. . . and will be offline until April 1 or so.

Hopefully I will have a surprise for you all when I return.

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The issue of drug testing welfare recipients has once again come to the forefront. Rep. Stephen Fincher of Tennessee has reintroduced legislation that would randomly test recipients of TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) to ensure that poor parents aren’t sniffing, smoking, or shooting up in-between diaper changes. Never mind that a similar law in Florida was a money-wasting bust, and later struck down by the Court of Appeals — which viewed it as a violation of the Fourth Amendment — Republicans like Fincher continue to beat the “poor people are ripping us off” drum. Never mind, too, the trillions of tax dollars spent or guaranteed by the government (last estimated at $12.8T in 2010 by Bloomberg News) rescuing an economy that was thrown into turmoil by bad banking practices. No politician who depends on corporate contributions is going to suggest drug testing the CEO’s of corporations receiving even the most massive bailouts.

However, the US government does test many employees, from prison guards to postal workers. Many government occupations, including those that are low-level, also require a personality assessment or psychological testing. Military recruits undergo a battery of tests, covering not only drug use, but basic intelligence, logic skills, and mental fitness.

Why then aren’t congressional candidates — those who wield power in the highest offices of the land and who are responsible for making decisions that affect millions of people — put under the same scrutiny?

This isn’t purely a reactionary question, and I don’t mean it to be taken as a snarky retort to policies like those Fincher has proposed. I am genuinely curious why we don’t test political leaders.

If we consider it vital to weed out prison guards with anger issues, or Navy cadets who can’t make logical connections, then why would we not apply even more stringent criteria and testing to those who are deciding America’s most important issues? A potentially incompetent mail carrier may affect the sanctity of mail in their neighborhood, but an incompetent, illogical, or otherwise unfit member of Congress can damage an entire nation. These leaders have a direct and lasting affect on the economy, social policies, global relations, and the national defense — yet they are not even subject to the same basic tests given to the greenest of military recruits.

The argument that no one Congress person could affect the government on his or her own is fallacious. The list of federal politicians indicted for their crimes is long, and in many cases, point to a corruptive effect (e.g. Abramoff, Delay, Libby) that has rippled through the political system. And these are only the leaders who’ve pled guilty and/or been convicted — and too often it’s been political spite rather than a genuine attachment to justice that has fueled the investigations.

During the last Presidential election, I attempted to keep track of some of the craziness of elected leaders. The task proved overwhelming for someone with limited time to spare. If you read the news at all, you know we’ve got representatives who are seemingly incapable of logic — who believe that climate change is a left-wing invention, women can’t get pregnant from rape, and that affordable health care is a socialist plot. We’ve got a crumbling economy and record number of people living in poverty, and politicians who would rather attack the largely mythical “Welfare Queen” than the obvious and far more costly problems of jobs, unemployment, wages, and the cost of living. We’ve got mass shootings, struggling Veterans, and a flailing education system — and too many representatives who are more interested in transvaginal ultrasounds and birth control.

It’s maddening because it is crazy. There’s nothing normal about discussing the consistency of scrambled eggs while standing in the path of an imminent storm. There’s no logic or proven benefit (other than to medical companies) in drug-testing TANF recipients — whose benefits are already worth less than they were in 1996  – especially when such tests aren’t considered for those who wield so much more influence and who receive a much larger slice of the taxpayer pie. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in 14 states, monthly benefit levels are less than $300 for a family of three. Nationally, the median payment is $428. The 2013 salary of rank-and-file members of Congress is $174,000 along with full health and retirements benefits, and many might reasonably argue that some Senators and House members view their offices as part-time jobs.

As CNN pointed out last June, even before our present state of stagnation, the current Congress has also been incredibly unproductive. Who’s taking advantage of whom?  Who’s the bigger threat to the national economy — the unemployed parent of two receiving $300 a month, or the well-paid Senators who would rather imperil our nation than agree to a bipartisan budget plan?

America is in dire need of a clear-headed Congress that’s intelligent, logical, and able to be productive. For that reason, I think every member should undergo at least the same drug and psych tests we demand of our military recruits.

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When the CEO of Yahoo and one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Marissa Mayer, mentioned that her baby was “easy,” the internet erupted with cries of  unfair advantage. A new “Mommy war” was launched (and god, I despise that term, but I despise even more that it has reason to exist). It wasn’t the ease of Mayer’s infant son that caused so many women to take offense, it was that Mayer didn’t qualify the statement with her rather long list of advantages. She didn’t apologize for having a successful career, money, household help, or a network of support. She didn’t explain in her next breath how rare her position is, or acknowledge the millions of other mothers who don’t “have it all.” Lisa Belkin of the Huffington Post was one of several writers taking Mayer to task, in her open letter “Dear Marissa Mayer, Please Stop Saying Your Baby Is Easy.”

Putting “baby” and “easy” in the same sentence turns you into one of those mothers we don’t like very much. When you do, it makes us feel (more) inadequate; starts us wondering (again) what we are doing wrong.

Yes, we understand that this is partly our fault. You didn’t ask us to watch your every move. You never declared yourself the standard in working mommydom….It’s just that we don’t have a lot of other pregnant Fortune 500 superstars to look to, so we held you up as a role model and now we worry that you’re modeling the wrong thing. [Emphasis mine.]

My thoughts when I read Belkin’s article were the same ones I’ve had for years: Why shouldn’t women be allowed to tell their own stories? How does it diminish my experiences, or anyone else’s, if stories like Mayer’s are different than mine? After all, Mayer wasn’t making the case that her “easy” baby or financially comfortable lifestyle was the norm. She wasn’t telling other women that they were doing something wrong or, in fact, judging other women at all. Instead, Mayer’s one casual aside about her baby’s easygoing nature was turned against her as if she, by virtue of being a public figure, had the obligation to tell ALL the stories of class and motherhood, and not just her own.

The same kind of defensive pile-up also seems to occur whenever celebrity mothers give interviews and fail to mention how lucky they are, or how much more of a struggle it must be for less fortunate others. God forbid, they should lay claim to any of the parental stresses that other mothers know.  ”Oh, you’re tired? Well, try raising three kids on your own, on an income of peanuts, with a broken down car, and a husband who’s never home.”

Today, it’s Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook, who’s stirring up the promise of a “Mommy war” on the horizon. Her latest endeavor, which the New York Time’s describes as a “book-slash-manifesto on women in the workplace,” and which is scheduled to be release on March 11, is already creating controversy and hard feelings. (And let’s just acknowledge that men have written many, many varied tomes on work and success without nearly this amount of animus.) Who does his rarified creature think she is giving advice to other women? Who can relate to her? What does someone with two Harvard degrees and enough money to feed a small nation know about real life, or the issues of real women?

But isn’t it all real? In a society that promotes individualism and diversity, shouldn’t the life stories and perspectives of women like Mayers and Sandberg be given equal space alongside _________ . . .

Oh, wait.

Maybe that’s the problem.

Outside of (often dreary) news articles, blogs, and self-published books, the stories of other women and their life experiences aren’t really given their due. The woman with the broken down car, raising three kids on an inadequate income, isn’t perceived as someone who has a valuable or inspiring story to tell. CBS News and The Today Show aren’t knocking on the doors of sleep-deprived mothers with chronically sore nipples and a two-digit bank balance. Oprah’s team isn’t calling disenfranchised women offering to slap a coveted gold label on their self-published books about real life. The New York Times isn’t offering a weekly column to that lower income mom-blogger without an advanced degree who speaks to thousands of other “normal” lives.

That’s the reality, and if there’s a fault in that — and it would appear that many, many women believe there is — then who does it belong to?

We can complain about the cultural and media bias toward those who are more well-off, and the expansive marketing machine that is at their disposal, but the more pointed truth is that our activism for other women — for the stories left untold, for the experiences that aren’t rags-to-riches, for the lessons that aren’t easily digestible — has waned considerably since the halcyon days of the 60s and 70s, when so many resounding, outlier female voices came to the forefront to spark raw, truthful conversations.

There’s been a wave of compassion fatigue since then: Waves of anti-feminism, anti-hard truths, anti-real life sentiments that have washed over the shores of our once inclusive ideals. Women who speak their truths on hard subjects (like motherhood, like race, like politics, like rape) are often ridiculed as sob sisters — their stories lost amidst accusations of bitterness, blame-games, or a “negative” attitude. The new incarnation of determinism and positive-thinking has morphed into a stringent demand that women, in particular, wear blinders when it comes to influences outside of their own lives. They are to look inwards for all the answers (Why am I not succeeding? I must not be trying hard enough, or want to badly enough). They are to be uncomplaining (regardless of circumstance), and wholly inspirational.

This, of course, leaves a deep and often hurtful vacuum in the realm of women’s stories. It also leaves women like Mayers and Sandberg to unfairly take the heat for not using their substantial platforms to speak to experiences that are completely outside of their scope. I don’t believe they have that obligation, and that it would be totally disingenuous for them to try. I believe that their stories have value simply because they are theirs — and they are real, even if they are a hundred degrees removed from my own.

The task of filling the vacuum doesn’t belong to CBS News, The Today Show, Oprah, or the New York Times, but to those who care that such a vacuum exists. It belongs to me, not only in what I write, but also what I choose to read, engage in, and promote to others.  Instead of jumping on the kind of useless bandwagon that attacks women like Mayers and Sandberg for telling their stories, why wouldn’t I promote the poetry of Amy Turn Sharp or the moving posts of Maggie May Ethridge?  It wasn’t the mainstream media, but thousands of everyday people on the internet, along with her own comedic talent, that catapulted my one-of-a-kind friend The Bloggess, Jenny Lawson, from obscurity to the New York Time’s bestseller list. Why not add my voice to the choirs of those who are talented, whose words move me, but who aren’t yet popular? Who knows? With enough support, they might be able to build a larger platform and find an audience the size of Mayer’s or Sandberg’s. With enough support, I might be able to do the same. Finally, instead of expending so much energy reacting to stories that I don’t find relatable, what if I promote the stories of women I do relate to, or just tell my own?

We could fill the vacuum. There’s no pie in this equation, and no limit to the number of stories we can tell, read, or share. There is room for Mayer, Sandberg, and women on every part of the spectrum. The question is whether we become an active part of the marketing machine, or whether we let the mainstream media alone determine what gets through.

Psst….

Elephant Girl: A Human Story is on sale for $4.99 this month on Amazon.

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When I left my prior life, I didn’t just leave a state, a job, or three-decade’s worth of accumulated belongings. I left behind the notion that any of it was necessary. I left behind several entrenched ideas, including that work had to be hard; that material possessions signified self-worth; and that security could only be chased through nine-hour days, five days a week.

I left behind nearly everything that I’d ever learned about work — from listening to my parents discussing their mostly miserable days at the kitchen table, to the prettier, but ultimately empty (for me) promises of the American Dream.

At 46, I got off the wheel that I’d been on since I started working full-time at age 13, and I haven’t really looked back, but I don’t want to make it sound easy. It hasn’t been, and it’s not. But has it been worth it? Emphatically, yes.

The other day, an acquaintance told me I was lucky for not “having to” work full-time to pay the rent. “Must be nice,” she added sarcastically. She was surprised when I told her that she could do the exact same thing. Of course, she’d have to give up her suburban home, full cupboards, and car payment. There could be no more weekly trips to Target, fine dining, big holidays, or Coach purses.

Those sacrifices were unthinkable for my acquaintance, so obviously dropping out of the rat race could never be a real consideration for her like it was for me.

Charles Bukowski was 49 when he left the post office to pursue his writing. At the time, he said, “I have one of two choices – stay in the post office and go crazy…or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve.” Bukowski wasn’t quite as alone or as destitute as his words would indicate — he had a publisher and financial supporter in John Martin and Black Sparrow Press when he left the USPS — but the sentiment was one I related to wholeheartedly.

I began to ask myself the right questions; the ones that ensured an end to the wheel. Was I willing to starve? Yes. Was I willing to forego certain comforts and the security of even a slight paycheck? Yes. Was I willing to give up nearly everything I had to pursue my dreams, and work on becoming the best writer I could be? YES.

When there were more yes’s than no’s (funny how those answers just fell in line when my heart knew what it wanted), I gave myself permission to leave an unsatisfactory life. To fail, to fall down, to suffer — but at the same time, to strive, to break through barriers, and to do things that I had never done before.

Bukowski died at 73. His last 24 years — about a third of his life — were spent on his own terms, doing exactly what he loved. He suffered in the beginning, but left the world as a success story, and with a lasting legacy. I don’t know if I’ll ultimately be as triumphant or prolific, but I do know that Bukowski was right. It’s far better for a body to starve than for a soul to go crazy.

What would you go hungry for? What would you do if you decided money was no object?

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The first time it happened, I was sitting in an empty Starbucks parking lot on a dark and chilly April night in 2011. I was exhausted, exhilarated, and teary-eyed, but there was no one in real-life or real-time to tell. Everything was closed except for the Circle K across the street. I dashed off a couple of short emails and then went to the convenience store. I just wanted someone, somewhere to celebrate with me.

The line at Circle K included one late night partier, one Denny’s employee, and me. By the time I made it up to the line with a cup of terrible coffee I didn’t need, I realized how stupid I was being. The cashier — a blurry-eyed teen sporting a downy mustache — had no reason to care about my book. I told him anyway.

He nodded like a bartender who had become accustomed to spontaneous confessions. “Cool,” he said, as he counted out my change. I fought the urge to burst myself open against the counter — to spill everything I’d been holding in for the eight months of intense focus it took to finish that 668 page first draft.

There was so much I wanted to say, but I never said it, not to the cashier and not to anyone. Instead, the blinders I’d worn for 3/4′s of a year came off, and there was Everyday Life, right where I’d left it, with all of its distractions, grievances, and pressing business. It felt familiar in the worst way, like a rip current that I’d almost drowned in once. I didn’t want that life: I didn’t want that level of painfully acute awareness over things both petty and unchangeable. I didn’t want to start noticing that the morning barista wore red socks, or that someone lied, or that someone else told the truth. I didn’t want to care that the only woman I ever loved was already making life plans with someone else. I just wanted to wish the rip currents away.

I buried myself in editing for a few months. I went through the ups and downs of an almost-agent and almost-book deal, and then self-published Elephant Girl with the help of several friends. After that, there were so many other close calls (book deals, a movie query, magazine articles) that I lost count, but it didn’t really matter. I was depleted. I started three different books and had no interest in finishing any of them. I was offered a lucrative ghostwriting deal and almost took it, but then worried that if I couldn’t write my own story, I wouldn’t be able to write someone else’s.

I moved to Arizona for no reason in particular, other than it was a short drive. I moved into the cheapest apartment I could find. I took on a part-time job, got a dog, and tried to start writing again, but hadn’t yet really dealt with my broken heart or all the feelings I’d kept bottled up while in New Mexico. I knew I’d have to work on myself before I could find another pair of blinders.

I went to work for Rosie O’Donnell after a spontaneous offer. I was never a “fan” of Rosie’s in the traditional sense, but there was something about her that felt sisterly and familial. I thought it would be an interesting experience, but it was just strange. I arrived in Chicago just as everyone was getting fired and the show was tanking. The level of anyone actually caring was less than zero. It was like there was this big, beautiful banquet just laid out, but everyone decided they’d rather brown-bag it and eat alone. That kind of wastefulness was hard for me to comprehend. For three weeks, I sat in a cube, feeling like Milton from the movie “The Office,” contributing pitches through email to people who never responded. It was a relief to go home, but it was also sad, just like anything gone to waste.

The lesson I took away from Chicago was that opportunities shouldn’t be squandered, but I soon turned into a hypocrite. I had months of free time to write something solid, but I didn’t. Even after moving into a quieter, more private space, I found myself tongue-tied. I knew what I wanted to say — I knew what my message was — but I couldn’t find a way to say it that was fit for distribution. The voices of antagonists resounded in my head, while messages of support filled me with anxiety. This book’s got to be better, happier, more linear than the last.

I berated myself over wasted time and words. I forced myself to push ahead in the name of discipline. I became a hermit, and moved in and out of depression. I wrote, rewrote, and then threw away eight chapters before starting all over again.

And tonight, finally, I finished Hunger Like Love. The last sentence was a quiet and lonely moment. There were no blinders on for this book. HLL is simple and plain and heart-felt, but not heart-ripping. Like any book, there will be people who love it and people who hate it. There will be people I’ll want to read it who won’t —  and people who shouldn’t read it at all, but will only so they can tear it down. I’m much more pragmatic this time. Not necessarily tougher, but less naive.

I didn’t feel the need to share my news with the barista at Starbucks when he opened up shop at 5:00 this morning. I didn’t feel exhilarated and I didn’t get teary-eyed. I didn’t write emails, or start ginning up my future hopes. Instead, I considered the breakfast special at Frankie’s and then decided that coffee was enough.

I came home to my tiny cottage and considered the past year and a half. I have fought for (and with) this book, but mostly I have fought myself. Some people call them demons — the fears and realities of rejection, high anxiety, loneliness, a paralyzing sense of not being good enough — but they’re not demons at all. Demons are fictional, and all of these things are real. They’re as real as any obstacle, and sometimes they can’t just be pushed away or climbed over. Sometimes, they just have to co-exist — not as a priority or an enemy — but as part of life.

Erica Jong once said, “I have accepted fear as a part of life — specifically the fear of change. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.”  And that’s exactly what I’ve had to do, not only with fear, not only with change, but with everything else.

Knowing that I finished this book is enough for today. I’m going to take some time off to clear my head before I start the process of editing, formatting, book cover design, and all the rest. I might even take my demons — and my dog — out of this tiny cottage and into the Sabino Canyons for a leisurely, sunlit stroll.

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Whether the matter is social, political, or interpersonal, many arguments between fair-minded rational people and their meaner irrational counterparts goes something like this: Person A says something outrageous and/or patently false, such as “bullying is a problem made up by bleeding hearts to weaken our kids.” Person B rebuts their statement with sound logic and/or actual proof. Person A then claims that they are being bullied by Person B.

“See what a hypocrite you are?” Person A claims gleefully. “For all your talk of being tolerant and accepting, you aren’t tolerant of my beliefs or accepting of me.” By the standards of an imbalanced mind, it’s a “gotcha” — irrefutable evidence that behind any reasonable argument that’s contrary to their unfounded beliefs lurks a mind that’s as fishy, intractable, and unkind as their own.

Irrational people take simple concepts, like tolerance and respect for diversity, and stretch them in convoluted ways. Surely, if we call for acceptance of gays, then we have to accept organizations dedicated to hating them. If we stand for inclusion of minorities, then minorities must include white supremacists. If we promote religious freedom, then we must embrace those who use religion as a battering ram against others. If we hold truth as an ideal, then we must accommodate differing definitions of “truth” — as if facts are a malleable entity that really belongs in quotation marks.

What irrational people fail to understand is that the crux of progressive social concepts — like inclusion, like diversity, like tolerance — has never been about lowering the bar of evolutionary ideals, but about raising them. Progression is the rational response to regression — not its companion, and certainly not its protector. Progression sees a bloody past as reason to aim for peace in the future. It sees the vast human potential wasted by inequality as a logical reason to aim for a more level playing field. It sees how much needless pain and suffering is caused by ignorance, and champions well-reasoned, intelligent solutions.

The key words here: Reason, logic, intelligence. Those who hold progressive values do not owe those who consistently act against these ideals accommodations under their rational, humanistic umbrella. They have no philosophical obligation to respect the diversity of, or to tolerate the outrages of, bullies, racists, homophobes, rape-baiters, religious extremists, or the violent-minded. It is not hypocritical for a progressive to exclude regressive ideas and actions from their circle of tolerance, any more than it is hypocritical to denounce ignorance while advocating for education.

***

Footnote: today’s post was brought on by this bit of stupefying insanity :

Person A: Well, I think under this government anything is possible.
Person B: You are kidding, right?
Person A: You liberals are the ones that are supposed to be so open-minded, but you won’t even consider it. So much for being fair!

And then this (h/t to Kristen Howerton):

Banging my head against my desk twice in one day isn’t even close to a record, but some days it’s just too much.

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