On Passive Aggression, Toxic Masculinity and the Burka -B.G.
[Spoiler Alert: Mo]
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023:
11:35pm.
It got late, somehow. I guess it happened while I was glued to my television screen.
Mo. It’s a good show. Confronting the realities of a Palestinian refugee trying to make it in Texas…no. That cheapens it, that description. I’ll try again.
Mo is a show about Mo. Mo is a sweet, goofy, fat Palestinian dude trying to make it in Texas, hustle however he can, because he has mouths to feed and a family to protect and a never ending refugee case, he’s in permanent limbo leaving him stuck without papers but he has to work because who’s going to pay the rent?
At the mercy of the immigration lawyer who’s doing fuck-all to help his case but that’s okay he’s got his girlfriend, Maria, she’s a sweetheart from Mexico and they’re going to start a family.
The show is funny, lighthearted, silly, fun,
until it flashes back to the Gulf war
1991
I was five years old, so was Mo I guess.
I was in New Jersey
He was in Kuwait.
They were sewing cash into their clothes so it wouldn’t be stolen
And now he’s in Dallas Texas and a gangster is blackmailing him
But he has no choice because the banks won’t lend him money, only the gangster will. (Or something like that. I can’t remember now why he’s involved with the gangster, because I paused my viewing of the show for a few months on account of how scary the gangster was.)
Scary fucking gangster. Smiles one second and you think you’re cool, frowns the next and you know you’re dead, then he shifts and you see the gun…
Sneaky little real-life horror show masquerading as a comedy, this one is. Gets you with the scaries while you’ve got your guard down.
Mo is lying to his girlfriend because you can’t show weakness, he doesn’t tell her about the gangster, he needs to protect her, he has to seem strong…
But she knows she can’t trust him, and he can’t protect her from that.
I tried to learn Arabic, a long time ago. I can still read the script, kind of. It’s not easy to sound out words when you don’t actually know the words, but I can vaguely string together consonants and vowels.
It’s a beautiful script, Arabic.
I see a lot of veiled women here in Montreal. I always wonder what they are thinking, just in general but also about me, especially when I walk by in short shorts and a belly tank top.
I’ve been dressing sluttily recently.
Honestly, it’s not on purpose, that’s how they make women’s clothes. Girls clothes too. It’s sickening, actually. Did you know that toddler girls shorts are inches shorter than boys? Inches! Their entire LEGS can be measured in inches at that time, and there is no difference in size at that age between genders.
That’s why the gender debate has to be had. Because you can’t tell me that he is “he” and she is “she” and that’s that, no problem, when we are sexualizing our babies from birth.
(That’s only a fraction of a point, by the way. I need to expand but I don’t think my brain knows how to right now. It’s late and I’m supposed to be sleeping, did I mention that?)
Anyway. The other day I was like, maybe I’ll make a conscious effort to cover up today, because on the way to yoga class it’s all fun and games — a bixi, downhill, I walk to the studio it’s a snap.
But on the way out of the studio I’m suddenly exposed, the bikes are usually gone by then and it’s a slow walk uphill past grafitti and vagrants. In a moment of weakness I forget to shield my new zen attitude from the world and then I realize the men are appraising my body. Like it’s for them.
Estrella says I should dress however I want, and those people can feel blessed that they got to witness a beautiful woman that day. “Oh, poor babies, they had to keep it in their pants and ask before they touched,” she said, on the topic of parents worried about their sons in the #metoo days. “Shouldn’t you be worried about your daughters?!”
She was on a roll that day, I wish I’d have written it all down. But basically she just went on this tangent, about how women should be able to express themselves, how the sexual female power can be wielded for the world to see.
“Men in Brasil get used to it! They learn to see a woman’s body, on the beach, on the street, they know they can’t touch. I’m not saying rape and violence don’t happen there, I’m just saying, they are capable of learning how to behave, erego it can be learned, by everyone.”
Anyway. The other day I covered up. I had this thought that I could be invisible, as I walked down the street.
It didn’t work.
That’s when I started wondering how it must feel to be a man. To walk down the street like you’re in charge. Predator instead of prey. To be respected, maybe even feared.
I’ve always thought if I could pick, I’d be the tiger, not the deer. Who would want to be a deer?
The analogy breaks down after that, because tigers have to feed, and actually in my context we’re talking about sexual power and reproduction with predator/prey, not Diner versus Food.
But it occurred to me the other day that I don’t know what to be, other than a fearful little bunny rabbit. I dress the way I am, which is not very fierce-some and easy to objectify. But anything else and I would be pretending.
That’s what I don’t think Etienne understands. Not about clothes, but about taking up space.
Or maybe he does understand it, maybe I’m underestimating him, I don’t know. We need to talk about it, which is the whole point. We have to be able to talk about shit.
(He’s watched my messages. He sent me a ping to say he was processing and would respond. I can’t read the tone. I don’t know if it’s ominous or optimistic. He did call me “cutie,” but…)
I don’t think he understands that when he walks down the street, he is naturally allowed to be there.
That when I walk down the street, it’s different.
And the same goes for dance.
He owns the place, at dance.
He’s predator, and I’m prey. He may not act like a predator, but he can pass. He can be respected. Automatically.
By being born with a penis, you are gifted the privilege of owning the space you occupy. Some men more than others, of course, there are other factors, many of them. But the imbalance is there from birth, is my point. Another talking piece for the gender debate.
I wasn’t walking, when it happened. The fucker got me on my bike.
And I like my bike, or rather, I like bixi bikes, especially the electric bixi, because it is big and strong and has a don’t fucking mess with me vibe (unless you’re a car door last year in June, but I ride on bike paths or the middle of the street, now).
So I wasn’t even really feeling on the defensive. I was just biking along, taking in the earlier morning hours of Montreal when things are still just waking up.
And not that it matters, but just as a scientific experiment, I had covered up, for the record.
So I’m riding down the Maisonneuve bike path toward Alexis Nihon so I can make a left down Atwater.
The bike path has two lanes, one for each direction. (There are bicycle light indicators, too, and a concrete divider separating us from the cars. Montreal bicyclists mean business.)
So I’m in the right lane, riding my bike, minding my own business, and…
up comes this dude, toward me, in my lane.
The moment comes when we have to make eye contact and a decision, and I see from the look on his face that he’s not going to be the one to move. Why should he? He’s a man. He belongs there.
So I move into the wrong lane to let him ride by in the wrong lane and just as he gets close, I think maybe he’s gonna apologize, he opens his mouth, I’m about to be like dude it’s okay but that’s kind of dangerous,
I hear him say, “Sexy body…”
And I don’t wait for him to say anything else I scream
FUCK YOU
at him so loud that the rooftops can hear it…
Maybe it’s meant not just for him but for all the rest of them, too.
FUCK HIM.
Fuck him for making me scared, for treating me like an object, for perpetuating stupid fucking patriarchal bullshit
And the adrenaline is flying through me and I get to yoga class and eventually I remember to breathe.
I’m so scared of Etienne’s response. I’m scared it’ll be no, and I’m scared it’ll be yes.
“No” will be sad, but then I will grieve and move on.
“Yes” will be a relief and then…I’ll have to learn how to not be afraid of speaking my mind around him. That’s the condition of our relationship, it has to be. We can’t come at each other from fear.
And I have to be allowed to express my anger.
But shit there’s so much of it, and I don’t want to misdirect it all at him. Except that I have to direct some of it at him, when it applies.
Maybe we really aren’t meant for each other after all. Maybe he was supposed to be my help-you-through-the-mess relationship, and we’ll move on to other things.
And…now I’m in limbo, waiting to know what happens next.
Oh goody. Isn’t limbo such a swell place to be.
Gale sent me messages. Three of them. I haven’t read them yet, just the preview of the final one that says, “I miss you.”
Most of my anger, a lot of my anger, is directed at her. For failing to stand up for herself and then, with the bullshit at the dance festival, for me.
I miss her so much it hurts. But whenever i think of reaching out, I think, for what? So she can endlessly trigger me with the trauma she wants to hash out but not actually fix?
Which isn’t fair of me. She is working on her shit.
But…it’s not enough right now.
So what the fuck am I supposed to do, sit at home by myself and drink wine with my stuffies?
Uhhhhh yeah that’s what I’ve been doing.
Fuck.
I feel sorry for the hijabi girls in the heat waves. Although their faces never betray them, so, maybe they’re somehow immune?
Doubtful. It’s fucking hot even when you’re dressed slutty like me.
Last week a family walked by me up by Beaver Lake. One girl had on even more layers than the others…wrists, neck, hair, pants, long swishy thing I don’t know what it’s called…
Catarina and I had an all-out brawl about the burka back in grad school. We were all at the bar, and I don’t know, the topic came up somehow, and she said that they should be banned, how they represent everything that is awful about chauvinism, sexism and the oppression of women.
She is from the Middle East, so she’s entitled to her opinion, that’s for sure.
I didn’t agree, though. Still don’t. I mean, about the symbolism, of course I agree with that. But to ban clothing? How can you ban clothing? And the clothing isn’t the problem, at the end of the day.
Guns don’t shoot people, people shoot people.
Okay but guns actually do shoot people.
Whereas clothing…clothe.
It was Mommy who made me realize how naked it must feel to be forced to remove a head covering when it is your habit, your religion to wear one. To expose your elbows when you have spent a lifetime keeping them covered.
It would be like telling me to take off my shirt.
So we are supposed to stop the oppression of women by telling them what they can and can’t wear?
No. Tell them what their rights are, and put measures in place to ensure those rights are enforced. Let them wear whatever the fuck they want, even if the clothing is the product of the patriarchy. Their choice is the most important part.
I listened to a podcast a few weeks ago about a woman who converted to Islam for her partner. She was in college, madly in love with her boyfriend. He couldn’t be with her, though, because her culture wasn’t his.
He dumped her. They cried. Then that summer, she walked into a mosque a Cristian and walked out Muslim.
They got married.
Her mom cried.
Bride and Groom tried in vain to cohabitate, but ended up living in this world of pretend where she tried to do all the things the women were supposed to do and became unhappy. He knew it. Neither of them talked about it.
She would wear the hijab with him during the week and then slip away to a friend’s house for the weekend, put on lipstick and a miniskirt, go out clubbing. She was only 22.
(The podcast is called Transfert. Check it out, if you know French.)
He would pick her up at the end of the weekend and they would pretend it hadn’t happened.
Eventually she met a new man who also happened to be Muslim but slightly less dogmatic, left her husband, married the new guy and had two kids.
I guess she found her Goldilocks of religious observance.
Catarina and I got pretty heated. Voices were raised. Then we all laughed, shook it off and kept drinking.
Now she’s in Paris and I guarantee you that even without a veil, she experiences the oppression of women.
Quick question: Did you know that in Afghanistan they recently banned women from parks?
It is illegal to be a person with a vagina in a park.
Okay. 12:29. Bedtime? Bedtime. Let’s see if our brain cooperates…
Nope. 12:48. Brain is still going and I have to write this down, then maybe it’ll let me sleep.
Sexuality.
Women are sexualized since birth…
But we do not own our sexuality.
This. Is. The. Problem.
I went to Morocco when I was 19, took a boat from Tarifa to Algiers, a bus to Chefchaeouen up in the mountains.
Pure beauty, and sweet mint tea with fresh poured orange juice in the morning, a hike in the afternoon, a market, a group of Morrocan children I spoke to in a combination of French and my year of college Arabic.
The cat calls would begin the second I would leave the hostel, a chorus of come-on lines in five different languages, one after another, “Hello beauty hola guapa bonjour sexy…haf a boyfriend? Novio? Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”
Okay maybe just the three, but probably two more, Italian maybe, Portuguese, I don’t know how to quote.
The men followed me down the street, hot on my heels, sure I was easy.
(They did that in Paris, too, to be fair.)
I bought one of the garments they wear. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s like this long robe with a hood. Men wear it too.
I thought, with the robe, I could maybe fit in.
I did not fit in.
They picked me right out of the crowd and kept on with their catcalls.
Okay, 12:55. Maybe now I can sleep, brain?
Monday, September 4th 2023:
Well then. Here I am.
And not there.
I am definitely not there.
Woe is me. :(
Oh well. Mistress Me took a firm command of the situation.
First we spent all day Saturday getting most of our money back for the airbnb.
Then, yesterday, we survived the hangover (both metaphorical and of the wine persuasion) by doing lots of yoga and medimurbation.
And today, under strict orders from Myself, I’ve let Lorelai out to play.
I’m at the Chai Tea Lounge, or Tea Chai Lounge, something like that. It’s me and La Profe.
I’m hiding in the back where the ambiance is a bit lacking, but I’m safe.
The matcha oat milk boba tea latte comes served in a mason jar with an environmentally friendly straw.
It’s delicious.
Gale is weighing on me heavy these days. She’s reached out a couple times to tell me she misses me.
Okay, but what are you going to do about it?
I feel like maybe it’s time to write the letter. Except what the fuck can I say that I haven’t said already?
You’re hurting me.
I haven’t said that, yet.
Is it true? Do I have a right to say it?
It hurts me to be with you.
It’s the truth. All the
[Lorelai’s note: The sentence ends there. Dangling. Mad Artist at the wheel. And if memory serves me, I then wrote a 9 page letter to Gale which requires heavy editing before it can be sent.]
Thursday, September 14th, 2023:
I wrote an entry on another document because Medium was being weird, or I was high. I swear I tried a million times to log in and it didn’t work. So I managed not to panic, put it on my calendar to deal with when I had the energy, and that day, bam, my login worked no problem.
Weird.
Anyway, here’s what I wrote while I was locked out of my account :
Undated entry but…maybe a week ago? (Mad artists. I swear.)
I can’t sign into my medium account. I don’t know why. I never sign in, it’s just always open, but I had to clear my cache the other day and now, this.
That’s why we should never clear our caches, ladies.
I had a moment of inspiration while I was eating, and that’s why I wanted to open Medium.
I had this memory. This one year when it was still relatively early days with Gavin, maybe 2017. It was November, and we were going to go on a cruise. Before that, we were going to go visit his mom in Florida, where I’d be meeting her for the first time.
Except his mom got pneumonia or something and ended up in the hospital. Or at home, contagious? Something to the effect that now we weren’t going to be able to stay there anymore for Thanksgiving.
I had been a little bit sad that I was missing out on my family’s thanksgiving. It was never a huge holiday growing up, but all of a sudden everyone was getting together in New York except for me.
When Gavin told me we should figure out alternate plans, I started hatching ideas. Maybe we could change our flight to New York and get to Florida a few days later? We would be saving on hotels anyway and there didn’t seem to be a flight change fee…
I’m drawing a blank now on the details of how it panned out. I don’t exactly remember, except that I think it was one of those things where he was like,
“How about Miami?”
And I was like,
“That could be fun! There’s also New York as a possibility, now.”
And he was like
“Okay, I don’t know what flights would cost.”
And I was like,
“Okay I’ll research it.”
And then he found a hotel in Miami. And I found the flights. And when I told him, he exploded. Except that he is British, so it wasn’t so much an explosion as it was a slow, silent, deadly gas leak.
Cold.
“Okay whatever.”
Me. Ummmm… “You don’t want to go?”
Him: “I’ve been looking at things all day, but if you just want me to do everything and then make all the plans and then change things at the last minute…”
Or something like that. It’s hard for me to recall with specificity the passive aggression, but there it was.
We went to Miami, spending Thanksgiving somewhere forgettable enough that I’ve now forgotten.
The hotel wasn’t a hotel so much as it was a dilapidated (and illegal) Airbnb.
We didn’t go to my family’s that year, or any year.
Back to now.
That’s right. I wrote that entry right before I went out with Andrés and Marisol last week and all hell broke loose because Andrés accidentally had feelings.
“This is what happens when we tell boys from the time they are children, not to cry,” said Estrella.
It’s true. It’s so true. I mean, it’s hard to feel sorry for them when they are being GIANT man babies, but what an awful thing, to be taught that feeling a feeling is bad.
So then they try to hide it, but guess what? Feelings CAN’T be hidden, they smoosh out sooner or later, and THAT’S when the feeling-bearer becomes a passive aggressive jerkus face.
Estrella helped me out today. First of all, she helped me look at the text and read it.
That’s usually the kind of thing I would do with Mommy, but Mommy is at the Oracle Tree getting re-vined or something.
That’s what Mommy told Baby Girl, anyway. That Mommy was at the Oracle Tree in vines because that’s ‘portant for fairy godmothers.
Then she told Mistress Me it was pneumonyers and liquids and stuff and things, and something called an…
OH NOW I GET IT.
I.V.
“Ivy.”
Vines.
I love my Mommy like rainbows and unicorns.
Anyway, I’ve been surviving tons and tons of stupid grownup stuff without her, like:
- My idiot accountant NOT FILING a paper such that I received a FAILURE TO FILE what the actual F…? And he still hasn’t actually confirmed that he’s fixed the problem, or even remotely apologized for this even being a thing. I need to fire him before it’s suddenly March and I’m stuck with him for another tax season.
- The ‘sterminators! They came for the ants, a strange man with all the poison and I had to clean up the house and follow all the ‘structions all by myself, with no Mommy to consult!
- The credit card processing company suddenly deciding not to process the transactions that make up my entire income. And no Mommy to cry to.
- The massive heat wave where my A/C was being weird so I was turning it on and off and I needed Mommy’s advice about whether or not it was working but she wasn’t there! OUTRAGEOUS!
- Let’s see, what else…oh, Andrés being a doofus.
- Oh, right! The first week of my biggest work challenge to date. I’m juggling 14 different people with 7 different languages in time zones spanning 15 hours. And they’ve all put their trust in me, and and and it went well this week but CRAP it was scary!!!
- Oh, and Naomi. I think Naomi may have finally crossed the line, which is really unfortunate because I desperately need a massage. So I’m going to give Bryan a try tomorrow, because he and I have already had the boundary conversation. Here goes nothing.
Funny coincidence: It’s so weird, actually. You know how in that entry last week I was trying to describe Gavin’s passive aggression, but was struggling to? I think I wrote it the exact same night I went out with Marisol and Andrés, at which point the universe was like, “Here’s that example you wanted of how Gavin used to be an asshole! Wait, did we get your order wrong…?”
I wonder what’s going to happen this time. Andrés is one of the better ones, or so I’ve thought.
“This is why we cannot have sex,” I explained to Marisol last week. She’s been exploring all the things, which is great, but…yeah. No. When she brought it up I told her that we had better not.
If this is what happens when we’re not sleeping together, imagine if we were!
I told her that, too. I was like, “Look, right now I’m your friend. I hope you don’t break up, but if you did? I’d be your friend. That’s just how it works. But if we all got more intimate? Then there’s just all these possible complications and risks for people getting hurt. Plus, he gets rude to you sometimes. And if we were more intimate, I would hold him more accountable, which you may or may not like.”
And then I ended up holding him accountable, anyway, because, life.
She was kind of disappointed, I think. But we’re still gonna do a fun lingerie shoot, just the two of us, with Mommy to help us pose, because she wants to learn how to be sexy.
I fucking love Marisol.
Anyway. What’s going to happen now? Dare I hope that Andrés and I will be able to have a civilized, adult conversation? Or will it go the way of Karen and Jessie? Gale and Richard? Maggie and Caleb? Juliette and Dajuan? Jesus, how many of my friend’s boyfriends am I going to alienate?!
Damn it, are we gonna be friends again? Or is he going to join all of them in the fricking moat?
GOD the moat is getting stuffed.
I saw Jasmine today! God, that woman is fucking beautiful. I offered her one free session of Fairy Princess Business Counseling.
In the session, I organized her brain.
It’s a beautiful, beautiful, disorganized, creative artistic genius of a brain.
We divided it into categories, like FINANCES and CORE VALUES.
I offered her the session partly because I believe in her and I want to help, but also (and I told her this) because I fucking love her Panamanian unicorn camp and selfishly, I want to help make my dream vacation even more awesome.
Anyway, she said I should make her a proposal, and we can find a fair discount for me to be the Self Care Fairy Princess!
Hmm. Maybe Fairy Princess is too wishy washy. Maybe I should be the Self Care Sergeant.
This is the second time I’ve given a free business coaching session! The first one was with Estrella’s husband.
And guess what?
He said that after I helped him reorganize his website, sales went up, and bullshit calls went DOWN…by 80%!
GAH GAH!
I think I’m going to figure out how Jasmine and Lorelai can collaborate. I mean, apart from putting on a circus.
She’s also been fucked just because she’s a generous person in a world full of entitled assholes.
She’ll join me in tumbling the patriarchy.
In other news, I’m going to be seeing Catherine this weekend. Catherine of Nowhere New York. She’s in town for the weekend. I haven’t seen her in…
God, I actually can’t remember.
After we moved away, did we ever see each other again?
I’ve seen her parents, and she’s seen mine. But we’ve been on opposite coasts for maybe a decade and a half.
I wonder what her childhood memories are. I feel like we never really trusted each other fully, though we spent a lot of time together.
Anyway. She’s coming over with her boyfriend for Rosh ha Shana challah and wine, and then we’ll go out to eat.
And I guess I should end this fricking post because it’s been a billion trillion years and I…yeah. It’s time.
Gah gah.
Love,
Baby Girl (all grown up without any mommy, and even my mom took off across the country! Outrageous!)
PS Oh right, I never finished the thought: Estrella listened to the thing I wrote for Andrés and was like, “It’s good! May I give you some feedback?”
Outrageous! That means she had something to fix.
She was like, blah blah blah, you don’t want him to be defensive and put his guard up, blah blah blah, don’t give him a reason to be defensive, talk about it from your own feelings, blah blah.
So I took away all the accusations, replaced them with “I feel” statements, and only included the phrase “passive aggressive” once, despite Estrella’s best efforts to get me to drop all references to it completely.
And now…let the chips fall as they may.
