Never Letting "Let It Go" Go

My virtual friend, Mark Love, and all around neat, thoughtful guy wrote a blog post about letting things go.  Go read it.  It's good.

It's a good post, right?  You're going to think a lot harder about what you're telling someone when you tell them to let something go, aren't you?  You should leave a nice comment on Mark's blog and thank him for his wise words.

And then we can all violently disabuse of him of his dead wrong opinion of the song "Let It Go" because that song is amazing!

I love, adore and admire Frozen.  I could watch it a million times.  I love it for being funny and for being gorgeous. I love it for "Reindeers are Better than People."  I love it for goofy Anna.  And sweetly naive Olaf who does not know what summer does. I love it for its quick and hilarious nod to gay families.  I love it for totally subverting the love at first glance palaver that has just ruined romance for so many people.  I love it despite the trolls (the trolls are not good). I love it for making us feel tender towards the parents even though they are, for real, straight up bad at being parents. I love it for understanding that true love is not only just romantic love.  I love it because it doesn't reward the heroine with a man; it rewards her with herself.

I love it for my daughter.  I love it for all our daughters. Frozen is real deal feminist.

So... "Let It Go," (voiced by the divine Adele Dazeem... that may never get old...at least to me):

Don't let them in, don't let them see

Be the good girl you always have to be

Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know

Well now they know

...

It's time to see what I can do

To test the limits and break through

No right no wrong for me

I'm free

Elsa is not letting go of anxiety or bad feelings.  She's letting go of the limits placed on her; she's letting go of conformity and self-limitation.  She's letting go of letting someone else dictate how she has to be. 

And knowing that a bunch of girls are internalizing the message that you don't have to be what other people expect you to be makes my feminist heart sing.

Oh, I just love Frozen.    

The March, Chapter 11: Authorial Investigations of Intent

Chapter 10

No matter where you go, there you are

- Buckaroo Banzai

Back at the offices of The Lightweight Group, Bulstrode and Tré sat down to kick off Tre’s primary project.  Tré was charged with the task of putting all Bulstrode's properties under the same branded umbrella.  He was to form and implement a strategy to make sure that every Lightweight store would be immediately recognizable as such.

Tré began the meeting by requesting a little history. "It'd probably help me put the strategy in place if you could tell me how you got started.”

“Well," said Bulstrode, "back in the 60’s, I worked as a bartender and part-time manager at The March, where my daughter now works. After a bit, I came into a little money, which I added to what I’d scrimped and saved, and managed to buy the place outright.”

“Built it from the ground up, huh?” said Tré.

“Indeed,” Bulstrode went on.  “The March did well under my ownership.  I trimmed some fat, cleaned up operations, made sure the staff minded their p’s and q’s, and within a couple of years, I’d put together enough cash to buy my next bar, Scottie’s, which is around the corner from The March.  I incorporated into Lightweight Group Enterprises and then did to Scottie’s what I’d done to The March.  Within a year, I had enough capital to buy my third place, The Exit Inn.  With earnings from that, blah blah blah bought some bars blah blah blah I’m a great businessman blah blah blah.”

I may have editorialized at bit at the end there.  Between you and me, Bulstrode is doing his own fair share of editing the story about how he came across the funds to realize his march to success. 

“How’d you end up with a name like ‘Lightweight Group,’” asked Tré, taking notes.  “Does the name have some significance that I can consider?”

“Oh,” said Bulstrode distantly.  “In my youth, I was a boxer.  When I started working at The March, there were some who thought the double entendre was amusing.  I never did.  But I was inclined to the name when I founded the corporate entity nevertheless.

“Do you want me to incorporate a boxing theme into the rebrand?” asked Tré.

“No,” said Bulstrode.  “Boxing is not important in this phase of my life.”

“How about this then,” said Tré.  “I’ll get started by visiting all your bars and restaurants to see if some kind of organic cohesion springs up.  If there’s anything in particular you’d like me to focus on, though, you’ll let me know?”

“You bring me ideas,” said Bulstrode curtly.  “And I’ll tell you if I like them or not.  I hired you because you said you had good ideas and I believed you.  If you don’t, then I’ll just have to find someone else.  All I care about is that everyone recognizes all my stores as part of the same group and that that group is sophisticated and successful.”

Bulstrode bent down to his own work indicating that Tré should leave him.  So Tré went back to the tiny office designated as his workspace and got down to work.  And work Tré did.  He went through each store, file-by-file, examined menus and sales figures, locations and staff make-ups.  He immersed himself in the minutia of the Lightweight Group, trying to find the thread that linked them all together.

He didn’t waste any time wondering why Bulstrode was so keen on this project.  So while he’s working away, let’s you and I examine the roots of the rebrand and Bulstrode’s M.O. at large.

From the very moment he’d first conceived of this business almost 30 years prior, Bulstrode had known exactly what he wanted:  importance; legitimacy, gravitas. He wanted to matter. He wanted people to know who he was.  By branding all these businesses the same way, everyone walking the streets of Chicago would know of his wealth and success.  They would envy and admire him as they walked past a bar on State Street or a restaurant in Edgewater.

He worried, though, about the inescapable tawdriness of selling liquor in dark rooms.  And so as he put Tré to work on the unifying, local fame inducing re-brand, Bulstrode himself was working hard to pre-empt impressions of tawdriness with expressions of godliness.  He was actively courting a position as an elder at his church, a beautiful and respectable downtown Presbyterian church.

Bulstrode and Susan had married there back in 1966.  Her parents had been regular parishioners and, since the wedding, he and Susan had been as well.  No matter how late his Saturday night (and in his line of work, they could get pretty late), he turned up for services every Sunday.  Perhaps at the beginning, maybe on that sunny summer afternoon in 1966 when Susan became his wife, he’d been genuinely moved by the power God's love.   Maybe he’d felt honestly drawn to Christ's redemptive light.  Maybe, as a younger man, Bulstrode had wanted to cleanse himself of some sins.

But these days, there is no resonating piety in Bulstrode’s churchiness.  Bulstrode is focused with laser-like precision on perception and reputation above all.  The rebrand would mark him as successful; the position on the board would mark him as respectable.  He would, almost 30 years after kicking off this march to success, be there.

We spend a great deal of our lives trying to get there, don’t we?  But, of course, there is no there. The business of living a successful life, of finding security and fulfillment and joy, is a constant struggle and there’s only one end to the struggle.  As the saying goes, there’s no getting out of life alive.  It’s an overwhelming fact, a scary one; one that’s prone to grip us in the middle of the night: it never really stops.  

We never get there. 

But we can console ourselves with this: what thing worth doing is done easily?  What thing worth having is had easily?  It’s the doing, the striving, and the trying that gives us meaning and provides context.  How satisfying would it be to be only satisfied?  Seeking and striving is the stuff of life. 

Bulstrode has sought and striven, clawed and battled his way away from what he perceives as his dim, insignificant past into a respectable, substantial present.  Bulstrode expects his obituary to be run on the front page of the Tribune Metro section.  That’s his there. His obituary will begin, “James Bulstrode, business owner, civic leader, elder at 4^th Presbyterian…”  And he would do what it takes to make that obituary happen.

Pity.  For all his success and savvy, Bulstrode doesn't understand that he won’t be around to read it.

Chapter 12

The First Time We Had That Talk

A couple of days ago, Laney and I were walking down the street holding hands.  I feel very fortunate to have a 5'3" almost 11 year old daughter who will still hold my hand.  We were shooting the breeze.  I may have been feigning interest in Minecraft (ohmigod, Minecraft is so boring to the uninitiated) when a passing motorist mistook us for a lesbian couple and catcalled us as he sped past at 30 MPH.

And thus it begins.

Laney is one of those kids fundamentally uninterested in growing up.  She really likes being a kid.  On the one hand, this is a huge relief; how sad it is to rush into adulthood and not savor, just a bit, the wonder of childhood.  On the other hand, I have to talk to her about things I don't want to talk to her about yet.  Because she's still a little girl.

And it pisses me off that we still live in a world where we have to brace our girls, at such a young age, for the assaults that are surely coming.

Recently, my 24 year old cousin posted on Facebook about an incident wherein a couple of horrible excuses for human beings catcalled her at a bus stop and then told her she was "asking for it" for wearing leggings home from the gym. My husband, whom I guaran-damn-tee, has never shouted nasty shit at a girl or woman from a car, read it and said it me "I've known guys who say gross stuff about girls, but never anyone who would..." And then I told him that almost every woman he knows has heard something like that. And it's likely that the guys who say gross stuff when it's just the guys are the same guys yelling scary stuff from car windows.  If he hears some guy saying gross stuff about girls when it's just the guys, he should speak up.

It both surprises and doesn't surprise me that the nice, decent, strong, kind man who is my daughter's father was surprised by an event that is so unsurprising to most women.

So today when I talked to Laney about what happened on our walk, I told her that men and boys would likely soon start saying stuff to her but she should always remember, that even though it will happen, it shouldn't happen.

This is important: It. Is. Wrong.

The act of having breasts in America is not an open invitation to leers and catcalls. And when it happens to her (and, goddammit all to hell, it WILL happen to her and that just shatters my heart into a million pieces) she should try her best to not feel exposed and guilty and instead she should just let herself be goddamn fucking pissed about it.  It should piss her off.  It should piss us all off.

I spent a lot of years questioning my presentation.  Why was I inviting this? I had to hit middle age before I started to realize that my training was fucked up.  I wasn't inviting anything. And I had every right to be mad about it.

Oh, lord, how I hope I'm teaching my girl to get mad instead of ashamed.

That was the last thing I said to Laney when we were having this sad, way-too-soon conversation: You are a fully-realized person.  You deserve to be treated like a person.  And if someone doesn't, let him fucking know.  Get. Mad.

My 10 year old daughter got catcalled.  This should make us all mad.

The March, Chapter 10: Another Morning, Another Hangover, and Tre

Chapter 9

“I’m looking for something different.  I’m looking for a “dare to be great” situation”

-Lloyd Dobbler

Meanwhile, back at Chez Bulstrode, a different hungover soul awoke all jacked up on booze and romance.  Fred wandered into the family room where Rosie and their mother were watching, what else?  Oprah. 

“I think,” he said, falling heavily into an easy chair.  “I got hit by a train last night.”

“You got hit by about six shot of Cuervo,” said Rosie, grinning. “You were in rare form, brother.  Do you like one of those girls?”

“A girl?” asked Susan, maternal interest fully engaged.  “Is there a new prospect on the horizon?”

“Nah,” said Fred.  “Too much drama in that situation.”

“Tell me about it,” said Rosie.  “It’s like this, Mom: there’s the blonde sister, Celia, who likes Gio, who’s a doorman at The March. Only he likes the brunette sister, Brooke, who’s weird and intense and totally into this fifty-year-old guy who comes into the bar mostly, I think, to tip bad and spill beer on his shirt."  

“Brooke is cute, though,” said Fred.  “Even if she is kind of intense.”

“Whatever,” said Rosie.  “It was just kind of fun watching all of you guys fall in love with the Cuervo last night.”

“I loved the Cuervo madly last night,” said Fred.  “I wonder why it hates me so much today.”

“Wages of sin, my darling,” said Susan, turning back to Oprah.  “Wages of sin.”

The three Bulstrode’s lounged in varying degrees of pajama-ed comfort in the family room when they heard the front door open.  The sound of Bulstrode’s voice barreled down the hall in full assault mode.

“OK, Tré,” they heard him say.  “I just need to get some paperwork from the office.  You might as well come on in and meet the family while you’re here.”

Rosie and Fred exchanged  “oh shit” looks and prepared for their father to be smugly embarrassed by them. 

Bulstrode entered the family room with his companion and, finding his two children stubbornly not taking their futures seriously, obliged their expectation.

“Tré Little,” said Bulstrode.  “Meet my family.  This is my wife, Susan, and my children, Fred and Rosie.  Rosie works at one of my bars.  Fred doesn’t.”

Rosie looked up, prepared to roll her eyes at whatever junior captain of industry Daddy had brought home.  Instead, she found herself wishing that her dishabille were a bit more artful.  Tré Little was no nerdy suck up in a button down and Chinos.  This was a super hot black guy in Girbaud’s and motorcycle boots.  He was a shade over six feet tall, with a sexy smile and tight braids all over his head.  God, he looked like Seal!  He wore a tight tee shirt over a nice chest tucked into baggy jeans that broke perfectly at his badass boots.  Rosie checked him out from head to toe as Tré shook hands with her mother and brother and decided on the spot that this was a guy she was going to get to know better.

When Tré got around to shaking Rosie’s hand, he paused, pleasantly surprised.  Without her makeup on, blonde hair tousled and in nothing more than an oversized tee shirt, she looked sexily après.  Her dishabille was just right.  Tré smiled a sexy smile right at her.

“Why don’t you hang out here with my industrious family,” said Bulstrode, sarcastically.  “While I go grab the papers.”

With both eyes on Rosie, and both of hers on him, Tré said, “You bet, Mr. Bulstrode.”

Bulstrode strode off to his office completely unaware of the chemistry brewing in the family room. Susan was less oblivious, and found it all a little awkward. Susan hated awkward.

“Fred, honey,” she said.  “Can you help me in the kitchen?  I can’t reach…”  She trailed off as she wandered out of the room.

Fred said, “Sure, Mom.”  And as he left, he turned and said to Tré.  “Nice to meet you.  And, uh, good luck.”

A quick aside:

Chicago is called The Windy City.  And it’s pretty windy.  During one of its fierce winters, you might find yourself walking amongst the skyscrapers and enjoying the protection of the tall, elegantly substantial buildings that guard you from the bitter, biting wind.  You hug close to them, leeward.  But one building will give way to the next and as you cross the corridor between them, a wind tunnel strikes, blowing your hat awry, knocking you off your stride.  If you are a Chicagoan, as you brave that wind tunnel with one be-mittened hand clamped down over your flyaway hat and the other clutching your scarf against your streaming nose, you might chuckle and think, “Only in Chicago.”  And then you grin, satisfied with the knowledge that you, a real Chicagoan, have been rendered hearty by the weather; you are proud to be tough enough for this magnificent city. You plan to call your wimpy siblings in more temperate climes when you get home.

It’s that grin, that satisfaction, more than the weather itself, that gives Chicago its moniker.  The “windy” refers to the distinctly Chicago habit of borderline obnoxious civic pride; the wind is produced by the rabid boosterism gusting out of every local’s mouth.  To wit: even the truly terribly Chicago winter serves as a point of pride for a Chicagoan.

Only denizens of the wider Philadelphia area and the French are more vociferously proud of being where they’re from.  And whence this spirit of noisy boosterism?  Is it the amazing architecture and theater, the sports teams, the brusque affability of its people, the sparkling lakefront?  Or, could it be a bit of whistling in the dark to cover up a feeling of inferiority when it compares itself to its East Coast (New York) and West Coast (LA) siblings?  What we called in those distant days a Jan Syndrome?

It’s both. It’s either.  Genuine pride?  Inferiority complex?  Both sides of the coin are currently represented in the Bulstrode family room. 

Rosie will brook no sass about her home city from either New Yorkers or suburbanites. She’ll tell anyone not from Chicago how awesome Chicago is.  But Rosie believed she suffered under no delusions regarding the city of her birth.  Chicago wasn’t really the second city.  It was a distant third. First New York, then LA.  Then, maybe, Chicago.  Chicago was a good rehearsal space, a place to hone her style and spark before migrating to the cities where it’s really happening and where the fabulous people live. 

Once she was lighting up the scene in one of those cities, then she’d know she’d made it.   A year or two more in Chicago, moving away from Daddy’s bars and into clubs and she’d be ready for the big time.  New York. L.A.

Tré, on the other hand, meant to stay in Chicago.  Chicago was where it was happening.  Thanks to Billy Corgan and Michael Jordan and Ferris Bueller and, hell, Oprah Freaking Winfrey, soon everyone would know what was what in the city by the lake. He knew that for young people across America, an alternately gritty and sophisticated Chicago was an icon of urban release from suburban banality. New York and LA were on their way out.  Chicago was the place to be.

He was confident in his cool and his savvy and was prepared to be at the forefront of Chicago’s great renaissance as the City of the 21^st Century.  A year or two with Lightweight, getting his name out there, turning Bulstrode’s played out little neighborhood joints into destination bars, establishing himself on the scene, making a little money.  But the time he was 30, Tré planned on being the coolest entrepreneur in the coolest city.

Tré loved Chicago.

Rosie thought it was all right.

At the point of this great, unknown divergence, two incredibly attractive people met for the first time and grinned at each other.

“So,” said Rosie, with a fully tested, practically patented Rosie smile.  “You’re planning on putting Lightweight Group on the map, huh?  Aren’t you just something?”

Tré smiled and moved a little closer.  “I am,” he said.  “I plan to take this business someplace.”

“It already is someplace,” said Rosie.  “The question is where.  Maybe I could show you around some of Daddy’s places.  I could give you a, uh, younger look into the bars.”

“I might like a, uh, younger look,” said Tré.  “You let me know when.”

Bulstrode poked his head in the door. “All right, Tré,” he said.  “Let’s head to the office and go through the org chart and business lists.  I want to get started on the rebranding now.”

Bulstrode nodded distractedly at Rosie.  Tré winked at her and gave her one more grin.  But his attention was returning to his boss.  Tré knew he was lucky to have landed this plum position.  No matter how gorgeous the girl, Tré wasn’t going to be distracted from the task at hand.

Rosie turned back to the TV, pleased with Tré’s clear appreciation.  If she could catch the eye of a guy like that while she was still in her PJ’s, she might be ready for New York in a few months.

Chicago remained oblivious to the relationship.

Chapter 11

Aspirations for Organization; Or: The Art of Putting Shit Away

I just got back from a weekend with my brother and sister-in-law.  I always leave their house inspired to eat fewer carbs and be tidier. My brother and his wife kill me because they and their house always look equally magazine ready.  Jennifer, my sister-in-law, is going through chemo and still walks around looking like she's part of an ensemble comedy about hip young parents on NBC or something.  It would piss me off if I didn't love her so much.

If you were visiting them and had need of tweezers (I almost always need tweezers), you might say, "Jennifer, do you have some tweezers I can use?"  And she'd tell you where to find the tweezers.  She wouldn't even have to think about it.  She'd just know where the tweezers are.  If you were visiting me and asked to borrow some tweezers, I'd spend about 15 minutes running around the house trying to remember where the last place I had tweezers was, despite likely having just plucked an errant hair 20 minutes ago, and then I'd get super embarrassed and run out to CVS and buy you some tweezers.

I am a thoughtful host, largely because I am easily shamed.

I came home from this trip inspired to organization.  I would throw away the dross and put the things we need into a system.  And this would happen in the basement, because the basement is where we put shit we don't know what to do with - and probably tweezers because I buy tweezers weekly and can almost never find them!  I think there's a tweezer vortex in my basement.  Behind that old shirt that fell behind the dryer that I don't want to move because it smells kind of funky and I think there might be a dead mouse underneath it.

In our basement, you can find a 15 year old 12 inch television with a built-in VCR player. VCR.  Vee-cee-arrrrr.  I don't remember the last time we plugged it in.  There may also be a dead mouse in the VCR.

I spent the past two days sorting and tossing.  I have so much recycling and so much garbage that I've filled up both ours and our immediate neighbors trash bins.  I haven't hit up any of the other neighbors for trash bin space, though.  Once, about a year ago, one of our neighbors left us a nasty note about using his recycling bin.  He threatened to get the law involved. He wrote that in a note and then slipped it under the door even though Don was home.  It was a masterpiece of high passive aggressive paranoid dudgeon. But I'm still scared of him because if you're crazy enough to get that cheesed off over a recycling bin I can't help but think it's likely you have some semi-automatic weapons in your own overcrowded basement (America!).  So I'm keeping my trash and recyclables in my own damn bins and the bins of neighbors from whom we have express, written permission.  It's not enough room. There are still bags and piles of disposables in our basement.  I think we're going to have to get Lamont Sanford and his red pick up over here.  Do you get that reference?  Congratulations!  You are old!

I feel pretty good about it.  I have unearthed several dozen pairs of tweezers.  The basement almost looks like adult people who are not in immediate need of psychiatric care live in this house.  But I know that this spring clean exists not in a vacuum.  We're gonna have to start putting shit away if it's going to stick.

Do you guys have any confidence in our ability to start putting shit away? To merrily chirp "a place for everything and everything in its place" when Laney drops her backpack on the floor as soon as she walks in?  Do you think we can do this?  Do you have some tweezers I can borrow?

The March, Chapter Nine: One Morning After

Chapter 8

I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said 'I drank what?'"

- Real Genius

Brooke woke up the next day happy and not even little hungover.  

Celia, on the other hand, had a perfectly dreadful hangover.  She woke up on the couch, aching, with a small plastic garbage can on the floor by her head (just in case).  She was pretty sure a small rodent had crawled into her mouth and committed violent suicide, but she was still hoping she could fall back asleep and didn’t want to risk a trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Brooke wandered into the living room and smiled at Celia while shaking her head.

Celia figured if she was going to be condescendingly smiled at, she might as well get up.

“Ugh,” said Celia.  “Shoot me, murder me, knife me in the head.  I can’t go to school today.”

“Mmmmhmmmmm,” said Brooke as she wandered aimlessly into the kitchen, thinking all the while about Teddy.  She’d never met anyone so focused, with such oceanic knowledge and intellectual rigor.  He was the most impressive man she’d ever met.  It seemed like he liked her.  But how could he help but find her callow?  She’d never done anything besides write silly letters to the editor and browbeat people into signing petitions.  And this was a man compiling an authoritative compendium, a work that was destined to change the world.

Everything she thought she knew was so shallow and petty next to the things he knew!

If he were to take her under his wing, he could teach her so many things!  She could learn some of the things he knew (she doubted her capacity for learning was as marvelous as Teddy's and, therefore, figured he would always know things she didn't) and she could help him change the world.  If she glanced ahead into the nicest future she could imagine, she saw Teddy testifying before congress, expert witness on new energy policy.  She’s sit next to him, handing him the files he needed, squeezing a hand supportively when some bullshit GOP fuckwit argued in favor of the status quo.  

They’d be a team.  They’d change the world.

But, of course, he probably thought she was ridiculous.

Celia followed Brooke into the kitchen and sat heavily at the table.  “I promise to do the dishes for a month if you make coffee.”

“Yeah,” said Brooke. “I’ve heard that before.  Lucky for you, I want coffee too.”

Celia put her head in her hands and pieced together the night before.  Had Brooke really liked that old man?  That gross old fart in the dirty shirt that stretched too tight across his belly?  That odious creep with the sour disposition and body odor?  Really?

“You know, Brooke,” she said. “It’s not just the hangover.  It’s the memory of that nasty old guy pontificating at you while he spilled beer down his chin.  What was up with that?”

 “Celia!” said Brooke.  “He is not nasty, he’s amazing.  I want to help him with his book.  I want to help him with that so much!  Please don’t talk about him like that.”

“Oh my god, you’re kidding me!” said Celia.  “He had pit stains on his shirt and his teeth were disgusting.”

“Oh, who cares,” said Brooke.  “The world is on the brink and you’re obsessing about pit stains.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s enough time left to slap on a little deodorant,” said Celia.

There was a weak knock at the door and Brooke yelled, “Come on in, Gio.”

Celia winced at the noise and then suddenly remembered walking home with Gio’s arm around her shoulder and the impression that her feelings for him had shifted into something different.  

Confusion, excitement, nervousness, curiosity, infatuation, headache and nausea all began battling for dominance in Celia’s poor, booze-soaked brain.

“Is there coffee,” said Gio, limping into the kitchen still in pajamas.  “Please tell me there’s coffee.”

“Should be ready in a minute,” said Brooke.  “Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with you guys.  I feel fine.”  This was only mostly true.  As stated previously, she was remarkably hangover-free, but was growing more and more certain that she was beneath Teddy’s attention and this was making her feel kind of sad.

“I hate you,” said Celia.  “I hate you and your stupid no-hangover face.”  She looked towards Gio for sympathy but then quickly looked away.  And then she looked again.  And then she just sat up a little straighter and felt awkward.

Gio kept his eyes on Brooke, brain also addled by the booze and the perplexing, irritating realization that Brooke liked disgusting Teddy and not him.  How was this possible?  Gio could benchpress over 200 pounds! And Teddy had to be 50!  And he was SUCH an asshole!

The three sat silently at the table, munching on toast, sipping coffee, alternately thinking and trying not to think of the things on their minds.

The phone rang and broke the painful silence.  Brooke answered it and was thrilled to find Teddy on the other end.  He’d woken, as usual, filled with confidence and dialed the number Brooke had written on a guest check at The March.  Perhaps, Teddy suggested, Brooke might stop by and offer up some ideas on how to better organize his materials.  Brooke accepted joyfully and committed his directions to memory. 

When Brooke got off the phone, she was humming in anticipation.  Merrily, she told Gio and Celia about her plans for the day and then raced down to her room to get ready.  Gio looked at Celia, a veritable portrait of hurt and confusion and sighed, “the fuck?”  And then he left the table to wander dejectedly back to his own apartment.

Celia sat alone, coffee her only comfort. And it was terrible coffee.

Chapter 10

A Quick Follow Up On Going for the Guns

In my last post, I felt like I made it pretty clear that I think it's time to pull the gun control conversation to the left.  It's long past time we stopped assuaging the easily hurt feelings of the gun lovers by qualifying support for gun control with assurances that we think guns are generally super cool and we are not trying to make guns illegal.  Because it doesn't matter - the folks who argue against any gun control will always think you're trying to make guns illegal.

So, fuck it, let's try to make guns illegal.

Over on Facebook, one commenter complained about my post because he thought I'd said that all people who care about the right to own a gun have been brainwashed by the corporatist interests of the NRA into a radically paranoid worldview.  I did not say that.  I said that the people who argue against any measure of gun control have a twisted, paranoid worldview which is advantageous to gun manufacturers who, therefore, do all they can to gin it up and exploit the twisted paranoid minority of gun owners.  Didja know that Freedom Group (the niftily named parent company of Remington) has profits up 52% since Sandy Hook?  Neat, right?

I do, of course, understand that there are responsible gun owners who are not addlepated tools of the NRA.

I just don't care.

There is a Facebook group called "Gun Control for Responsible Gun Owners."  It has 40 likes. Apparently lots of people don't care.  Look what happens when I type "gun control" into my Facebook search:

It is time we stopped letting gun owners control this conversation. They are the minority.  And they have let the inmates take over the asylum.  I know it is important to this minority of Americans that they have the right to own guns.

I don't care.

I care about not getting shot.  I care about dropping my daughter off to school and not worrying that someone is going to shoot her.

There were 290 gun deaths in the UK in 2013.  There are 63 million people there.  There were 415 murders in Chicago.  There are 8 million people here.

I know that there are responsible gun owners.

I do not care.

Let's go for the guns.