Category: Everywhereist

I’ve been staring at my computer a lot. If I do manage to type something, I will usually delete or loathe it by the day’s end.

Writer’s block doesn’t really cover what I’m feeling, because it’s not really a block. A block implies something complete and impenetrable, and this isn’t. Someone recently said that writer’s fog is a better way of describing it. Just a cloud that you are stuck in, everything hazy and unclear. On a good day, I can make out a shape or two.

I will invariably hate the shapes I make out.

“Everything I write is trash,” I tell Rand with a sort of self-indulgent loathing that surprises both of us. I had always thought you had to be confident to be this insufferable.

“It’s not trash.”

“I’m not good at this.”

“Maybe take a break,” he says gently. And I wonder how one can take

I woke up this morning, our sixth week of sheltering-in-place, or maybe our seventh (I’ve lost count) and the days have started to run together in a way they never have before. I thought time only worked like that in memory. When I think of the summer after high school or Christmas breaks when I was small, the days are indistinct, all blurred together. They’re a longing feeling in my throat, a fuzzy photo at the bottom of a shoe box.

But that’s not how time is supposed to work in the present. In the present, days are distinct units of time, separated by the bold lines in our calendars, each one carrying a different obligation. There are weekdays and weekends, there are classes on some days, and workouts on others, a dinner with friends on a Thursday or a birthday party on a weekend that you don’t really want

Social isolation has sort of felt like a break-up – a sensation that, after nearly 20 years with my husband, returns to me like a hazy, rotten memory. “Oh, this,” I think, as I pull myself out of bed, forgetting what day it is, and mash an OREO into my maw. “I remember this. It sucks.”

I haven’t left the house in several days. I was taking walks around my neighborhood, dutifully watching my heart rate go up, lauding myself for being so responsible, even in these strange times, but I stopped. My enthusiasm for my own-well being waned. And besides, staying at home, staring blankly at my TV is good for my own well-being, I’m told. It’s good for everyone’s well-being. So I stopped walking. I was literally going nowhere, anyway – just circling the block until I started to memorize houses, like a conspicuous burglar. I had been occasionally

My city feels strangely still right now. I normally hear the sounds from the elementary school nearby, or people walking their dogs, the swish of cars driving by on the street. But it’s oddly quiet at the moment, the only sound the squawking from a few irritable crows whose life mission is to make sure I wake up at some ungodly hour and to interrupt any coherent thoughts I have during the day.

I live in Seattle, the epicenter of the U.S. Coronavirus outbreak. My town has, over the last week, folded in on itself, a slow-motion capture of an amoeba being poked, only with more panicked trips to Costco (I’m bad at analogies.)

Locally, Seattle Public Schools have been canceled for the next two weeks. Big employers are telling people to work from home. Restaurants are closing by the dozens – and Asian restaurants in particular are being brutally

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty today on some (but not all) of the charges brought against him by the state of New York. And I find this unbelievable, not because I believed in his innocence in any measure, but because I believe in the ability – as old as history and time itself – of powerful men to hurt women without consequence. When you’re so used to rape and assault going unchecked, even a partial meting out of justice feels surreal.

I’m angry that he wasn’t found guilty on all the charges.

And at the same time, I can’t believe he was found guilty at all.

As I try to process that news I find myself writing this post, which is, as ridiculous as it may sound, about meatballs. Jesus H. Christ. Meatballs. I don’t know what to do when reality borders parody. I suppose we just lean into it.

People are always surprised when I tell them Rand and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. I mean, we used to. But dear lord, it was always so, so much, and it always felt a little weird and uncomfortable and forced, even if it lead to some of my favorite photos, ever:

Our first Valentine’s Day together, in 2002, and my god we were babies. BABIES.

2003, back when little hearts would pop out of his head whenever I kissed him and thank god he saw the doctor for that.

February 14, 2020

Every now and then I get a well-meaning email or Facebook message from a reader.

I’ve noticed, they will write, and I can practically feel the gentle trepidation as they do so, that you seem to have fallen off the planet and are living the life of a hermit. 

And not even a *good* hermit? Like, you are still tweeting and getting angry about things on social media. You are still spending time on your computer (at this point, I imagine them shaking a stack of papers on which they have, rather interestingly, printed out my tweets and instagram posts, evidence of my digital procrastination) but it is not productive time, Geraldine. And so I was just wondering what became of you, and if you are okay, and if you’ve like, showered today.

Hello. I’m fine. I’m just trying to get my shit together, and also my mom’s shit together (after her house

It’s funny, the things that finally set you off.

Like, I’ve always presumed that I was a relatively hinged person, but here I am, utterly unhinged. For some of you, this will be unsurprising. Some of you will be thinking, “Geraldine, YOU WERE NEVER HINGED. YOU HAVE FEWER HINGES THAN A SLIDING DOOR.” And I hear you, friends. I understand that I am very good at giving the impression of being *waves hands around in a fluttering fashion to suggest madness* but that is just theatrics. For the most part, in my everyday life, I am calm! And reasonable! And I do not cry while watching movie trailers!

I handle all sorts of things without turning into a fire hydrant of feelings. Death threats in my Twitter feed? No problem! Weird health issues that result in my menstrual cycle seeming resembling a risque, one-woman staging of Carrie? Fine! (Also, someone

Keep reading this article on Everywhereist.

(TW: this post discusses online abuse and includes screencaps and discussion of graphic, misogynistic, homophobic, and generally just horrifying language.)

I’ve been studying online harassment for a while now. I find myself a case study more often than I would like, and when I present on the topic, my slides are often screencaps of abusive Twitter replies that I’ve received. (My tweets get a lot of visibility, which is helpful for me as a writer and problematic for me as someone who doesn’t enjoy death threats.)

Tweets like these are in no short supply, and I realize that I’m hardly unique in this respect. Most women I know get comments similar to mine or far, far worse. On the spectrum of harassment, I’d put myself firmly middle of the pack. I’ve been told that I deserve to be raped, to be murdered, to have my body dumped where no

Keep reading this article on Everywhereist.

My husband turned 40 at the beginning of July. I wanted a Bacchanalian celebration, cake and lights and streamers and swarms of people, forgetting entirely that this milestone wasn’t about me. The realization would hit me eventually, before too much planning had occurred: he didn’t want a big to-do. Nor did he want, he insisted, anything in particular for his birthday – his wishlist was entirely blank.

I nodded, but had been planning a gift for him anyway – something unexpected and fun, but not so expensive or over-the-top that I couldn’t squeeze something else in should he suddenly decide (as he occasionally did) that there was something he wanted. Predictably, a few days before his birthday, he excitedly told me he’d figured out what I could get him for a present.

“For my fortieth birthday,” he said, with a slight dramatic pause, “I would like you to give away

Keep reading this article on Everywhereist.