Backlash

I think a lot about how radically our lives will change in just a few months. Bobby starts kindergarten in August - his elementary school should have their annual tour in about a month or so. I need to double check with their preschool, but last I heard preschool technically ends for Bobby in June, which means for me finding a summer camp for him. I could keep him there but I'm quite interested in the local YMCA's swim camp. But all this means a radical lifestyle shift for us. We'll all be required to wake up about four hours earlier than we have been, which also means going to bed a lot earlier, too. It's going to be brutal. No more long leisurely mornings. My kids, like every kids on the planet, are the masters of procrastination. The other day I had to tell Bobby, "the answer to I need you to do something isn't yeah but I need to do this first, it's yes, mommy dearest!" Needless to say this fell on deaf ears. I shudder when I think of waking up at the crack of dawn and hustling kids into clothes and breakfast and teeth brushing and shoes...and both of them adjusting to spending full days somewhere instead of just afternoons. It's a lot. 

It's been a difficult week, returning from the march. I rather naively thought it would be nothing but awesome reports of how well everything went - and there was some of that - but there was also a massive, infuriating backlash, mostly from women. Yes, all those awesome white women who voted for Trump. Against my better judgment I found myself engaging in endless ugly confrontations on Facebook - something I never would have done before, but I suddenly find myself completely intolerant of people's ignorant, hateful bullshit - which were both fruitless and utterly demoralizing.

I also discovered something interesting, after banging my head against a brick wall all week. These so-called caring, interested women asking why we marched because they just want to understand - yeah, that is a giant, steaming pile of horseshit. They know why we marched. They don't listen when you explain, and deliberately pretend to not get it. They don't want to hear from us. They want to have a giant gang bang with all their little conservative buddies just for the purposes of confirmation bias, so they can go be all smug and self-satisfied, while we stupidly forward links and articles and give heart-felt personal stories. They don't give a SHIT. 

They're too busy bitching about how we left signs behind. Let's talk about millions of people marching peacefully with zero arrests. Leaving trash is the best you can do? Seriously? Meanwhile that monster rapes our country and the world and everyone cheers. Fuck off.

Anyway, wise to their ploys after falling for it all week, I devised this handy meme I'll use the next time someone pretends to give a shit about our causes. It will save lots of time to just post this instead of trying to have an actual conversation. 

 

And we marched

Recovering from the Women's March in Washington this weekend. I'm proud to be able to say, when asked, that at this terrible time, I was on the right side of history.

The march was so huge and overwhelming that I can't say I ever had that catch-in-your-throat, "I feel so invigorated!" feeling. I had this more at the first LA march because it was new to me then. Mostly this march was a logistical nightmare - trying to circumvent the massive crowds at the Metro station (Uber was our hero all weekend), trying, and failing, to meet up with various groups of people, leaving behind water and food because we weren't allowed to have large bags, only to sorely regret this decision later when we discovered there was nowhere to get food or water all day long, waiting for hours in port-a-potty lines, missing the speakers because we couldn't even get close to where the rally was happening and instead standing around freezing in the mud and cold with no idea what was happening, where we were going, or if the march was even going to happen or if we had managed to miss the whole thing.

Such is the experience of a massive march like this. Doesn't mean it wasn't important, meaningful, and galvanizing. But I think this whole thing was just so much bigger than anyone had imagined - as an event person, I sympathize that not all of our needs could be met and everything didn't run like clockwork. It went, it was safe and positive, and no arrests. The signs were awesome and creative:

 

 

 

And of course there was me:

 

And in the airport on my way. I got over 300 "likes" on this picture on FB:

 

...and...I can't believe LA beat Washington!!! More than a quarter of a million more people marched in my hometown. Apparently it was complete pandemonium - subways so packed they just opened the gates and let everyone in free; many of my friends (including the BF) couldn't find each other; some freaked out in the subway and just had to turn around and go home. CRAZY.

And yet the right wingers think we "should have voted", "don't know what we're marching for", "left behind tons of trash" (um, hello, like after every sporting event...?), are a bunch of snowflakes. Well, guess what, motherfuckers?

 

Ceci n'est pas un président

I leave for D.C. on Friday to protest the Mango Mussolini. Thankfully I got a free hotel room using points and also two free flights for me and my bandleader's wife (flights not using miles were all really inconvenient and terribly expensive). I haven't marched on Washington since 1990, my senior year of high school, when a busload of us went down from NY to support women's rights. Proud to be - sad to be? - doing this again almost 30 years later.

Abby asked how the move in with the BF went. It went fine - I think the reason I neglected to mention it was nothing really changed; he is rarely here (leaves before we get up, comes home late at night, works most weekends unless I ask him to take off for something specific). Some women would be resentful of a man being so absent, but not me. I actually kind of dread the day he changes his schedule - if this day ever comes - because I enjoy my evenings to myself (and often use those hours for work) and sometimes weekend days alone with the kids are easier on me (he always wants to do a lot of exhausting stuff like go to loud, crowded places and restaurants and keep the kids up way too late). Also, he's spent nearly every night at my house almost the entire time we were living apart anyway. So the only difference is now he gives me money. Yay. But yes, everything is going well. Thanks for asking!

Lots more drama in my dance world. More Facebook accusations of sexual assault by a dance teacher, and everyone is up in arms. I had to join in and ban a guy from my event who was supporting the assaulter - not because of that, but for that and the time he was made to leave the hotel where my event is held for being drunk and fighting, and various other Code of Conduct violations. We're all starting to get serious about banning these guys - always guys - who are just bad eggs. Honestly this should have happened years ago, but without social media we just didn't have the evidence/support/forum to do these things. My feminist group has been a huge part of this. The worm has indeed turned. All of us who are pissed off about Trump are channeling that into confronting problem men in our lives and businesses. 

I hope all of this leads to a better dance world because we're now woke AF and are calling out sexism, racism and homophobia whenever we see it. 

And I wouldn't be surprised if I end up in court again one of these days. Sigh.

Sometimes I feel like my life is just starting to get easier with the kids getting older, and then I think about how miserable life is going to be under Trump (goodbye, awesome healthcare) and I feel like the hard times are just beginning, and I didn't know how good I had it under Obama all this time.

Here is part of the sign I'll be carrying on Saturday (because I can't resist a little Magritte):

 

Sisterhood

Shortly after the election I noticed an explosion of ill will on Facebook - mostly women I knew through dancing expressing their disgust and then being trolled/shut down by mansplaining opinion bullies. So I started a secret feminist dancer group with the intention of being able to discuss our rage, sadness, and fear without being told to stop whining. What's happened to this group in the ensuing two months has been nothing short of incredible.

It's become a place not just to share sadness and anger but also talk about sexism in our dance scene - the last thread I started about two guys I've been having a problem with now has thousands of comments, and I've really learned a lot about narcissists, control freaks and bullies and how easy it is to overlook and misdiagnose these behaviors, i.e., "oh, that's just so-and-so" or "they're just kidding around." It's been a fantastic place to share stories from the past that otherwise never would have come to light - the time that guy danced with a girl and told her she was doing everything wrong; the time that other guy kept "accidentally" brushing his hand across a woman's chest while dancing, etc etc. I never knew the power of these secret groups where you can say things you don't want your Aunt Tilda, your brother-in-law's Tea Partier cousin, or your boss to hear. 

Even though many of the people in the group haven't actively danced in years, so many of them are encouraged to go out again because they know their "sisters" will be there to welcome them; many people are thanking me for the group (one said "it's the only reason I get up in the morning"), many are saying they are excited to finally get to know other female dancers (normally you talk more to the guys you're dancing with). It's amazing when you can do a small thing that ends up having such a big impact.

I sang at a big event this weekend and was pretty nervous because I knew one of the guys I was at odds with was going to be there. I was feeling pretty unsafe, but I knew a big contingent of my secret group were going to be there and they promised to have my back. The whole night we ran around hugging each other and exchanging knowing looks. It was awesome. We snuck out to the lobby to recreate this photo:

 

 

I think we did pretty good. The person taking the picture asked what modern women would do in that kind of photo, and we all spontaneously did this:

 

I'm surrounded by some pretty strong, angry, terrific women. I'm really proud to be in their company and look forward to sharing the outrage of the next few years - and protesting the fuck out of it!!!