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Check, Check, Bang

Just for today I’m going to list every onerous task I’ve completed since waking up. Given the time I’m posting this and the readership I’ve lost since ceasing to post regularly, I don’t have to worry about too many seeing this. But just typing it out confers a sense of being heard that my youngest, most frightened self needs as evidence that all her hard work is being noticed. As in: Hello, void. It’s me, Little Liser, still trying….

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Things I Don’t Need Mansplained (Missive from the Frontlines)

1. Parallel parking. Trust me, I’ve been parallel parking since you were in nappies, son. Actually, I’ve been parallel parking since I was in nappies, too.
2. Movies. Read the room, Einstein.
3. Technology. My dad is a computer scientist; chances are good I can fix it before you can diagnose it.
4. Donald Trump’s psyche.
5. Any male psyche.
6. Definitely not my psyche.
7. Anything, actually.

Dating cis-men has been such a drag lately that I may have to put the kibosh on it entirely (not that many will cry in their beer over an ornery 40something who can’t massage a male ego to save her life, yeah I should take this down).

SOS

I’m in trouble.

I don’t have enough money for my expenses in May. I’m not talking moisturizer and HBO. I’m talking rent and food. I’m already on Medicaid. That was super hard to admit I needed.

Since I was 35, I haven’t needed a resume. Jobs–research gigs and editing gigs, columns, commentating spots–have shown up when I’ve needed them. My reputation preceded me and for a long time that was a good thing.

In 2017 my NY1 show was cancelled the same week that my gig as the editor of a labor journal ended. I’d held the NY1 job for 6 years. I’d been editing the labor journal for 16 years.

I still had another job–the writer of essays and reviews for Signature Reads.

Then they went out of business.

I was living off my savings, but they weren’t small. I’d received settlements and I still had a dream. My dream was to write and sell a book.

It is still my dream.

But independence has also been my dream. To support myself with money from work I like and care about.

That dream is dying on the vine. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy