Day 12-LA County Dept. of Health urges masking when indoors

Finished this book today…

7/10/21. Saturday.

9:30 – 10:00 - Awake, but I need “transition time” before I can get out of bed.

10:00 – 10:30 - I go downstairs to say good morning to the dog. She’s awake and waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, wagging her tail. I think she missed me while I was in San Diego. She rolls over on her back so I can rub her tummy three times, then grabs her toy and we go outside. The dog goes potty while I water my potted jasmine vines. Return inside: cheese for her, coffee for me. I go upstairs.

10:30-12:00 – Blog posts.

12:00-12:30 – I finish Assume Nothing.

Eric Schneiderman (white male), was the attorney general of New York state and made a name for himself championing women’s rights and trying to implement legislation protecting women from violence. In his personal life, Eric likes meditation; reading ‘Zen-master’ philosophy; searching for the ‘meaning of life’; and beating the shit out of women.

His favorite mode of attack involved ‘clocking’ his unsuspecting partners in the ear – he may have used a closed fist with some of his girlfriends – usually after the third date, although he also liked to slap and spit on women in general. To this day, one of his ex-girlfriends still has tinnitus and blood oozed out of yet another ex-girlfriend’s ear for months.  A favorite pastime involved humiliating his partners by criticizing various parts of their body, usually when he was shit-faced drunk and/or coked-up on Ambien.

Eric met Tanya Selvaratnam (black female), a writer and filmmaker, at some sort of Democratic fundraiser, and they started going out. Things were going swimmingly for the first month until Eric started referring to Tanya as his “brown slave” and his “property” and also insisted that she call him “Master” in the bedroom. To add even more spice to their love-making, Eric routinely slapped Tanya across the face, choked her to the point where she was almost unconscious, spat on her, and criticized her body, specifically the scars she received after she was cut open from “stem to stern” to remove TWO cancers in 2012: a thymoma and a gastrointestinal stromal tumor.  Yes, my friends, Tanya is a cancer survivor who beat the disease only to be afflicted with a worse cancer [Eric] four years later.   Tanya can’t seem to get a break.

Seriously, people, this guy is an absolute piece of shit. It’s always the same old story: the homophobic politician who drafts legislation against the gay community when he, himself, is gay. The priest, hiding behind his cloak of religion while he rapes alter boys and tells them he’s a conduit to God.  The governor who makes civil rights a cornerstone of his platform, but showed up to a party in black face, not once, but several times. Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh, who hired female clerks throughout his entire career in an effort to promote women in a male-dominated field, but was really just trying to atone for the attempted rape of Christine Blasey-Ford and other sexual assaults [“Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s [Ramirez] face!”] when he was black-out drunk in college.

At the time Tanya “and friends” [Eric’s previous female partners] outed this monster, Eric was railing against Harvey Weinstein and giving one press conference after another, calling Weinstein a sexual predator and decrying his treatment of women. What a hypocrite. As soon as Tanya and friends went public, Eric resigned within 3 hours and his career was ruined.   The most recent article I read said he had just completed a certificated meditation instructor program. Do you really think someone who routinely beat the shit out of women and competently serve as a meditation instructor?

Was it worth it, Eric? Did you enjoy punching women in the face so much that you were willing to sacrifice your career? What a disgusting pig.  This book is highly sourced with sobering statistics about domestic violence and “intimate partner violence” – the appendix provides an extensive list of resources for battered women. I highly recommend this book.

12:30-1:45 – I’m going to a college-graduation party for B.’s second cousin this afternoon so it’s time to get ready. Shower. Lotion. Maxi-dress [it’s a Hawaiian-themed party]. Full hair and make-up.

1:45-2:45 – L. gives me a ride to B.’s place. Once there, B. and I chill and wait for M. and her husband, L., to finish getting ready for the party.

2:45-4:00 – We leave for Phelan – B. drives.

Once we’re in the neighborhood, the roads are unpaved and two roads, spaced far apart from each other, actually share the same name.  We have to turn on one of them, but how to know which “White’s Avenue” is the right one? And why is it named “White’s?” When we are almost there, L. comments that, “This is the most godforsaken place I have ever seen” and starts whistling the song to Happy Trails.

We pull into the driveway and when I step out of the car, I encounter a windstorm.  My hair is immediately trashed and dirt is blown in my face and eyes.  The Hawaiian flower that M. is wearing is whipped out of her hair onto the ground, where it is quickly covered in dust.

4:00 – 7:30 – In Phelan, at the residence.

There are between 25 and 35 people here, crammed in a house with closed windows and no ventilation. There are also two sick children at the party – a lethargic baby who is lying on the carpet, next to his mother, along with his crying 4-year-old brother.  The parents stay for the next two hours before finally deciding it might be a good idea to actually leave. The Dad heads out, carrying his son and telling those around him, “We’ve gotta take off. He’s sick.”   Great.

 I desperately want to mask, but that would be rude and weird, especially since no one else is masking. It’s unclear if the people at this gathering are anti-vaxers…maybe they’ve all been vaccinated? Note: I will learn, much later, that none of these people are vaxxed, other than ONE couple. Even M. and L., I will later discover, are NOT vaxxed.

At 6:00, a caterer arrives and grills carnitas, peppers, and onions, outside on the driveway, for tapas. Rice and beans are included and the majority of the party goers eat in the garage.  The tapas are excellent!

Of interest, during the party, is that I discover B.’s entire family – except him – have abdicated their Catholic faith and converted to Christianity. Note: they don’t say it, but it also means everyone is anti-vax. This is actually quite shocking to me given the fact that B. frequently waxes nostalgic about his Catholic upbringing, the weekly catechism, the Catholic school he attended, the harsh nuns, his experience as an alter boy… However, when all is said and done, not one family member decided to ‘keep the faith.’ No one is Catholic anymore. 

7:30-9:00 – B. asks his cousin for coffee, but she has difficulty finding coffee AND the coffee pot as she doesn’t actually live at this house. When she finally does locate these items, it takes forever to make because the coffee pot appears to be on an antiquated drip system of sorts.  Eventually, J. produces a cup of coffee for B. When he finishes, we leave.

It’s dusk right now, but gets dark quickly.  There are no street lights of any kind to guide our way – I don’t know how B. does it, but he gets us back to the highway.  We use an abandoned train car – yes, there is an abandoned train car sitting in someone’s front yard in this neighborhood – as a marker for where to turn.

Driving.

Arrive at B.’s and M.&L. go inside.

9:00-9:30 – B. drives me home.

9:30-10:30 –Arrive and  I catch up with L., then start reading a new book - Widowish.

10:30-11:45 – I do an Insanity Plyo workout. I’m tired so am lagging pretty badly.

11:45-12:30 – Recover.  I have champagne and continue reading Widowish.

12:30-1:15 – Kitchen duty and I ready my coffee for tomorrow. Take the dog out. Set the alarm.

1:15-2:15 – Nighttime routine. Bed.