What does it mean to be a woman? After all these years of being one, I’m not sure.

The basic gist of it, as I understood while growing up, was this: you got married, had kids, cooked, cleaned. Sometimes you worked. This is what all the women in my family did. My mother- and her mother- loved to cook; they were great cooks. Food was love that boiled over and simmered in the kitchen. And tidiness was next to godliness, a religion unto itself in our basically nonreligious household. Anyone who knows me or has tasted any of the few things I’ve ever made or visited me knows full well I did not inherit those particular genes.

I never felt those things would define me or make me happy.

I’m the take-out queen, the purveyor of fast food, microwaveable dinners and cold cuts and salads. I look upon neat piles of clutter as accomplishment. “Well, I’ve been in some houses that make me feel like Little Edie Beale and some that make me feel like I’m Martha Stewart!” I rationalize. I was never seduced by the baby trap. Seeing the downside – dirty diapers, throw-up, tantrums in grocery store aisles and restaurants and of course total loss of flexibility- was a powerful antidote. I never wanted to settle down for some of the same reasons- well, leaving out dirty diapers, maybe.

I did and still do cave to some of the accoutrements of superficial beauty. I don’t leave the house without putting on blusher and mascara, though in my formative years I used to wear a whole lot more makeup. And dresses even. But I was often happier with a book than a date. I had what Oprah calls an “aha” moment when I thought, okay, what do I really want, a guy or a dog? And so I adopted the dog. And we’re very happy most of the time. Except maybe when he throws up.

I tend to create heroines in the same mold as me, albeit younger. My main character in my series, Delilah Price, runs hot and cold when it comes to involvement with the opposite sex, and her on-and-off squeeze doesn’t do much to sway her; he’s married to the police department. She’s coming into her own in the art world, but feels ambiguous about her love life. What I need, she sighs to her best friend in Book Three, “is a Man Clapper. So I could clap my hands three times when I want him to sleep with me and/or fix something and clap them again when I want my space.” (Unfortunately no such device exists. Whoever could develop that would make millions.)

Maybe what Delilah really needs is a dog.

Blog entry first posted on The Story Plant blog

So yesterday I bought a packet of stationery. Another one to go with the myriad of stationery packets and cards and fold-it notes stashed in a guest room dresser drawer. Some were chosen to please a particular person, some just because I liked them and had no freaking idea who to send them to. Only a person with a particular sense of humor would appreciate a card bearing the image of a farmer walking a really big rooster and the caption ‘This man has a huge cock.’

This stationery was nothing like that. Absolutely G-rated. But I digress.

When’s the last time you got a letter, a real letter, in the mail? Not a Visa bill or a Dear Concerned Voter plea for donations, but an honest to goodness I-actually-sat-my-ass-down-to-write-this-because-I-was-thinking-of-you letter? Damn, I miss those things. I miss getting them. I miss writing them. I still buy all these cards and stationery packets thinking I’ll use it someday, but I use less and less because, well, people don’t write back. They email instead. Or send instant messages. So letter writing becomes masturbatory. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but if I’m going to pour my heart out for my own edification, I’ll write in my journal instead.

A favorite aunt got me hooked on stationery at a very young age and I wrote letters to her on it, also to crushes and people who crushed me, love and hate letters, mail I usually never sent but hey, it got it off my chest. One of the later recipients of letters I did send scoffed at my efforts. “Nobody cares about these things,” he sniffed.

“Well, not nobody, just you,” I pointed out. Needless to say, he never got another letter or saw me again. One likes to feel appreciated.

Fancy paper isn’t really necessary. A heartfelt note on Kraft butcher paper or the back of a napkin can work too. As long as it gets the basic point across: I’m thinking of you. Social media messages can all too easily be scrolled past, emails accidentally deleted. You can’t stash them under your pillow. You know the old saying, “Please put that in writing?” Yes, please do. Even if it’s just once in a while. Even if it’s scribbled, crossed out, stained with miso sauce. You might get a letter back from me then
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You might even get the cock card if you play your cards right. Any takers?

Truth is, you can’t. Not for a day. Not for an hour.
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This is what I was left with in my bank account after some scum sucking lowlife skimmed my debit card and went on a crazy night shopping spree. He (or she?) didn’t spend my money in one place but two. And nobody at Merchant #2 thought to question why anyone would want to buy over $300 worth of candles, much less someone who had never bought a single candle from them before, much less someone who is allergic to candles. (But they wouldn’t know that it wasn’t me without a better fail safe than they have in place and hey, look, a big sale!)

I discovered the breach when I went to pay my phone bill. Sorry, insufficient funds. WTF? I checked my balance and statement and sure enough there were charges I never made there. I raced to my bank branch, running a couple of stop signs on the way, I think (don’t tell the good folks who taught at cop school!) and told the bank employees and called the merchants and was reassured I would get my money back. But I don’t know when. And I have $1.34. And some cash. But not much.

When I was held up at gunpoint and when I was mugged- separate incidents no less!- I didn’t feel as victimized. I was face to face with the perps then, I knew who did it and I knew that the gun robber was arrested. I was so mad at the mugger that I started chasing him when I got up off the sidewalk but he was on a bike and gone before I gained five steps on him. All for $2.00 and change. More than I was left with in my account. In both incidents, I lost a lot less money and I felt less violated. I never got any of that money back but I was physically mostly unscathed. I became even more street smart than I already was.

But this was different. I don’t know where my card info was stolen or by whom. Sometimes card hackers make a small insignificant purchase to test, to see if it’ll get by, before they buy out the store, but I found nothing like that in my statement. I made a list of places I had used the card in the past week and wondered “Did it happen here? There?” Was it before that week even? A restaurant? A kiosk in the grocery store? A parking meter? J’accuse!

Waiting on the money lost to be credited back to my account and hoping it’s imminent, I reflect that yeah, there are worse things, but suspicion and paranoia suck. As does getting by on $1.34.

Once upon a time there was a group of students at a prestigious college in the Northeast who set aside a designated time to read children’s books aloud to each other. They met in dorm rooms and off-campus apartments (especially during the summer) They sent out cute invitations and served milk and cookies and read the likes of The Phantom Tollbooth and Where The Wild Things Are, sometimes reading longer works over the course of several gatherings. It was a welcome cleansing of the palate after swallowing difficult subjects like organic chemistry and Russian irregular verbs and international policy for hours. I looked forward to it. I enjoyed it.

And then I was assigned to write an article about it for the campus newspaper.

In the spirit of openness, I tipped off the leader, cutely referred to as the autarch, and since he didn’t say not to come, I assumed I was as welcome as I ever was.

Never assume.

I was greeted with the announcement that story reading “was, as usual, off the record” and due to “special circumstances” ten regulars deigned to miss that night’s story reading altogether (of course, midterms might have had something to do with that?) and these “special circumstances” were not in the spirit of story reading, making me feel like I had mistakenly entered the tomb of the secret society not a block away by mistake. The fear was that if the story broke, suddenly everyone on campus would want to come. “It’s not like I’m going to write when or where the meetings are!” I said.

“We just don’t want everyone to know about us. This is ours. It belongs to us!” one attendee moaned

“You were what? Booted out of story reading?” my editor said after laughing when I came back to the newsroom much earlier than expected.

“Without milk and cookies even,” I sighed.

I never did get another invitation.


(Artist of cartoon unknown)