Archive | Feminist Matters

My favorite thing about my apartment is the fact that every room has a tin ceiling. Each one boasts a different pattern, and each one is 12 feet high. Because of these ceilings, I actually own a ladder—two of my three closets begin six feet from the ground, and my overhead lights blow out with a serious regularity. (My intuitive abilities have something to do with the frequency, all puns intended.) Given that each fixture is a pre-war oddity–gorgeous, fragile, and one-of-a-kind–I have to really psych myself up to replace a bulb. During the retrograde, they all blew out, but I decided I wouldn’t fix anything until Mercury went direct lest I compound the damage. I actually put FIX LIGHTS in my calendar for January 8, that’s how serious I was about waiting. So today I donned sneakers, pink rubber gloves, and overalls with 65 watts stuck in each pocket. Cussing and sweating, I dragged the ladder from room to room to carefully so carefully repair each one. Not one of those lamps unscrews easily, and while balancing at the top of my ladder, I cried more than once out of frustration and fear before the covers finally gave way. People often ask me how I do public speaking without getting nervous. The truth is, I get very nervous, every bloody time, but I am accustomed to doing things that make me nervous as hell. It’s called being a grown woman.