This has been a productive weekend. I mowed the lawn, got my bulbs planted (shout out to "Ice Follies" and "Manly" there *snickers*) and put my garden away for winter. I worked on Legends, and then made Duck l'Orange for the first time with rosemary roasted red potatoes and southern-style kale. Tonight, because I am a savage, I'm gonna make poutine with the fries cooked in duckfat. No one can stop me.
I woke up in a good mood, despite having a series of weird dreams. In one, I was talking to a friend, but his words got softer and softer until this sort of spooky twilight fog swallowed up the whole scene. In another, a dude choked me to death.
Recently, I got a thing published in my town newspaper: an editorial about domestic violence and how they handled the local murder of a 19 year old girl. (Bad, if you were wondering, bad in a dangerous way.) I'd link it here, but I don't really care for how it turned out now with a couple days removed. I'm not great about writing about those issues, which is weird to say as a girl who has written most of a book with the central theme of masculinity and violence. I think my editorial piece in particular suffered from some lack of willingness to be personal, and it's true, aside from occasionally ranting about stuff with that guy who was stalking me recently, I don't talk about my experiences. Even this shitty poem I'm writing about those themes the last couple weeks is only an exercise in saying absolutely nothing. Some confessional poet, huh?
When I was writing the editorial, Josh took issue with some wording singling out the role of men in these situations, thought it was unproductive, divisive, prejudiced. I ended up changing the line to be more neutral, but I was also frustrated: I wasn't being blamey-critical, I love men. Insert dick joke here, but I really do. I love their boxy knuckles and wide elbows. I'm so genuinely interested in them, in male perspective, and how those roles must feel to take on in our society. I like writing about men. When Casey was running a theme of "masculinity" for his lit journal, he said he thought of me immediately. I guess in this context, that's sort of like saying "I'm not racist, I have a cool black friend!" Still, I feel like there is something important to this juxtaposition, though: being raised as a woman to love but also be wary of men in contexts. But I know either genders can hurt the other. Love is a state of vulnerability.
So now I guess I'm just rambling about the relationships between men and women, which is probably a good time to stop. I guess have a picture of some of my wonderful pumpkins. Katie announced "my beautiful pumpkin princess!" when I brought her pre-frost flowers at the bar Saturday, but she's wrong, I am a pumpkin queen.
It feels important to mention that the "title" of this photo is "Don't play with me, bitch." Pumpkin. Queen.
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