Day 36-BA5 takes the lead
Finished this book yesterday…
This memoir comes on the heels of the #MeToo movement. From the jump (pg 7) we learn that the author, Jeannie Vanasco, was sexually assaulted by her best friend when they were in high school. Here’s a quote: “[Mark] carries his drunk friend into a basement, takes off her clothes while she’s passed out, fingers her, masturbates over her while she cries, and tells her it’s just a dream.”
Oddly, approximately 14 years later, Jeannie decides to relive that night, how it evolved into a sexual assault, and why Mark did what he did. Unfortunately, this will involve asking Mark that question and the book tracks Jeannie’s progress as she proceeds to first locate Mark and then question him. But the book also tracks Chris, her partner’s (male) reaction to it, too, every step of the way. Surprisingly, Chris is okay with this experiment; no other partner other would be this accepting.
Before reaching out to Mark, Jeannie discovers that the FBI has changed the definition of rape to include “penetration with any body part or object.” Because Mark used his fingers, this assault can now be classified as a rape, when Jeannie has never thought of the assault as a rape. What’s more, under Ohio law, the statute of limitations for rape is 25 years which means, technically, Mark can still be prosecuted for this crime.
Jeannie starts small, with an email, and tells herself she will give Mark 10 days to respond either way. It’s incredible how this small act is parlayed into the next 50 pages and entitled Part I.
As Jeannie confronts her own inner demons, we slowly learn, over the course of the book, that some pretty bad shit has happened to her over the years:
1) a high school soccer player grabbed a hose and intentionally drenched Jeannie’s white T-shirt when both were in the backyard of a friend’s house;
2) the “school stoner” aimed a video-cam up her skirt, and recorded her thong underwear when she wasn’t looking. He then distributed copies of the video to numerous students;
3) From age 14-19, Jeannie, a freshman, dates a senior, at her high school, but is unable to extricate herself from the relationship, even though her boyfriend moves away to college while she’s still a sophomore. Whenever Jeannie tries to end the relationship, her boyfriend threatens to shoot himself;
4) Shockingly, this relationship is never consummated because Jeannie refuses to have sex with him. Her boyfriend believes Jeannie abstains due to her Catholic upbringing, but truthfully, she just doesn’t want to sleep with him. One night, her boyfriend, while driving, tries to convince Jeannie into having sex with him. When she again says no, he becomes enraged and threatens to kill them both, running first a Stop Sign, then a red light. She is terrified;
5) While all of the above is happening, Jeannie’s high school newspaper advisor will NOT stop asking her to come over to his apartment; he also fondles her. When he threatens to send negative “recommendation” letters to the colleges where she is applying, Jeannie quits the school paper and he begins stalking her. She files a police report and the detectives interview the suspect (teacher), then tell Jeannie she “may have misinterpreted his behavior”, all but accusing her of lying;
6) a second high school teacher then calls Jeannie into his empty classroom to ask for her opinion of a poem he wrote and closes the door. One of the lines in this dirty, sexual sonnet, is “my lips between your legs.” When the teacher asks for her opinion, Jeannie says she’s certain his wife will like the poem. “It’s not for her”, he replies.
It’s around this point in the book where I start wondering if this “pile on” is even true. It’s just sooo much. What is the name of this high school? By my calculations, Jeannie attended high school from 2004-2008. Why didn’t administrators do something about the near constant sexual harassment, assault, and stalking she endured? Also, where were her parents?
7) Jeannie’s Dad dies when she is 17;
8) and lets not forget the assault that occurred for which this memoir is written;
9) at age 25, Jeannie is raped in her apartment by an editor at a literary magazine where she works;
10) a few months later, the editor-rapist actually saves her life after Jeannie tries to overdose by “taking every pill in her apartment.” Apparently, he happened to call Jeannie just before she passed out and notes that she is slurring her words. He rushes to her apartment and drives her to a hospital in the nick of time;
11) one of Jeannie’s non-fiction students kills herself.
-Mark actually responds. Turns out, he’s a loser who’s done nothing with his life and runs a camera shop. He reads Jeannie’s email and agrees to a phone call.
Jeannie’s trepidation concerning the interview, the actual transcribed interview, and extensive dissecting of the conversation with Chris and her friends constitute Part II. Mark admits the rape and apologizes. Jeannie narrates more details of the events prior to the assault to catch the reader up to speed. It’s amazing the mileage she can get out of ONE phone conversation. This section is comprised of 71 pgs.
Part III is the second phone call (70 pgs).
Part IV comprises the recorded face-to-face meeting she has with Mark, at a restaurant.
I don’t want to minimize the book or come across sounding like an asshole, but the entirety of the book consists of two phone calls, a lunch, and the naval gazing that ensues over 292 pages. I’m sorry - I know this sounds calloused.
I’m on the fence about this one.
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7/27/22. Wednesday
7:00-8:00-My alarm goes off but I lie in bed for the next hour and listen to The Daily.
8:00-8:30-I finally get out of bed and take the dog outside. I stand around, waiting for her to go potty, then return inside. Cheese for her; coffee for me. I go upstairs. I’m at 95 pounds today.
8:30-9:30-I sit in the shower, ice my eyes, and drink my coffee. Lotion. I wear a spaghetti strap shirt with ruching and army-green shorts and I accessorize the outfit in accordance with my Garden Society Member currated closet project. I listen to What a Day.
9:30-10:00-Light make-up.
10:00-10:30-I have a few bites of an applesauce square then step outside to my backyard and sweep my patio and the red rock bed. I wheel the compost trash can back to the garage area.
10:45-2:00-B. arrives with coffee and donuts for “Patio Coffee” and we talk politics. It’s unclear why we’re even having patio coffee. Approximately 9 days before leaving for my Italy/Greece trip, B. picked a fight at his house because I dared to take an all-expense, paid vacation without him. After a silent car ride home, B. asked me, as we pulled up to my driveway, what I liked about him. I told B. that he was extremely reliable and that after coming off of a 7-year relationship with a bipolar nutcase, B.s reliability was huge. Of course, as soon as I told B. the personality trait I most admired about him, B. immediately became unreliable and abruptly stopped emailing and texting me.
In psych circles, this is called “withholding” and it’s a passive-aggressive form of retaliation couples use against each other. It works like this: “Oh? She thinks reliability is one of my greatest assets and likes that about me? Well, I’ll show her. From this point forward, I’m going to be as unreliable as possible because why would I do anything to make my partner happy when she’s such a bitch?”
After a week of no emails or texts from B., he emails me out of the blue [five days before I leave for my Italy/Greece vacation] to inform me that he is ridding himself of all possessions that I’ve left at his house over the past seven years of our relationship, which turns out to be exactly two items: 1) a hairdryer with a broken heating element, stored under the sink, in the spare, upstairs bathroom cabinet that he never uses; and 2) a half-used bottle of Aveeno facial wash (stored in the same place). It is unclear why discarding two items stored in an unused cabinet has reached this level of urgency, but so be it. B. offers to dump them on my doorstep before my vacation, but the heating element has long ceased to work in the hairdryer and I don’t care about the bottle of Aveeno. I tell him to throw both items away.
Two days before my trip to Italy/Greece, B. texts that he would like to stop by my house before I go on vacation. It is unclear why, especially since we haven’t spoken in weeks, but he does come over for a couple of hours and we talk politics in my office because the AC is broken and my study is the coolest room in the house. Nothing of consequence is discussed and I leave for my trip two days later. A couple of texts come in from B. the first day or two I’m on vacation, then nothing for the entirety of the trip.
Spoiler alert - B. will invite me to his house a few days after I return from my Italy/Greece vacation to see his new TV. It is there that I discover all photos of me have been removed and my picture is no longer the screensaver image on his computer. I’ve been completely erased.
2:00-4:00- B. leaves. L and I planned to go to Beach Spin Cycle tomorrow at 9:30, but when I try to purchase tickets, I see that most of the time slots were removed from their schedule; the 9:30 time slot is no longer available. I text L the bad news and resume my paper project, purging as much paper as I can from my 2-drawer filing cabinet.
I take a break and eat the last of L.s cheese-tomato dip and Nut Thins then purge all of my substitute teacher paperwork except for my original applications, and place them in the new file folder that I purchased at the Dollar Store the other day. I go through my A thru L files and purge extraneous documents. I also throw away stacks of Finals and Midterms - we don’t disseminate paper copies in class any more. Everything is on the Canvas platform.
4:00-5:00- I place an Amazon order: travel fans, mini aluminum spray bottles (Walmart canceled this order previously), 2 Ipad/IPhone chargers, travel size bottles of Clear Care contact solution that are way overpriced because they’re extremely hard to get, Riot Baby, the book, because I might go to the library-sponsored Books and Brews Bookclub in August.
One of my goals for this month is to try something different by eating at Eat Real Cafe and the new Thai restaurant in my area, Mom Can Cook. I’ve already eaten at Eat Real Cafe so I order four items from Mom Can Cook for takeout, never dreaming it will cost $58.
5:00-5:30-I leave to pick up the food and discover that Mom Can Cook is all the way across town. great.
5:30-6:00-I pick up the food, then stop off at CVS to buy Sensodyne because I’m out of toothpaste and I have a CVS coupon that will expire soon.
6:00-6:30 -Return home. L. leaves for dinner with her friend J. and Kira. They go to Kira’s house and she reads L.’s tarot cards.
6:30-8:00-I read Like a Mother and have egg rolls and pineapple rice for dinner. The food is good.
8:00-10:00- I write a summary of Day 1 of our Italy/Greece vacation, then read it aloud to L. to see if she has additional commentary.
10:30-2:30-I go to work. I log the Discussion Board participation entries and compile the grades for Online Class No. 1. I take Attendance then go through the gradebook concerning last week’s assignments and note who didn’t complete them, who scored low on the quizzes, and who didn’t take the Midterm. Then, I send a personalized email to approximately 30 students updating them as to their overall grade in the class and admonishing them if they scored low on the Video Quiz and/or the Midterm. I tell the students the last day to drop with a W is rapidly approaching.
I finish the Admin work for Online Class #1 and listen to episodes from 28ish all over again because I think I missed valuable information the first time around.
-I get started with the Discussion Board class participation scores for Online Class No. 2 and take attendance.
-I post tomorrow’s content for both classes.
-I look at a few news headlines then call it.
2:30-3:30-Nighttime routine. Bed. Since L. and I will NOT be going to Beach Spin Cycle, I get to sleep in.