enthusiastic reception of Headcase is reflected in its reviews where comments call it “ground-breaking,” “poignant,” “terrific and essential,” and “a diverse democracy of voices.” I spoke to Stephanie Schroeder about the process of putting together such a pioneering work.

 

Question: How did you and your co-editor meet and decide to work together on this project?

Stephanie Schroeder: When Teresa read my memoir Beautiful Wreck: Sex, Lies & Suicide, it resonated with her. She had originated the idea of Headcase and then reached out to me. We hadn’t met before. We’ve been working on Headcase since 2014 and it has been a dream collaboration. We agreed on everything, from the vision to the submission guidelines to the final choices out of hundreds of submissions.

 

Question: Now that the book is out and you have just finished a national book tour, are you still friends?

Stephanie Schroeder (on left in black shirt): Yes! Not only have we stayed friends, we also plan to co-write another book focusing on LGBTQ suicide.

 

Question: How did you decide what to include in Headcase?

Stephanie Schroeder: We chose selections on the strength of their writing and content. We ensured a broad demographic around age, race & ethnicity, sexual orientation & gender identity, socio-economic status, geography, and diverse viewpoints. Some are grounded in an anti-psychiatry position while others are from a more conventional treatment viewpoint. We included essays, poetry, fiction, visual artwork, and a 13-panel comic written by a young transperson who documented their days in the hospital for mental health issues.

 

Question: Why is this anthology necessary?

Stephanie Schroeder: Because LGBTQ peers and consumers of mental health services are under-represented in the literature. Most books are written by professionals for professionals or clinicians for clinicians. We believe that LGBTQ peers are experts about our own care. And in fact nothing like this book has ever existed before. It is truly a vanguard work in the field of mental health literature.

 

To learn more, check out the Headcase anthology online and on Facebook:

www.headcaseanthology.com

Facebook: Headcaseanthology

Review: ayiti by Roxane Gay

Gay’s short stories – some very short, some traditional – are compact, hard-hitting, spare, and strong. This debut collection ayiti is quickly read, but stays with you, clinging to your nerves and your heart. Written from the perspective of a woman in the Haitian diaspora, it introduced me to an intimate glimpse of Haitian life. One of the longer and more formidable tales, “Of Ghosts and Shadows,” reminded me painfully of my own experience of teenage girl love. I only knew of Gay’s essay collection Bad Feminist and her social commentary, but now I am going to consume all of her fiction and memoir.