"She’s Feral On Purpose." 😂

In which I set the Patriarchy's dick on fire, tell Janet Yellen she's a Chaos Muppet & stan an epic Trad Wife... All while Jeffrey Epstein wanders into my next book! Yikes!

Credit: Inspired by author and collaborative matriarch, Stephanie Greene. If you don’t know Greene’s work, you should because she is marvelous-profound.

Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you?

I’ve been better. Thanks for asking. A therapist recently inquired if I wanted to heal my inner child. He was so naïve and well-intentioned. I almost felt bad for him.

“Are you kidding?” I scoffed, “I don’t want to heal my inner child. I want to give her a gigantic sword from Game of Thrones to lop off the dick of the Patriarchy. Have you not been listening this whole time?”

In between the reports of devastation, I have been reading The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. The lush fluidity of Groff’s language is so seductive and jarring all at once because the circumstances the young character finds herself in are harrowing, to say the least.

And it stirs the deep pot of my own childhood, running through the night woods at age four, the pads of my tiny toes flying over the only paved road that existed in those northern woods during the 1970s, my feet barely touching the ground as I gazelled fast and light away from that strange, silent house where I’d awoken. But unlike the girl in Groff’s novel, I fled into the black unknown, in search of home, and, even though small, I was not afraid, I knew the way back, and I did not pray to any god. I was on a mission. She’s feral on purpose.

Reading the Times profile on how Groff writes reminded me a bit of how I am evolving toward working. Groff writes the whole novel out in longhand in a notebook and then puts it away in a banker’s box. Then, she begins again, from scratch, without looking at it. This is her way of imprinting. I picture the story almost tattooing itself upon her mind in bloody needling detail. Or, maybe it’s more like a woven, multilayered tapestry she’s crafting until the thing you hold in your hands is this thick, rich fabric of words, narratives, and interwoven visions that you can see the stitching in such detail, that you can feel, like the ice of the river’s water on the character skin as if on your own. It's really quite a feat to co-create such intimacy with the reader, to have such vivid telepathy with them moment by moment. It is one of the most artfully disobedient, transgressive things I can think of... to break the boundaries of the plain page.

I find her method positively monk-like and near-impossible, but not entirely dissimilar from the fever dream I feel when I get going on a story I cannot stop.

Recently, a new book has fallen into my lap that has drawn me away from the leafy October rom-com I should be working on—one that is much darker in its revelries. One so sinister, but so hypnotic in its layers upon layers of crazy-rich people behaving beyond badly that I practically fever out the words onto the page as if in a trance. The thing is, I will probably get in a shit-ton of trouble for writing this book, even though it’s fiction, but I just have to… I keep uncovering too many injustices in the backstory. I thoroughly believe the betterment of civilization depends upon disobedience and this book is my inner child’s giant Game of Thrones sword. She’s feral on purpose.

Anyway, let’s distract ourselves with some doofuses, it shouldn’t be too difficult…

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Doofus(es) of the Week

Now, for our regularly scheduled segment! This week is potent…

Doofus #1: The Men in my life (not including my brother who has been remarkably sensible lately). What are you EVEN for? It has been a hellishly difficult few weeks post-Covid, and it really doesn't help when your close family and friends project all these Dickensian narratives upon you—as if they are actually rooting for you to morph into Oliver-F*cking-Twist and be humbled in some profound way that is going to teach you to finally stop being so ‘uppity’—and you look at them and say, “I'm a grown-ass woman in my 50s who has been repeatedly humbled over a lifetime by ex-husbands, lawyers, teenagers, and studio executives. I don't need any more of these narratives, so I heartily reject them.” And they say, it’s only “tough love for your own good.” And I'm like, “My own good? My OWN GOOD? I don’t need your tough love, I needed your compassion and help when I was ill, so kindly f*ck all the way off to the nearest black hole and be torn into subatomic particles. You can bake your own bland-ass pumpkin pies this Thanksgiving.”

I’ll be serving Teodora et al. a sage-butter-brined turkey stuffed with crusty French baguette, pears, pancetta, and chestnuts, accompanied by maple-bourbon-glazed yams, pearl onions in sweet vermouth, Madeira gravy for the golden, truffle smashed potatoes, Waldorf salad, and pumpkin pie with pralines baked into the crust, topped with a rum-spiked whipped cream along with a southern chocolate chess pie for those who are sick of pumpkin-y things and a pear-gruyere pie for those in need of fruit. And for once, we’ll have some goddamn flavor. She’s feral with food on purpose.

We’d rather cook with dead Charles Grodin than with you! It’s MORE delicious,

Doofus #2: The Alabama Public Library System. Yes, a public library system in Alabama actually flagged a children’s book as potentially ‘sexually explicit; because the author’s last name is ‘Gay.’ Now, in the current climate, it seems like every day is Banned Books Week, but this one really takes the cake. You have to wonder, are we reifying this institution of banning books by even celebrating Banned Books Week? Are we making a fetish of being banned? I.e., “Wee, look at me, I’m banned!?”

And while we have a government intent on banning our books, at the same time they have their AI firms stealing them. If that’s not enough irony to choke on, I don’t know what is.

Doofus #3: PolyAI and this job, sent to me from LinkedIn this very morning. No benefits. Shitty salary. Training their AI to render writers obsolete.

OK, I’m not out of doofuses, but I have such a good marvel, I can’t wait to show you…

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That’s Marvelous!

A new-ish segment luxuriating in the good things.

From author Sara Petersen, of In Pursuit of Clean Countertops, an incredible Trad Wife troll, one only hopes. Meet Alexia Delarosa “who is clearly making deliberate decisions about her maternal performance…” She’s Tracy Flick-ing the HELL out of trolling if that’s what this is. And I want to believe that it is… because A) I love costumes B) I SO dig therapy baking and C) I would LOVE to troll the HELL out of the Christian Alt. Right in this lovely, craven, subversive way…

But it gets even better…

She even tricked two Daily Fail reporters into a feature… reportedly.

So devilish. How is this not taunting? IS SHE FERAL ON PURPOSE?

Imagine becoming this type of Trad Wife right after your husband divorced you… how much it would gnaw at him, lol. All dudes are cavemen at heart. Talk about the Passive Aggressive Hall of Fame… She might just win.

Caveat: a number of folks are trying to interview her and if it turns out she is sincere, it will be a strange, sadly missed opportunity, but we’ve seen it all at this point. For the moment, it’s still marvelous.

I almost want to go as her for Halloween except I worry that Americans are too stupid. Plus, I have this dream of recreating a Rear Window costume that elaborately displays Grace Kelly against the New York City tableau and I want to do it with the fab dress and a collage of photography just as Hitchcock directed.

Still, it's going to be tricky to get through doorways wearing a makeshift window on my back, one most likely made of poster board. I'll have to walk sideways everywhere, lol… Grapevining my way through the Halloween ball. Hmm…

Another marvelous thing…

My presidents! Oh, and f*ck off Janet Yellen, you miserable chaos muppet—wanting to make people’s jobs less secure to improve the economy??? You need to go back to B-School (Taylor’s Version) because generously rewarding your employees for doing an exceptional job is what actually improves the economy, dummy.

Final marvelous thing…

Stephanie Greene’s amazing original piece, She’s Feral on Purpose, on the price women pay for being “good” ran a few weeks ago and can be found here:

She's Feral On Purpose

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Meanwhile, as a person who’s penned many a Hallmark moment, I feel beholden to share this hilarity with you before we part. It’s just so of the moment…

@dolessdadMom and Dad fighting about current events

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Don’t you just love the dad’s outrage? And the wig??? Stay rad, Lovelies, and know that I’m thinking of you always – xoxo, gotham girl

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