I’ve gone through more life-changing experiences in the course of a few months than most experience in a few years, and I think that’s so true. At the same time, my life is also not that different from the millions of others who operate in an economy that now defines us as the “precariat.”
Dear Readers, Subscribers, Friends, Comrades and any combination of all that,
It has, once again, been a while since I communicated with you.
I considered a longer, lengthier post explaining all the details but for now, riven by all kinds of exhaustion, I can only provide the most scant sort. Here are the things that have happened or have been happening since early spring:
I was attacked by someone who made their way into the building where I live (not a home invasion, more like a, um, love invasion of sorts; the person was stalking someone else). The experience left me deeply unsettled, my glasses broken (my friend M. kindly bought me a replacement pair), painful contusions on my face and arms, and my already crap knee in much worse shape.
A really, really weird “lefty” dude stalked me in a really creepy way. Let us call him Communist Man, for reasons that are evident in this post. He’s also the son of one of Chicago’s most prominent and powerful politicians and has, in the past, responded nastily to my work — I’m told by friends who know more about such people that he was, in his attempts to converse with me engaging in what is known as “negging” (at one point, he assured me “I don’t agree with your particular politics” — a bewildering comment because I had never queried him about his opinion and never even responded to his friend request) Some of the details are here, but mostly: it was incredibly unnerving to know that someone who is actually, literally hostile to me also sees fit to behave in this way — and that this is someone who literally lives down the street from me and apparently keeps track of my movements. When I finally get some time, his mommy is getting a missive from me. My friend A. insisted we find out exactly where he live (unnervingly close to me and next door to one of my regular coffeeshops) because, as she pointed out, with his documented and public history of violence, he was a genuine threat. I believe that to be true.
In the meantime: he’s not the first “lefty” queer dude who has subjected me to stalky, abusive behaviour. More than a year ago, I was harassed and berated by a former member of a group I’m still a part of (his berating of me was anger about being asked to leave for…exactly the kind of behaviour he demonstrated towards me after we asked him to leave), and he works or worked (no idea if he’s still there) at an establishment a five-minute walk from me, literally on the opposite end of the street from Communist Man,. The matter was resolved to a degree, but it should be no surprise to you that I am now even more suspicious of Men of the Left. I’ll write about these two instances and people at some point, with an eye to thinking and writing about gender, sex, and the left.
My father died sometime on or around July 2. On that, I don’t have a lot to say right now, beyond what I wrote initially, here, except to say that my body processed the event by sleeping. A lot. I mean, a lot. For what seemed like weeks, my mind was alert and ready to move on but my body insisted I lie down and days drifted into each other. Mostly, I slept, ate, and went back to sleep. I lost weeks, yes, but I also finally awoke. Different, and I will process that at some point.
And then I hurt my knee, again. While sorting some boxes for storage, I tripped over one of them, flew across a long corridor (I could swear that, hilariously, my whole body was actually parallel to the ground for a full two seconds, and the flight seemed never-ending) and landed on the same crap knee (it appears to have resigned itself to being a literal fall guy, perhaps thinking, “Why let both of us suffer when one can do so for the rest of this woman’s life?”). My left knee, first injured and never recovered from an old injury over a decade ago, now looks like it has its own set of knees. I spent a considerable amount of time in pain and unable to walk much (which only added to my weight gain, which in turn made it harder to walk, and so on), until my friend L. suggested I try a cane. Friends generously gave me two, and the difference is … amazing. So, lesson for the day: canes actually do help! Using one allows me to shift my weight when the knee complains, and lets me keep walking. So, while I’m by no means back to normal with the knee, I’m much more mobile (I’ve dearly missed walking), and that’s good news.
In my mind, I’m somewhere between Samuel L. Jackson with that glass cane in Unbreakable and Brad Pitt, when he had to use a can after a fall. I’m learning that the cane can be used to great dramatic effect and it’s expanding my repertoire of expressions as I learn to integrate it into my various forms of contact with the world.
Somewhere along the way I also threw my back out, and that is being resolved with much icing.
Mostly, I’m in pain or in a degree of discomfort about eighty-five percent of the time, which is an improvement from some weeks ago, when it was ninety percent of the time.
My writing schedule remains, if somewhat extended. I’m still on board to write about Jussie Smollett (that case has become even more complicated) and more — it takes a bit longer. And sometimes, as with the new and deliciously long-ish piece on Pete Buttigieg indicates, a current event demands that I pause in other projects awhile and turn my attention to something else — in the case of Buttigieg, it seemed imperative to write about him, especially in the context of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.
You might be reading all this and thinking, “Well, gee, Yasmin, it seems like a lot keeps happening to you.”
Well, yes, it does, because it does. L. points out that I’ve gone through more life-changing experiences in the course of a few months than most experience in a few years, and I think that’s so true. At the same time, my life is also not that different from the millions of others who operate in an economy that now defines us as the “precariat.” Without the safety net of a steady job, and with The Direness (I’ve alluded to this here and there) still remaining in my life, every little and big thing becomes another hurdle. That’s not asking you to feel sorry for me (although that will be appreciated!) or to say that I’m looking for a “steady” job (because, please, have you seen the state of publishing these days—I’m much better off as a freelancer!), but to state some simple facts. Life often seems to fall apart, shit happens, and I have to slow down, sometimes literally.
I’m undimmed in my commitment to my writing — and, in fact, have finished That Very Big Project which will hopefully lead to The Even Bigger Project, details forthcoming. In all this, I’ve been buoyed and energised by the many different kinds of support all of you have shown me, and I cannot thank you enough. Your words and your subscriptions (not always linked, and I completely understand: hell, I can’t support anyone else!) have kept me going, so thank you for that. I know what it means to carve out the time to write to someone to tell them you appreciate their work, and I know what it means to carve out money in your budget to support someone you may not even have met because you want to help them keep working: so thank you, a million times, for all and any support.
If you worry that all my travails have softened me or made me more afraid to speak and write my mind: fear not. I remain my usual self and in the months coming, I will be demonstrating my irritation and outright anger at the vastly construed “left” as it fumbles and bumbles along with not much of a clear plan for moving forward beyond and outside Trump (can any one of you tell me if anyone actually has an actual immigration agenda beyond “the good immigrants must be allowed to stay and, oh, no, think of the children!”?). I’m also irritated, increasingly, with the callousness and cruelty of the left, and its inability to think meaningfully about matters like race and gender and wealth and class (it fails, always, to understand how money actually works) as it imagines, fondly and stupidly, that getting rid of class-based crises will magically make the brutality of sexism and racism disappear. And so on. Fear not. I have plenty to say about all this.
And for what it’s worth: I’ve never been happier in and with my writing. It is by no means perfect, but the day I think I’ve achieved my full potential as a writer is the day you should take me away from my keyboard. I mean, John Cale, a founder of punk and one of the best musicians of the last and this century still doesn’t think he has achieved all his potential so, really, who am I? Yes, life could get better and The Direness continues, but I’m working on a resolution of all that.
But for now: here is a list of things I’ve written and said. I’ve been appearing on more podcasts lately, and find I quite like doing them. I do love these conversations, so if you’d like to have me on your podcast or know someone I might like chatting with, let me know.
Writing
I wrote this, “American Gay: Pete Buttigieg and the Politics of Forgetting,” for my own website.
I wrote “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: Why Gay Nonprofits Fail and Yet Survive” for Current Affairs.
I wrote “Believe in Something: Corporate Wokeness Is Now Big Business” for The Baffler.
My “Your Trauma Is Your Passport: Hannah Gadsby, NanetteI, and Global Citizenship” reappeared as “No, No, Nanette: Hannah Gadsby, Trauma, and Comedy and as Emotional Manipulation” in Evergreen Review. It’s a slightly truncated and edited version, with some new bits and glorious images, paintings by actual women Cubist painters, imagine that (you may recall that Gadsby insists that “Cuuuuuubism” is purely a man’s domain. Many thanks to Dale Peck and the ER team.
Podcasts
I was on WBEZ’s Worldview program, broadcast from the historic inauguration of Chicago’s first African American, lesbian mayor.
And speaking of Worldview, a program I’ve been on several times: It’s under threat of closure so please take a moment to sign this petition.
Escape from Plan A, on corporate wokeness, identity, why certain kinds of white people love the idea of shitting in the ground, and much more.
Jessa Crispin’s Public Intellectual podcast, where we talked, with much laughter and scathing commentary, about “the state of criticism, what it means for criticism to be dead, and what the changing relationship is between those who make and those who have opinions.”
The News Never Ends, an episode titled “Nanette Dame de Paris,” with Dan Ackerman and Peter Ronson — on the table: Nanette and Hannah Gadsby, Slavoj Žižek, the burning of Notre Dame, and more.
Here’s an earlier podcast I did with them, “Takedown/Takeout,” on the Human Rights Campaign and gay politics.
The Current Affairs podcast, from my beloved Current Affairs magazine: a special Pride month episode with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Connor Habib.
Here’s an earlier podcast I did with them, on trauma, the nonprofit industrial complex, and more. It’s behind a paywall, but the podcast, by people who are actually committed to paying writers in a sustainable way, is really worth a subscription.
Ben Udashen’s Unpopoular Front podcast, where we discussed polyamory and related matters, including the “left” as it exists today.
David Parsons, of The Nostalgia Trap, is one of my favourite people and podcasts; he had me on to talk about the left, the difference between money and wealth, and a bit on Jason Momoa at the end which had me crying, in a good way.
Here’s an earlier episode I did with him, on my Evergreen Review piece, “A Manifesto.”
Much to my delight, I was quoted in this wonderfully fiery essay about college debt, by Ann Larson, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “The Fight for Free College Is Your Fight Too.”
I wrote, “to my delight” because I’m often plagiarised in, shall we say, really interesting ways by other writers, especially academics (expect pieces from me on that), so I was struck that Larson quoted me.
If you are relatively new to me and wonder what I’m about, here is “A Manifesto.” Dale Peck at Evergreen Review commissioned this from me for the aptly named and storied publication, and I could not have been more honoured and its writing changed my life (I’ll explain why and how, soon).
And, again, if you’d like to support me through a donation, here is the link to my Paypal. And you can also subscribe, here.