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It’s time to hit pause on those endless, self-important male monologues. Give women the microphone, the spotlight, the punchline, and the last laugh.

I hadn’t slept well for days, my nights punctured with worry. I was up and down, in front of my computer, trying to find out as much as I could about these men — our neighbors, men who live among us and who think nothing of hurting the women in our community. It was high noon in the Wild West. Time to draw our guns.

The same issues and problems we’d been having in town resonated through the national news every night, the din building to unbearable levels. It did feel like end times; JD Vance was right. End times that he and the people in his circle created. 100%. Those fuckers.

We’d been taking turns staying with Isabelle. She really couldn’t be alone, both for logistical reasons related to her having difficulty moving, and because she was getting seriously depressed. Laura brought over an emotional support kitty, one of the six currently living in her household — Billy Jean King. Billy loved her new digs, and the garage really needed a mouser, so there we were. A match made in heaven. Kitty could put away a couple of mice a day, and would then spend the afternoon cashed out, digesting her feast in the warm spot behind Isabelle’s knees. All that purring and biscuiting had to be doing her a little bit of good.

That fucking Logan Hill Courier ran the item on page three of the Thursday paper, below a piece about the county’s demolition of a vacant middle school on the east side — Isabelle’s former school. Hard to believe it would soon be turned into vineyards, like we needed any more of those. And above the news brief was a half-page ad for Blink’s Market. A weekend sale on avocados, sweet corn, and stone fruit. No thank you, we’ll pick those up somewhere else.

Local Man Hurt in Accident on North Route 12

Caden Galt, 25, of Logan Hill, was treated and released at Regional Hospital South on Tuesday following a single-car accident on County Road 12 near the utility easement north of Miller Road. Galt, a Logan Hill High School valedictorian and owner of Galt Landscaping, sustained minor lacerations and is recovering at home, according to family. The female driver was also treated for injuries. The cause of the accident remains under investigation. Galt posted on IG Wednesday: “Grateful to be here, recovering with family. Thanks for your messages of love and support.”

The female “passenger.” WTF.

I had to read this three times. Then I closed my laptop, went into the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee, and stood at the window looking out into the backyard. The birds were still doing their thing, my bees were working their asses off, and though my veggie garden looked like shit, which it always does as we head into fall, it was still pumping out copious amounts of food. I conducted a long, private internal monologue that I will not reproduce here in full since it was profanity-laden. The gist of it was this: There is no fucking way these fuckers get to do this fucking shit. Yes, I did tone that down.

By Thursday afternoon, the Nextdoor app was doing what the Nextdoor app does, turning incomplete information into a community narrative not akin to compost made with dog shit, i.e., something you can’t put in your veggie garden unless you’re okay with E. coli, Salmonella, and parasites like roundworms. It was toxic.

This game of “telephone,” played by about five hundred of my neighbors, started with Prayers for Caden!! By the time I came across the post, it had forty-one comments. The first twenty or so were warm wishes and prayer emojis. All to Caden, of course. Then someone, whose profile described them as the deacon’s wife, mentioned that Caden had been driving a young woman around — someone who had troubles. And wasn’t it sad how other people’s issues and their refusal to take responsibility for their own problems put innocent people in danger? She went on: “Caden was a gem for not speaking out publicly about this young woman. We should keep her in our thoughts,” she said. “Hopefully this was a lesson learned.”

Can I throw up?

Forty-one comments. The female “passenger.” A young woman with troubles. Caden doing the right thing. This was way more than I could stomach.

I forwarded the thread to Diana.

Here is what I gleaned from the accident report, which was based on what Isabelle had conveyed to me and the police as she lay in the ER. She had been driving; the crash was being attributed to driver error. There was one passenger, Caden Galt, who had been in the passenger seat, and he sustained minor injuries. There was no mention of Caden forcing his way into that car at the Miller and Fourth intersection. No mention of his having ascertained Isabelle’s whereabouts through tracking devices supplied to him by The Brotherhood. Fault for the accident was 100% on Isabelle. Yes, this was her own doing. She confirmed this to the officers without reservation. This was her story, and she was sticking to it, taking full responsibility for the accident. All of this was now public record.

What actually happened on County Road 12 was unambiguous, and nothing like what the report would lead everyone to believe. But my daughter — she could see the writing on the wall. This group of men, Caden Galt and his family, their various social circles — all of them wanted nothing more than to take her down. So, rather than engaging in a game of tug-of-war, she dropped her end of the rope. In retrospect, this was sheer brilliance on her part. No one expected her to do this. They had no script for this alternate scenario. Isabelle had taken all the sport out of their hunt, and now she was in hiding, staying put. And she had a doctor’s note excusing her from court until her condition was stable.

Laura came over Friday morning with her laptop and a box of files she’d been building for the last three weeks. She set up shop at my dining room table, in that exact same position she always takes when she’s working a problem she’s intent on solving. Coffee on the left. Laptop dead center. Pad of paper and gel pen on the right. The look on her face: someone who’s found the missing corner piece of a large, ugly puzzle. There it was in the litter box. That was not going to stop her from brushing it off and putting it in place, urine and all, confirming in no uncertain terms that the puzzle was solved.

“Where do we start?” I queried.

“Gordon Lichter,” she said. “He’s left a paper trail long enough to wallpaper a high-tech billionaire’s mansion. Every room.”

Gordon Lichter had been a professor of art at Logan Hill Junior College for six years. Before that, he’d been at a private arts school on the East Coast — he spent nine years there. He had departed quietly, mid-semester, following what the college’s internal records described as a satisfactory resolution of a faculty conduct matter, which is institutional-covering-their-ass-speak for we paid someone to stop talking and have resolved the problem permanently. The settlement documents were sealed. The complainant’s name was not on the public record. Dead end on that one.

But the timing of his departure was curious: mid-semester. Add to that a carefully non-committal letter of reference from the school’s department chair — a letter Laura obtained through a public records request to LHJC’s hiring file. Public community colleges retain outside letters of reference in their personnel files, and this one described Lichter’s scholarship as distinctive and his classroom engagement as energetic and said nothing else, which is academic code for: do not hire this man, written by someone too chickenshit or too complicit to say what really needed saying. Besides, Lichter had likely threatened to sue the school if they divulged any additional information. His departure already meant the loss of numerous grants that had come their way because of his scholarship. The school was hemorrhaging. This, too, we could document.

Before that, Lichter had been at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Laura discovered a Rate My Professor thread from that period, now six years old, in which four students used variations on the same language: made me feel like opportunity was conditional, don’t take office hours alone, brilliant, but getting to work with him comes at a cost, had to drop the class. The thread had been flagged for removal at some point and was partially truncated, but the cache existed.

“Well, there’s the pattern we’ve been looking for,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Yep, a documented escalation,” Laura added. “The East Coast school paid to make it go away. Logan Hill was asking the wrong questions during their vetting. Lichter’s hiring file shows a background check from a vendor that only covers criminal history, not Title IX issues. No call had been made to the previous department chair. This was a rush hiring.”

“All of which is a story in and of itself,” I chimed in.

She agreed. “But not one we’re telling, at least not yet. Not until we have someone, or several someones, willing to talk.”

I nodded in agreement.

Cora Fineman came over Saturday and sat at the table with us for four hours. She brought a binder — she always brings a binder. I’ve come to understand that the binder is Cora’s equivalent of Laura’s arrangement at my dining room table. It means she’s worked the problem thoroughly before showing up. She walked us through her documentation hierarchy with the patience of someone who knows the difference between evidence that seems powerful and evidence that can actually accomplish something in a proceeding.

“Your narrative is strong,” she said, after reviewing what we had, “But your corroboration is partial, and the gap between those two things is where cases go to die.”

“So how do we close it?” I asked.

“If possible, you need to find the person who got paid to stop talking,” she said. “Or to find someone at that school who saw the whole thing go down and who kept notes. Someone who was sick and tired of Lichter, but didn’t really have an axe of their own to grind. Those people are out there. They exist. And they are usually the most compelling witnesses, because they are not personally involved. The question is whether they’ll talk to you, and then whether what they have to say is admissible.”

Cora said all of this without drama. She’d sat across the table from a lot of outraged, talented, hardworking women. Women who’d spent years learning to translate their rage into legal action. These women were dangerous. And men who think with their dicks never see them coming. They write them off.

“We also need to think about sequencing,” she said. “Right now you have Lichter, with a credible predation pattern, institutional failure at two prior schools, and no named complainant who’s willing to go on the record. Then there’s Howard Blink, with multiple cases of sexual harassment, several of which purportedly escalated to sexual assault, a parking lot incident which Louise documented contemporaneously, and then there’s his wife, who, by all accounts, is not willing to see what’s right in front of her and turn him in. I do believe she is key to his situation. She could likely bring him down big time if we can convince her, and that may take our helping her — empowering her to take his business. More on that later. With Caden, there’s a documented stalking pattern over eight weeks, which is corroborated by some of his Signal postings; then there’s the crash and a victim who told the police it was her fault. You have seven or eight other men who participated in the Telegram channel, with varying degrees of documented behavior. Have I missed anything?”

She laid everything out on the table like a map.

“The question isn’t whether any of this is real,” she said. “It’s what order you present it, who owns each piece, and whether you’re building toward an outcome you can actually achieve, or just making them uncomfortable.”

Laura said: “What’s the outcome we might actually be able to achieve?”

Cora thought on this. “Well, for some of them we’re looking at civil liability, professional consequences, licensing action. For Caden, potentially criminal charges, depending on whether Isabelle is ready to revise her statement. For Lichter, it’s institutional removal if we can find the first complainant or someone else at LHJC willing to testify. There is no question in my mind that there are other women. There always are. For the group as a whole, we’re looking at exposure. We need to show they are all friends, that they discuss these sorts of matters as a group, that they plan and assist each other, and that they’re getting off on all of this. We need to take a course of action that puts them in the public eye or places them in the public record through legal action. The logistics of that are something I need to consider, and I will likely be conferring with our friend next door, Roger — the D.A. I am positive he will have thoughts on all of this.” She paused. “That last scenario may be our most durable. With exposure in the press, all it would take is a simple Google search for any of these names to pop up at the top of the feed. That would make their shenanigans well-known for years. That means that anytime someone thinks about doing business with them, considers taking their class, wants to hire them for a job, or to go on a date —these situations would pop up via AI. Much more effective than just about anything else, in my opinion. Don’t you think?”

I thought about my column. I thought about the fifteen million people who read Louise Falco of Letters to Louise every week, and what they would do with a carefully documented account of eight men in a small town who had organized themselves into a well-oiled machine designed for hunting young women they decided were in need of correction.

I kept this thought to myself for now. But I was hatching a plan. Not only would a column of this sort draw in new readers, but it would put these issues front and center. Nationally.

Diana joined us on Sunday, the day we started what Laura called the chain-of-custody system and what I privately called my Black Bucket List, though I did understand that Diana’s framing might be more appropriate in a real court of law, versus Judge Judy’s courtroom.

Our system would be this: every bit of documentation would be logged with a source, a date, and a reliability designation — verified (public record, direct witness, contemporaneous documentation), credible allegation (multiple consistent accounts, not yet independently confirmed), or rumor (single source, unverified, potentially relevant). Nothing could be moved from one category to the next without corroboration. Anything in the rumor column was on hold in terms of action until it moved up the ladder.

“I realize this feels as slow as molasses,” Diana said, watching my face.

“It feels like we’re giving them opportunity to do more damage,” I said. “It infuriates me that we have to let them continue doing this.”

“I hear you,” she said. “But that’s the trade. We could move fast and make claims we can’t support, but they’ll spend the next three years using those claims to discredit everything else we do. It will kill our credibility. We need to build something that holds. And in the interim, we provide support to other victims. That’s the best we can do.”

Isabelle is in a TLSO brace in my garage. She is twenty-three years old, and she has two fractured vertebrae. A man put her in that device on purpose. The word patience is not currently in my vocabulary. I was going to need to work through this with a psychotherapist, or someone was going to get dead.

“Okay. I get it. We have to stay within the system. Our problem is they are working outside of it. That’s so very frustrating.”

Diana looked at me carefully. “Louise. What you’re building — if you build it the way I’m describing — is something that could result in real consequences for multiple men, including potential criminal exposure for Caden and civil liability for several others. The shortcut version gets you a news cycle. Maybe two. This version gets you something that lasts.”

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime, we keep Isabelle safe and document every single thing. Every threat, every incident, every contact, every text message, every rotten egg leveled at your front door. Contemporaneous. Time-stamped. Witnessed where possible.” She paused. “And we explore whether she’s ready to talk to Trujillo again.”

Isabelle was not ready to talk to Trujillo again.

She was, however, ready to talk to Adam, which is a different thing entirely and also somehow more useful.

Adam came by Tuesday evening through the back gate with a dish of steaming hot osso buco. Adam was of the belief that trauma responds to braised veal shank, and he was not entirely wrong in that. He knocked gently on Isabelle’s door, then sat in the garage with her for two hours. I tried very hard not to hover outside the door. It was killing me.

I know what was said only because Isabelle broke down and told me a few days later, and because Adam is simply incapable of holding back information he feels might help the people he cares about. It became apparent that he had a specific and very important piece of intelligence to share.

The week before the crash, a man Adam did not recognize had eaten dinner twice at The Bullpen’s bar. Alone. He was not a tourist — nothing about him gave off that vibe. In Adam’s estimation, this someone was in the restaurant to be seen, but without being memorable. He had made three phone calls during dinner, then left a cash tip large enough to make the server remember the color of every hair on his head. And he had asked, in an apparently offhand manner, whether the gray Civic parked on Prospect behind the dry cleaner belonged to anyone the server knew. He was looking for parts for his daughter’s car, and that one looked to be on its last legs.

The server said only that she didn’t know whose car that was, even though she did. It belonged to her boss.

The man smiled, nodded, and went back to his food. The server then made a beeline for the kitchen and let Adam know the situation. Adam hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He was sure thinking about it now, after this accident.

“What did he look like?” I asked.

Adam described someone we couldn’t immediately place — someone who was neither among Isabelle’s acquaintances nor in the Telegram threads. This guy was in his fifties. Greek or maybe Italian, Adam thought, though he acknowledged he was a bit foggy on that part. He’d been wearing expensive casual clothing and had a watch that looked simple and practical, but that Adam knew to be worth upwards of $20K — an A. Lange & Söhne. Damn.

Laura pulled up the partial Telegram identity they’d been referring to as “Unknown B.”

“Alexandros,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

The name Alexandros appeared in The Brotherhood’s Telegram threads eleven times over the two months’ conversations — at least those Laura had been able to access. He was peripheral in the early messages — a voice of apparent authority, who was cited rather than present. He appeared to have entered the thread directly in the final two weeks before Isabelle’s crash, in a role that could only be described as coordinator.

He was the one who flagged the Civic.

And he was the one who wrote, four days before the crash, a message that read: Route confirmed. North on 12 is perfect. No surveillance, soft shoulder, utility infrastructure at the bend. Caden knows the road. He just needs the window.

Laura took a screenshot of this the first time she read it. She had not told me about it until now because she had been, she said, trying to confirm Unknown B’s identity before introducing this information into what we were building.

I read the message again: He just needs the window.

I put my laptop down on the table and walked to the kitchen window in front of the sink. I looked into the backyard, sizing up the back gate and the high-tech security cameras John had installed that swept the alley continuously in a twelve-second loop. They were unobtrusive — difficult to spot unless you were looking for them.

Unknown B had known the road and the car. He had known about the bend. This crash was not Caden losing his cool at an inconvenient moment. This collision had been expertly choreographed. The destruction of the car and Isabelle’s injuries were the apotheosis of the ballet.

They’ve done this before, kept running through my mind. Somewhere around the twelfth repetition, I knew what needed to be done. I needed to find the other victims. I needed to prove this was a thing, not some isolated incident, not a single person being targeted. There is no way this was a one-off.

It was not long before the proof of my theory arrived, and from an unexpected direction.

Three days after Adam’s osso bucco delivery, I received an email — to my personal email account. This was not the Louise Falco column address, nor any other address I use for purchases, bills, and the like. This was an address I had given out to maybe thirty people over the last five years. The sender? a.ortega.jc@hotmail.com. The message was just twenty words long:

I know what happened to the girl before Isabelle. I am not ready to talk, but I will be soon.

I stared at the message for god knows how long. Huh? What was this?

Then I forwarded the email and my response to Laura and Diana. I had carefully typed back: Take all the time you need. I’m here and ready whenever you are.

I didn’t know who A. Ortega was, or even which girl this email might be referring to. Was she someone who’d also been on a car ride on a lonely stretch of county road? Had she had her address posted publicly with lewd instructions as to her supposed sexual proclivities? Or was she one of the many who’d had a nasty encounter in the stock room at a grocery store? Perhaps she was a “promising” art student in need of mentorship.

What I did know was this: The Brotherhood had used their Correction Protocol before. They had used it on someone else — someone who had survived it, but who had likely been silenced by it. And perhaps that someone had found a way to rebuild their life around them — and had witnessed what happened to Isabelle. If we could just find this person — who was likely watching from the shadows — we might be able to convince them to tell their story. We just needed a small sign, that first indicator of readiness.

Our counter-operation had entered a new phase. I began to feel the architecture of what we were building, the way a properly designed structure announces itself when you’ve put enough of the load-bearing pieces into place, and the thing begins to hold its own weight. We were no longer only defending Isabelle. We were beginning to understand the shape of the machine. We were getting our bearings.

In the barn, Isabelle was painting.

On Thursday, Isabelle had asked me for stretched canvases, so I brought four. She wanted specific paint colors — raw umber, titanium white, burnt sienna, and a tube of phthalo blue, which she expressed needing specifically because it would fight with everything else. Basti had done the deed for me, driving all the way to the art supply shop in Redding. He came back with a bag of paints, which he handed over the back gate as if delivering important prescription medications.

Isabelle was working on a huge canvas, building on something she’d already made — a painting she’d finished well before the shit hit the fan. Unceremoniously, she had primed over the entire piece and was now painting over it. The ghost of the original was ever so slightly visible through the first layer — a bright, colorful landscape of some sort, trees and sky, ordinary, pleasant imagery. Over it, she was laying down a severe geometrical pattern that was developing into a steely gray, with bright bits of blood red and random dagger-like imagery in front of, behind, and to the left of the pattern.

Isabelle was painting over her old life. Not erasing it. Painting over it. The original was still there, hidden and preserved under the fresh, thick layers of acrylic paint. The landscape remained part of the painting’s structure, informing the new surface without determining it. The same could be said for Isabelle’s new, short hairstyle and her faux hazel eyes. It was still her, deep down inside, though to the rest of the world she was now Izzy. I had to get used to saying that name, or there were going to be problems.

I stood in the doorway and said nothing. I watched in awe.

Isabelle didn’t look up. She was wearing her TLSO brace under a loose shirt, which gave the impression of an Olympic swimmer; her posture expressed an unusual rigidity. She held her brush with the grip of someone working through pain and around unnatural physical constraints. She was deciding, stroke by stroke, where to put the paint so as to experience relief. It was an interesting way to create, and it worked, in an odd sort of way.

“What’s it going to be?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “It will reveal itself.”

I thought about telling Isabelle what Laura had found — about A. Ortega’s twenty words. I thought about that message he just needs the window, and about the bend on County Road 12 and the transformer’s buzzing at A-440. I imagine Isabelle still heard that exact pitch in the middle of the night when all else was quiet.

I didn’t share any of these thoughts or the details of my nightmares. Probably never would. Isabelle had enough to deal with.

Tonight she was painting, and the garage was safe. The gate cameras were making their rounds, and for this one hour the safety perimeter was holding.

Tomorrow we would begin building our case. These men would not be getting away with anything. No way, no how. We were smarter and a helluva lot more motivated.

READ ALL OF OVERPAINT

Overpaint, Chapter 1

Overpaint, Chapter 2

Overpaint, Chapter 3

Overpaint, Chapter 4

Overpaint, Chapter 5

Do I really need to say anything? I don’t think so.

Grab some cheese curls, position yourself on the coziest corner of the couch, and enjoy a much-needed reprieve.

Three days after the Safeway run, I made a mistake. Not a catastrophic one, just a you-should-have-known better miscalculation. My gut had been screaming at me, but frankly, I was so exhausted I didn’t hear it. Or maybe I was just ignoring it. I don’t know. This was one of those mistakes that lives in that chasm between careful and paranoid — a gap you imagine you can jump across, no problem.

Bullshit.

The mistake? I let Isabelle drive off in the gray Civic. Alone. I didn’t protest. I said nothing.

Isabelle had asked about going out multiple times that week, and each time I’d gently expressed some discomfort and concern, while trying not to convey the terror I was actually feeling. Mine was not exactly an Academy Award-winning performance — I failed monumentally in covering up my worry. And so, on the third attempt to convince me she was good to go, I made an extra effort to sound supportive and to release my reservations. I encouraged her — you know, get out there, go see the world. I mean, there she was, standing in the doorway of the garage with her new dark tresses, wearing goofy faux glasses that someone had obviously swiped off Henry Kissinger during his open-casket viewing. Isabelle looked like a completely different person. So, yes, I caved. Hell, if I could hardly recognize her, surely no one else would. Right? She was no longer Isabelle. She was Izzy.

Then there was that look on her face — the one I’ve seen a hundred times — her jaw squarely set, brows furrowed, lips pursed, an indication she was done having this conversation we weren’t really having. I probably should have protested or at least made tears or created some sort of drama to get her to reconsider, but I didn’t. I kept telling myself she cannot live in a garage; she is twenty-three years old. She just did a trial run at the grocery store without incident. Quit being so paranoid, bitch.

Stupidly, I dialed down my worries, smiled, and said, “Okay. Get out of here, girl. Have yourself an adventure.” Then I handed her the keys.

We had parked the Civic a couple blocks away. Leaving it in the neighbor’s carport, as we had done for the last few weeks, wasn’t discreet enough for my taste. So, this was the new procedure we’d put together: keep the Civic parked down the block on the street, then move it from time to time so it appeared to be used regularly. Whoever was moving or driving the car was to wear one of our designated “disguises,” and there were several. Nothing was to be connected to my house, to Laura or me, or to Isabelle. And most decidedly, not to the car. On this particular occasion, Isabelle was to walk through the alley, turn onto Elm, then pick up the car from its spot behind the dry cleaner on Prospect, an unremarkable spot it had been occupying for the last three days. Then off she could go. I felt pretty confident in all of this.

And now, here we are, doing a meticulous reconstruction of what exactly went wrong, as well as a full psych-eval on what the hell I was thinking in not stopping her. What I didn’t know — what none of us knew at the time — was that Alexandros, from The Brotherhood, had made a call.

We didn’t put his name to any of this until much later, but this is what we eventually pieced together: Alexandros, whose identity was partially obscured in the Telegram threads Laura had been copying but had not yet fully decoded, had flagged a pattern two days before the crash and shared it with the group. It was not about Isabelle’s hair, nor the glasses, nor her new Carhartt clothing. Alexandros seemed clueless about those details. No, he was on to something subtler and less obvious. The Civic. And he’d noted it was sitting near the dry cleaner on Prospect.

Fuck.

He knew this because he knew Basti. Not personally — at least, we couldn’t prove they were pals or even acquaintances — but Basti had parked the Civic three times in the same location on three separate weekday afternoons. And he hadn’t worn a disguise. Everyone in town knew Basti, and they knew him to be one of Isabelle’s closest friends. And they knew his car. This Civic was not it. Why was he driving this instead? This is a soft detour from behavioral regularity that looks like it’s nothing unless that’s exactly what someone is looking for. The Brotherhood had not been tracking Isabelle’s face. They knew she was likely in disguise at this point. They had been tracking her network, all the people who still orbited her life. Me, Laura, Basti, the whole gang, though probably not Adam.

As Laura would quietly point out after all of this went down: they weren’t watching her, Isabelle. They were watching us watch her. This was a much more sophisticated operation than we’d given them credit for, and these were the types of details that kept me up at night. I got to thinking that the royal we were going to have to quit being so reactionary in our responses and start thinking and acting as they did. Calm, cool, and collected. The Brotherhood was playing a sophisticated game of chess, not participating in a WWE “professional” wrestling match, though their caveman mentality might have made one think otherwise. Our gang would have to strategize with clinical detachment and deliver either a checkmate or a forced resignation if we were to keep Isabelle and the other young women in town safe.

If you’re not fucking following this chess lingo, Google it.

So off Isabelle went. Then, only blocks from where the Civic had been parked, was Caden, standing right on the corner of Miller and Fourth, at the light. Isabelle, not having driven in weeks, was preoccupied. She didn’t see him. The gray Civic slowed to a halt as the light turned red. There was a good, long clearance interval at that intersection, something Caden and his helpmates had surely considered.

Isabelle conveyed these details to me later, in bits and pieces. You know, the way you reconstruct something that happened way too fast for your brain to properly process at the time. She said she didn’t see him until she rolled down the passenger-side window. Someone had knocked on it while she sat waiting for the light to change, the car idling. So she lowered the window, imagining god knows what — that people in our town could be trusted? She said the radio had been on. It was a favorite song, and she had it cranked — and she was toggling, keeping an eye on the light, while thinking about what type of coffee she was going to order at the Java Hut. Perfectly ordinary thoughts, really. The kind of thoughts a person with an ordinary life might have.

Isabelle was trying to be ordinary. For just a few minutes, please.

Then, without warning, the passenger door was thrown open. And Isabelle couldn’t move the car forward or backward. She was sandwiched between two cars.

She said her first instinct was not fear. It was confusion. Why was this fucker opening my car door? For starters, she was sure she had locked the doors before taking off. Then she thought: Who in the hell gets into your car at an intersection? That was not a scenario she had ever played through in her mind. This was a small town. A sleepy little community. Things like this didn’t happen here — carjackings, that is. Isabelle had not played out all the possibilities in her mind. She’d left that to me. She really hated that sort of thing — that planning for the worst. Isabelle was unapologetically a trusting, in-the-moment sort of person. An optimist.

Isabelle’s confusion was short-lived. She looked at this unwelcome passenger, recognized him, and her second instinct kicked in: fear. What the fuck was Caden Galt doing in her car? In the passenger seat?

Caden had the face of the hometown golden boy. A squarish Germanic face, sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes, a nice tan and a fine-tuned physique. He was photogenic, that was for sure. And he was Logan Hill High’s salutatorian in 2019 and was also the first among his peers to be making good money. At the tender age of 23, Caden had his own landscaping business with a steady clientele of middle-aged ladies, most of them recently divorced. He was, in essence, getting paid to play the part of “husband” — mowing the lawn, raking leaves, fixing a few things around the house, and yes, that. Caden was famous for his inexhaustible sexual appetite — which is exactly why Isabelle had sent him packing. Caden needed more than one woman in his life to meet his needs, apparently. Typically there were four or five. That had been a difficult secret to keep from Isabelle, whom he had convinced for three years was his one and only.

Caden also knew the secret handshake for all the upper crusty men in town who golfed, and he had the gift of gab — both qualities you typically only see in older misogynist pigs, not in a 24-year-old. These rich old geezers were his peeps, and he’d managed to bring more than one of them into The Brotherhood. They were ripe for it.

Caden and Isabelle had been a pair for over three years, and during that time, Caden had expressed to her his dream of building something real. He envisioned her being his wife, and them having children. He hoped to buy a large ranch which would eventually become the family compound, a place they would grow old together. And he hoped Isabelle would come around to the idea of his mother living with them. She was surely going to divorce his sorry ass father, if given the opportunity. Philandering was what Phil was all about. That and putting back the Jack Daniel’s.

Caden was going to take care of Isabelle, “til death do us part,” he said more than once and which, in retrospect, probably should have been perceived as a threat. This seemingly innocent cultural idiom had, at the time, been accompanied by a cheap bouquet of Trader Joe’s flowers. Caden attributed this expression to something he had read in the Bible, a book Isabelle had never cracked, nor had any inclination to read. Turns out those actual words are from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Not the bible. Caden relayed all of this in the way men say things they imagine demonstrates devotion, or will be perceived as a compliment, when all they are actually doing is announcing plans. Their plans. The plans they are making for your life, without your consent. Caden was in charge. He was the decision-maker. He was the man.

Caden got in the car and shut the door with smug authority. This was his woman; this was his space. He gave Isabelle the once-over, his expression delivering a verdict on her new look: it was disgusting. “Drive,” he said. The light had turned green. Behind them, someone tapped a horn — more than once. So, she drove.

But of course Caden knew who she was. The disguise — it was no disguise to him. Yeah, perhaps if he’d seen her from a distance, but this was up close. That’s the thing she kept circling back to as she told her story. He had looked at her — dark hair, glasses, shirt she’d borrowed from Basti — and he’d known instantly it was her, the way you know someone you’ve been intimate with for years. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t do a double-take. He opened the door with all the confidence in the world and said, “Drive.”

For the first few blocks, he was silent. He sat with his right hand gripping the grab bar above the passenger door, his arm hanging down, swinging slightly, his jaw clenched into a hard line. He had the casual, relaxed body language of someone just catching a ride with a friend — this, though something was clearly off. Then he slowly reached into his right pocket, pulled out a gun, and laid it across the dashboard, just out of Isabelle’s reach. Only then did he start talking. The fucker.

I’m not going to transcribe all that came next. I can’t anyway — I wasn’t there, and I didn’t record Isabelle’s recitation. Though I am inclined to fill in details that suit my narrative of what likely went down, what would be the point of that? My problem: I have no tolerance or patience for stories left unfinished. Filling the void — that is one of my obsessions. It’s what I do. It’s who I am. I consider it my way of arriving at a much-needed conclusion before it’s too late.

I look at it like this: rather than waiting for all the pieces to fall into place, I imagine what those missing parts might look like, and when I feel my vision resonate, I know that’s it. I feel confident I understand what’s going on.

As the expression goes, the wheels of justice turn slowly. I am not a patient person, especially when it comes to waiting for law enforcement to get things right. Especially a police force in bed with the Galt family.

Isabelle is my daughter. Her life and happiness are my responsibility. I intend to plow right ahead.

Isabelle had really only given me pieces of the story — small bites delivered in an unusually flat affect — a tone of voice that conveyed to me, her mother, that she’d begun walling things off. She was building a fortress. She was keeping reality out. She needed it to be that way. I had to respect that.

Caden’s beef? Isabelle had left him without his permission. That was his core grievance. It’s not like they were incompatible, or that the relationship had run its course, or that she had her own life and her own reasons. No, no. That was not possible: her leaving him. That was inconceivable. It was an act she had no authority to perform. Their split made him look stupid. And then, she took it a step further. She had gone away — to a place he was not privy to — and she’d made herself unrecognizable, unattractive. She dressed like a man and was doing nothing to win back his affection. Through her words and actions, she was giving everyone the impression she was done with him.

Had he given her permission to do that? Hell, no.

Caden could only conclude that Isabelle was delusional. He and his pals were going to fix this situation.

Caden ordered Isabelle to get onto the county road heading north. And she did, because there was that gun in plain view on the dashboard. She was absolutely going to be following Caden’s directions to a T, though her inner GPS was commanding her to take a U-turn at the next intersection.

Isabelle thought of stopping; then she ran the calculations. There was a gas station at the corner of Miller and Crosscut; two people were standing outside of it. Perhaps she could flag them for help. She could slam on her brakes, get out, and run. But Caden had thought ahead on all of this. He was smart — the bad kind of smart. He’d explained, in his new, rehearsed, authoritative voice, that if Isabelle did anything stupid, all he had to do was swing by her mother’s house to settle the score — you know, that cute bungalow with the detached garage. That garage was the perfect place for a young woman to hole up. He remembered it being a bit grubby, and from what he could ascertain, Isabelle was down for that — a grubby old garage. If she wasn’t going to be with him, someone who was clearly a good provider and would see she had every advantage in the world, she deserved a less than ideal life.

Isabelle made her way to the county road. This old two-lane, which headed north out of town, was the kind of road that felt like freedom when you were sixteen and blasting Harry Styles’ Watermelon Sugar on the car sound system. Oak-covered hills rose up on both sides of the road, the occasional hawk perched on a PG & E pole. In the wrong situation — like this early evening drive she was now taking with Caden Galt — there was not that feeling of freedom. No, far from it. There was growing panic, not exhilaration, as the distance between safety and the unknown expanded with each mile.

Caden directed Isabelle through two sharp turns, as if she wasn’t aware of them on this road she’d driven a hundred times. His point: to establish that he was the one in charge. He was the one who knew these roads. He was the one navigating. And he was the one who had taken her up this way on many a moonlit night. This was their road. No. Make that his road. He’d brought many other young ladies up here, too.

Caden continued talking, though the content was shifting — from grievance to instruction. From you abandoned me to here’s what’s going to happen, bitch. Isabelle listened with the part of her brain that cataloged information and ran survival math, while the other part, on autopilot, drove the car. For the time being, she had to shelve the panic and fear.

As Caden rambled on and on, Isabelle thought about the steering wheel. She thought about whether she could angle toward a shoulder, open her door, jump out and roll. She decided she couldn’t. It seemed likely she could lose a limb or get run over by her own vehicle. She thought about the gas station they’d passed. She thought about her phone in the cupholder, and whether she could gingerly pick it up without him noticing. None of these opportunities were real opportunities.

So, she just drove.

At some point, the steady rhythm of the tires settled Caden down. He was mesmerized, drawn into a reverie, imagining things were as they had been in the good old days. He reached over and tenderly put his hand on the back of Isabelle’s neck. There was almost a proprietary ease to it — the gesture of someone reclaiming a possession he’d temporarily misplaced.

The sensation of his hand on her neck made Isabelle nauseous. She cringed: “Don’t.”

Caden reluctantly retracted his hand, then pulled back into the reality of the present situation, coolly stating: “You’ve lost the right to tell me ‘don’t.’ How can you possibly imagine you get to do that? Are you that stupid?”

And then they came up on the curve. The curve. A curve missed by a few hundred cars over the course of many years. The owners of the property at this spot eventually got smart and placed massive boulders in front of their house. Nothing like a Ford pickup plowing into your living room in the middle of The Tonight Show.

The curve and utility easement at that corner of Route 12 — or what should have been a “corner” — was not a dramatic feature on any Google map. It appeared as a standard rural bend, with signs dictating 35 miles per hour, though even that was too fast. It was the kind of curve that looked shallow from a distance but tightened up faster than one could anticipate. And then there was that cluster fuck of utility poles on the right shoulder at the front of the bend. It was the kind of infrastructure the county had put in before anyone had properly considered the road geometry. All of those poles were a little too close to the northbound lane. There wasn’t, in fact, even a shoulder at that spot, unless you considered 6 inches a “shoulder.”

Isabelle was doing thirty-eight MPH when Caden grabbed the wheel.

This was not to steer, mind you. That’s important, because as would be revealed later in the accident reconstruction, this detail mattered. Caden had grabbed the wheel in the way you grab something to stop it, a lateral jerk with his right hand — he actually reached over with his dominant hand — followed by a refusal to yield control, a clear you don’t get to control this, bitch. His gesture expressed intent more clearly than anything he’d said to Isabelle over the last twelve miles.

The Civic left the road.

Isabelle slammed on the brakes — a reflex — and despite being the correct instinct, braking did little to prevent what was to come, not at that speed and that angle. The right front bumper caught the edge of a utility pole at approximately twenty-two miles per hour, which the accident report later described as a moderate-impact collision, a phrase that means absolutely nothing when you’re writhing in pain, trapped in a vehicle.

The airbags had gone off, the windshield didn’t break, but the hood crumpled into a V.

Above the stopped car — which was still in drive, engine running — was a sustained electrical buzzing, a sound that shouldn’t have been that loud or that close. It was a transformer, which had become disconnected from the pole due to the impact of the car. There it was, dangling precariously from the wires at the top of the pole, swinging back and forth above the car, and far too heavy to continue for long in this capacity as a pendulum. This was a mother-fucker of a transformer, one I would find out later weighed over 1400 lbs. Those power lines were not designed for that kind of weight. The transformer was complaining, throwing sparks, and threatening to make physical and electrical contact with the ground below.

Caden and Isabelle understood the danger, and didn’t move for what felt like an hour, though it was probably less than a minute.

Here is what I learned about downed and damaged electrical lines after my extended conversation with a PG&E crew supervisor, someone who’d clearly had to explain these facts far too many times: when a vehicle strikes a utility pole and makes contact with a downed conductor, the car can become energized, especially if damp. If the passengers and driver stay inside the vehicle, there is less chance of them coming into contact with the electrical current. Stepping outside, they risk crossing a lethal voltage differential.

Shit. Those two kids could have been killed.

Hal explained you only get out of an energized vehicle if other threats are more concerning — i.e., fire, smoke, water. Typically, you are advised to wait for the utility company to de-energize the line. This is not a guideline. This is a politely worded directive, given in a life-or-death situation. Loaded guns were not mentioned in this list of dangerous circumstances. The gun on the dashboard was now wedged under Caden’s seat. He reached between his legs, feeling for it, and upon finding it, pocketed it.

Unfortunately, Isabelle knew nothing of these precautions when the buzzing started. And neither did Caden, as it turned out. He swung open his door and started to exit the vehicle, until the first responder — a volunteer firefighter named Garrett — told him to “Stay in the vehicle,” conveying this with an unmistakable urgency Caden couldn’t ignore. Caden stopped in his tracks, door wide open with one foot extended mid-air. “Don’t touch the car or the ground,” Garrett stated in a more measured voice. “Stay in the car. I need you both to stay in the car until PG & E arrives.”

Isabelle’s face was bleeding. She had hit the steering wheel. The airbag had deployed, but not fast enough. Her cheekbone had made contact with the steering wheel, leaving her with a periorbital contusion and soft tissue trauma to her left orbital ridge. Not a pretty sight. Most disconcerting, however, was her back. It hurt in a way that felt indescribably wrong. She didn’t have words for the sensation she was feeling, but her gut told her it was a structural hurt, and it was complaining at high volume.

Isabelle remained in the car, staying as motionless as possible. She knew this could be a life-changing situation. The impact had been violent.

Caden, after a moment, pulled his foot back into the car. He said nothing. There was no apology, no are you ok? Just silence. And he bristled with irritation. He was irritated at having to wait for PG &E and having to stay in the car. Irritated that things were not playing out as he had planned. Isabelle tried to wrap her head around the impatience radiating from him. It was hard to appreciate it when this situation was entirely of his own making. All of this was his fault. 100%. Did he not understand that?

Caden’s arrogance and sense of entitlement, his need to show Isabelle who was in charge, all of it had failed him. There they were, sitting in a totaled car; a power outage was affecting hundreds of houses and an elementary school, and there were injuries, the severity of which was yet to be determined.

And so they sat in the crumpled Civic, a sparking, buzzing transformer teetering above them, and they said nothing. There was nothing to say.

The PG & E crew arrived less than fifteen minutes after Garrett’s call. They had de-energized the circuit at the pole upstream. A crewman with rubber gloves confirmed the vehicle was no longer in danger and gave Isabelle and Caden the go-ahead to come out.

The head EMT opened the driver’s side door and instructed Isabelle to carefully and slowly swing her legs outside the vehicle. Isabelle relayed her concern about her back and was told to wait while Garrett directed two of his colleagues to bring the long spine board. He walked them through what would be a standing takedown. All of this had to be coordinated perfectly to prevent exacerbating Isabelle’s injuries, which they feared might include fractured vertebrae. Though Isabelle’s legs held through all of this, her back had made a terrible sound, which sent a wave of nausea through her body.

Caden, who was already outside the vehicle, was running a hand through his hair, feeling for the laceration above his left eye, which was producing more blood than the injury warranted. He looked annoyed, but not frightened. All of this was an inconvenience he’d not planned for. Yes, he’d wanted to scare her and bash up the car, but the rest of this was not playing out as he’d hoped. It was, in fact, a fucking mess, and he said as much. There might be an investigation. His parents would be pissed.

The animosity Caden began directing Isabelle’s way came across loud and clear to the ambulance driver. There was no way he was putting the two of them in the same vehicle. He’d seen this dynamic before, namely in domestic abuse situations, and so he called for a backup vehicle. He intended to send Caden in the second ambulance and to direct them to a different emergency room altogether, one that was down valley and in another county. And the driver decided not to give Caden the benefit of knowing this change in advance. His first priority: to protect Isabelle. The young man was unhinged, and he didn’t want him anywhere near her.

Isabelle arrived at the hospital to a flurry of nurses and doctors. Her diagnosis came in stages, the way serious injuries typically do. Her adrenaline was running interference, and it would take a while for her true symptoms to emerge. The facial contusions were obvious, but the vertebral fractures — two of them, T11 and T12, nondisplaced, stable — showed up on the CT scan and produced a conversation with an orthopedic hospitalist which Isabelle barely comprehended. She hoped someone, hopefully John, would arrive soon and be able to take in all he was saying and make the decisions that needed making. Words like conservative management, neurological monitoring, and thoracolumbosacral orthosis washed over her. What were any of these terms? Their meaning would be revealed over the next 24 hours after all the test results, scans, and X-rays had been evaluated by specialists. In the meantime, Isabelle was given hardcore medication for the pain and shock, cleaned up, stitched up, then outfitted with a TLSO brace, which would cover her from mid-chest to her hips. This device was going to be her constant companion for many months, she was told. Best to get good with it. The alternative, should she choose to not wear the brace: her currently stable fractures could slip, potentially rendering her paralyzed. Wow. Yesterday, she was doing yoga.

Isabelle closed her eyes to the bright fluorescent lights and all that fussing and milling about by hospital staff, but she couldn’t escape what had just happened. The nightmare of that buzzing transformer, its frequency she might have precisely named had she perfect pitch. Was it buzzing at a Bb or a concert A? The sound of it had settled in her inner ear and wasn’t leaving. It was a pitch she would never forget.

Down valley, Caden was being treated at a smaller hospital, his injuries unremarkable. He received four stitches above his left eye and otherwise had a clean bill of health. His parents arrived at the hospital just forty minutes after the ambulance, their attorney in tow. Though there was a general sense of goodwill between hospital staff, the lawyer, and family, copious notes were being taken about the incident, and the family pressured the head of the ER to interface with the other hospital. What could they find out about Isabelle’s prognosis, Caden’s family demanded to know. Who was in charge of the investigation? Was there going to be an investigation? Had Isabelle been intoxicated?

On the surface, the Galt’s concern seemed real, but the chief of emergency medicine had his doubts. There was something about this young man that did not sit right. For starters, why had the EMTs taken the two victims to different hospitals? Dr. Reiner’s impression, based on Caden’s interactions with his female staff, was that this might not be Caden’s first rodeo — that perhaps this was a case of intimate partner violence. The patient seemed too smooth, too sure of himself, and absolutely sure of his right to be given details about the other person injured in the collision. A young woman named Isabelle.

Despite all of the Galts’ posturing, the thumbscrews were not convincing the doctor to reveal details about the other party. He would not be telling them anything about Isabelle’s prognosis, even if he knew it, which he didn’t. Giving out this sort of information was strictly prohibited under the HIPAA privacy rules. And no, it absolutely did not matter that these two patients were supposedly in an intimate relationship.

Caden was pissed. Molly and Hank Galt were pissed. They would be stopping by the police station before heading home. They knew who to talk to there. They would get answers.

A county sheriff’s deputy named Trujillo came by to take Isabelle’s statement. He was not unkind, but he was operating on the assumption that the car's driver, Isabelle, was responsible for driving the vehicle off the road. His understanding: this was driver error, either a miscalculation, distracted driving, or a DUI. When blood tests came back, they revealed that Isabelle had been sober — there was no sign of alcohol or drugs. So, what actually had happened? Trujillo was curious to know.

Isabelle, who had been given something quite potent for her pain, felt she still had the wherewithal to make a statement. In his notes, Trujillo observed that Isabelle was lucid, but seemed weak from her injuries. He also sensed there was something wrong — something she wasn’t willing to talk about. She sounded too sure of herself. Her answers to his questions were too patent.

Isabelle explained to Deputy Trujillo that she and Caden had been driving around together, just wanting to talk and get out of town. They had been on the county road. She had come into the curve too fast and had lost control.

That was the long and short of it, she said.

Trujillo wrote all of this down. What more was there to ask? Everything Isabelle said lined up with the physical evidence. Something wasn’t sitting right, however, and Trujillo couldn’t put his finger on it. He really needed to hear what this young man had to say. Would he back up her story?

And why were they being treated at different hospitals? This was curious.

Trujillo sat in the hallway nursing a coffee, ruminating on the details of the crash, then decided he really needed to double-check the circumstances leading up to Isabelle’s leaving the road. He gently knocked on the door to her room, and an ER nurse let him re-enter. Might he have a few more minutes with the patient? He had a couple of concerns. Isabelle seemed exasperated that their previous conversation was not the end of the inquiry, but she knew better than to protest. That might be perceived as a red flag, and she was absolutely not ready to confront Caden and the Galt family head-on. Accusing Caden of carjacking and kidnapping — my god, they might kill her. Caden’s parents were fiercely protective of their children, even when they did a wrong thing. Isabelle had heard stories.

Trujillo wanted to know this: what had been Caden’s behavior leading up to the accident? Was he cheerful, argumentative, depressed — what was his mood? Had there been an argument? Raised voices? Any kind of altercation before the crash? Had Mr. Galt ever threatened physical harm toward Isabelle? Did he carry a gun?

As to Caden’s mood, Isabelle said only that he had been pleasant, and to all other questions, she replied: “No.” That was all she had to say. Now she needed to rest.

Trujillo noted that Isabelle had called Caden an old friend. He wondered to himself: was this a former friend, a long-ago friend, or a forever friend? Something in Isabelle’s voice made him think Caden was someone who used to be her friend. As in past tense. Isabelle had also said, “This is my fault,” and she nodded when he asked if that was all there was to it.

I want to be precise about something here: Isabelle was not protecting Caden. I am aware this is how it might have appeared to those looking in from the outside. And this is surely why the public story went the way it went. Fucking sideways. But that’s not what’s really happening in this room.

What’s happening is this: I have a twenty-three-year-old daughter who is badly injured, sedated, and alone in a hospital bed in a county where Caden Galt’s family is royalty. She was not ready to tell the truth. The truth was on its own schedule. It was not in our time zone. We would have to be patient and wait for the sun to rise.

Deputy Trujillo closed his notebook and told Isabelle to feel better. He laid a warm hand over hers and lent her an assuring smile.

I was at Laura’s when my phone rang.

The caller ID read: Logan Hill Regional. I picked it up before the first ring finished, which tells you something about the frequency I’d been operating on since Isabelle had driven away in Adam’s car.

The nurse on the end of the line was professional and gentle. She gave me the essential facts: Isabelle had been in a vehicle accident; she was stable; she had injuries that required monitoring. Perhaps it is best for you to come.

I got in my car.

I don’t remember the drive or that Laura and John were with me. This is also information.

Isabelle looked terrible, which is an ordinary thing to say about a person who has just been in a car accident, but it is also entirely inadequate. Isabelle had large bandages on her left cheekbone. She was awkwardly positioned in the hospital bed, and at an angle I’d never seen her assume. Her dark hair, spread across the pillow, caught me off guard. Somewhere in my reptile brain, I was still expecting blonde. There was a disconnect.

I sat down and held Isabelle’s hand. This was a moment I needed to say nothing. My duty as her mother was to hold on to the geography of the situation.

Eventually, Isabelle would tell me that she and Caden had been riding around together. Like old times. That she’d just come into the curve too fast.

I looked at Laura, who was standing in the doorway. Laura looked at me. What could we say?

I knew Isabelle was lying. Not about the crash — that was real, the injuries real, everything structural about the story was true. But I knew she was lying about the why, about the how they got there, about the circumstances leading up to the Civic shaking hands with the utility pole. I knew because I’m Isabelle’s mother and because I’ve spent my whole career writing a column precisely about the texture of things people don’t say.

And I knew not to call her on it. I smoothed her hair back from her face, carefully kissed her forehead, and told her we were going to get her somewhere safe and comfortable, where she could recover, and that we were going to focus on that right now. That was enough.

Isabelle closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep, thanks to the pain meds.

Laura pulled me into the hallway.

“Was it Caden?” Laura asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“He got to her somehow.” Laura was in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“But she’s not going to say so tonight, is that right?”

“No,” I said. “Not tonight.”

We stood in the overly bright hallway and said nothing else for a good long while. I was emotionally exhausted. Down the corridor, a television in another room was softly playing the news. Outside, it was pitch black — a cloudy, dark night.

Two days later, getting Isabelle home — to the barn, to the only safe house we had at our disposal — required navigating that TLSO brace, with its laundry list of instructions and a laminated sheet of warnings. There were approximately seventeen caveats about positioning, some for at night and some for during the day. The brace was rigid plastic and foam, and had been custom-fitted for Isabelle right at the hospital, in under two hours. It covered her from mid-sternum to the top of her hip bones, wrapping around her lower back in a way that made clear which types of weight-bearing were acceptable and which were out of the question. This was all going to take some getting used to.

Isabelle walked to John’s car with a cautious, shortened gait. John had come to get us, thank god. His car seats were higher and easier for Isabelle to navigate, and I was in no condition to drive. As usual, John had arrived without having to be asked — the kind of gesture that makes clear why you married someone. We were comforting extensions of one another.

John helped Isabelle into the back seat, positioning pillows under both her arms so she would be less inclined to tip from side to side during a turn. He drove home slowly, taking back streets to avoid causing frustration for other drivers. One might have imagined he was transporting the crown jewels. He was.

Laura rode in back with Isabelle, and I rode shotgun with John. There wasn’t much conversing, and the radio was left off. No noise was good. There’d been far too much stimulation over the last few days: monitors and blood pressure checks, nurses in and out, doctors weighing in on tests and X-rays, meds being administered, physical therapy, another round of questioning by the police. Enough already.

The town whizzed by in its usual configuration — the gas station at Crosscut, the feed store, the turn for The Bullpen, the oak trees on Old Town Road. Everything was normal, though unrecognizable to me with these new lenses I was wearing — the ones outfitted for hypervigilance. I saw danger everywhere.

We got Isabelle into the barn, going through the house and then the backyard, John and I each taking a side. She didn’t need full support, just ballast against the unfamiliar geometry of the brace. Laura would be staying out in the garage with her for the time being. She’d set up a workstation for herself, and we’d put up a large Chinese screen between the living and sleeping spaces. Isabelle needed to know someone was keeping watch, and we needed to know she was getting her prescribed meds on the schedule dictated.

Isabelle’s friends had come by and cleaned and organized everything. Her canvases were stacked against the far wall, her desk clear and ready for her to work, the blackout curtains drawn. It felt safe — the space nearly impenetrable.

Isabelle sat herself on the edge of the bed with the care of someone doing mental load calculations with every inch of descent. Eventually she was able to get into a reclining position, after which Laura tucked her in, positioning pillows all around her to keep her immobile. She then raised the head end of the bed, so Isabelle was in a semi-upright position.

I stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what to say.

Isabelle asked if she could have her sketchbook.

I got it for her. It was on the shelf next to her desk. I also grabbed the wooden bed tray we’d picked up. I placed it over her lap.

Isabelle reverently held her favorite sketchbook, gazing at the cover as if it were her long-lost “lovie.”

Then, off topic, she blurted out: “I want to get colored contacts, green ones. I know — Isabelle has blue eyes. But Izzy can have whatever she wants. And that’s what I want.”

I said, “Okay.”

“And I want to do something else with my hair. I want it to be shorter. I don’t want to think of it anymore.” She touched the nape of her neck. “More committed. I want to commit to this new persona. I want Izzy to be me.”

“Okay,” I said again, without reservation.

“I know — none of this will keep him from finding me,” she said, in that flat, precise tone of a woman who’s finally revised a belief she’d always been operating on. “Even if he finds me, he’s never going to touch me. I am going to be stronger than those fuckers. Wait until they see what they have unleashed.”

Her determination, her rage, it all felt right. Izzy was on to something. The distinction she was drawing was between camouflage and self-determination — this was something we could all get behind. This was something I understood completely.

And so I said for the third time: “Okay.”

Isabelle opened the sketchbook to a blank page. She took a thick charcoal pencil and held it over the white expanse, not hesitating really, rather, exercising precision. She then drew a thick, horizontal line.

I didn’t ask what it was. But I knew.

I let her draw.

READ ALL OF OVERPAINT

Overpaint, Chapter 1

Overpaint, Chapter 2

Overpaint, Chapter 3

Overpaint, Chapter 4

The morning after? It smelled of bacon grease and fear.

Adam had arrived at six-thirty, before anyone was properly awake, letting himself in through the back door the way he always did, as though my kitchen were an extension of The Bullpen’s. By the time I stumbled downstairs in my bathrobe, he’d already commandeered every burner on my stove. Scrambled eggs with crème fraîche. Thick-cut bacon. Crispy hash browns fried in duck fat. A soothing fruit salad with melon, blueberries, mandarin orange slices, shredded mint, and honey. And coffee strong enough to strip varnish off a Victorian sideboard. Adam had brought everything in Cambros, thereby sparing my fridge and countertops. He moved efficiently, quietly, as if he’d run a professional kitchen for twenty years, and with the economy of someone who doesn’t have the luxury of wasted motion.

John came downstairs ten minutes later, no doubt aroused by the smell of applewood smoked bacon. He took one look at the assembled company and started setting the table without prompting. What I love about John: nothing is performative. He just helps. He assesses the situation and simply does what needs doing.

The posse gathered around my big, round dining room table: Laura, John, Adam, Basti, Kaira — and Isabelle, who had slept all of forty minutes last night and looked like she’d aged a decade. She sat with both hands wrapped around my Fuck Off coffee mug, staring out at nothing and at no one, oblivious to the animated conversation in which she was immersed, and of which she was the center of attention. I was listening, however, while also keeping watch over her as I had since she was born — looking for signs, signals, and the small tells that meant she was about to go under. I could feel them. She was close. Very close.

Adam laid his huge spread on the table, and we dug in like voracious wolves — exhausted and famished, we ate in silence for the first few minutes. Even Adam, who normally had the uncanny ability to tell colorful anecdotes while simultaneously julienning carrots and calculating a player’s ERA — he had nothing to say.

Basti’s ADHD caught up with him, however. He quickly cured his boredom by stealing three pieces of Kaira’s bacon. She stabbed his hand with her fork without so much as looking up, after which he proceeded to stuff all three slices in his mouth at once. I tried not to laugh; he looked like a chipmunk. At the same time, I was mentally revisiting the steps for the Heimlich maneuver: get behind, make a fist, grab the fist, lean the person forward, pull sharply inward and upward. Repeat until item blocking the windpipe is expelled.

Suddenly, Laura, who had appeared pensive and distracted, set down her coffee and redirected her attention from some distant coordinate in the ether to everyone gathered around the table. “We need to talk logistics,” she said forcefully. It was time.

All the nervous breakfast banter abruptly came to a halt — this was what we’d all been waiting for. Some direction.

“Isabelle cannot be seen coming or going from this property,” Laura said. “​I suppose that’s obvious. Until we have this figured out — what we’re doing, how we’re doing it — there can be no walks, no errands, no sitting on the front stoop. And no sitting in the parts of the backyard where neighbors can see from upstairs.”

Isabelle set her mug down with a small, controlled plunk. “I’m supposed to just stay inside?” She was irritated. “For how long?”

“We don’t know yet,” Laura replied.

“But I have school. I have to work.” Isabelle’s eyes were welling up.

“You can easily take a leave from school,” I said. “Medical, personal, whatever the registrar needs to hear. I mean, really. You’re not going to want to be crossing paths with Lichter or some of the male students in your class, am I right? So, it seems best to just drop out temporarily, at least until we have things sorted.”

“So I just disappear?” She looked around the table. “I just stop existing?”

“For now, yes,” I said sternly. “You’ll have all of us. And we’ll do our best to keep you entertained. And you’ll have no expenses living here, so no need to work.”

She stared at me for a long moment. In the silence, the refrigerator hummed, a bird thudded against the dining room window, the neighbor’s chihuahua yapped — the ordinary sounds of an ordinary morning in a house where nothing was ordinary anymore.

“They get to keep their jobs,” she said, sneering, resentful. “Their apartments, their friends, their freedom. That is fucked. And I have to hide in a garage.”

“You are someone worth protecting,” Kaira said quietly.

“All of this is just until we’ve worked through the logistics of bringing these pitbulls to heel,” Laura added. “This nightmare will end. Count on it.”

“How is it even possible to bring them to heel?” Isabelle was frazzled, distraught. She couldn’t think straight.

“It’s going to take some time, sweetheart,” I said.​ ​”​But I think you know how Laura and I operate. When we’ve decided how a thing is going to go down, it will be going down. Full stop. You’re going to need to be patient. Your best distraction will be immersing yourself in the planning. We are going to need as much help from you as you can handle emotionally — like every gory detail about these fuckers, and the names of everyone in their orbit.”

Everyone around the table was nodding; John smiled gently.

Isabelle pushed her plate away — she’d barely touched her food. This deliberate, small gesture meant only that she was lost in thought. She’d been doing this since she was a little girl. Don’t clear the table, folks. At some point, she will attack those cold leftovers with a vengeance.

“​Okay,”​ she said, turning to Laura. “Tell me the plan.”

The plan, such as it was, started with the weekend.

On Friday night, Isabelle’s closest and most trusted friends arrived. They came in groups of two, parking three or four blocks away and approaching the house on foot through the alley, as Laura had instructed. Location-finding apps on everyone’s phones were to be disabled; no flashlights were to be used, including those on their phones. And there was to be no loud talking when walking through the neighborhood, as it was likely that some of the aforementioned men were keeping watch on my house. The girls’ voices would be recognizable.

Everyone had been briefed, to some degree, on what was going on and what had been happening to Isabelle. Kaira had handled all of that, working through a text chain that Laura had set up on Signal and would delete by Sunday. None of Isabelle’s friends were privy to all the details, because knowing too much wasn’t safe for anyone, especially Isabelle. The friends began arriving, their arms full of thrift store treasures — it looked like a Gen Z version of a wedding shower, though no one was getting married. Maren came bearing blackout curtains she’d sewn by hand, in thick navy linen, hemmed with the precision of someone who took her craft seriously. Simone brought several bolts of string lights, a 12-pack of rechargeable batteries and a recharging pack, and Jade had a vintage rug rolled under one arm and was gripping a box of vintage ceramic pots with the other hand. Two other girls — Petra and Rose — brought a sound system on a collapsible hand truck: a 1980s turntable, amplifier, and speakers, along with two crates of albums. Someone whose name I didn’t catch brought a huge box of cleaning supplies, and someone else had gifted a Cost Plus bag of scented pillar candles, a box of books, and a bottle of Grocery Outlet Malbec. All of these items were essentials for any 20-something-year-old.

Basti arrived last, because he was always the last to arrive. He’d stopped at the Army surplus store on the south side and had gotten Isabelle three pairs of men’s cargo pants, in what he hoped was her size, three black and four navy crew-neck T-shirts, and a pair of steel-toed combat boots. Also, inexplicably, he came bearing a grocery store geranium, probably intended for someone convalescing.

“It’s for her windowbox,” he said when Kaira rolled her eyes.

“Ah, there’s no windowbox, Basti,” Kaira noted.

“Well, I’ll fix that,” Basti replied. And by midnight, he had.

The friends worked through the night, as I watched from the back doorway for a good while — before Laura gently pointed out that my hovering wasn’t helping and handed me a glass of wine. So, inside I went and sat at the kitchen table, continuing to listen from a distance. It was a lovely din, the sound of young women (and Basti) transforming my garage barn into a fun, livable space. They bickered about music, some wanting Miley Cyrus, others hating that, and Kaira wanting Rascal Flatts, eliciting groans from the entire peanut gallery. Finally, all were settled on Billy Eilish and PinkPantheress, which they cranked, singing along at the choruses. Industrious, determined. Cheerful manic was the vibe that last hour of the barn-raising — a bit like the hour before a major deadline at an office gig, when panic converts itself into focus.

By two in the morning, the garage was — well, not beautiful, exactly. But it was theirs.

Maren and Jade had hung the blackout curtains with military precision. Petra had scrubbed the floors on her hands and knees until they were completely free of debris and resembled fresh-poured concrete. Rose set up the turntable on a shelf Basti had bolted to the wall; the string lights ran in a warm zigzag across the length of the “living room.” The plants were arranged on a makeshift shelf near one of the windows on the backyard side of the barn, intermingled with a trio of grow lights. Basti’s geranium was in a new window box near the garage door, as promised.

Isabelle’s art supplies occupied an entire corner of the space: canvases stacked upright, jars of brushes arranged by size on a huge woodworking table, and tubes of paint organized by color in a system only Isabelle understood. I’d set up her easel, and we’d installed a generous amount of overhead lighting since she’d not have the benefit of natural light, unless she chose to work in the backyard some days. I’d also created a spot next to the utility sink for washing brushes.

“This is actually pretty cute,” Maren said, standing back with her hands on her hips.

“Ugh. It’s a garage,” Isabelle groaned.

“It feels like a sanctuary to me — I’d take this in a heartbeat. Better than sharing a two-bedroom flat with three other women.” Kaira complained.

“Alright, alright. It’s pretty fucking cool. You’re right,” Isabelle admitted.

It was time to crash. Everyone was exhausted, but it was a bit too late for anyone, especially the girls, to be driving home, so three of them piled into Isabelle’s king-size bed, and Basti passed out on the couch. Everyone else holed up in the guest bedroom in the house.

The important transformation happened Saturday night.

I’d been expecting resistance, bracing for it, in fact. I know my daughter and the way she goes still and flat when someone tells her what to do with her body or how to dress. She clenches her teeth and gets a steely look in her eyes. No way comes across loud and clear even though polite words are coming out of her mouth.

Simone constructed her workstation in the center of the garage: a folding chair on a wood pallet, a pile of towels, and scissors and combs laid out on a metal table like surgical instruments, two boxes of hair dye in a deep auburn — a carefully considered color based on Isabelle’s skin tones. Her new color needed to look natural even if it wasn’t.

Isabelle sat down. She was all in. She pulled her hair over one shoulder and held it there for a moment, glancing briefly at the long, pale ponytail. She didn’t need this anymore, this thing that had been drawing the wrong kind of attention since she was fourteen years old. She was happy to let it go. Fuck it.

“Do it,” she said. “Make it gone. And don’t stop to ask me if I’m okay. I’m OK.”

Simone began cutting. First, the big chop. Twelve inches straight across, now in a pile on the floor. Simone kicked it out of the way, as there was so much of it that she was afraid of slipping. Isabelle ran both hands through her newly shorn locks. Damn, it felt liberating. She was glad there were no mirrors. She couldn’t care less how any of this was going to look. It felt amazing, and that’s all she cared about. Fuck mirrors.

“Keep going, please,” Isabelle encouraged. And so Simone dug in, using thinning shears to lower the weight and volume of her hair before doing the precision cutting. They decided to aim for a shoulder-length shag. Something a bit alt and careless-looking. Something as far from soft girl as possible.

By the time Simone was finished with the cut, Isabelle had shed nearly 14 inches, her face framed by a gently ragged, disheveled bob. She already looked like someone else altogether. They were getting somewhere.

Then came the dye. This was actually the hard part.

Simone worked section by section, methodically, quietly, as Isabelle sat very still, eyes closed, meditating to melodic techno and the smell of developer and red coupler — which had an oddly comforting chemical warmth. The other young women buzzed around Isabelle, continuing the garage project in hushed voices, folding underwear and T-shirts into drawers, arranging books on shelves, stacking plates and lining up glassware on papered shelves in the kitchenette area, fluffing pillows, and organizing clothes on makeshift garment racks. The sheer force of this domestic activity swept away all the trauma, making room for a new normality. Pretty sure women have been doing this sort of thing since the beginning of time. It is truly one of the most underrated forms of love.

After Isabelle’s long stretch of sitting under a heat lamp, Simone rinsed her hair in the utility sink, then brought her back to the chair for a blow-out, and some final dry cutting and texturizing. When done, Simone pulled off her apron and stepped back, signaling for everyone else to stop what they were doing and take a look.

Isabelle glowed under the string lights. Her color was dark — a complex blend of rich browns, copper-red highlights, and a few flecks of deep gold like the autumn hillsides. The new color and cut had changed everything, and not just aesthetically. This new hair changed the frequency Isabelle was broadcasting. The blonde had been one signal, whether she’d meant it to be or not — a particular kind of visibility that men had learned to read as availability. The new look was something else altogether. Complex, Challenging. Strong. Elusive. Independent. This was a woman who made her own choices. Most men were too weak to handle a woman like this.

There was no more Isabelle. This was Izzy.

Izzy, a name Isabelle had wanted to use her entire life. Now here she was, adopting this name out of necessity. It was like a seismic slip-lock.

“Oh, wow,” Kaira said softly, in awe.

Izzy didn’t need a mirror. The expressions on her friends’ faces told her everything she needed to know. In fact, she asked Basti to take the one and only mirror in the room and set it in the garden. She then had him replace it with one of her large, colorful canvases.

Simone’s work was done. She began her clean-up and pack-up. Jade handed Izzy some thick-framed glasses with non-prescription lenses, and Izzy tried them on. Everyone went quiet for a second time. It was clear: Izzy would be able to walk past Caden Galt on the street, and he would not see Isabelle. He would have no interest in this new woman. Caden, Isabelle’s former boyfriend who had the intelligence of a sponge, wouldn’t know whether this brunette was at peak ovulation or sporting a penis under those cargo pants. He only knew what he’d seen in the manosphere. And she was not that.

“I’m guessing I look like a different person,” Izzy reiterated for the umpteenth time.

“Oh, yeah,” Laura said. She and I had just popped our heads into the garage to check out the progress. We were flabbergasted.

I feel like myself,” Izzy said, and there was something in her voice I couldn’t quite pinpoint. It wasn’t happiness. Certainly not grief, nor disappointment. It was something more complicated. I believe it was relief.

“Maybe,” Basti said carefully, “you now look as you’ve always thought of yourself, instead of how these men decided you should be.”

She looked at Basti.

“​Okay,”​ she said. “That lands.”

The next day, Sunday, we were back at the table.

It was just me, Laura, Adam, and a couple of new faces: Diana Shields, a family-law attorney and Laura’s college roommate, and a woman named Cora Fineman who ran victim advocacy services at the regional women’s center — a woman with a calm, precise manner. Laura had called them in without any advance warning, because that’s how Laura rolls. Waiting for permission is usually too slow; better to forge ahead, then ask for forgiveness. She knew this: the right experts at this very moment were going to save us a shit ton of time — time we didn’t have. And amateur guesswork — well, we couldn’t afford that either. We needed people who could connect the dots for us, and quickly.

We had coffee. We had yellow legal pads. And we had Adam’s chicken salad croissants, which were a guarantee he would never be short on female companionship.

Diana distributed the legal pads like a dealer at a blackjack table, then clicked her ballpoint pen impatiently, waiting for us to quit jabbering and get down to work. “Let me be clear about what we can and can’t do,” she said, without preamble, “because I want to save us forty minutes of movies.”

“Movies?” Adam asked.

“Witness protection. False identities. Government-issued Social Security numbers, new birth certificates, the whole shebang. That’s the federal witness protection program. It’s administered by the U.S. Marshals. It’s for people who’ve testified against organized crime or terrorism and whose lives are in documented danger at the federal prosecution level.” She tapped her pen on the pad. “It’s not available for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, or stalking, regardless of how serious or how organized. I’m sorry. That’s just the reality.”

Laura nodded slowly. She’d been expecting this, I could tell. I hadn’t. This was disappointing.

“So what can we do?” I asked.

Diana turned to Cora, who opened a slim folder.

“Quite a bit, actually,” Cora said. “But we have to be systematic. And we have to be patient. And most importantly, we have to document everything we do, because some of these steps have legal implications and we need a clear record.”

She pulled out a sheet and set it on the table between us, and what followed was one of the more chilling hours of my life — not because of what Cora said, but because of the expressions on everyone’s faces while she was saying it.

California’s address confidentiality ​​​​​​​program — Safe at Home, which was administered through the Secretary of State’s office — could give Isabelle a designated substitute mailing address, an official one accepted by specified state, county, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​and city government agencies,​ so that her real location didn’t appear in any public ​​​​​​records. Safe at Home records a single address (a monitored P.O. box) that is accepted by specified state and county entities and designated for voter registration, the DMV, etc. The program would forward her mail and could serve as an agent for service of process. It was not a magic cloak, Cora said. It was a legal mechanism that required going through an authorized enrollment process with documentation of the ​​​​​​​situation. It wouldn’t automatically reach every school record, employer, private business, or financial account — those would each need to be handled separately. But it was a meaningful foundation that would help Isabelle “disappear.”

“So she’d need to document what happened,” I said.

“Yes, and sooner rather than later,” Cora said. “Even if it’s not time for law enforcement to kick in, the documentation matters​. She needs to begin the paper trail. It will make a difference later.”

“Later,” I repeated.

“Yes, later,” Cora said. “Trust me on this. From all you’ve described, sadly there will be a ‘later.’ This is just the reality of these sorts of situations. So, best for Isabelle to bring all documentation you’ve already gathered and sit down with a female desk officer to write up a complaint about the men involved. This could factor in should there be further aggressions — the police will respond differently with this information in front of them.”

Then there was her phone. The device itself was compromised — not just the number, but the hardware, if she’d ever let anyone else handle it, if she’d ever connected to an unfamiliar network, if she’d ever installed an app that requested location or contact access. Laura laid Isabelle’s phone on the table like evidence, which it essentially was, and explained that they’d already removed the SIM card and powered it down, but that if anyone had installed tracking software, that could have been activated before they took those precautions.

“I need to go through this with a forensics tool,” Laura said. “So for now, it stays off. In fact, it would be better if we just got her a new phone and put in every protection ahead of its use.”

“That phone was her whole life,” I said. “Every contact, every photo —.”

“Well, keeping it could cost Izzy her life. So there’s that.” Laura laid it out: “Every contact and every photo on here is likely accessible to them. I think this is one of those moments where starting from scratch is preferable. There is no good alternative to be considered,” Laura said. Not unkindly. “All right.” I agreed to this on Isabelle’s behalf.

And so it was to be. A new phone. Prepaid, cash purchase, no account linkage. This new number would be known only to people at this table and a well-vetted group of friends, all of whom would have to agree to have their phones cleared of potential spyware. Going forward, two-factor authentication would be set up on every account Izzy kept that was tied to the new number, and she’d get a new recovery email address — fresh accounts all-around, no association with her name, everything hosted by a provider Laura would select. Recovery codes would be printed and stored physically in a safe offsite; nothing stored digitally.

“I need to write all this down,” I said. “I’ve already written it down,” Laura countered, and slid a folder across the table. It was color-coded. Of course it was. And Laura had seen to it that a safe was installed next door at Roger’s, our district attorney, someone we trusted implicitly. All account credentials would be kept there going forward, and Roger would be nearby as a backup for retrieving this information should we be away from the area.

Then there were Isabelle’s social media accounts — and there were a lot of them. This was the piece that made her go quiet for quite a spell. We’re talking about five years of work that went into creating these spaces. This is where Isabelle promoted and sold her artwork. It’s where she had a professional presence, where every collaboration and conversation and commission lead lived, here in these virtual spaces. These were her art galleries and where the audiences she’d cultivated gathered — interacting with her post by post, through thousands of comments and replies. It was gut-wrenching to imagine dismantling all of this.

“We won’t delete any of this,” Diana said. “Deletion destroys evidence. But we will lock down all social media accounts — new passwords, new recovery, log out of all sessions, review connected apps, the whole nine yards. Everything will stay archived. But Isabelle will stop appearing in these spaces. It will be as if she just dropped off the face of the earth.”

“And what happens when an outsider looks at these spaces?” I asked.

“They find an account that has gone dark. Consistent with someone who’s been traumatized and stepped back, or someone who is simply tired of social media and has left to do other things. Take your pick.” Diana paused. “Which scenario do you prefer?” Hmm. We’d have to think about that.

The financial accounts. Close anything that might have been compromised that bears her name. Move funds carefully, lawfully — no large cash withdrawals that could trigger reporting requirements, no transfers that looked like flight. Open new accounts in her assumed name at other institutions, preferably ones far away, and link these to her designated P.O. box — the one managed by the state — the one that can legally be used on all public and government documents in lieu of a physical address. This would frustrate the hell out of anyone trying to stalk her. That’s exactly what taking these steps is intended to do. All of this would take time, and it would require careful sequencing because accounts that suddenly look empty attract attention, and attention is not something we could afford.

“My car,” Isabelle said. “What about my car?”

“Adam,” I said. “Tell her what.”

Adam, who had been sitting at the table stone-faced, arms crossed, was giving off the vibe of a mob enforcer — someone impatiently waiting for permission to inflict direct physical pain on a perpetrator. He was wound up, big time.

“I have a 2014 Honda Civic with Washington plates that nobody is driving,” he said. “Gray. Nondescript. The most forgettable car in North America. Still registered to my step-Aunt, so it’s unlikely it could be traced to me, especially since she’s been married twice since 2014 and hasn’t bothered to update the DMV. The tags, however, are up to date, as is the insurance, and it’s got limo tint on all the side windows. I’ve parked it at Erin’s, in the alley, and have already passed both sets of keys on to Basti. So it’s whenever you are.”

“I can’t just take your car —”

“You’re not taking it. I’m lending it to you. Indefinitely. Better than leaving it garaged for years on end and letting the hoses dry rot. Nobody who knows you has seen me drive this car. I’d been lending it to my housekeeper, but she got sent back to Mexico.” He paused. “It has a new set of floor mats, for whatever that’s worth.”

Isabelle almost smiled. But not quite. “What about my real car, the one I actually own? Where did that end up?”

“Thomas drove it to his family’s cottage on Lake Tahoe, and it’s sitting in their four-car garage. It can sit there indefinitely. Pretty sure none of these folks we’ve had problems with have connections up there,” Adam said. “And since I’m regularly private cheffing for the Esterhazys, I can turn over the ignition when I’m up that way and take it for a spin — you know, when I’m out foraging and whatnot. There is nothing to worry about.”

Then Cora talked about Isabelle’s college records — her credits, grades, grants and loans. These were not things that could disappear, nor did Isabelle want that to happen. She had worked hard in her classes, was near completion of her Associate’s Degree, and had anticipated continuing on to a four-year institution. Yes, the leave of absence would put all of these things on hold, but it didn’t resolve the underlying problem: anyone at Logan Hill who knew her real name could confirm her enrollment status, and faculty, like Gordon Lichter, could access just about anything else in her confidential files. The registrar’s office was not automatically bound by confidentiality to the same extent as, say, a medical provider. If someone called claiming to be a family member, a landlord, or a prospective employer, they would likely get the information they needed simply by asking the right questions. Logan Hill was not exactly Fort Knox.

“So I have to tell the school?” Isabelle asked. “I have to go in and tell someone what happened?”

“Yes, you need to talk to the Title IX office and to the dean of students,” Diana said. “And yes, that’s a conversation that should be done in person, with documentation, and with me present. They have obligations to you that they may not currently know how to fulfill. It is my job to fill them in on the hard facts and to document everything in writing so they can’t wriggle out of this or convey your details to the wrong people.”

“Obligations they’ll want to minimize, no doubt,” Isabelle added, thinking of how much money Gordon Lichter brought to the school in the way of art endowments.

“Yes,” Diana said. “That’s why I’ll be there. So there’s no bullying.”

Cora also talked about data brokers — those invisible clearinghouses that aggregate your address, your phone number, your relatives’ names, your employment history, and sell it to anyone willing to pay five dollars for a background check. She had a list of service providers that were experts at submitting opt-out requests and could do so on Isabelle’s behalf. This wasn’t a permanent fix because the databases are constantly rebuilding themselves from new sources, but it was better than doing nothing. And when done in tandem with the state government’s new, legal, monitored address — any stalker would find himself hitting one brick wall after the next. Frustrating stalkers was the name of the game. All of this could take weeks, but it was well worth doing.

And then there were the public photographs. The ones at the college, on department pages, in event coverage. The ones friends had posted over the years. The ones that existed in any searchable form with her name attached.

“I can’t make people delete their personal photos,” Isabelle said.

“No,” Laura said. “But you can ask. And the ones on institutional sites — the school, the gallery she showed at last spring, the arts council newsletter — those we can request be removed.”

“Request. But not demand. Right?”

“Some of them will comply because it’s the right thing to do. Some will require a formal legal request. Some probably won’t budge.” Laura folded her hands on the table. “We go after the ones we can get and document those we can’t.”

Isabelle was quiet for a moment. Outside, a car passed slowly in front of the house. It was one of those Dodge Chargers with a low, aggressive-sounding engine. We all heard it.

“And after all of this,” Isabelle said — “After I change my phone and address and my hair and my name, and my social media and my banking and school records and my car. After I learn to change my gait and take new routes to get around town, and I get practiced at pretending not to recognize old friends when I’m in public…” She stopped. “After all of that — what are the odds this will work?”

Nobody answered immediately, which was its own kind of answer.

“Well, it significantly reduces your exposure,” Cora said. “It doesn’t eliminate risk. No plan does. But the math is good.”

“The men who did this to me,” Isabelle said, “are still walking around. In this town. Going to work. Going to church. Eating out. Living their lives. And I’m the one who needs an entire team to be safe.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know. That’s not justice. I get it. Right now, safety is what we can actually get you. Justice is step two.” I held her gaze. “And it is coming. I promise you that.”

She looked at me for a long while. “Okay,” she said, for the second time in two days.

She was down for it. This plan of ours.

Our full operational plan took shape over the three days to follow. Gallons of coffee were involved, as well as copious amounts of carry-out and, of course, many of Laura’s color-coded folders. Adam saw to sending a square meal every evening. We were good.

Adam’s contribution to the overall operation was practical and elegant. The Bullpen would function as a logistics hub. Discreet transportation was available when needed, coordinated through his head waiter, Marcus, and two longtime kitchen staff members who had been carefully vetted and were personally vouched for by Adam. Food and various other supplies could arrive on my front porch in Bullpen delivery packaging so as to avoid attracting attention — a restaurant making a residential delivery was unremarkable in a food-obsessed town. The Bullpen’s reservation system, it turned out, was also a useful timeline generator, and Adam had a gift for remembering who came in with whom and when, a skill he’d honed over the many years he’d overseen a dining room. Many of our perpetrators were regulars at The Bullpen’s bar. This was good.

“You’ve been doing this a while,” Laura noted with admiration as she watched him sketch out a rough communication protocol on the back of a delivery receipt. “I’ve been watching men behave badly in my dining room for fifteen years,” Adam said. “I’ve just been waiting for a reason to do something useful with it.”

John handled the physical logistics: a new lock on the garage with keys available to everyone in our group, four exterior cameras that fed into a monitor in my kitchen and a second monitor on Laura’s phone, and a set of protocols for anyone approaching the property. John did all of this with the unhurried competence of a man who has managed a working cattle ranch and knows that security is all about good video equipment and computers rather than high drama and firearms.

Basti and Kaira took charge of Isabelle’s daily life within the compound. They rotated 24-hour availability via phone and text, so Isabelle always had someone she could trust within reach, and they developed a communication system that used Signal’s disappearing messages and compiled a set of code words to describe specific situations. Basti, who had more money than he ever admitted to, deployed it with his characteristic obliqueness, quietly sourcing a set of fixed-blade knives in hand-tooled sheaths from a shop he trusted and giving them to all the girls in Isabelle’s orbit, along with a short primer on how to use them properly.

Laura organized the digital documentation — every screenshot, every date, every account change, every opt-out request, every correspondence with the school, all of it logged and backed up in three separate encrypted locations. She did this the way she did everything: with the systematic precision of a microbiologist who understands that integrity depends on keeping detailed records. At some point, these records would matter. This we knew.

And I wrote. Not just my daily column — but everything else. I chronicled what I had seen, what I knew, what I could prove, and what I suspected. I wrote the way I had written every major story of my career, which is to say, I wrote as though a jury would eventually read it, because, hopefully, juries would.

The young women in Isabelle’s circle organized themselves with a speed and discipline that I found quietly astonishing. They developed a communications protocol that they administered themselves, independent of our oversight, that was on a second Signal chain — one that Laura and I were not privy to. What I did see were the results: six young women who moved through their ordinary lives with new awareness, who watched and remembered and reported back through Kaira, and who never once faltered in covering for Isabelle’s absence among all their peer groups. And they kept track of the men. Their comings and goings, their interactions (at least the ones they could see), and they followed all of the local gossip. Were these men stalking other women? What else were they up to? Had there been any sexual assaults?

If anyone asked, Isabelle had gone to stay with a relative. She was taking some time. Dealing with a family situation. She’d likely be back, though when was the question. The girls’ stories were consistently unscripted and vague — basically fact-free — which made them hard to follow up on and even harder to dispel.

On Thursday, ten days after we’d moved Isabelle out of her apartment, she was desperate to know — was any of this working?

“It’s too soon to say,” I said.

“It’s been ten days. I can’t stay in that garage forever.” She was exasperated.

And she was right. She couldn’t stay holed up forever. I knew it. She knew it. We all knew it. The whole point of the transformation was so she could function in the world; how would we know whether she could do so without trying? Remaining fearful and guarded was not a sustainable security strategy.

So we made our plans. First, a trip to the Safeway on the north end of town — but not Blink’s. No way, no how. We weren’t going anywhere near Howard or Caden or Lichter — none of their haunts. Isabelle would have to go in alone, new purse and shopping list in hand. She’d also be sporting her new soft butch clothing and faux distressed combat boots. I would then come in separately and give her a wide berth as she made her way through the store. We mustn’t be seen together. Adam’s gray Civic would be parked near the store entrance, and Isabelle would keep her burner phone and ​​​​​​fixed-blade knife in her right pocket in the event of an emergency. Twenty minutes. This was going to be the hard limit on this first grocery store run.

I watched Isabelle cross the parking lot from her car and felt something I can only describe as controlled terror — the kind you have when you’ve done everything you can think of, but you know it still might not be enough.

Isabelle walked differently. She was now Izzy. That was the first thing I noticed. She’d been practicing, she told me later, in the garage — learning to take up less lateral space, to keep her gaze at mid-distance rather than bright and open, and to carry her shoulders with purpose rather than ease. She was more upright than usual, resisting the instinct to shrink in apology. She needed to be different. A woman with a specific place to be, who had no interest in detours or distractions, and who was not interested one iota in men. A woman with a distinctive dyke vibe. Strong and sure of herself.

I followed Izzy in. Took a basket. Went to the produce section.

She was on the cereal aisle, across the store, when I saw him. Tall, blond, Seahawks jersey, talking on his phone in a voice too loud for indoors. Posturing. I recognized him from the Telegram screenshots — a peripheral figure, one of the boys from Caden’s social circle, not one of the inner ring but close enough. He’d no doubt seen a hundred pictures of Isabelle. I moved left, keeping an end-cap between us and straining to hear what he was conveying on his phone: “Yeah, she just vanished. No one’s seen her in like two weeks. Caden’s losing his shit about this. It’s making him look bad. He’s lost control of the situation.”

My heart stopped. Isabelle was turning the corner into his aisle. Did she even know this guy? He knew her.

Then, she was six feet from him. Then three. Then she was passing him, close enough to brush his sleeve, her gaze fixed on the spice shelf, her hand reaching for a bottle of turmeric. He glanced at her the way men glance at any woman — sizing her up. To my great relief, he decided she wasn’t worth looking at.

The disguise worked. He looked away.

And Izzy kept walking. Enjoying her freedom. Oblivious to the shark that just swam past her.

I set down my basket, and let myself be still, and waited for my heartbeat to return to normal

Twenty minutes later, we met briefly at Izzy’s car. She had oatmeal, apples, a carton of milk, a half pound of sliced turkey, turmeric, and a sprig of parsley. I had nothing. I’d completely forgotten to shop.

“Did it work?” she asked.

“It worked,” I said.

She exhaled — a long, shuddering breath that she’d been holding in for God knows how long — then crawled into the driver’s seat of Adam’s forgettable gray Civic and looked at the ceiling.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I proceeded to my own car and, once situated, glanced in the rearview mirror, and there it was: that SUV. Dark, mid-size, maybe two years old. It had been in the church lot when I was parked there dropping some clothes into the donation box. Now here it was parked at the far end of the Safeway lot, engine running, facing me.

I sat with that for a moment.

The angle was wrong for them to see my plates. We hadn’t been followed in — I was nearly certain of it. It could be anyone. It probably was anyone. People idle in parking lots all the time for entirely ordinary reasons. Right?

I watched it for ninety seconds. Nobody got out. It didn’t move.

I started the car and pulled out, then angled myself toward the back exit.

In my peripheral vision, I saw that the SUV wasn’t following me.

It just sat there, engine running, staring at the spaces we’d been in.

“Mom?” Isabelle texted. “Where are you? I don’t see you.”

“I’m right here, just leaving the lot,” I said. “We’re good, no worries.”

Isabelle needed to believe this was true, even if I was harboring doubts.

We drove back through town, Isabelle in her gray car about six blocks ahead of me. The afternoon sky, also gray and hazy, was like that fine line between hiding and being safe. A soft, delicate line. Not a fortress.

I had promised my daughter that justice was coming, and I’d meant every word of what I’d said. But that gray space between what I declared to be achievable and what I could actually manifest was vast — it felt like an abyss.

This was going to take everything I had. I could not let Isabelle fall into the void.

Read Overpaint, Chapter 1, here.

Read Overpaint, Chapter 2, here.

Read Overpaint, Chapter 3, here.

The call came at 12:47 AM on a Tuesday. Laura’s voice was tight and low. “You need to get to Isabelle’s apartment. Like now.” I was already swinging my legs out of bed, reaching for my linen pants and flip-flops in the dark. “What’s happened?”

“Just come. I’m already here at her apartment.”

John sat up, blinking. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said, grabbing my keys and phone off the nightstand. “Can you keep your phone handy? It may be nothing; we’ll see.” I was so tired, but wired from fear, a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

“Grab a croissant. And call if I need to be there, please.”

I shot out the front door, fired up my CR-V, and headed out, trying to right the chaos of my hair as I drove, and rubbing my hand across my chest only to discover I’d forgotten my bra. Shit.

The streets in my neighborhood at night were always quite dark, but there was the added element of the road being slick from rain, with a mushy layer of fallen leaves. Old Town had not changed much in a hundred years, minus the size of the trees that lined the streets and filled backyards. They had become huge, and city ordinances prevented tidy-obsessed neighbors from chopping things down willy-nilly. The roots wreaked havoc on our sewer system, but that was a small price to pay for the privilege of living in an urban forest. Coast redwoods lined both sides of the street one block west of mine and the alley behind my house. There were sycamores, bay laurels, and valley oaks sprinkled throughout front and back yards, and every manner of other native plant. I kept part of my backyard wild and filled with amaranth, and gave the other half to vegetables and a box of bees. My detached garage was mired in mountain lilac on all four sides, with a huge fig tree and several of its volunteers guarding the space between my yard and Roger’s. There was barely room for a squirrel to squeak through. It felt wild and protective, and we had our own food source, growing right there, off the kitchen.

Old Town was literally a forest in the middle of town, with little Victorian cottages tucked between statuesque old farmhouses on double- and triple-lot properties, the occasional Craftsman bungalow kit house thrown in for good measure. Very cozy, but with a clear delineation between the haves and the have-nots. Regardless of social rank, all inhabitants were expected to keep up appearances, to make things look nice, to put in colorful seasonal flowers, keep leaves raked, and maintain planter boxes. There were only a few rebels amongst the citizens of Old Town: one hoarder fellow who was a militant Unitarian Universalist (the UU being his beard for his compulsive saving disorder) whose house, including the entrance, was choked by bamboo, and an older woman on a corner lot who had really let things go after a bad spill that left her unable to walk. Sadly, none of the neighbors had stepped in to lend her a hand.

I was driving way too fast through the neighborhood, on my sleepy street, where dim porch lights glowed like distant constellations, and mostly older folks slumbered in bedrooms at the back of their cottages. The majority of the houses on my street had been, back in the day, weekend cottages for wealthy city dwellers looking to escape the oppressive San Francisco fog that settled over the city every July and August, or Fogust, as it was jokingly called. The North Bay had sun. Lots of it. And back before global warming had set in, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky for months. Not even cirrus clouds.

In only a few minutes, Isabelle’s apartment complex loomed in front of me— a sprawling 1970s structure with peeling paint and a parking lot full of potholes. The apartments were spacious enough, but dated, with industrial-style carpeting, linoleum floors, and Formica countertops. Still, they were clean and functional, decent spots for young folks to do their adulting: getting to work on time, doing their own grocery shopping and cooking, doing laundry, making beds — all that stuff. The Blalock family owned this particular complex, along with half the other rental properties in this town. I’m talking about Zane Blalock’s parents. Caden’s best friend. A Brotherhood member we’d seen in that Telegram chat room. He was one of the guys who’d been watching Isabelle, coordinating their next steps. Of intimidation, that is. Hey, it’s just a sport, right? No harm, no foul.

Well, we’ll see on that.

The point: Isabelle’s apartment had never been safe, despite the complex’s well-lit paths, its swimming pool with chaise lounges neatly lining the perimeter, the warm laundry room with ample folding tables, and its game room with vending machines. All a façade.

Laura’s car was parked in the shadows near the dumpsters. I pulled in beside her and killed the engine. She emerged from the darkness, her face pale in the glow of her phone screen.

“They’ve escalated, Louise.” “It’s bad.”

We took the exterior stairs two at a time. The door to Isabelle’s apartment stood unlocked. Inside, every light blazed. Basti sat on the couch with his arm around Isabelle, who was staring down at her hands. Kaira was sitting on a stool near the window, keeping watch from the living room window, her phone clutched in her hands like a grenade.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do.” Isabelle’s voice was hollow. I knelt in front of her.

“What has happened?”

She couldn’t speak. She just shook her head. Laura handed me her phone. The screen showed Isabelle’s Instagram account — except it clearly wasn’t her account anymore. Someone had hacked it. The profile picture had been replaced with an AI-generated image: Isabelle’s face, unmistakably, digitally superimposed onto an explicit, sexually suggestive body. There was Isabelle, nearly naked in expensive-looking lingerie, hands posed provocatively, eyes half-closed. It made my stomach drop and my skin go cold. I kept scrolling. There were a dozen more posts in a variety of settings — the backseat of a car, on a desk in someone’s office, leaning on a tree in the woods — all timestamped within the last two hours. Deepfakes created with Grok, according to the kids, each one more graphic than the last. There was Isabelle’s face, her blue eyes, but not her body. Imagery created in her likeness without her consent. None of this her choice. And all of it out of her control. And we could not get into her account to delete the posts or shut down the page.

The captions were even worse. Available tonight. DM for address. Looking for a good time. No strings. And then, below one picture, a particularly haunting caption that included her full address, parking instructions and a phone number. Yet another outlined her availability for a “get-together,” noting that she was unavailable during her classes at Logan Hill JC. All of it was spelled out, as if this were her life — having sex with random men — all the fine details lending an air of credibility to this incredibly graphic IG page. A final flourish: she was “eager” and “waiting for your text or call,” with kissing emojis.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.

“It’s on Facebook too,” Kaira said, her voice shaking. “And X. They’ve posted everything, everywhere. They’re saying she’s —.” Kaira couldn’t finish her sentence. She was sobbing. Basti filled in, “This has happened to Kaira as well.”

“They’re making out like I’m a whore,” Isabelle said flatly. “That I’m asking for it. That anyone who wants me can just show up, and I’ll be grateful. You get this? They’re setting me up to get raped.”

Basti’s jaw was clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. “We need to call the police.”

“And tell them what?” Laura’s voice was sharp. “That someone posted fake nudes? They’ll say it’s a civil matter. That she should contact Instagram’s support team and maybe hire a lawyer? That there’s nothing they can do unless someone physically assaults her?”

“But they published her address,” Basti said.

“Yeah, well, Caden’s dad plays golf with the police chief,” I said. “And Zane’s family owns this building and half of the rest of town. You think they’re going to investigate these people? They’ve been getting away with these sorts of things for years.”

Silence.

Isabelle looked up at me. Her eyes were red, but dry. She’d gone way past crying, and was heading into some harder, colder place. “They’re not going to stop, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” I said. “That you can count on.”

“Then what do we do?”

I looked at Laura. She nodded.

“We disappear you,” I said.

By 2:30 AM, we had the outline of a plan.

It wasn’t a good plan. It wasn’t even a complete plan. But it was a plan, and that was more than we’d had an hour ago. “We move you out before sunrise,” I said. “Everything. Furniture, clothes, art supplies, everything. We make it look like you just vanished. I want us to clean the entire apartment, as well, as if it were ready for inspection. You’re on a month-to-month with a required two weeks’ notice. These fuckers are not getting to keep your deposit on top of your dignity, and we’re not paying for another month here. I am positive they know their son is up to his eyeballs in this stuff. How could they not?”

“Where does she go?” Basti asked.

“My place. The garage barn out back. It’s detached and opens onto the yard, which has eight-foot redwood fences on all sides. All relatively new, very sturdy. No one can see the yard from the street or the alley if we’re careful. She’ll be able to go from her space to the house or to just be outside without being detected.”

“Your garage?” Kaira looked skeptical. “Isn’t it falling apart? And the big sliding doors and side door aren’t exactly secure from what I remember.”

“I already texted Adam. He was up late closing an event and has already been over to Walmart for supplies. There’s a group of four heading to the house to secure everything, and I’ve got a 24-hour locksmith from several towns over who’s meeting up with them. By the time we get over there, there will be new locks, bars on the windows from the inside, the works. It’ll be secure enough.”

“And her car?” Laura asked.

“Adam’s storing it at his place. Out of sight. And he’s going to leave a nondescript gray Honda Civic parked in the alley behind Erin’s house. The plates won’t connect to Isabelle. She’ll be able to use that vehicle at some point.”

Isabelle was shaking her head. “This is insane. I can’t just disappear. I have school, I have — I don’t know — this brings everything I do to a halt.”

“You have eight men who just published your address and phone number alongside fake porn,” I said. “You have a coordinated group of predators who’ve broadcast a message that you’re available for the taking. You have Zane Blalock’s parents as your landlords, which means they have keys to this apartment and access to the security cameras in this parking lot.” I let these facts settle in.

Isabelle flinched, then closed her eyes. This was more than she could deal with.

“I know this is terrifying, sweetheart,” I said, softer now. “I know you don’t want to leave your life behind. But staying here isn’t safe. Not anymore.”

“How long will this be for?” Her voice cracked. “How long do I have to hide?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “But we’ll figure it out. I promise.”

Isabelle looked at Basti, then at Kaira, then at me. “I already quit my job because of Howard and stopped going to my art class because of Lichter. Now I’m supposed to just vanish? Like I’m the one who did something wrong?”

“No,” I said. “You’re the one they’re hunting. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” Her voice was bitter. “Because it feels the same.”

No one had an answer for that.

Finally, Basti stood up. “I’m going to go get my Transit. It’s pretty much cleared out and should be able to hold everything. We’ll only need to make one trip from the apartment to your house, Louise.”

“I’ll help pack,” Kaira said.

Laura was already on her phone. “I’m texting Adam. He’s sending over a couple of waitstaff to help empty the apartment, and his banquet captain is going to stay and do a quick final clean and vacuum.”

I looked at Isabelle. “We need to move fast. Can you do this?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she took a deep breath through her teeth. When she opened her eyes again, something had shifted. Her face was not registering acceptance, exactly. More like fury and resolve.

“Let’s go,” she said.

We had to work in near silence, moving through the apartment like burglars.

Basti and Kaira dismantled the bed frame and pocketed all the bits of hardware, while Laura and I packed clothes, toiletries, and books, stuffing everything into plastic bins and pillowcases, wrapping all the hanging clothes in sheets that could be dragged down the steps. Isabelle moved through her apartment like a ghost, touching things — the thrift-store lamp, the succulent on the windowsill, the painting she’d made last spring — as if memorizing them.

“Of course we’ll leave the furniture that came with the place,” I said. “We’ll just take what’s yours.”

“What about my lease?” Isabelle asked.

“I’ll deal with that later—it’s in my name, anyway. Right now, we just need you gone.”

“They’re going to charge me for the two weeks.”

“Let them,” Laura said. “Better than staying here.”

By 5:15 AM, Basti’s Ford Transit was loaded. He was going to drive it to my place via back roads, avoiding main streets and any traffic cameras. Kaira would ride with him. She’d left her car on the street a couple of blocks from the apartments. Laura and I would take Isabelle in my car, separately, no convoy.

“Phones,” Laura said. “Power them down, please.”

“What?” Isabelle looked stricken. “I can’t just —”

“They could be tracking you,” Laura said. “Location data, app activity, everything. If you want to disappear, you need to actually disappear. Please turn it off, for all of us.”

Isabelle stared at her phone — her lifeline, her connection to everyone she knew — and then, slowly, she powered it down and set it on the kitchen counter. Laura picked it up and put it in her purse.

“I’ll get you a burner,” I said. “Which will be just for emergencies. We’ll get this sorted, I promise. It’s going to take a few days, and we need to find someone who’s not from town and is tech-savvy. Until then, you’ll have to watch ‘Dexter’ from start to finish. All eight seasons.” I chuckled.

She nodded, but I could see the loss in her eyes. Another piece of her ordinary life, gone.

We left the apartment at 5:43 AM. The sky was still dark, but the horizon had begun to pale. Isabelle didn’t look back.

The drive to my place took all of twelve minutes.

Isabelle sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the empty streets. Laura followed in her car, keeping a careful distance. No obvious connection.

“I’m sorry,” Isabelle said quietly.

I glanced at her. “For what?”

“For all of this. For dragging you into it. For whatever I’ve done to cause this.”

“Stop.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “This is not your fault. None of it. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t do anything to deserve this. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, but I could see she didn’t believe it. Not really. That’s the idea, isn’t it—to make you think you’re the problem. Make you apologize for being hunted. Classic domestic partner abuse. As if any of these men had been Isabelle’s “partner.” This was really twisted shit.

“We’re going to fix this,” I said. “I don’t know how yet, but we will.”

“What if they find me?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. So I just drove.

My house sat three lots in from the corner, tucked between our local district attorney, a man I trusted with my life, and a two-flat with two pairs of husband-wife journalists from the local newspaper. And then there was my house, one of the aforementioned kit houses. The house was cute as a button, a persimmon tree on one side of the front yard and a huge sycamore shading the front of the house. The entire backyard was enclosed by a tall redwood fence, and the garage was perched on an alley — its slightly sagging 1920s structure looked more like a barn — with only the roofline visible from the front.

Adam’s truck was already in the alley when we arrived, his guys keeping a lookout for any snoopers, be they innocent or the men from whom we were hiding Isabelle. When we arrived, there were three other vehicles I didn’t recognize.

“Whose vehicles are these?” Isabelle asked, worried.

“Friends,” I said. “People Adam trusts.”

We pulled into my neighbor Erin’s driveway. I had called ahead to let her know a bit about what was going on. The Transit was already backed up to the garage, its rear door open. Basti and Kaira were unloading things, and Adam was directing traffic, pointing and gesturing like a general, his guys taking care of the bigger items, the locksmith working diligently on the new locks, which looked to be up to penitentiary standards.

He saw us and came over. “We’re almost done with the locks. Bars go up next.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He looked at Isabelle. “You okay, kid?”

She shrugged. “Pretty much. All of this is a huge shock.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Fair enough. Let’s get you settled. Louise — shouldn’t we get her into the house, out of view? I’m worried that all of these people are attracting unwanted attention. I don’t want it to be associated with Isabelle.”

By 8:30 AM, the garage had been transformed from a storage space into something almost habitable. Laura had brought over her sister and daughter, who in turn brought a carload of cleaning equipment — mops, vacuum, soaps, sprays, scrubbers, etc. Someone had strung a hose in from the backyard through one of the windows and hooked it up to the utility sink, and neighbor Eric, Erin’s husband, had put up curtain hardware and installed several industrial-looking light fixtures. The two of them had also brought over some nice wood shelving, an old desk and chair, and a treadmill from their garage. Laura’s team contributed some much-needed rugs.

When all was said and done, there were proper locks on all the doors, and bars on all of the windows — the kind that lock from the inside, so Isabelle wouldn’t be trapped if there were a fire. The interior had been swept and scrubbed, the cobwebs cleared, the old oil stains covered with the rugs that Laura had pulled from her own basement.

Isabelle’s bed was in place and made up with her linens; there was an easy chair and a television. But no laptop or phone for the time being. I brought in several boxes of books and left those for Isabelle to put onto the shelves.

It wasn’t beautiful. But the space was secure. At least as secure as we could make it.

All of Isabelle’s belongings were stacked inside: bins of clothing, art supplies, books, decorative items, non-perishable foodstuffs. Her life, compressed into a 300-square-foot space. And we’d set up a camping toilet, a mini-fridge, and a coffeemaker with all the necessary supplies. It was the best we could do for the time being.

She stood in the doorway, looking at it all, and I saw her face crumple.

“Hey.” I put my arm around her. “I know this isn’t what you wanted.”

“I had an apartment,” she whispered. “And a life.”

“You still have a life. It’s just a little different. Okay, a lot different. Consider this an adventure—one that’s better than the alternative.”

“Different.” She laughed, but it came out broken. “That’s one word for it.”

Read Overpaint, Chapter 1, here.

Read Overpaint, Chapter 2, here.

Originally published on Fictionalized

Hi, friend. Really appreciate you reading all of my stuff. It’s a lot, I know. Sometimes heavy, sometimes crazy and sexual, then some really angry stuff, but always lots of humor. What would I do without my writing? And the humor? I’d probably be dead. Better question: What would you do without it? Read bitches gotta eat, I hope.

I do need someone to read this stuff, though, or it means nothing. So, thank you for that, Steve.

This I know: a lot of my writing is good. Quite a few people read it, and they seem to find it interesting, which I’ve always found a bit surprising. I would describe my style as oddly polished in its unconventionality. I’m going to attribute this to a lack of formal training, a voracious appetite for reading (mostly the really good stuff), and a desire to do everything perfectly. I really get off on perfectionism, or as I like to call it, perfectionasm, which is a little like an orgasm. Perhaps I didn’t need to point that out.

I was always an aspiring snoot about literature — from the first grade on — thanks to my friend Kit’s parents, Sally and Bill, and to a slew of really great teachers I had over the years. Thank you, all. I noticed a few of you, Mrs. Dorner and Sally in particular, wrote your own obituaries. Who does that? Damn! They’re good! FYI, Ethel Dorner was absolutely the best teacher, ever, although I really liked Mr. Adrian, too, and he’s still alive. Note to self: drop him a line. Mrs. Dorner lived to be a perfect 100 years old. But of course she did. That was exactly the kind of person she was. An exact person.

Ethel, as I’d like to call her now that I’m considerably older than she was when she taught me the facts of life, helped me to understand something really important: it didn’t really matter what other people thought of me. I could just be my crazy self, and that was cool. “Go for it” was her message, even though that wasn’t an expression at the time. Sometimes, though, when my crazy self got too crazy, I did have to pound erasers out in the snow. Without a coat.

Truth be told, I don’t really give a shit what people think of me, even to this day. I seem to have gotten mired in this developmental phase, and I’m not sure I want to move on to anything else. One of my readers called my writing “sophomoric,” as if that was an insult.

I’m quite good right here, where I’m at. I think most women don’t achieve this state of nonchalance (or that slightly elevated version: “indifference”) until they are well into menopause. Me, I was solidly settled into my whateverness by ninth grade. I figured out very early on that not caring what others thought of me was powerful stuff. More people should give it a try. If they did, they’d probably find themselves making much better decisions all-around, and they’d quit feeling guilty about writing people off who really deserve to be written off. Same goes for those who deserve flipping-off. Or those who take issue with my cooking with Trader Joe’s sauces rather than making curry from scratch.

It blows my mind, all the energy people expend trying to impress so-and-so and what’s-his-name. I’m like, wow, we could have solved world hunger by now. Or just had a damn nice curry, fuck you very much. You know who you are.

FYI, no one cares you were a cheerleader, Brenda. Or homecoming queen, Connie.

I equate my writing to a really great tent in the middle of a homeless encampment; a sanctuary in the middle of fucking chaos. You get to watch people working it out, while you quietly sip kombucha in your low-profile folding camp chair. You’d have to make at least one friend at the camp, preferably someone without an addiction issue, so you could take turns watching each other’s shit. And when it rains, there’s that lovely sound on your tent, and of course, I would have made a point of pitching my tent higher up so it wouldn’t get flooded. I did think that through.

It could be a decent life, you know, “living rough,” as the English call it. You just need to make sure you have plenty of warm clothes and a sturdy cot. Also: water and a good can opener. In fact, once you got into the life, you might start thinking, “Hey, I could get used to living like this.” It would certainly be more interesting than your average existence. My goal has never been to live up in the hills. Nah. Too boring.

Until I moved in with my current beau, I was quite set on living in a camper. In fact, my #1 financial goal was to save up for said camper. I dreamt and dreamt about living nomadically, and I’m sure it had nothing to do with that Frances McDormand flick, Nomadland, that I’ve watched about 17 times. In the dream, I sometimes parked in my daughter’s driveway, sometimes in my son’s, but most of the time I’m parked in the woods at a KOA campground in Cloverdale.

There are a lot of those KOA campgrounds. Ya gotta move around because they don’t let you stay permanently at any of them. They have great showers, toilets, and proper hookups, and they’re cheap — maybe 1000 bucks per month — if I were part-time with my kids. I’d just rotate sites all year, sticking close to Northern California. There are like 15 of those campgrounds between Watsonville and Mount Shasta. Perfect. This would give me the opportunity to check out the world in small doses, while continuing to live like a hermit, dining nightly on my favorite tuna salad on multigrain and assorted canned beans. OMG I love beans. Every fucking kind. And they’re cheap because people are idiots and they eat stupid shit like bacon and filet mignon instead.

Not gonna lie. I also love dorm food and hospital cafeteria food. I am positive that some of my friends wished they could take back the rude comments they made about the cafeteria — like around the time they were trying to juggle toddlers and full-time work. Yeah, bitches. Bet you wish you could just go down to the cafeteria and load up your tray with Hungarian goulash, coleslaw, and buttered lima beans. Those were the days, baby.

Steve — I’ve been doing this storytelling thing since I was a kid. You’ve only known me for what, 2 years? I just wanted to point out that I tell stories in a number of ways — through my writing, sometimes off the top of my head at the dinner table, other times through my flute playing. Some of the stories are real, every detail exact, every sensation, every smell, every color; some are not. I call those made-up shit. Usually those stories are not as good, at least in my estimation. And it’s seriously painful to write them. All that fucking pretending and not saying exactly what you mean. I’m just not good at it. If I want to call Brenda a bitch, I want it to be the real Brenda, not “Belinda.” All of this is the same reason I hate Disney animations.

Other stories of mine have super fuzzy details and are disorganized, like a meandering dream, with asides that seem to have nothing to do with the main plot. Sort of like those awful ballets they used to insert between acts of Italian opera while they hosed down the lead tenor during costume changes. Some stories are deeply satisfying, I know because I make myself cry at the end, while others seem to cause my readers great unease. Sorry, Hannah. I can assure you that neither of those two variations in emotional effect is intentional. I’ve not got that much skill.

By the way, Laura, when you read a run-on sentence in one of my pieces, 99.9% of the time it’s intentional. I do this when I write stories or when I tell them at dinner. My goal: prevent someone else from cutting in and fucking things up, even if it’s just in their mind. Also, run-ons give the impression the character is coming unhinged, a common theme in my work. But, perhaps, these grammatical issues point more to the writer’s becoming unhinged. Another whatever moment.

The one thing you can count on as one of my readers: I am writing whatever I feel, and whatever I feel like. Is there a difference? I need to take a walk and think about that.

And if the story I’m writing is a little too close to home and I know I’m heading into a potential lawsuit with my ex, well… let’s just say there’s a reason I have called this section of my writing “Fictionalized.” Come to think of it, it might be good to call all of my writing “fiction.” That feels very liberating to me, because truth be told, I have a very hard time writing about things I’ve not actually experienced. And while I am, by nature, a shit disturber, I’m thinking I’d rather just say stuff and not have to worry about the consequences. So, going forward, let’s just call all of this “fiction.”

And sometimes, I’m really not positive that what I’m putting out there is 100% non-fiction when I am trying to write non-fiction. You know, it’s hard to recall every single detail accurately. Especially when you were going through huge hormonal changes at the time the events were occurring.

So, let’s keep it simple and call everything I write going forward “fiction.” I like that.

By the way, do any of you ever forget which hand is left, which is right, now that you don’t have a callous on your middle finger anymore?

Lately, I’ve been trying to imagine my way out of this nomadic existence I’ve been stuck in most of my life — the one where I’m moving from place to place with my mom and dad, then my stepmother and dad, and then I am living in someone else’s space and someone else’s community, or in an institutional setting (music camps, universities), or with another person’s family, or in a house mostly paid for by in-laws. You know, all those fucking places where I’m not really an owner of the actual space or part of the community or family. Or I’m only “allowed” to be there temporarily. Thanks for nothing, Jim. You prick.

I’ve spent a lifetime investing my sweat equity and talent into making everyone else’s life better, or at least easier. Invariably, at the end of the day, week, month, or year, I personally have zero to show for all my effort. Lately, I find myself stepping back and thinking: “What is mine, actually?” An existential question, right? After all those fucking years solving everyone else’s problems, making their lives nice, helping their kids get on in this world, what’s left for me? Well, that’s easy: my kids. That’s all. Two youngish people, sturdy, healthy and good-looking. Yeah, I know. Shut the fuck up — that’s a lot — a lot more than many can say they’ve got in this world. I do wish I had something to leave them when I’m gone, however — something besides stories. But the reality is that’s all I’ve got when everything is said and done. There’s no money. None.

But there are lots and lots of great stories. Insert smiling emoji. I’ve had quite the life.

And somehow, I continue to have a satisfying existence, even though nothing is mine. Every morning a great cup of coffee and beautiful views from the breakfast table. Fresh air, a million hiking trails I could explore if I felt like it, soft clothes and a cozy bed. And a really wonderful man, who is gentle and won’t eat anything spicy. And then there are those beautiful kids. Not sure I deserve all of this. But I’ll take it.

And for the time being, this is my kids’ reality, too. Maybe we’re all better off this way, not having things. Probably not, though.

Yeah, yeah. Judge away, readers. I don’t really care what you think about any of this. I believe I mentioned that above.

There is nothing, really, that I’d like more than to know that my children, if they felt inclined, could sit all day and paint — something beautiful or ugly — or spend a weekend hiking with friends on the Lost Coast, and know that at the end of any given day, they would have a roof over their heads and a warm bowl of beef stew on the table. This is why I always include a subscribe button at the bottom of the page.

Hey Steve, I can see from my Substack dashboard that you’ve been there for me, checking out nearly every article and post. Know that every time I put pen to paper (even though I don’t really put “pen” to “paper”), I’m thinking of you. Every time I write — knowing you are a reader — well, that makes me up my game. Seriously. I consider whether you’ve likely had enough of one bitchfest or another, and then I try to think of something else to write about. I like that imaginary challenge. I also let Grammarly take a third and fourth swipe at my piece so you won’t get tripped up on grammatical errrors, which can be so annoying when you’re OCD. I was reading Maigret mysteries last week, and found one of the books riddled with typos. I found at least five, at which point I had to put the book down. It was driving me nuts.

No. I want you to fall right down the rabbit hole and land gently on a pile of sticks and leaves. Then off we go on an adventure together.

Today, I’m here at my standing desk looking out the window onto the bullpen at the ranch. It’s surrounded by a thick, 5 ft. high rock wall that was built about a hundred years ago by Portuguese immigrants. Beyond it are the remnants of their fruit orchard and lots of olive trees. They were pretty smart — they knew where things grew well. Sometimes you can see the horses chowing down on the low-hanging apples. Hard to believe trees that old can still produce fruit. Very cool.

It’s a very dry California landscape right now. August. Crispy. And here I am, looking out the window, typing.

Sometimes when I’m writing, I fantasize I’m staying in a hotel in Seattle, and that it’s raining and raining, and the words and the tears, they all come together and flow down the hill into Pike Place Market, where at some point in the day I’ll go in search of smoked salmon. There’s a lot of moisture in this Seattle fantasy. Thoughts of having to stay cuddled up indoors or walking in the rain somehow get me to say what I need to say. Usually it’s the really difficult stuff I’m writing about when I’m in my pretend Seattle. And at the end of a long stint of writing, I get a pretend table for one at The Pink Door, and I order the cioppino.

A little aside — it’s a fucking miracle I can type right now, as this was something I couldn’t do six months ago. Not even a little bit. I did wonder whether I’d reached the end of the line. It sure felt like it: that final fall at the end of an agonizing year of Graves’ Disease. There were twelve fractures. I was bruised, scraped up, a huge mess; I couldn’t walk or use my arms, and I was in excruciating pain for over a month. But then my beau reminded me I damn well better hang on. I had promised to take care of him, and I had two kids who should really have a say in the matter. “You bitch! You don’t get to give up!” All of this was said humorously, of course, though there was a good dose of real in those words.

I do hate breaking a promise, and my guy knew that. I also felt this in my gut — the need to carry on for my kids, especially given the way things are in the world right now. A fucking nightmare. I had not prepared them for any of this. So, I was going to have to fix that. That meant I was going to have to find a way to get well. And I did.

I’ve always believed that things and people, events, jobs, bad habits, good habits — they all wear you out over time. There’s only so much you can endure or that you can do. Life is abrasive. Bones weaken, and joints start scraping against one another. Synapses in the brain quit connecting.

How many times can a person work 18 hours straight on their feet, carrying things, righting chaos, making things beautiful and perfect, being nice, saving people from themselves, then closing up for the night and making sure everyone has gotten off safely to their homes and families? My job, that was it, in a nutshell. All of my jobs were like that, in fact. I was somehow, always, the person who was in charge. And I was really good at that. Congratulations, bitch. No, shut up.

Being in charge is a huge burden, in the same way being good at difficult things is not a gift. You’re rewarded, then punished, all in one fell swoop. Exhilarated when you’ve accomplished the thing, then exhausted for a month. Then there is the hubris, which according to AI “is considered the worst and most fundamental of the seven deadly sins.” Got that right, bitch. Sometimes I was so damn proud of myself, but then, a moment later, I would feel horribly diminished. The realization: all of that good stuff I’d done, it was for someone else’s benefit. Not for myself. Not for my kids. Fucking pride.

Steve. Don’t do this to yourself.

In the end, I just got tired. Very, very tired. I wanted to go back to tasting my food and feeling the tepid water dissolving the oily, salty sweat. I wanted to feel refreshed again. But I was so numb. I couldn’t feel anything. Nothing. The water might have been boiling hot and burning my epidermis. I wouldn’t have noticed.

That’s pretty much what was happening to me.

A little synopsis here, so you have an idea of where all of this is going. This is a story about my ex, whose name I cannot bring myself to say out loud. I do hate him that much. He was horrible to our kids and to me. You need to know how very difficult it was for me to type “our kids.” I so wish I could take that connection away from them. It was immeasurably damaging. Of course they wouldn’t be here without it, but I do wish they could have had just about anyone else for a father. For nearly two decades, it felt like he was killing us.

My crazy work life continued on as I’ve alluded to for years. There were no days off, no real vacations, at least not for me. We’d go to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz for four days and I’d let the kids each bring a friend, then it was passes for everyone, except me. Off they’d go, and off I went — to a coffee shop. Then we’d meet up for Mexican mid-afternoon after I’d spent five hours cranking out emails to customers and vendors. We did this year after year, though sometimes we’d do the Russian River instead. Back then, I was putting in 65-hour work weeks.

For nine months of the year, Fridays and Saturdays were my event days, and they typically started in the early morning, with me finally getting home around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. I’d peek in on my kids, check on homework progress, throw in a load of laundry and do a few dishes before giving myself permission to collapse, which, more often than not, I did fully dressed, with my shoes still on. On those nights, I had not one ounce of energy left. Not one.

My end-of-event ritual, without fail, was allowing myself a single bottle of sparkling water, a large Pellegrino, which I pretty much put back in single draught. I’d needed much more than that in the way of water throughout the day to replenish all I’d lost in the way of sweat, but there was never enough time. Everyone depended on me.

By the end of one of those long events, my body felt wrung out; I was so dry. Sometimes it felt like I was dying. Even then, I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going. Keep going. Keep going. If I didn’t do the job as was expected, the job I’d been paid to do, how was I going to put food on the table and pay the rent? So, I just kept going.

In the mornings after one of these events, the kids would be starving. They’d had to fend for themselves the whole 24 hours prior, and they weren’t very experienced at it. So I made myself get up, and I put breakfast on the table. A huge, tasty breakfast, though my hips — omg, they were killing me. I could not lift my feet off the ground. Seriously. I could only shuffle. It was an embarrassing sight, which fortunately no one ever saw — that, and me trying to get into that damn clawfoot tub shower. I had to use my right arm to lift my leg in. It really felt like at some point, my legs weren’t going to work anymore. I did think about that quite a bit. How much longer before my legs would just give way beneath me? They were threatening to do it, big time.

Yes, it was time to start worrying about my health, but I simply didn’t have the luxury of doing that. I was going to have to find a way to shelve all this pain temporarily — hide it from my kids and my customers. I mean really… who was going to hire someone to run their events when they were limping all the time? Not gonna happen. And I could not be the mom who couldn’t walk. How embarrassing for my kids. It was bad enough I looked (and was) older than all the other moms. So I pretended I was fine and made myself do what felt impossible.

On those Sundays after two days of events, I had to suck it up. My kids had to come first — they needed me. They needed some fun and to get their homework done, and I’d promised we’d go rock climbing and get tacos, and that their friends could join us. I couldn’t not do that stuff. Right? So we did. Sometimes I fell asleep at the picnic tables at Rockzilla. Right there, under the fluorescent lights. I’d wake up and find that Dwayne, the owner, had set a chilled Diet Coke next to me. And he never, ever let me pay. I kind of knew why, but we never went there. Who had time for that?

And then there were Mondays, always looming just around the corner; another day in court, fuck me. The thought of it lingered over our Sundays like gathering clouds. I was having to appear in court again, and I’d not had time to write a response to the latest summons and complaint. A huge whatever.

I’ve lost count at this point. Was this the twenty-third time he’s filed a motion for child support or to change the custody schedule or to publicly accuse me of ruining everyone’s lives? These court appearances had become an ugly thread that ran through our lives every single week, all year, or so it seemed. My ex, he was just so fucking horrible. It didn’t matter that I was asking him for nothing. It didn’t matter he got the car, the house and everything in it, minus my laptop and flutes. He couldn’t help himself. He needed to harrass me. He needed to hurt me. He needed to win. Always needing to win. For what? I just wanted to be left in peace. That’s it. Keep your fucking money. Just go away.

Mondays would arrive, as they always did, and then there were all those stairs at the courthouse. I saw them, and my legs felt like rubber. How was I going to get up to the third floor? If I took the elevator, I was sure to run into him or his cocky attorney. I really didn’t want either of them seeing how weak I’d become. They would turn it into an excuse to take the kids away.

For years, there was this rising feeling of burning every time I drove past the courthouse. It would start in my chest, then rise up through my neck and into my cheeks. I would turn crimson — it felt like my face was on fire. My flushed face was hugely embarrassing, and something I couldn’t control. It was so noticeable, in fact, that everyone would ask if I was OK, including whoever was the judge du jour. Now I know — it was cortisol. It was all that fear, anger, frustration, worry, and despair. Cortisol. Years of it. It nearly killed me, and it’s probably what fried my thyroid.

My ex and his antics — this was one huge knot I couldn’t unravel, and it was growing more complex every time we went to court. I’d get served papers, then a flood of horrible thoughts would pollute the most beautiful summer day, triggering memories of all the other years of sadness, hardship, and worry I’d had as a child. And he knew this. He loved it. Throughout the year, he’s make sure to serve papers on a day we had an outing planned or on my birthday or on Mother’s Day. You could count on it. And if we had people visiting from out-of-town, well surely that was going to be a week I had to be in court. He had this down — the ex parte hearings for imaginery emergencies.

And then there was his sitting on a bench outside the courtroom in his fucking Mr. Rogers zip-up sweater and his obscenely expensive Mephisto shoes, always smiling and cheerful, ready to bring me down a peg, in front of a judge, publicly. A beautiful day in the neighborhood. And never did he present a single shred of evidence I’d actually done anything wrong, short of my using profanity in his presence.

But then malignant narcissists don’t need evidence, do they? Everyone knows they are right. They are the deciders, they are in charge. And they are more intelligent than everyone around them, including the lawyers and those ridiculous judges. He would fill them in on what was really going on. Surely they would see he was right. It was so clear. So logical. She was unhinged; look at her red face.

If he’d had his way, I would have been reduced to nothing. Dead. Never mind how this would have affected our kids.

This is the story I promised you, Steve, and which I have kept to myself until now.

Keep in mind, this is fiction.

by Penny Nickels, editor of the Bemidji Bugle

Hi friends! It’s 6:47 a.m. on a Monday morning in Bemidji, and I’m sitting at my kitchen table nursing my 4th cup of coffee, doomscrolling the news, and trying to keep from throwing my phone across the room. The headline that’s got me ready to commit a second act of violence, this time against Mr. Coffee, is this: “Idaho Woman Nearly Dies After Being Denied Emergency Abortion Care.”

This woman — let’s call her Sarah because that’s her actual friggin’ name — was having a miscarriage and at the hospital. Her fetus had no heartbeat. Sarah was septic. Her husband was in Stage 3 non-REM sleep in the chair next to her multiparameter patient monitor. A nurse came in, shook him awake, and informed him he would need to take his dying wife and their dead-baby-still-in-the-womb home. She then handed him an instruction sheet, which included a list of symptoms to watch for that indicated a life-threatening situation (all of which Sarah already had), which were followed by the statement “your wife’s condition is beyond our scope of care.” At the bottom: the phone number for the coroner. Just kidding about that last bit.

The hospital sent Sarah home because of Idaho’s total abortion ban, which went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. This new ban is so extreme it has given Idaho doctors pause about doing any emergency abortions, even when they are clearly needed. The law reads that medical service providers could face criminal charges and revocation of their medical license if they perform any elective and non-emergency abortions.

Whether a patient’s condition has fallen into the category of “life-threatening” could well be determined too late and by someone grossly unqualified to make a ruling on matters of this sort, namely a right-wing religious fanatic with the IQ of a banana slug and no medical training. Considering that the majority of Idahoans are MAGA-aligned, and that ultra-conservative Christian values strongly influence Idaho politics and public policy debates, there’s a real good chance a doctor performing a “necessary” abortion could end up in jail or be permanently barred from practicing.

So there it is: the reason many hospitals and doctors in Idaho simply refuse to do abortions, even when the mother’s life is potentially at stake. You hardcore MAGAs voted for this. So this is what you get.

Let’s take a not-so-quick look at all that MAGA policies have brought to women in Idaho, so y’all can appreciate how MEN in politics, making decisions about WOMEN’S BODIES, are hurting people. Oops, not people. WOMEN.

Keep in mind there are only 29 female legislators in Idaho and 105 dudes. Yep, the guys have it: a supermajority.

Here’s what’s up with reproductive and maternal care in Idaho since Roe v. Wade was overturned:

• A near-total abortion ban with severe criminal and civil penalties for physicians. The only exception is if the procedure is to prevent the death of the mother, but not if it’s just to preserve her health.

• Providers have gone bye-bye. The legal climate in Idaho is now so volatile for the medical profession that a significant number of OB/GYNs and maternal-fetal medicine specialists have left the state. That would be over 43% of them. GONE. Vamoose.

• Idaho is now a state of maternity deserts, with roughly 30% of its counties lacking any obstetric provider or a hospital that is equipped for labor and delivery. Eighty-five percent of the remaining OB/GYNs are clustered in 7 counties. There are 44 counties in Idaho. The math is not good.

• Public programs offer very little support. Programs like the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Women’s Health Check provide free breast and cervical cancer screenings and diagnostic testing for qualifying low-income residents, but this program is only equipped to handle 10-15% of eligible individuals because REPUBLICANS refuse to expand the funding needed for these programs. The GOP can harp on and on about the importance of traditional families with stay-at-home mothers, but it is doing its damnedest to make programs that would support this scenario unavailable by making work a requirement for their programs. Guess what, girls? In many cases, being a stay-at-home mother does not qualify as “work” by the GOP.

• Primary care doctors and pediatrician ratios per capita in Idaho consistently rank at the very bottom nationally. What is the GOP doing to bring much-needed doctors to the state? ZERO.

• Approximately 1 in 8 women of childbearing age in Idaho have no health insurance whatsoever. The GOP response: “Whatever.”

• Recently, Idaho’s Republican-led legislature has pushed for tighter Medicaid constraints and reimbursement rate reductions, which are exacerbating the financial instability of clinics throughout the state and at rural hospitals. Call me Captain Obvious, but farmers in Idaho who need medical clinics and hospitals voted Republican by huge margins. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, then having nowhere to go to get it bandaged up. Duh.

Back to the anecdote about Sarah. After coming home from the ER, Sarah nearly died in her bathroom as her condition worsened and she waited for emergency medical services to arrive. Somehow, by the grace of God/god, she did survive. But barely.

Sadly, Sarah’s uterus did not. Perhaps it was God’s will that someone ignorant enough to vote Republican should not have children. As an atheist, I prefer to imagine this was simple Darwinism at work.

And you know what the kicker is? Sarah voted for Trump in 2020 — the man who appointed three Supreme Court justices he knew would overturn Roe v. Wade. She voted for a party of mostly men who have worked tirelessly to take away her right to control her body.

And when the chickens came home to roost, Sarah was shocked.

Sorry, Sarah, but you DO NOT get to be shocked.

I’m not shocked. Are you, readers? I am, however, furious. Both at Sarah-the-voter and at the mostly-male politicians and judges who put female patients and the medical professionals who care for them in a chokehold. I’ll tell you what… if even one of those politicians came into the emergency room because they couldn’t “get it up,” the doctors would be all over their ED like white on rice. They’d get priority treatment and would be walking out those wide-clearance emergency room doors in no time. With a huge woody, and just in time for their big date.

So here’s my question for all you women out there in Idaho, and you girls in Bemidji, too — in fact, I’m talking to all the women across the entire goddamn country who are still pulling the lever for Republicans: What the actual fuck are you thinking?

Seriously. I really want to understand this. Because from where I’m sitting it sure looks like you’re voting for MEN who don’t care one iota if you’re dead, poor, pregnant, have no healthcare or childcare, and can’t afford food for your family. If they have their way, you’re gonna have that child, come hell or high water. Period. End of story.

YOUR BODY, THEIR CHOICE

Let’s start with the obvious: Your reproductive rights are gone. Not “under threat.” Not “in danger.” Gone. As in, they no longer exist in thirteen states, and they are hanging by a thread in dozens more.

Here’s what the post-Dobbs landscape looks like for American women:

Thirteen states have enacted near-total abortion bans from the moment of conception. Idaho, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. In these states, if you are raped by your uncle, you must carry that pregnancy to term. If your fetus has a fatal abnormality and will die within minutes of birth, you must carry that pregnancy to term. If continuing the pregnancy will leave you infertile, you must carry that pregnancy to term. The “exceptions” for the life of the mother are so narrow and vaguely worded that doctors are terrified to act UNLESS YOU ARE TRULY DYING. Hello MAGA girls — are you understanding this? No treatment allowed unless you are literally dying, as in right then and there.

Often, the critical treatment comes too late.

C’est la vie. You fucking voted for this. Pardon my French.

Add several more states to the pileup — Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina —these states have passed six-week abortion bans. Six weeks. That’s before most women even know they’re pregnant. These are called “Heartbeat Bills,” which is medically inaccurate propaganda, because at six weeks, there is no heart. There is a cluster of cells with electrical activity, but not really a heart. Calling it an “Electrical Activity Bill” doesn’t tug at the heartstrings quite the way the forced-birth crowd needs it to, so they lie. They lie, and women die.

And it gets worse. Numerous red states (Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas) are working to pass laws that criminalize anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion. That means if you drive your friend to a clinic in another state where abortions are legal, you could be sued. If you mail abortion pills to your sister, you could be prosecuted. If you provide information about how to access abortion care, say in states where it is legal, you could be charged as an accomplice. To murder.

Republican lawmakers in all 10 of these states have actually introduced bills to amend state code so it would treat the destruction of an embryo or fetus as homicide. In essence, those who assist a woman in any way, shape, or form toward receiving an abortion would be subject to murder or manslaughter charges.

The GOP has turned women’s bodies into crime scenes and their friends and family into potential felons.

Let’s be super clear: none of this is about protecting life.

And let’s be clear about a few other things. If the GOP cared about life, they would support universal healthcare, paid family leave, affordable childcare, universal pre-K, free school lunches, gun control, and they would be working for a social safety net that ensures no child grows up in poverty and that all children have FOOD.

The GOP supports exactly none of those things. ZERO. ZIP.

Abortion bans are 100% about control. They are about ensuring that women remain economically dependent on men, that we cannot make decisions about our own futures, that we are punished for having sex. This is about a bunch of old White men in state legislatures and Congress who are terrified of women’s autonomy and have decided that the best way to keep us in line is to make sure we’re barefoot, pregnant, and too exhausted to fight back.

And here’s the thing that makes me want to scream into the void: women voted for this. Fifty-three percent of White women voted for Trump in 2016. Fifty-five percent voted for him in 2020. And in 2024, after Dobbs, after we saw what GOP MEN could do, and we heard of women dying in hospital parking lots because doctors were too afraid to treat them, you MAGA White women still turned out for Trump in droves.

Pourquoi?! S’il vous plaît?

I genuinely want to understand this. Is it because you think this won’t happen to you? Because I promise you this: Sarah in Idaho thought the same thing.

Is it because you’ve already had your kids and you don’t care what happens to your daughters? This I can promise you: your daughters are paying attention. Oh yes, they are.

Or are you OK with Republican policy because your evangelical pastor, who is likely male (95% are), told you that abortion is murder and you’ve never bothered to think critically about what that means in practice?

Or is it, sadly, because you’ve internalized the message that women’s bodies are the property of men, that our pain doesn’t matter, that our lives are worth less than a clump of cells?

Whatever the reason, I’m here to tell you: You are voting against your own interests and you are voting against the interests of your daughters, your sisters, and your mothers. And all other women in this country.

You are voting for a mostly-male political party that sees women as incubators, not as people. You are voting for men who think you’re incapable of making your own medical decisions. Or any decisions at all, truth be told.

Fuck you, MAGA bitches, if this is still what you would vote for.

FOLLOW THE MONEY OR LACK THEREOF

Let’s talk about money, because while the GOP is busy dicking around with your uterus, they’re also making damn sure you can’t afford to do anything about it.

Here are some fun facts about the gender wage gap in America:

• Women earn roughly 82 cents for every dollar earned by men.

• For Black women, make that 63 cents; for Latina women, it’s 55 cents.

• Over a lifetime, this wage gap costs women an average of $400,000 in lost earnings — it’s kind of like they don’t get to retire unless they’re married to a man.

• Mothers face the additional “motherhood penalty,” earning roughly 70 cents for every dollar earned by the fathers.

Now, you might think that a political party that claims to be “pro-family” and “pro-life” would be interested in closing this gap. You might think they’d support policies that make it easier for women to work and raise children. You’re probably imagining they’d champion paid family leave, affordable childcare, universal pre-K, and equal pay enforcement.

Yeah, well, you would be dead fucking wrong.

The GOP has consistently opposed every single policy that would economically empower women. Let me give you a quick rundown:

Paid Family Leave: The United States is the only developed nation in the world that does not guarantee paid maternity leave. Democrats have repeatedly introduced legislation to change this. Republicans have repeatedly blocked it. Their argument? It’s too expensive. Never mind that the GOP somehow found $1.5 trillion for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and corporations.

Affordable Childcare: The average cost of childcare in the United States is over $10,000 per year per child, which is more than rent for many working families. Democrats have proposed subsidies and tax credits to make childcare affordable. Republicans have repeatedly blocked this legislation. Their argument? Providing tax credits for childcare is socialism. Never mind that the GOP’s subsidizing oil companies to the tune of $20 billion per year is apparently just good business.

Equal Pay Enforcement: The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. Sixty-two years later, women still earn less than men for the same work. Democrats have introduced legislation to strengthen enforcement and to close loopholes. Republicans have repeatedly blocked it. Their argument? It’s unnecessary regulation. Never mind that, without regulation enforcement, companies have proven over and over again that they will not voluntarily pay women fairly.

Universal Pre-K: Study after study shows that universal pre-K improves educational outcomes, reduces poverty, and allows parents — especially mothers — to work. Democrats support it. Republicans oppose it. Their argument? Parents should be responsible for their own children’s pre-K education. Never mind that “being responsible” is a lot easier when you don’t have to choose between paying for pre-K programs and paying for groceries.

Do you see the pattern here? The GOP’s “pro-family” platform is a massive fucking lie.

What the GOP actually supports is a system in which women are economically dependent on men, a system in which women cannot afford to leave abusive relationships, in which they are forced to stay home with children whether they want to or not, and a system in which their labor is undervalued or unrecognized altogether (ex: stay-at-home mothers, long-term caregivers for family members, etc.).

Now let’s contrast this with what a few Blue states are actually doing for women:

• California offers up to 8 weeks of paid family leave and has implemented some of the strongest equal pay laws in the country

• New York offers 12 weeks of paid family leave and has invested billions in affordable childcare

• Massachusetts offers 12 weeks of paid family leave, subsidized childcare, and universal pre-K

• Washington offers 12 weeks of paid family leave and has closed the gender wage gap more than any other state through aggressive enforcement

These are not radical policies. These are basic supports that allow women to work, to support their families, and to have some measure of economic independence. And they are all Democratic initiatives, which have been opposed at every turn by Republicans.

So when you vote Republican, here’s what you’re voting for:

• A lifetime of earning less than your male colleagues

• No support when you have a child

• Childcare costs that could bankrupt you

• No legal recourse when your employer pays you less for being a woman

You voted for Trump? You voted Republican?

Got it!! You are down for being poor, men calling all the shots, and having zero control over your own body. And you love being disadvantaged at every turn. Sounds like trad wife material to me.

Alrighty then!

EMPTY CHAIRS: WHY THE GOP DOESN’T WANT YOU AT THE TABLE

Moving right along. Let’s talk about representation, because if you’re wondering why the GOP doesn’t give a shit about women, here’s the answer…

Of all the Republicans in the U.S. Congress, only 15-18% of them are women. That’s 230 men and 42 women. Holy shit. With numbers like those, men have no reason to listen to their female colleagues. And they don’t.

Let me say this again, louder for those of you in the back of the bleachers: In the Republican Party, fewer than one in five elected officials is a woman.

Compare that to the Democratic Party, where women make up 40-43% of the House caucus and 31-43% of the Senate caucus. The breakdown on Democrats: 110 women and 147 men. That still sucks, but not as much.

In other words, if you walk into a room full of Democratic legislators, nearly half of them will be women. If you walk into a room full of Republican legislators, you’ll be lucky to find someone to go to the ladies’ room with you.

And as regards legislation important for women and children, the effects of this disparity show. Big time. If you think, for a New York minute, that any male-dominated institution is going to vote on behalf of CHILDREN, you’re dumber than I thought. They simply do not. Unless pressed on the issue by WOMEN.

Who are the deciders in Congress, when it comes to making decisions about women’s healthcare? Men. Who’s been deciding whether women should have access to birth control? Men. Who was determining whether employers should be required to provide maternity leave? Men. Who was blocking funding for domestic violence prevention programs? Men. Who has cut funding for healthcare? Men. Who has slashed umteen programs for children? Men. Who is defunding SNAP and other food programs for families? Men. Who has bullDOGEd nearly every government agency that provides important social programs for all Americans? Men. Who is allowing gun violence to flourish? Men. Who is contributing most to the complete and utter destruction of the environment? Men.

I think we could add “White” in front of almost all of those responses. And about 40% of those responses, White Men could be further categorized as Geriatric White Men.

WAKE TF UP. All of you. WAKE TAF UP!!

The Republican Party is an old boys’ club, and they love it that way. They have no interest in elevating women to positions of power, because women in power tend to do inconvenient things like advocate for policies that benefit women, children, workers, minorities, and the environment. Women are into social programs. Women are into healthcare for all. We can’t have that! So let’s call them “communists” and “socialists.” OUCH! All this namecalling is so hurtful. NOT.

I can already hear some of you saying, “But Penny, what about Marjorie Taylor Greene? What about Elise Stefanik? What about Marsha Blackburn? The GOP has women in leadership. See!”

Sure. Let’s talk about them.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (now gone) was best known for promoting QAnon conspiracy theories, harassing school shooting survivors, and claiming that Jewish space lasers are causing wildfires. Her legislative priorities include banning transgender girls from playing sports and impeaching Joe Biden for reasons that change daily. She has done exactly nothing to advance the interests of women.

Lisa McClain and Shelley Moore Capito. Never hear much about these two. Apparently they are important Congresspeople. Do you know anything about them? Didn’t think so.

Elise Stefanik voted against the Violence Against Women Act, voted against paid family leave, and lent verbal support to Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation process, as well as publicly criticizing the political atmosphere surrounding those contentious hearings. Stefanik went to bat for Kavanaugh despite the credible allegations of sexual assault put forth by psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford.

Stefanik is currently the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, and she got there by being a loyal soldier for Trump and Congress’ male leadership. She has done exactly nothing to advance the interests of women. And she’s experienced so much bullying from male colleagues (namely Johnson and Trump) that she has decided not to run for re-election, though she claims it’s because she wants to spend more time with her family. Stefanik also canned her run for governor of New York, likely for similar reasons — lack of support from male colleagues.

Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The two stooges, who posture and crab about everything, but consistently vote in line with their GOP colleagues. They typically only find the courage to depart from the ranks on legislation that’s going to pass even without their votes. They are complete and utter chickenshits.

Joni Ernst is best known for her government waste audits. That’s about it.

Marsha Blackburn has one of the most anti-woman voting records in the Senate. She voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and against expanding access to birth control. She opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape and incest. She has done exactly nothing to advance the interests of women. She is a complete bitch. Believe it, ladies.

All of these women are token GOP members with little to no power whatsoever. They are the rogue whiskers for a party that is fundamentally hostile to women’s equality. They parrot the party line, vote the way they’re told, and in exchange, get a seat at the table and perhaps some money from AIPAC. But make no mistake: they are not in Congress to represent women or children. Nope. Not one little bit.

Hey, let’s not forget all those “strong” GOP women Trump put into important leadership positions in his cabinet, as federal prosecutors, and in the White House. Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. GONE. Pam Bondi, Attorney General. GONE. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor. GONE. Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence. GONE. Lindsey Halligan, Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. GONE. Alina Habba, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. GONE. Jeanine Pirro, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. ALMOST GONE. Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff. HEADING OUT THE DOOR SOON.

Then there are all the women leaders in the military that Pete Hegseth has dismissed and replaced (and not with other women) or that he has blocked and removed from the promotion lists. Adm. Lisa Franchetti, first female Chief of Naval Operations and first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. GONE. Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, first female superintendent of the Naval Academy. GONE. Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, U.S. military representative to NATO. GONE. Rear Adm. Amy Bauernschmidt, first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. REMOVED FROM PROMOTION. Vice Adm. Sara Joyner, first woman to lead a carrier air wing. REMOVED FROM PROMOTION. Multiple other female officers, including Army and Navy colonels and commanders whose identities have been classified so as to prevent scrutiny. REMOVED FROM PROMOTION.

Contrast all of this with the Democratic women who are actually fighting for you:

• Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, who has made protecting abortion rights and expanding access to healthcare her top priorities.

• Katie Hobbs, governor of Arizona, who vetoed multiple anti-abortion bills and is working to close the gender wage gap.

• Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, who signed some of the strongest reproductive rights protections in the country.

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been a fierce advocate for paid family leave, universal childcare, and economic justice for women.

• Rashida Tlaib, who has fought for reproductive rights, against domestic violence, and for policies that lift women out of poverty.

• And then there is every other Democratic female congressperson, governor, attorney general, Secretary of State, etc., etc. They promote and protect women up the wazoo.

Democratic women are not tokens. As a rule, they are leaders in the party. And they will fight for you. Democratic men… well, that’s a mixed bag. Some have bigger balls than others. Chuck Schumer has been experiencing testicular atrophy since January of 2023 when Nancy Pelosi stepped down as Speaker of the House. I think we can all see that.

So here’s my question to all you MAGA gals: Why would you vote for a party that doesn’t want you in power? Why would you vote for a party where women make up less than 18% of elected officials? Why would you vote for a party that doesn’t see you as a person?

The Democratic Party is not perfect. But at least they let women in the room and give them a voice. In the Democratic Party, it’s socially unacceptable to ignore women and their inconvenient issues. And the men in the party who have done bad things to women are called to the carpet and pressured into leaving. Not the case with men behaving badly in the GOP ranks. Ya gotta wonder why the GOP is protecting the GOP’s bad boys. I’m talking the sexual predators. The pedophiles. The domestic abusers. Hmm.

RED PILLS & MAGA

The alternate title for this section: “How The GOP Came To Love The Manosphere and other Women-Haters and Then Started Considering Whether Women Should Get To Vote.”

Okay, buckle up, because we need to talk about this manosphere thing, as this is where it starts to get really dark. Darker than dark. They-want-to-take-away-your-right-to-vote dark. They-want-to-normalize-violence-toward-women dark.

For those of you who are blissfully unaware, the “manosphere” is a loose network of online communities, podcasts, and influencers who promote what they call “red pill” ideology. Time to get fucking up to speed, girls. The basic premise of this burgeoning movement: feminism has ruined society, women are hypergamous gold-diggers who only care about money and status, and men need to reclaim their dominance through psychological manipulation, coercion, and violence. In this alternate reality, sex crimes are just fine and typically well-deserved.

The GOP is, in essence, condoning violence toward women (and children) by doing nothing about these people — these evil influencers, like Andrew and Tristan Tate. They refuse to speak out against their hateful rhetoric. Why? Because these women-hating manosphere influencers are bringing millions of young men to the Republican Party. If this sounds vaguely like the Hitler Youth, you are on to something.

The manosphere is a world of pickup artists, alpha and sigma men, men’s rights activists, incels, and red pill and black pill followers. This is a world where women are not people; they are just “females.” In this world, dating is treated as a game, consent is just an obstacle to be overcome. This is a world where the phrase “Your body, my choice” is not just acceptable — it’s cheered on. Over, and over, and over. Enjoy getting to know these weirdos, ladies. In this political climate, they are flourishing in your community.

The Republican Party has embraced the manosphere with open arms (or splayed legs, as the case may be).

During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump made a strategic decision to court young male voters by appearing on manosphere podcasts. He sat down with hosts who openly promote misogyny, some of whom, in their back rooms, mock the concept of consent, and teach their audiences how to manipulate women into sex. He validated their grievances. He told them they were right to be angry at women. He promised them a return to a world where men were in charge, and women knew their place.

And it worked. Trump won this particular group of young men by a significant margin, in large part because of this outreach. And here’s the impact of that outreach: a 4,600% spike in misogynistic rhetoric online. Yep, not a typo.

Here’s what I have to say: Fuck you, Donald Trump, and fuck you every Republican that backs him. And fuck you to every woman who voted Republican.

According to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in the days following the 2024 election, phrases like “Your body, my choice” and “Repeal the 19th Amendment” exploded on social media. These weren’t fringe comments from anonymous trolls. These were mainstream talking points, amplified by influencers with millions of followers, celebrated by young men who saw Trump’s victory as permission to say the quiet part out loud.

For those of you ladies who were smoking or vaping in the bathroom during history class in high school, know that the 19th Amendment was the one that gave women the right to vote. Yeah, can you believe that?! Women didn’t have the right to vote until August 26, 1920, when that nifty little constitutional amendment was finally certified into law by U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.

Show some fucking respect. This was a big, big deal.

And this misogynistic rhetoric that was appearing online didn’t stay online. Within weeks, school districts across the country were reporting incidents of boys chanting “Your body, my choice” at girls in hallways and classrooms. Teachers were filing reports of sexual harassment. Girls were coming home in tears, telling their parents that boys were telling them they had no rights, that they were property, that they should shut up and submit. Manosphere influencers fed these lines to these young men. These boys didn’t come up with this shit out of thin air.

This is what the GOP has unleashed. This is what they have encouraged. This is what they have profited from. The Republican Party stands for misogyny. It promotes it, legislates it, empowers it.

But wait — it gets worse. This is not just anonymous teenagers on the internet. This is not fringe podcasters with a few thousand followers. The call to repeal the 19th Amendment — the amendment that gave women the right to vote — is now coming from inside the GOP.

Let me introduce you to some people.

Pete Hegseth: Trump’s Secretary of Defense. His pastor, Doug Wilson, a senior figure in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, has publicly stated that repealing the 19th Amendment is “a good idea.” Not a hypothetical. Not a thought experiment. A good idea. Hegseth has invited him to speak at the Pentagon. Enjoy this gals…

Doug Wilson is a prominent Christian nationalist theologian who has a massive following in evangelical circles. He has spent years advocating for what he calls “household voting” — a system whereby each “household” gets one vote, and the male head of household casts it. In his vision, married women don’t get to vote as individuals. Their husbands vote for them. And if there’s a disagreement? The husband gets the final say. Because, according to Wilson, the 19th Amendment “transformed male voters into mere individuals, and wound up disenfranchising the household.”

Let me translate that for you: giving women the right to vote was bad because it meant men could no longer control how their wives voted.

Abby Johnson is an anti-abortion activist who was featured at the 2020 Republican National Convention. She has openly advocated for a return to household voting, arguing that it would restore “traditional family values.” She frames it as empowering families. What she means is it disenfranchises women.

And this isn’t just talk. In Tennessee — the state that ratified the 19th Amendment and gave women the right to vote — GOP Christian nationalist groups are actively promoting household voting as a policy goal. They’re holding conferences. They’re writing position papers. They’re lobbying legislators.

Ladies, they are working, right now, to take away your right to vote.

Let that sink in. The same party that courted the manosphere, that gave a platform to men who think women are property, that celebrated Trump’s 2024 victory with a 4,600% spike in “Your body, my choice” rhetoric — that party, the GOP, is now aligned with Christian nationalists who want to strip you of your most fundamental right as a citizen. Your vote.

This is not a fringe position. This is not a few weirdos on the internet. This is the pastor of the Secretary of Defense. This is a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention. This is a movement with money, with organization, with political power.

And they are coming for your vote. Just like the Project 2025 people came to D.C. to make POTUS the King of Everything.

Here’s how it works. The GOP starts by normalizing these ideas. They frame them as “restoring traditional values,” “empowering families,” or “returning to the Founders’ vision.” They get pastors to preach it from the pulpit. They get influencers to promote it on social media. They get politicians to nod along and say, “Well, it’s an interesting idea.”

And then, once the idea is normalized, they start pushing legislation. Maybe it starts at the local level—school boards, city councils. Maybe it’s framed as a “pilot program” or an “experiment in civic engagement.” Maybe they don’t call it “household voting” — maybe they call it something else, something that sounds less threatening.

But the goal is the same: take away the individual right to vote for married women and give it to their husbands.

If for one minute you imagine this could never happen, I need you to remember this: five years ago, Roe v. Wade was settled law. It had been the law of the land for fifty years. And the people who wanted to overturn it were told, over and over again, that it would never happen. That it was too extreme. That the American people would never allow it.

Guess what? It was overturned.

Here’s the thing about the manosphere: it’s not just talk. It’s a pipeline to violence. It’s organized. It has money. It has followers. It is backed by the religious cult of evangelical Christianity. It’s backed by Republican politicians, the president, and even his youngest son. It’s popular with millions of young men — men who are emotionally immature and looking for easy answers to difficult questions.

Oh, yeah. It is time to be afraid. To get mad. And now, we have to figure out how to root this out and get rid of it.

Stay tuned.

BODY COUNT

Or: “The Women The GOP Doesn’t Want To Talk About: The Dead Ones.”

Let’s get down to it. Time to talk about the women who are dead, dying, or physically injured.

This is not the hypothetical women in thought experiments about abortion. It’s not the abstract women in political talking points. This is real women. Women with names, whose families and futures have been stolen from them.

Between 2019 and 2024, domestic homicides in the United States more than doubled, increasing from 1,065 to 2,339 annually. That’s an increase of 120% in five years. Let me put this another way: more than 2,300 women are murdered every year by their intimate partners. That’s more than six women every single day. That’s one woman every four hours.

According to the FBI, 74.5% of all domestic violence victims are women. According to the Council on Criminal Justice, domestic violence incidents increased by 8% during the pandemic and have remained elevated since. And sexual assaults are up 3% compared to the previous year.

Women are being killed in their homes, by the men who claim to love them, at rates we have not seen in decades. And the GOP is doing exactly nothing about it.

In fact, they’re making it worse.

In 2019, the Violence Against Women Act came up for reauthorization. This is a law that provides funding for domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, legal assistance for survivors, and training for law enforcement. It has been reauthorized multiple times with bipartisan support since it was first passed in 1994.

But in 2019, Republicans in the Senate refused to reauthorize it. Why? Because the updated version included provisions that would prevent abusers from purchasing firearms, and it extended protections to LGBTQ+ abuse survivors. The GOP made a decision: The right of abusers to own guns was more important than the lives of the women whom they would turn those guns on. The GOP also decided to exclude the LGBTQ community from this bill. An attempt to add LGBTQ+ non-discrimination language passed the Senate in 2012, but was blocked and voted down in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which delayed its inclusion.

Here’s exactly how the GOP voted on Bill H.R. 1620: 29 GOP members of Congress voted for the bill; 172 GOP members voted against the Violence Against Women Act. They refused to pass the bill until gun rights were restored to domestic abusers. The GOP caved to the NRA, an entity from whom many Republicans enjoy substantial kickbacks, ignoring in the process that more than half of intimate partner homicides in the United States are committed with firearms.

They voted against this legislation knowing that more than 50 women in the U.S. are shot to death by an abusive intimate partner every month, and that over the years these statistics have been tracked, nearly one million women have been shot to death, injured, shot at, or threatened with a gun by an abusive intimate partner. These stats had no impact on the GOP as related to the passage of Bill H.R. 1620. I repeat: one hundred and seventy-two GOP congresspeople refused to vote for this bill.

Don’t believe me? Well, check it out for yourself. Click through to the congressional voting records.

THE GOP DOES NOT CARE ABOUT WOMEN. Are you getting it?!

H.R. 1620 did eventually pass in 2022, but only after Democrats took control of Congress. The bill did not enjoy bipartisan support.

The big take-away: 172 Republicans in Congress voted against a long-standing law that protects women from domestic violence.

And it’s not just this one piece of legislation — the Violence Against Women Act. Republicans have consistently opposed funding for domestic violence prevention programs, opposed red flag laws that would prevent abusers from accessing firearms, opposed mandatory arrest policies for domestic violence calls, and opposed expanded legal protections for survivors. This on the state and federal level.

The GOP has done everything in its power to ensure that women have no recourse, no protection, and no way out. Over and over.

And then the GOP has the audacity to call themselves “pro-life.”

The truth: the GOP is not pro-life. They are pro-birth, but once you’re born, you’re on your own. And if you’re a woman in an abusive relationship, they will do everything they can to make sure you stay there.

Because leaving requires resources. It requires money for a security deposit on a new apartment. It requires access to legal assistance for a restraining order. It requires childcare so you can work. It requires healthcare for the injuries the abusive spouse has inflicted. It requires a social safety net to catch you when you fall.

And the GOP opposes all of that. They oppose funding for shelters. They oppose legal aid. They oppose childcare subsidies. They oppose universal healthcare.

The GOP has opposed every single policy that would make it possible for a woman to leave an abusive relationship and survive. So women stay. And they die.

And the GOP doesn’t care. They don’t talk about these women. They don’t mention them in their speeches. They don’t propose legislation to save them. They don’t even acknowledge that they exist. Because acknowledging them would require admitting that their policies are killing women. And they can’t do that. It would be bad for fundraising.

So instead, they talk about “protecting the unborn,” “defending traditional values,” and “supporting law and order.” They wrap themselves in the flag and the Bible and pretend that they give a shit about life.

But the body count tells a different story.

Remember this: 2,300 women are murdered by abusive partners every year. Thousands more are beaten, raped, and terrorized. Millions are trapped in abusive relationships with no way out.

That’s the GOP’s legacy. That’s what you’ve voted for, MAGA women. Shame on you for all of this. This is your greatest sin. Galatians 6:2 states: "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." You have not done this.

Republican men don’t care if women die. Their primary concerns? Power, money, and control. Of you.

If you really want to wrap your head around these issues, be sure to watch the Netflix series, “Maid,” starring Margaret Qualley. This true story is about a woman trying to survive domestic violence and her challenges navigating the complicated and ever-changing social programs intended to protect women and children.

It was our usual Sunday evening out, though circumstances had changed. John and I had taken an invigorating hike up into the hills on the west side of the valley, and were now sitting in a favorite eatery on the edge of town, The Bullpen, run by my longtime chef friend, Adam.

Adam had a manly, tough-guy aura — he was burly with a thick, dark beard, and always had a transistor radio sitting on the windowsill of the Bullpen kitchen blaring whatever the current MLB game was. Adam was adept at booth banter, which he had no problem juggling with his cheffing, often putting together an over-the-top Bolognese with fresh-made pappardelle, or braised short ribs with pommes purée and cabernet jus, while calling out baseball stats to anyone within earshot.

Meat and sports. Adam’s specialties.

Prior to being a chef, Adam had been a clubhouse reporter and analyst for both the Seattle Mariners and the Seahawks — this at the tender age of 24 — he was a sports announcer prodigy, of sorts. And despite this being his destiny, given his native talent for broadcasting, Adam’s true passion was food, and so it wasn’t long before he was weaving cooking classes into his already demanding schedule as an announcer. Turns out Adam had as much a knack for food as he did for sports. Big time. I’m talking major league cooking chops. His first gig after culinary school: executive chef at one of the wine country’s top resorts, which is where I first met him in my capacity as a restaurant critic for our small-town paper.

In both careers — as an announcer and a chef — Adam had mingled with every manner of high-testosterone individual: sports figures, announcers, billionaires, winemakers, high-tech gurus, and, of course, other chefs. He could talk on their level about all the things of importance in this world, namely money, booze, food, women, and sports. They revered his cooking, and he played the part of celebrity chef to a T, as documented in the hundreds of photos of him with famous people that were sprinkled throughout the restaurant. Adam had the look, made incredible food, and was raking it in, hand over fist.

Adam was also notorious for being a hard-nose in the kitchen, which was tempered by his fierce protection of his employees, be they sommeliers or scullery staff — a dynamic different from that found in the kitchens of his competitors. Adam was respectful to everyone, except slackers, and in return, his staff was loyal, worked their asses off, and was motivated to meet his high standards in all things. Adam also made a point of bringing on board as many women as men, and elevating staff based on skill and tenacity, not ethnicity or gender — a rarity in the white male-dominated field of chefs and restaurateurs.

Adam was also an outspoken feminist. He had two daughters, and he’d been raised by a single mother. In fact, that’s how he first developed his cooking skills — putting meals on the table for his hardworking mama, Lori. Lori worked an insane number of hours as a paralegal for King County’s prosecuting attorney, this in order to keep a roof over their heads and to ward off her trust fund, drug-addicted ex, whose favorite pastime was taking her to court. Being surrounded by lawyers — criminal lawyers, specifically — is how she kept Bryce at bay. Criminal lawyers know all too well how to deal with sociopaths, and they happily shared these skills with Lori. Since Bryce didn’t work, he had ample time to make trouble for Lori and their sons, and things might have been much worse had she been bagging groceries at Metropolitan Market rather than working in the criminal justice system.

Neither Adam nor his brother Josh had any desire to live with “Dad.” Their father had demonstrated early on that he was incapable of getting them to their Babe Ruth baseball games on time, which always put them at the bottom of the batting lineup, and dinner at his house commenced around 9:00 p.m., which was perfect for Dad, but caused the boys to torture through homework on empty stomachs.

Laundry didn’t get done at Dad’s; there was never enough money for lunch, and Dad was more often than not spending his evenings playing craps with his buddies in the basement or out of the house for a couple of hours on a Friday or Saturday playing pinball at Jerome’s Billiards without the boys. Adam and Josh knew which side their bread was buttered on. There was no butter or bread at Dad’s.

Adam had also discovered, by age 14, that the thing that kept his mother’s spirits up through all of this crap was coming home to a cooked-from-scratch meal at the end of the day, then being able to put her feet up post-dinner while someone else loaded the dishwasher. She absolutely relished this. And so, Adam cooked, and Josh cleaned, with sports radio blaring in the background. They were an awesome tag team. Once everything in the kitchen was back to rights, the whole gang would retire to the futon couch (which doubled as Mom’s bed), to binge-watch episodes of The Office.

All of this is to say: Adam had an appreciation and respect for women — his mother, her boss and quasi-aunt, Janelle Foster, who was the top prosecutor in Seattle, and for all of the women with whom he worked at the resort and his restaurant. And despite their differences, Adam also regarded highly his ex-wife, Beth, who took stellar care of their three children. Adam was an all-around standup guy, surrounded by strong and capable women.

Which is why I wanted to discuss Isabelle’s situation with him specifically. Not only was he one of my best friends, but Adam also appreciated my challenges as a single mother. And I had an inkling he had connections to some of the men we needed to get to know.

Though Adam and I were close, he was even closer to Isabelle, as she had worked for him for several summers both as a back waiter and as an on-the-day coordinator for the large events held at the restaurant. Event work involved early-morning deliveries, and bright, hot afternoons of furniture and tabletop setup that morphed into long, exhausting evenings, guests swirling around the dance floor until the wee hours of the night, while staff stood on the sidelines, reserving their energy for the event strike at midnight.

Events have a way of revealing what a person is made of, their strengths, their shortcomings, and their ability to remain centered, patient, and kind in trying situations. Isabelle trusted Adam implicitly, as he did her. She was an important part of his team. And now we needed him on our team.

Adam was also an important part of our community — dialed in to everything going on — his restaurant a major social hub for locals, young and old alike. Adam knew everyone, and everyone knew him.

And so, that Sunday afternoon, I called ahead to see if he could join John and me in a private corner of the dining room for our favorite bison burgers, and a pitcher of his famous adaptogenic herbal tea. And to talk. I needed a good-sized chunk of his time, perhaps an hour. This was important. Laura would join us if she could, so include some of those garlic parmesan sweet potato fries please.

Bits and pieces of the situation with Isabelle had been floating to the surface for some time, giving every indication that something was lurking below, hidden in the detritus. This something was threatening to pull my daughter under. I could feel movement down there, a subsurface turbulence gently rocking the boat, and I was clutching the thwarts in anticipation of what might come next.

The thing about ambient terrorism is that it doesn’t announce itself. There is no manifesto. No declaration of war. Just a steady accumulation of small violations that, individually, seem too minor to report. But collectively they began to create an atmosphere so suffocating that the target starts to believe the problem is her own paranoia. I’d watched this very thing unfold for two weeks now, and had been documenting it all, just as I would if covering a story for a major publication.

As of today, however, I’d reached a saturation point in the gathering of information. It was time to put everything on the table, share what I’d seen, and to dissect it. All of this needed more than one set of eyes. The details, because they related to my daughter, were a bit too close for me to bring into focus, yet even when I stepped back, I was still failing to see the larger picture. I was both hyperopic and myopic — everything was a blur.

Though I was having a difficult time seeing what was going on, I knew there had to be a common thread. For Isabelle’s sake, I needed to find it as soon as possible.

Tuesday, 9:47 AM: Isabelle was back at Blink’s Market — she needed the regular paycheck, and quitting would have signaled to Howard he had power over her. She was like me: not good at acquiescing to men and always doing her damnedest to keep from revealing her weak spots to them. She dressed tough, she acted tough, and she was tough. Just like her mom. And so it was decided, by Isabelle, that she would continue going in to work, she would do her job competently and be polite, and she’d find clever ways to thwart Howard’s advances, without letting on how repulsed he made her.

Isabelle was positive she had all of this in hand, that she knew what to do, and would not get hurt. There was no talking her out of it, so I bit my tongue. What I wanted to say, had the opportunity presented itself, was that Howard was much meaner than she could ever hope to be, that she didn’t stand a chance against someone that practiced at being cruel — a person fueled by malice, insecurity, and a need for control. On top of that, Howard was one of those men who felt entitled to have whatever he wanted. And Howard wanted her.

I did let her know, however, that if she were going back to that place after what had transpired, I was going to station myself nearby, at least until things cooled off. Isabelle wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but she knew better than to try to talk me out of it. And at some level, she was relieved someone had her back.

And so I parked my Honda CR-V across the street from Blink’s Market, which gave Laura and me a clear sightline to the entrance, while also keeping us out of range of the surveillance cameras sprinkled throughout the parking lot. Once Isabelle made her way inside, Laura and I crossed the road and headed straight to the produce department under the pretense of looking for heirloom tomatoes and our veggies for the week.

Tuesday, 10:02 AM: As I picked through a pyramid of navel oranges, Laura saw Howard emerge from the stockroom. He scanned the store, located Isabelle at one of the registers, then suddenly changed direction. He was wearing the same khakis and polo shirt he’d worn the other day — the day he hadn’t even noticed my presence while he was hitting on my daughter. Middle-aged women, his wife included, were invisible to Howard. And he was wearing that same damn wedding ring, the one he was always touching like a rosary. Howard’s approach was casual and practiced — nothing the fisheye cameras would flag as suspicious or that might alert his wife, who sat religiously in front of the large security monitors every day, making sure the family fortune remained intact and that Howard kept it in his pants. But from where I stood, I could see the calculation in Howard’s trajectory, and the unmistakable look of determination on his face.

Making his way swiftly to the front of the store, Howard positioned himself immediately behind Isabelle, spreading his arms across the entrance to her register area, gripping the countertop on either side firmly, as if to keep her from leaving. At first, Isabelle paid no attention — she was busy checking out a customer — but when she tried to turn around, she found Howard crushingly close — so close, in fact, she could smell the Listerine Antiseptic on his breath — a touch he imagined would impress this beautiful, young woman.

Laura, who was standing in line at Isabelle’s register with a cart full of fruit and veggies, texted me: He just told Isabelle the new inventory “really needs a woman’s touch.” Asked if she could stay late this evening to help him “arrange things in the back.” I don’t need to tell you how this landed in my stomach. Like a rock.

So I swung by Isabelle’s checkout lane, grabbed Laura, and off we headed to the deli for sandwiches, potato salad, and some bottled Starbucks vanilla lattes. Laura’s text told me all I needed to know. It was going to be a long evening, a stakeout that would last at least until Isabelle clocked out for the evening. Provisions would be needed.

Tuesday, 10:00 PM: Isabelle’s shift ended, right on time. She punched out, grabbed her bag, and headed for the exit. With his wife back at home and no longer glued to the security monitors, Howard saw his opportunity and followed Isabelle to the parking lot, but just enough paces behind to escape detection. As she opened her hatchback, Howard made his move, swooping in to grab her groceries from the cart and help her load them into the car. I watched in disgust the huge smile on Howard’s face, his right hand on the small of my daughter’s back. A married man, over twice her age. Isabelle excused herself from this light embrace by stepping to the side, putting as much distance between them as possible. She then slammed hard the liftback — in one gesture expressing anger, demonstrating her physical strength, and punctuating the end of this unwanted interaction with an exclamation mark.

But Howard was not to be deterred, and he let Isabelle know it. He was furious. Though most of his words were imperceptible to us given the distance, the change of tone in his voice was unmistakable. “Let me get your door,” he commanded, making clear this was not some gallant gesture. Since he was already standing in the path between Isabelle and her driver’s-side door, Howard had only to take one step forward to block her completely. Then, rather than reaching for the door handle to actually let Isabelle into the car, Howard extended his left arm outward and leaned against the car roof, using his full body to shield her escape. She was stuck, here in the parking lot, unable to get into her car. Unless, of course, she were to give Howard a hard shove. And so she did. With both hands.

Howard stumbled backward, nearly landing on his ass, but catching himself at the last minute and tweaking his ankle in the process. Howard was not a young man, and this near fall put the fear of god in him, if for but a split second. Then suddenly, without warning, his face darkened, and his hands began to shake. It was as if a switch had been turned on. His voice became low and muffled — he was telling Isabelle something extremely distasteful, her body communicating pure tension: shoulders up, arms crossed, weight shifted back. Her face had that frozen smile women learn to deploy when they’re calculating the cost of saying no. Then Isabelle’s tectonic plates shifted of their own accord. Isabelle raised her head and pulled herself upright, planted her feet shoulder-width apart, offsetting her feet, one forward, one back; she instinctually curled both hands into tight fists. She made herself immovable and ready to hit Howard square in the jaw with everything she had. I watched in amazement just a few yards away, readying myself to take this fucker to the asphalt mat should she need assistance.

Howard leaned forward and touched Isabelle’s arm again, this time letting his hand slide down to her wrist, then realizing her hand was clenched in a fist. He tightened his grip and didn’t release his hand until over a minute had passed, and he had finished saying whatever bullshit he felt he needed to say — or should I say, that he felt entitled to say. He would make her listen.

Isabelle turned her head to the side, refusing to make eye contact for what she knew to be coming next: Howard’s hugely inappropriate and insulting request, to which she replied simply: “No.” She didn’t shout it, she didn’t cry, she didn’t beg him to leave her alone.

Howard’s face registered disbelief. How dare she refuse him? Who did she think she was? Since her message clearly wasn’t sinking in, Isabelle repeated her reply, this time a tad louder, and still with a stone-cold expression: “No!” Howard sneered and issued a guttural noise from deep in his chest. He was reluctant to release Isabelle’s wrist. Relinquishing control would mean she was winning. But as he stood there, considering his next move, Howard had a moment of clarity. None of this was going to work out well for him, not in the stockroom, not here in the parking lot, not in the back of her car, and most certainly not with other employees witnessing what was going down. So, Howard stepped back, if only slightly, and it was at this juncture Isabelle raised her head and gave him a powerfully hateful look, a threatening just-try-fucking-with-me look, while slipping her recently released right hand into her coat pocket, assertively grabbing whatever was in there. Was it a knife? Pepper spray? A gun, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was clearly something that could cause harm. And in case her gesture didn’t drive that message home, Isabelle flashed him a knowing smile.

How had Howard so misjudged Isabelle? She was not sweet and obliging. She was unyielding. Pleasing him was not a priority for her. She had no intention of obeying him. She was rejecting him on every level: as her boss, as a friend, as a potential lover, and Howard’s malevolence was growing. And horribly, it was giving him a huge hard-on. How could he have so misread the situation, their relationship? If Isabelle’s beauty, kindness and gentle femininity were not for him, who were they for? The thought that any other man should have her was unacceptable to Howard. His body wanted her, and she would be his. Maybe not tonight, but soon.

Isabelle was a bitch. Like all the others.

Howard reassessed his options. Since physical harm seemed a potential consequence of pressing her any further, Howard abruptly stepped back. “You will regret this,” he hissed. He then turned away and limped stiffly back to the store entrance, passing, but not acknowledging, several of Isabelle’s co-workers along the way. They stood in shocked disbelief, having just witnessed the whole scene. Only after Howard was out of view did Isabelle get into her car.

Back at home, Howard’s wife was warming up his chicken pot pie and cuing up Fox News @ Night. She was ready and waiting for him, in whatever condition that might be. Perhaps he would be needing a shower before settling in for his late-night dinner. Sometimes that was the case. He was always relaxed on those evenings, and quiet. She understood. And she would keep his food warm.

As Isabelle made her way out of Blink’s parking lot, we started up the Honda and followed her, but at a distance. My guess: Isabelle needed some headspace. This had undoubtedly been an extremely tense situation. Though Isabelle knew we were right there behind her, she did not catch my eye in her rearview mirror, nor did she wave or shoot me a text.

Halfway back to her apartment, Isabelle pulled into a Starbucks parking lot. She sat in her car, gripping the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, a stone-cold look on her face. I could feel her rage. And her fear.

I gave her five minutes, then texted: Coffee? They’re closed.

She didn’t respond for another three minutes. Then: Not tonight, Mom, please. I’m tired. Time to head home.

Tired. Right. Got it.

Wednesday, Noon: It was hard to believe, but Howard Blink was only one of Isabelle’s current challenges with men. And he was a big one. Howard was her job, her livelihood. And Blink’s was where we shopped. Like for decades. Turns out Howard was not Isabelle’s only headache, as of late; she’d had a deluge of bad situations and she’d not brought them up until now because, hey, who would believe this many men had been harassing her? She did wonder. Was she imagining all of this? Would we think her paranoid? Was this somehow her fault? Poor kid.

This morning’s text, which I only just noticed around 8:00 AM: Mom, I’ve got another problem. It’s my art professor. I may need your help. Like ASAP. As in this afternoon.

Time for Stake Out #2: Logan Hill Junior College, Fine Arts Department. Talked to Laura and she was down for it — in fact, she left ahead of me, arriving at the college early enough to sign up for an art class, get supplies, and position herself in the hallway two doors down from Lichter’s studio. Who does that? You’d think Isabelle was Laura’s daughter. Well, she kind of was. Laura was hoping that being on the inside might reveal important information. At a minimum, it would allow her proximity to the action so we could document firsthand what was going down.

As I would find out from subsequent texts, Isabelle had been having serious issues with an art instructor and the department head, Professor please-call-me-Gordon Lichter. His relentless advances over the last year had been one part frustrating, one part threatening. On the surface, everything he did and said appeared innocuous, if not supportive, but anyone who understood art world politics would have recognized that Lichter was, in essence, threatening Isabelle’s career—her academic career and, in the long term, her professional one. His not-so-well-disguised message: “Put out, or I could make your art career a living hell.”

Laura and I had been talking details on this one for some time, well before Isabelle was willing to admit, even to herself, that Lichter was a problem. We had been rounding up specifics on this guy: who was in his circle, where he had taught, and under what circumstances he had left his other positions. What was a bit odd was that he had been on the faculty at both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Rhode Island School of Design, and that he had paintings in permanent collections at prestigious institutions all over the U.S. and Europe. How was it that Lichter had come to be teaching at a small-town junior college?

The picture was just starting to come into focus, but solid evidence and corroborating witnesses would be needed if we were to take action. Judging from all the vivacious, 20-something-year-old bodies prancing around campus, there were no doubt other victims. We just needed to figure out who they were and convince them to talk.

And so, the three of us — me, Laura, and Isabelle — met briefly before class to discuss a plan of attack. We were all still reeling from the late-night shenanigans at Blink’s, but Isabelle assured us that was now a non-issue. She had tendered her resignation at 6:00 AM, when Rachel Blink arrived to open the store. Though there was nothing Isabelle would have relished more than giving Rachel the blow-by-blow on all that had transpired over the last week and leaving her stewing in that knowledge, Isabelle knew better than to bother. She didn’t like Rachel — no one did, really — but what purpose would it serve to torture her? Rachel would be, had always been, in complete denial about her husband. There was nothing that she, Isabelle, or anyone, for that matter, could say that could have convinced that stone-cold bitch to face reality. All Isabelle would have gotten for trying was an earful — about being a conniving whore, and a worthless employee — expressions of endearment she knew had gone out to other female employees who were forced to resign or were fired, namely those who’d reported sexual harassment and assault to the HR department, of which Rachel was the head. By now, Rachel should have known to run for the hills, that her husband was a serial rapist. But she continued to stand by her man. Cowboy boots firmly dug in.

Isabelle decided to offer up her own version of an appropriate adios: be polite, tell Rachel she was going back to school full-time, and express how much she had loved working at Blink’s. Sorry to be leaving at such short notice. Buh bye. Isabelle ended the conversation with a Mona Lisa smile, signed her final timecard, and got the fuck out of there. Let Rachel’s imagination fill in the gaps without her help.

The only bit captured on video, which Howard would no doubt review, would be that vanilla script Isabelle had adhered to. She’d left not one iota of evidence to bolster any argument Rachel was likely to initiate with her husband. That woman was a powder keg — all that worry, doubt, and mistrust — at some point there was going to be an explosion. This was an upcoming event you could bet on.

Isabelle appreciated that being married to Howard was surely a living hell, but knew at some level that Rachel deserved him. She had started fucking him back in the days when she, herself, was a clerk at the store. Yep. Back when Howard was still married to his first wife, and they had three young children. Not many people remember that.

Wednesday, 2:15 PM: Isabelle made her way to her figure drawing class, where Gordon Lichter was the instructor — a man fifty-eight years old, tenured, twice divorced, and driving a Subaru Outback with a “Coexist” bumper sticker and a Grateful Dead decal. The kind of guy who imagines his faux progressive politics inoculate him against being perceived as a predator.

I sat outside the campus coffee shop with a clear view of the art building entrance, sipping on an iced Hojicha tea and nibbling on a dried cherry scone. Laura was doing recon inside — sitting in the hall, two doors down from Lichter’s studio.

Wednesday, 4:15 PM: Classes had ended, both Isabelle’s and Laura’s. Students filed out, Isabelle being one of the last to leave, with Lichter right behind her. He was walking way too close, talking animatedly, and not so discreetly checking out her legs and ass. I watched him gesture toward the sculpture garden — a secluded area behind the building where students sometimes work on outdoor projects.

Laura texted: He just invited her to “discuss her portfolio” in his office. Told her she has “raw talent that needs nurturing.” Said he sees “something special” in her work that reminds him of his own early pieces. Then, a throwing up emoji.

This is classic negging disguised as mentorship. You’re talented, but you need me to unlock it. You’re special, but only I can see it.

Isabelle declined the last-minute office visit. I could see her shaking her head, pointing toward the parking lot, making excuses. Gordon’s smile didn’t waver, but his posture shifted — he threw his shoulders back, chin up, the physical language of a man who’s been told no and doesn’t accept it. He’s thinking: “Let me rephrase this, bitch.”

And then something else is said. Who knows what exactly. Lichter tilts his head to the side in a cocky way, eyes half closed, gives a slow nod, and has a look of derision on his face. “Am I clear now?” he says as he rounds out the conversation. Isabelle goes pale. I can see it from here. She nods twice, then quickly walks away, nearly running as she nears the parking lot. She waves haphazardly at me in my car, but does not look back at Lichter. She is frantic.

I intercepted her at her car. “Hey, baby girl. How was class?”

“Fine.” But she won’t look at me. She’s fumbling with her keys; her hands are shaking.

“Lichter seem okay today?”

Her jaw tightens. “He’s fine, Mom. He’s just... he thinks I should apply for this summer intensive program. In Santa Fe. He says he could write me a recommendation, but I’d need to, like, work more closely with him. Show him my process.”

“Work more closely? How?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Studio time. Bring my stuff into his office. Critiques. Whatever.” She gets the door open, throws her bag onto the passenger seat. “I’m not doing it anyway. I can’t afford Santa Fe. So it doesn’t matter.”

“Did he suggest any other ways you could... earn his recommendation?”

She froze. Looked at me. Her eyes were wet. “I have to go.”

She drove off before I could say anything more. No reassuring hug administered. This was troubling, and I had no idea what to do since I didn’t really know all that went down.

Laura suddenly appeared beside me, holding a lumpy ceramic bowl, agitated, and blurted out: “He told her she’s ‘hiding her light’ and that ‘women like her’ need to be more assertive about claiming their space in the art world. Then he said most of his successful former students had ‘personal mentorship relationships’ with him. I heard it all.”

“Personal mentorship relationships.”

“His exact words.”

I pulled out my phone and added Gordon Lichter to my spreadsheet. Under “Tactics,” I typed: “Negging disguised as mentorship. Implies access to opportunities contingent on private ‘studio time.’ Frames refusal as a lack of ambition and confidence.”

All of this was leading to a bad place.

I heard nothing further from Isabelle.

Thursday, 6:30 PM: Isabelle was supposed to be at her friend Kaira’s house for dinner with Basti.

I had just been sitting at the dining room table taking notes on the various manosphere sites I’d been perusing, and which had likely permanently damaged my psyche. My phone buzzed.

It was a text from Basti, Isabelle’s on-again-off-again boyfriend: Is Isabelle with you? She’s not answering.

I called her. No answer. I texted: Where are you?

Three minutes passed. Then: Home. Just got here. Phone died.

To Basti, I texted: She’s just gotten back to her apartment. I’m heading over and will let you know what’s up.

I drove over. Her car was in the car park, but when I let myself in, I found her sitting on the couch in the quasi-dark, still wearing her jacket, staring at the wall.

“Isabelle?!”

She didn’t move.

I sat down next to her. “What has happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.”

“Baby girl —”

“I said nothing happened!” She stood up, paced in front of the window, briefly pulled back the curtain as if there was something to see out there, then wrapped her arms around herself. “I just... I was at the coffee shop on Main Street, and Caden was there. With Zane. They were just sitting there, and when I walked in, they both looked at me, and Caden smiled, and I just... I couldn’t stay. I left.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“No. He didn’t have to. He was just... there. Like he knew I’d be there. Like he was waiting for me. Mom, I broke up with him over a year ago. Why won’t he leave me alone?”

I pulled up Caden’s Instagram. His most recent story, posted forty-three minutes earlier: a photo of a latte with the caption Best coffee in town and a location tag for Main Street Brew.

He knew she’d see it. He wanted to crash her out.

“How often is he showing up places you are?”

She won’t answer.

“Isabelle. I need to know. How often?”

“I don’t know, Mom. A few times a week? He’s always just... around. At the grocery store. At the gas station. Outside the college. It’s a small town. It’s not like he’s following me.”

Except he was. That’s exactly what he’s doing.

I opened my laptop and pulled up Caden’s Snapchat — the account I’ve been monitoring under my fake profile. His location history showed he’d been within a quarter-mile of Isabelle at least nine times in the past week. The grocery store. Starbucks. The community college. Main Street Brew. And multiple times at the hiking trailhead where she goes running.

He wasn’t even trying to hide it. His unspoken message to Isabelle: “So what are you going to do about it, bitch?”

I screenshotted everything and added it to the folder.

Friday, 11:00 AM: I was at Laura’s house. We’d spread out documentation on all of Isabelle’s ex-boyfriends across her dining room table: screenshots, timelines, location data, testimonies from other women we’d met who’d had encounters with these men. Added to the same: Javier Saldivar, Howard Blink and Gordon Lichter. This is getting to be a lot of men.

“This is coordinated,” Laura said, tapping the printout of the timeline we’d built. “Look at the pattern. Howard escalates on Tuesday. Gordon on Wednesday. Caden Thursday and Friday. It’s like they’re taking turns.”

I stared at the evidence. She was right. The timing was too precise to be coincidence.

“They’re talking to each other,” I said slowly. “They have to be.”

Laura nodded. “I’ve been digging into their social media. They all seem to be connected — not publicly, but through private groups. Telegram, mostly. Encrypted. Hard to access unless you’re invited.”

“Can you get in?”

She gave me the look. Duh.

Saturday, 8:00 AM: The farmer’s market was crowded — families with strollers, dogs on leashes, vendors hawking overpriced heirloom tomatoes, artisanal goat cheese and kefir. Isabelle came along because I insisted. Because we weren’t going to let them erase her from public spaces. Because the alternative was watching her disappear into her apartment and never come out.

We split up. Off Isabelle went to forage, hunting for her favorite berries and veg, maybe a rotisserie chicken and some salmon. I shadowed my girl from three booths away, pretending to examine handmade soaps while keeping her in my peripheral vision.

Out of nowhere, Javier Saldivar appeared, a pair of expensive cowboy boots in hand. We’re not talking “cowboy boots,” we’re talking blond alligator leather, with hand-tooled sterling silver detailing, stacked-leather heels cowboy boots. A nothing-short-of-four-thousand-dollars pair of cowboy boots. Lucchese.

Javier was good-looking in a slick sort of way — close-cropped, curly jet-black hair, slim-fit designer jeans, an expensive set of veneers, and a smile that he’s practiced a hundred times in front of a mirror.

“For you,” he said, holding the boots out to Isabelle. “A little pick-me-up. New beginnings, you know?”

Isabelle took a step back and assumed a defensive posture I’d seen more than once this week. “I can’t accept those, Javier.”

“Why not?” His smile didn’t falter, but something shifted in his eyes. There was a hardness. “I know you and Caden broke up. That must be tough. But it’s been a long time, and I’ve always been there for you, Isabelle. I could be there for you now. We’d be great together.”

“I’m not interested, and this is not the way.”

Her words were clear. Unambiguous.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, lowering his voice and bringing his head closer. Intimate. Threatening. “You’re just upset right now. You’ll come around. Everyone does eventually.”

Javier didn’t move. He stood there, holding out the boots like an offering, like her refusal was just a negotiating position. A crowd was gathering. An intriguing scene was unfolding: two beautiful young people — a debonair Latino, a golden-haired princess, and an expensive pair of boots. A real-life fairytale, right here at the farmers market. How would this end? Would she try on the boots? Would they fit? Would they kiss?

Isabelle set down her bags, right where she was standing, then abandoned them. She excused herself, apologizing to the vendor, then quickly wove her way through the crowd to the parking lot. I watched Javier’s expression as he watched her go — there was no disappointment, no embarrassment. No — the look on his face: Victory. And then the look of him calculating his next move.

Javier tucked the boots under his arm and coolly walked in the opposite direction. Once he was out of view, I swooped in and grabbed Isabelle’s bags of provisions, then made a beeline for her car. We’d come to the market together. I was hoping that in the frenzy, she hadn’t forgotten that.

And there she was, in her car. Not crying, but visibly shaking. I knocked on the liftback, which she released, and put everything in the trunk. I then got into the seat next to her and put my hand on her knee.

“He won’t take no for an answer,” she whispered. “None of them will.”

That evening, Isabelle stayed at my house. She was too unsettled to be alone.

After dinner, Laura and I headed out for an evening stroll around the neighborhood. We had some pasta alfredo to work off, and we needed to discuss what was going on out of earshot of Isabelle.

As I stepped off the front porch, I saw them. The boots. On my stoop. No note. No explanation. Just sitting there like a threat. I was too late in hiding them. Isabelle had seen them from the window.

I pulled out my phone and took a photo, posed as they were on my stoop, then I picked up the boots, walked to the curb, and hurled them into the recycling bin I had set out for the next morning’s trash pickup.

I liked to imagine one of the workers at the sorting plant wearing those Lucchese boots at the next quinceañera. Hopefully Javier would be there.

Sunday, 7:00 AM: Laura called. “I’m in,” she said. “Check the link I just sent you. Password is the year you were born.”

I opened my laptop, clicked the encrypted Telegram link, then entered the password. The chat loaded.

High Value Brotherhood. Eight members. Eight men. OK, nine “men,” now that I was a member. A non-voting member. Just an observer until I’d been properly hazed.

I scrolled through the messages, my coffee going cold in my hand.

Caden: Blonde is getting bougie. This needs correction.

Lichter: Agreed. I’ve been working on her in class. Softening her up. She’s scared.

Blink: Had quite an encounter with Blonde this week. It did not end well. She quit working at the market. I let her know this was not the end of things.

Javier: Hey. I just gave Blonde the boots we all went in on. She refused them. Lol. Not unexpected. Am I right? I went ahead and escalated. Left them on her doorstep.

Alexandros: She’s perfect for the protocol. Blonde, submissive-facing, thinks she’s special. I’ll handle the final correction. I have a perfect setup in mind.

Mark: Standing by. Let me know if you need backup.

Zane: This is what happens when they think they can say no to us. Glad we’re all in agreement on this.

Unknown: The Correction Protocol works. We’ve done this before. Either she falls in line, or we break her. Either way, problem solved.

I read it again. And again. There were only two men I didn’t know in the group: Alexandros and “Unknown.” I was going to make it a priority to find out who they were because they were the worst of the bunch. There had to be clues in those hundreds of messages. And clearly all of these guys were locals.

The Correction Protocol.

They had a name for it. A system. A methodology. This wasn’t random harassment. This wasn’t individual predation. This was organized. Coordinated. Ideological.

They were hunting my daughter. And each of her rebukes was just a problem in need of a solution.

My hands shook as I screenshotted every message. Not from fear. From rage so precise it felt like a scalpel. It was sharp. It was precise. And it was deadly.

I pulled the folder from my bag — manila, thick, already fraying a tad on the edges, and organized in the way I organize everything when I’m trying not to lose my mind. Inside: screenshots, dates, times, names — evidence of a coordinated assault that the police would never touch because these men were woven into the town’s fabric. They were the grocery store owner, the art professor, the landscaper, the plumber, popular young men who were, as a rule, liked in our community. They were the men who showed up at church every Sunday. And they were the men who hunted down women on Mondays.

I called Laura back.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“I saw it.”

“What do we do?”

I stared at the screen. At the eight names. At the casual cruelty in their language. At the way they’d turned my daughter’s autonomy into a glitch in their system.

“We’re going to burn these fuckers down,” I said. “All of them.”

Sunday, 8:30 PM: It was late when John and I arrived at The Bullpen. Adam was already there, sitting in the back booth with Laura. The restaurant was thankfully closed — chairs stacked on tables, lights dimmed, the kitchen quiet for once. Our table was full of food and cold beverages.

Adam ran The Bullpen like a man who’d learned early on that respect is the only currency worth anything. His staff, when they were present, moved with the precision of people who knew they were valued. He paid well, promoted on merit, and didn’t tolerate the ego-driven bullshit that defined most kitchens. In short, Adam treated his staff like he actually gave a shit.

I slid into the booth across from him and Laura. John, next to me, let his hand find mine under the table.

“Thanks for meeting us,” I said.

Adam nodded. “Laura said it was important.”

I pulled out the folder and spread its contents across the table. Screenshots. Timelines. Location data. The Telegram chat logs.

“I need to know what you know about the manosphere,” I said. “The forums. The ideology. The networks. And which, if any, people in town are bought into this bullshit. Have you been hearing anything?”

Adam leaned back, his jaw tightening. “I know enough. I’ve been watching it spread through town for years. The podcasts, the YouTube channels, the private chats. It’s not just online anymore — it’s in the local construction industry, vineyard management, the gyms, the churches. These guys think they’re owed something. They think women saying ‘no’ is a personal attack. Many of them imagine it’s against God’s will, whatever the hell that means.”

“Do you know any of these men?” I tapped on my list of names.

He scanned it. “Howard, yes. We source most of our produce from Blink’s. Caden did all of our landscaping at the restaurant last summer. Gordon — I see him from time to time, and we’ve a trptych of his paintings at the entrance to the restaurant. You just passed them. Javier often comes in with his crew after a big project is done.” He looks up at me. “Why?”

“Because all of them are hunting Isabelle. And they have no intention of stopping.”

The words land like a stone in still water.

I walked him through it. The escalation. The coordination. The Telegram chat. The Correction Protocol. Isabelle’s deterioration — how she’d stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped leaving her apartment except when cajoled.

“She’s disappearing, being absorbed by fear,” I said quietly. “Right in front of me. And the system isn’t helping us. The police know Caden’s family. The college protects Gordon. Howard’s family owns half the town. The other men are friends with all of Isabelle’s girlfriends, most of whom seem clueless about these goings-on or don’t imagine them to be as threatening as they are — you know, referring to all of it as “locker room talk.”

Adam’s expression hardened. “So, does that mean you’re taking this on yourselves? Is that what we’re looking at?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s our only alternative,” I confirmed.

Laura leaned forward, directing all of her pent-up upset at Adam. “We need intelligence. You see these people here. You must hear things. You know who talks to whom, what they’re worried about. We need you to listen. And document. To pay attention to patterns. To share what you hear.”

“I can do that,” Adam said without hesitation. “And my staff can do that as well, if you give me permission to share some of these details. I trust all of them implicitly. The women on my staff — many have been dealing with this shit for years. It’s one of the reasons they work for me. As you can imagine, no one gives me shit. Ever. These women will know exactly what to look for. And they know how to play the game with these entitled narcissists. It’s the same game they play to get great tips. Hey… if it puts your kid through college, I say, ‘Go for it!’”

“What about consequences?” John asked quietly. “What if this goes sideways — if they figure out what we’re doing — what then?”

That question hung in the air.

“They could sue us,” I said calmly. “They could threaten us. They could try to intimidate us into stopping.” I paused. “But here’s what I know: the alternative is watching Isabelle disappear completely. Not into a new identity, but into herself. Into trauma. Into the kind of broken that takes decades to repair, if it repairs at all. And she won’t be the only victim. She will just be their first — their first as the Brotherhood.”

I leaned forward. “I’ve spent my entire career telling women how to survive in systems that don’t protect them. I’m not going to watch my daughter become another statistic while I do nothing.”

“So we’re really doing this,” Adam said. It was not a question.

“We’re really doing this,” I confirmed.

“Then we need to be smart,” Laura added. “Disciplined. We document everything. We don’t make accusations we can’t back up. We don’t break laws — we use them. The good part of all of this: sociopathic behavior is incredibly predictable. We need to use that knowledge to craft our strategy.”

“Exposure,” I said. “That’s our #1 weapon. These men operate in darkness. They think they’re untouchable because no one’s watching. We watch them, but they don’t know it. We document everything without putting it in their face. Once we have gathered up all the evidence, we expose them. In a most public way. In the light of day.”

“And then?” John asked.

“And then the system does what it should have done all along,” I said. “Their employers fire them. Their licenses are revoked. Their reputations are shattered. Their wives are humiliated and leave them. Their communities reject them.”

Adam nodded slowly. “We don’t have to lay a finger on them. We just have to make sure everyone sees who they are.”

“Exactly,” I said.

The four of us sat in silence for a moment. The weight of conspiracy settled on us — not the criminal kind, mind you, but the kind that changes everything. We were ordinary people making an extraordinary decision. We’d be crossing a line we could never uncross. But the other side of this was the only place to be.

“I’m in,” Adam said finally.

“Me too,” Laura said.

John squeezed my hand. A gesture of commitment that I already knew was coming. A gesture from my normally cautious John that said: I understand what we’re doing, and I’m doing it anyway.

I looked at each of them — and all of it became clear: these people had chosen to stand with me and to do the thing that was right and that needed doing.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

We sat in the quiet of the empty restaurant, four people bound by the rage we felt, not just toward these men, but toward the society and culture that had made them who they were. We were refusing to watch another woman disappear.

For the first time in weeks, I felt something other than helplessness.

I felt dangerous.

Read: Overpaint, Chapter 1

with Belinda Vandervelvet

Have I lost my mind?

Came home after a double shift in the psych ward yesterday to find my husband Dan in the kitchen, all dolled up in a neatly pressed floral-print dress with a white ruffly apron, both of which he had clearly ordered from Etsy, since I have nothing like this in my closet. Last I checked, which was admittedly over a month ago (since I’ve not had time to do laundry), Dan’s closet was full of camowear and utility boots. “What the actual fuck” was the first thing that popped into my head, but I kept that to myself because the smell of chocolate cake coming out of the oven was overriding my desire to rip his head off. Is anyone really prepared with an appropriate response when they find their husband cheerfully assuming the role (and attire) of a tradwife? Especially when said tradwife has taken on every household task you hate, like washing sports uniforms? Somehow Dan managed to get all the grass stains out of both pairs of our sons’ baseball pants. Truly a miracle; call the pope.

Though I wouldn’t be caught dead in an ensemble like the one he was wearing, which, by the way, was made in the Apostolic United Brethren community in Utah, Dan actually pulled it off. Not going to lie, he looked damn cute, in an unconventional way. His delicately strutting around the kitchen greatly amplified the effect. It seemed he’d been meant to wear heels and lacy undergarments his whole life. It was him. Or should I say “her.”

Apparently, the United Brethren was the only place Dan was able to find custom-made hausfrau clothing in his size. The ladies did a fantastic job of crafting a dress out of vintage potato sacks that could accommodate Dan’s former-football-lineman physique. I imagine his build was similar to that of a typical Utah farm girl.

Dan, so very proud of his outfit, informed me that it had been made by good Christian women, as if that excused the fact that he was a man wearing women’s clothes, which, according to our pastor, was an abomination in the eyes of the lord, though he was at a loss to pull up any biblical passages to back this claim. The seamstresses were a group of fundamentalist Mormons, all of whom are married to Ammon, an Elder who is apparently in his 90s, yet still has his original set of chompers, which look impressively white and intact in his family pictures. Judging from the number of smallish children in his clan, it would seem Ammon’s equipment was also in good working order. Having 12 women at your beck and call is apparently good for one’s health and libido.

OK, great. So these women are literally slaves. According to the AUB brochure, this is a community where having as many wives as possible, regardless of their age, is a divine commandment, and since the men can’t possibly keep up with their wives’ demands for sex (like when all 12 of them are ovulating at the same time), the men make them wear these ridiculous outfits so they aren’t constantly getting a boner.

That apron, by the way, looks like it’s straight out of the wardrobe room from Little House On The Prairie. You remember that scene where Laura is out splitting wood for the stove because her dad is on some trip where he won’t be back for months, and since they don’t have cell phones, they have no idea whether he is even alive? Thank god he left them the rifle, because some weird guy keeps coming by asking for a place to “lay his head” and get a proper meal. We’ve all heard that line.

I was really trying to wrap my head around Dan’s thought process on this whole thing, but nothing was adding up. We were going to need to talk once the kids were in bed. Really confusing to me was the boys’ reaction — which was no reaction at all, as if this whole thing were perfectly normal. There they were — sitting at the dining room table doing their math, not punching each other, or whining as was usual. Also missing from the pastoral setting: empty soda cans and Pirate’s Booty wrappers. In their place: remnants of Granny Smith apple slices with peanut butter and tumblers with milk residue. How weird is that? Add to that the fact that it was only 6:30 p.m., and the boys were nearly done with their homework.

What planet had I landed on?

And there, in the kitchen, was my fetching husband, Dan, pulling a chocolate cake out of the oven with polka-dotted oven mitts, a tuna casserole nearby on the counter ready to take its place on the center rack. In the middle of the kitchen table was a big green salad smothered in Wish-Bone Western dressing, with homemade croutons. A loaf of French bread, generously buttered and sprinkled with garlic and herbs, sat next to the convection oven, waiting to get toasted. Damn.

With a dinner like this, I could almost forgive this shocking new look of Dan’s. And frankly, I was way too exhausted to have a confrontation with a bearded woman in a white pinafore. So, I gave Dan a kiss, dumped my backpack on the rug, kicked off my shoes, then collapsed in my Lazy-Boy recliner. “Give me a shout when dinner is ready,” I yelled from the living room. Then off I drifted to sleep, with visions of sugar plums, neatly folded laundry, deadheaded rose bushes, and a fridge full of groceries dancing in my head.

Talk about idle hands (and feet) doing the devil’s food work… Dan, who was newly unemployed, had spent the entire afternoon clearing out our checking account and getting a mani-pedi at the Cuticle Crimes Unit at Asphalt Acres. This was not your typical men’s mani-pedi, mind you. Oh, no. Dan, who’d just been sacked from his football coaching job last week, had gone the whole nine yards at the nail salon. Touchdown! Exfoliation, hydrating mask, hot rock massage, organic botanical infusion, paraffin wax immersion, and bling-and-shine acrylics in Fuchsia Fever. That’s right: bright pink nails on both his hands and toes, which here, in MY kitchen, were demurely poking out of a pair of size 14 kitten heel flip-flops, which I can assure you did not come from Tractor Supply Hardware, Dan’s normal go-to for clothing and footwear.

But let me back up here.

After the cruise debacle — which I’ve already documented in excruciating detail — Dan came home and basically had the equivalent of a smallish nervous breakdown, or what is more appropriately called a “wobble” in the UK. Dan stopped eating solid food. He spent hours dancing to the Bee Gees in his jock strap in front of our mirrored closet doors. He drank Aperol spritzers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the evenings, he watched Jesse Watters Primetime in a black negligee, looking the part of a white supremacist Victoria’s Secret model, what with his Nazi tattoos and all. I prayed the local Amazon guy, who delivered packages until midnight, would not see him in the background when I signed for the Chewy order. That kid could have made our social life a dumpster fire just by mentioning this situation to one of the neighbors in our cul-de-sac or showing them a video he’d caught with his body-worn camera of Dan sprawled out coquettishly on the couch.

So what would any good, God-fearing couple do in these trying times? That’s right: we cashed in our remaining 401(k), took out a second mortgage on the house, canceled the kids’ extracurriculars, and sent Dan to the Between-a-Rock-and-a-Hard Place Christian Recovery Spa in Sedona, Arizona.

Pastor Marcus Wellby runs the place. You’ve probably seen him on YouTube — he’s got some 400,000 subscribers and does these testimonial videos where he talks about how he used to be “trapped in the homosexual lifestyle” until Jesus saved him. Now he’s married to a woman named Bethany, and they’ve got four kids and a chihuahua named Deuteronomy. Pastor Wellby has a smile (and body) that could convince even your grandma to buy a timeshare in hell, and you’d thank him for it. That bulge in his pants is not a hard-on, by the way. It’s his wallet.

The spa looked AMAZING in the brochures. Gorgeous red rock views, meditation gardens, a prayer labyrinth, hydrotherapy pools, and something called “Masculine Reclamation Workshops” where men practiced chopping wood, doing oil changes, and rebuilding carburetors. There were lots of pics of men doing manly work in manly clothes — all of it a bit reminiscent of the Village People, and come to think of it, there was that catchy background melody on their website that sounded a lot like “YMCA.” Those who weren’t around in 1978 may have forgotten that the lead singer, Victor Willis, was insistent that “YMCA” was just a wholesome song about youth camaraderie, something Trump has obviously bought into, as he struts the runway to a Village People medley at all of his now poorly attended rallies.

So, to be clear, the gist of these workshops is that in doing all this manly shit, you will rewire your brain so you no longer feel the urge to suck dick. But from what I would learn post-treatment, these workshops were doing just the opposite. Imagine a sweaty, shirtless all-male chain gang in the Arizona sun. I’m guessing that Pastor Wellby thought about that very image many a night.

So it cost us $47,000 for this six-week intensive program. FORTY-SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. That’s more than Dan would have made in two years as an assistant football coach, had he not lost his job. Pastor Marcus assured us this was a small price to pay for Dan’s eternal soul, and for our marriage. He claimed the success rate to be 87%, which seemed pretty damn good to me, and he had numerous testimonials from former clients who were now living heterosexual lives. They were back to ogling women, coaching Little League, and going to barbecues. You know, normal American things.

So off Dan went, and for six weeks, I heard nothing. No phone calls, no text messages, no emails. The laundry was piling up, the refrigerator filled with carry-out leftovers and zero fruit. Pastor Marcus said this was part of the process — complete isolation from “triggering influences” so the men could focus on their spiritual transformation. At the time, I was busy working double shifts at Bayview anyway, emptying bedpans in the psych ward and trying not to murder Carmelita every time she gave me one of her sanctimonious lectures about “professional conduct” and “treating all patients with dignity.” What about my dignity? I was emptying shit buckets for eight hours a day. What more do you want, bitch? Oh, got it. You’d like me to change incontinence briefs for an extra $0.20 per hour. Now there’s a job from hell.

So Dan came home three weeks ago, and at first, everything seemed FINE. Better than fine, in fact. He was oddly calm. Unsettlingly centered. He’d stopped drinking. And he was reading the Bible every morning, though most of the passages seemed to be from Song of Solomon and Ezekiel 23. He started going to Grace Victory Evangelical Fellowship with me on Sundays and even volunteered to cook in the church’s soup kitchen. Pastor Jim was thrilled — he said Dan had “the glow of the redeemed” and asked if he’d be willing to give his testimony at the next week’s service.

I truly thought we’d dodged a bullet. I thought Pastor Marcus had actually FIXED Dan, though I couldn’t shake the thought that we might have wasted $47,000 and would never know what retirement felt like. I was just relieved Dan was back in the fold.

Boy was I wrong. Dan was not in the fold.

So yesterday, when I came home from that double shift — after sixteen hours of emptying bedpans and mopping up “accidents” and listening to a paranoid schizophrenic named Eugene tell me that Elon Musk had put a microchip in his 12-year molar and was broadcasting his thoughts via satellite in geosynchronous orbit, I was bushed. My feet were killing me. My back was screaming. I smelled like industrial disinfectant and human feces. All I wanted was to collapse in my Lazy Boy recliner with a glass of Barefoot Moscato and watch the Hallmark “Chasing Leprechauns” movie, a setting where everyone is white and heterosexual, and no one has any real problems — at least not the kind that require a psychiatrist.

Then, I walk in the door, and there is that smell of chocolate cake. WTF.

Chocolate cake. Warm, rich, decadent, gooey. A smell that makes your mouth water and your stomach growl even if you just ate. I follow my nose to the kitchen, and there he is: Dan, the bearded woman.

He turns around and sees me standing there, and he SMILES. No… he GLOWS. A huge, genuine, supremely happy smile, his lips slathered with fuchsia lip gloss that perfectly matches his acrylic nails. He’s been waiting all day to present me with this cake. He’s been waiting his whole life to be the hausfrau. Finally, all of the stars had aligned; his dream had come true.

I just stared at him. My brain was short-circuiting. I could not formulate a sentence.

Dan calmly set the cake down on the cooling rack and wiped his hands on his apron. That’s when I noticed the rest of it. His eyebrows: plucked and shaped. The mascara. The lipstick — and not drag queen lipstick — no, a subtle gloss that made his lips look full and shiny, like January Jones in Mad Men. Dan still had his thick beard, which made the whole thing even more surreal, though unexpectedly reassuring. He was like a lumberjack in a sundress. A knight in gold lamé. A plumber in a pinafore.

“What,” I finally managed to say, “the FUCK.”

“I know!” Dan said, completely misinterpreting my tone. “I wasn’t sure about the color at first, but Destiny at Cuticle Crimes said Fuschia Fever would really pop with my skin tone, and I think she was right. Don’t you? I mean, I was thinking about going with something more neutral, like Ballet Slipper or Mademoiselle, but then I thought, you know what, life’s too short. Go bold or go home, right?”

“Destiny,” I repeated.

Dan held out his hands and wiggled his fingers. The rhinestones in his nail polish caught the light and sparkled. He seemed so happy. The cost of that happiness: the equivalent of my emptying bedpans for 3 days.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and demand to know what the hell Pastor Marcus had done with him at Rock-and-a-Hard Place. I wanted to call the Pastor and demand a refund. I wanted to drive to Sedona and burn the whole fucking spa to the ground.

But then I looked around the kitchen.

It was SPOTLESS. The counters were wiped down. The dishes were done and put away. The floor was mopped. The trash was taken out. There were fresh flowers in a vase on the table —sunflowers and daisies, my favorites. The fridge was humming quietly, and when I opened it, it was FULL. Not just full — ORGANIZED. Fruits and vegetables in the crisper drawers. Deli meats and cheeses in the deli drawer. Leftovers in matching Tupperware containers with labels and dates written in neat handwriting. Milk, OJ, almond milk (since when do we drink almond milk?), a bottle of Chardonnay, a six-pack of La Croix.

I walked into the living room. The boys were doing their homework. Without being asked. Without screaming at each other. Without it getting interrupted by a game of Fortnite or them scrolling TikTok or doing any of the other shit they usually do. They were doing MATH and reading books. You know, the kind with PAGES.

“Hey, Mom, Dad made snickerdoodles. They’re on the counter if you want one.”

I walked upstairs. The beds were neatly done up. With fresh sheets — the kind with hospital corners you could bounce a quarter off. The laundry was done — folded and stacked in tidy piles on everyone’s dressers. And the whole upstairs wreaked of Bounce. Even the bathrooms were clean. The toilets scrubbed. Mirrors Windexed. Clean, fluffy hand towels were hanging on the racks, and they MATCHED the bath sheets and washcloths.

I went back downstairs. Dan was now frosting the cake, spreading buttercream in smooth, even layers with an offset spatula. What the hell is an offset spatula? And where did Dan learn to frost a cake? Ah yes. At the spa.

“The dog’s at the groomer,” he said without looking up. “I’m picking him up in the morning. He’s getting the full package — bath, nail trim, ear cleaning, and anal gland expression. I know Tender Buttons hates the groomer, but he was starting to smell like old tube socks, so I figured it was time. Oh, and I deadheaded all the roses in the front garden. They were looking pretty scraggly. Also pulled the weeds in the flower beds and mulched the hydrangeas. I’m thinking we fill in a few spots with impatiens. What do you think? Red and purple?”

I sat down at the kitchen table. My legs felt weak.

“Dan,” I said slowly. “What the fuck is happening?” He just smiled.

That’s when I retired to my recliner — to tune everything out and process what was going on. It would take nothing short of a hyperscale data center to process what I’d gone through today.

I drifted into a deep sleep until Dan's voice floated in from what seemed a faraway place — the Emerald City, perhaps. He was calling me to the dinner table. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

And what an incredible dinner he’d laid out. All of my favorites. The best part: I didn’t have to do the dishes.

Things would never be the same in our house. That was clear.

Also clear: I was going to be good with that. Really good.

And my MAGA neighbors could go fuck themselves.

For those of you new to Belinda Vandervelvet and her MAGA antics, enjoy her transformation into a semi-decent human being. A bumpy road, no doubt, but hopefully love will prevail. Here is the whole series, in order!

Can’t We Make Just Nice On Facebook?

Drama On The High Seas

If I Only Had AI

Dan’s Trans-Formation

This is fucked. I’m standing in the produce section at Blink’s Market, watching my daughter placidly select avocados, when there is an unmistakable shift in atmospheric pressure. That unsettling feeling — the air heavy, static making the hair stand up on the back of my neck. There is no storm rolling in. This is my daughter getting unwanted male attention. Neanderthal bachelors and husbands oblivious to me, her mother, are mentally undressing her.

Isabelle — she doesn’t see it, she doesn’t feel it. She’s not yet developed a sense for these things. She’s focused on those Haas avocados, wrapping her beautifully manicured hands around each one, checking for that ever-so-slight softness that indicates ripeness — is this that perfect piece of fruit for slicing into her salad? Isabelle’s long blonde hair catches the fluorescent light in a way that makes her look like she’s been dipped in spring honey. She’s wearing a simple white t-shirt and jeans, and Reef flip-flops, a souvenir from our last trip to Santa Cruz. Tiny gold hoops. No makeup. A farmer’s tan from helping me in the garden. Nothing provocative. Nothing whatsoever that should register: “This is an invitation.”

But it does register as an invitation. Her being beautiful and healthy. And blonde.

Blonde hair is the invitation. Plain and simple. A fact made so obvious by those in the president’s circle. Think Karoline Leavitt, Sonny Joy Nelson, Kieghan Nangle, Ivanka, Tiffany and Lara, Riley Gaines, Pam Bondi, Kelly Loeffler, Kellyanne Conway, Kirstjen Nielsen, Carrie Underwood. And even Melania, some of the time. Then there are all his fans on FOX, the female commentators that stroke his ego: Kayleigh, Carley, Shannon, Dana, Tomi, Laura, Martha, Ainsley.

Fuck me. That’s a lot of blondes, especially considering less than 5% of the population is naturally blonde. Republican Hair is the uniform: a classic blond blowout, long, soft, flowy curls. Add loads of makeup in a heavy, high-glam style. Lips plumped up with hyaluronic acid fillers and smoothed with Botox. Labia lips. We’ve all seen it: Mar-a-Lago Face.

This is not my daughter. The only vestiges of Mar-a-Lago on her person: longish blond hair. And she’s had hers since birth. Still, for some, this is enough to be considered an invitation, especially for those who would drive Dodge Rams and are experts in backyard meat preparation.

Back to planet produce. Three men have stopped in their tracks in the last thirty seconds. One pretends to be examining organic kale, while not actually looking at it. Another has abandoned his cart mid-aisle to study a citrus display with oddly intense interest. The third — a guy in his forties wearing a Carhartt jacket and a wedding band — has manspread himself at the end of the aisle, blocking the exit, phone in hand, pretending to text, while glancing furtively at Isabelle, with some expectation that she will, eventually, have to make her way down this aisle.

I know what they’re seeing. I’ve watched this happen since Isabelle was fourteen.

They’re seeing the uniform.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Feminine softness. In this town, at this particular moment in history, these physical traits are like an SMS text. They catch your attention. They deliver an important message in as few words as possible. Available. Submissive. Traditional.

Vulnerable adult on the loose.

Men generally don’t have the self-awareness to know they’re reading her in this way, and they’d be offended if you suggested it. They’d insist they were just appreciating beauty, just being friendly, just making conversation. But I’ve been documenting this pattern for months now, and the data doesn’t lie. They are predators. Entitled fucking predators.

To them, my daughter’s appearance is a promise that she’ll be all that. The perfect lover, girlfriend, wife, servant, hausfrau, masseuse. Punching bag.

But that’s a promise she never made to any of them. The fuckers.

Laura, thank god, pulls me out of this dystopian reverie by lightly punching me in the arm — an emotional inoculation, of sorts — something she does whenever I’m losing my cookies. Laura’s got a big basket of heirloom tomatoes, and seeing that has me reminiscing about the NY Times recipes I explored over raisin bran this morning. Heirloom tomato season. Better than Christmas, that’s for sure. Gazpacho, marinara sauce, caprese salad. My basil is going crazy — time to use it for more than a border in my veg garden.

Laura follows my gaze, clocks the three men, then looks back at me. “How many have you seen so far today?”

“Three visible. Probably more.”

Laura’s a microbiologist whose side hustle is doing research for some pretty famous true crime podcasts. She’s got the same observational discipline I do — the same refusal to look away from uncomfortable patterns. We’ve been friends since elementary school, and lately, we’ve been conducting an informal study on male behavior in public spaces. A real eye-opener —behavior egregious enough to drive Carrie Nation to drink. For those of you who slept through Mr. Dixon’s U.S. history class, imagine a slight, old woman in granny glasses wielding a massive hatchet. Unhinged is a word I have often seen used in describing her temperance-fueled rampages through illegal saloons at the turn of the century. We could use a woman like her about now.

“Carhartt guy’s been following her since dairy,” Laura says quietly. “I saw him turn around when she walked past the yogurt.”

Laura moves toward the bagged salads, inserting herself between Carhartt guy and Isabelle. Carhartt predictably shifts position to maintain his sightline. The kale examiner abandons his post and drifts closer. It’s like watching sharks circle.

This is the part that makes my blood pressure spike: none of this is illegal. They’re not touching her. They’re not speaking to her. They’re just... present. Hovering. Tracking. Creating an ambient pressure that makes her shoulders tense even though she can’t articulate why.

I’ve asked her about this numerous times. “Do you notice the men watching you?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “But I don’t want to be paranoid. I don’t want to be one of those women who thinks every man is a threat.” Please, baby girl. Think every man is a threat. Be pleasantly surprised when one isn’t.

I know, I know. I am partially responsible for this because we’ve spent her entire life teaching her not to be rude. Not to overreact. Not to make a scene. Not sure what I was thinking. You have no idea how difficult it has been to change this behavior. It is ingrained.

In addition to our observations in the field, Laura and I have spent the last three months discovering exactly what it is these men do online. What they watch, the images of women they pass back and forth, the long discussions on what women want and how they should be treated. And then mindless banter about workout routines and what peptides to take for looksmaxxing and body optimization. Whatever thought process allows a person to buy into this bullshit opens up a path for other loony tunes to insert their counterpoint into the score for the Collective Psychotic Symphony. Composer: Andrew Tate.

My morbid fascination with all things manosphere started when Isabelle mentioned, casually, that her ex-boyfriend Caden had started talking differently, using expressions like “high-value male,” “body count,” and “pair bonding.” Isabelle laughed when she talked about it, but her unease was palpable.

So, rather than exploding about what I was learning, I took to exploring. It helped me dissipate some of this anger, and to harness the rest of it to something good, something that would affect change. Exactly what that might be had yet to reveal itself, but the goal foremost in mind: put these men where they belong and where they can no longer hurt women. Put them in jail. Put them out of business. Put them down — hey, I’m talking a verbal put-down here — make no mistake on that. I’m not looking to take a page from manosphere playbook, which has been turning more and more toward violence.

Anger is not something for women to shove off, put away, repress. Hell, no. Women need to understand how important it is, vital to their well-being, in fact. It signals an injustice has been done. It is the energy we have been given to right injustice. I am certainly not going to fucking waste that.

So, here I am at 3:00 AM last Tuesday, deep in the manosphere forest —“manosphere” being a term I’d only learned of six months prior and now a concept I cannot escape. SlutHate. The Red Pill. Roosh V forums. It’s everywhere, everywhere, Andrew Tate’s face, his voice, his gospel of male dominance and female submission.

Tate’s got 15 million followers. Fifteen million men and boys absorbing his message: women are property, rape is the victim’s fault, violence is correction.

Pretending to be a 20-some-year-old male from NorCal, I found Caden’s Snapchat. Then Milo’s. Then Javier’s, Mark’s, Zane’s. All of them — boys I’ve known since they were in elementary school, when they were classmates with Isabelle — all of them posting Tate quotes, sharing links to banned videos, using coded language to discuss women.

They had a nickname for my daughter: “Blonde.”

Their posts were carefully done. Though Snapchat’s word filters are idiotic, if not entirely useless, the boys were using cleverly disguised language to avoid any chance of getting kicked off the platform. This was home base. Their batcave. And they were highly protective of it.

Though their terminology was a bit cryptic, the meaning in these posts was inescapable. There was crude speculation about Blonde’s body. Complaints about her “attitude.” Suggestions about what she “needed.” Oh, god. No mother wants to read this shit.

One post from Milo, the art student Isabelle had mentioned having coffee with, read: “If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility.” The quote had no attribution, and most would likely assume Milo had come up with that piece of sage advice. But I knew this after only one encounter with the boy: he was not that smart.

That was Tate’s line. Verbatim. Thank you, AI.

I screenshotted everything. Built a folder. Started cross-referencing names with local businesses, family connections, social networks. What I found was an ecosystem — not just individual predators, but an interconnected web of men reinforcing each other’s entitlement. And these men were being given the equivalent of Miracle-Gro by Tate and other manosphere influencers. The gurus were feeding their followers some fiercely fertile propaganda about how dominant men should act and what they should put in their mouths if they wanted to be in charge of the world. Many of their carefully guarded recommendations include taking SARMs, anabolic-androgenic steroids, and peptides, and engaging in unregulated testosterone regimens. Imagine what all those hormonal changes do to the brain. Much of the damage is permanent. Aggression and irritability. Blunted empathy. Anxiety and paranoia. Granted, the men look bigger and more muscular, but they are also ready to punch out anyone standing in their way at Taco Bell.

The bit conveniently left out when these products are touted is the fact that he-man cocktails will shrink your testicles forever, cause infertility and ED, and give you the libido of a man who drives a Mitsubishi Mirage. If you thought these manosphere dudes were already beaucoup angry, wait until they discover their two amigos are now the size of Reese’s Pieces. They will not be happy campers. Many boy scouts will want mommy to come pick them up in the middle of the summer, but even she will not be able to fix problems like these.

And most of these campers own AR-15s. I’m going to stop right here.

To be clear, I’m talking about the landscaping guys. And the plumbers. The contractors. The teachers. The youth pastor at the Pentecostal church. College kids. Local politicians. A judge at the family court. The guy who owns the grocery store. A young man who gives guitar lessons in his garage. Uncle Eric.

My fucking neighbors.

And their wives? The women at church who preach submission and modesty and “biblical womanhood”? They’re not innocent bystanders. They’re enforcers. They’re the ones who tell their daughters that male attention is flattering, that modest dress prevents assault, that a woman’s value is in her purity and her deference.

They’ve built a system where my daughter’s blonde hair and blue eyes and feminine presentation read as consent. She should have expected all that would come to her. That bad stuff. She’d asked for it. Anyone could see that.

Isabelle is now moving toward the checkout. I’m about to get right behind her when I see Howard Blink emerge from the stockroom. I hold back so I can watch the show.

Howard’s the store manager and owner of Blink Market. Mid-sixties, married thirty-five years, deacon at the Baptist church. He’s wearing his standard uniform: khakis, polo shirt with the Blink Market logo, wedding ring that he touches constantly like a talisman against accusation. Boy, is he stiff. In the spine, that is.

He spots Isabelle and his face does something I’ve learned to recognize — a micro-expression of ownership. He changes trajectory, intercepting her near the registers.

“Isabelle! Haven’t seen you in a few days. Everything okay?” Oh, god, those greasy glasses and clammy-looking skin. He looks like he lives under a rock. Howard brightens up as he approaches Isabelle, as if. As if he is Adonis. They need to put mirrors in the men’s room. Full stop.

Isabelle smiles politely. Trained since birth to be pleasant to authority figures. “Hi, Mr. Blink. Yeah, just busy with classes.”

“Well, we miss you around here. You know, if you ever need extra hours, I can always use someone with your... customer service skills.” His eyes drop to her chest for a fraction of a second. “Customers really respond to you.” Ah, so now he’s a “customer.”

I’m ten feet away. Close enough to hear all of this bullshit. Close enough to see Isabelle’s smile tighten.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Actually,” Howard says, “I’ve got some new inventory in the back I’d love your opinion on. You’ve got a good eye for display. Could you take a quick look?”

Laura’s hand closes on my arm. She’s listened to the same true crime podcasts I have. She knows what “come to the back room” means. This guy checks off every serial killer box from the FBI Behavioral Science Unit.

Isabelle hesitates. I can see her calculating. She works here part-time. Howard’s her boss. Saying no might cost her the job. Saying no might make her difficult. Saying no might be rude.

“I’m actually in a hurry today,” she says. “Maybe next time?”

Howard’s smile doesn’t change, but something behind his eyes goes dark. “Sure, sure. No problem. But hey—” He steps closer. He touches her arm. Lets his hand linger. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? I like having you around.”

By some miracle, Isabelle extracts herself. Moves toward the exit. I watch Howard watch her go, and I see it clearly: he believes he has a right to her attention. To her time. To her body in that back room. He’s mesmerized by her being traumatized. He can smell the blood, though it’s only a small wound, and it strengthens his resolve. He won’t make it so easy for her the next time.

And if Isabelle refuses? Well. There are consequences for women who don’t play along.

I pay for my groceries in silence. Laura and I walk out together, Isabelle ahead of us. We watch her load her car, I throw her a kiss, and off she goes.

“How long has Blink been doing that?” Laura asks.

“I don’t know. She’s not mentioned it to me once. But I guarantee Isabelle’s not the first. He seems to have a gift for coercion and comes across as very sure of himself.”

“Are you going to talk to her?”

“And say what? ‘Your boss is a predator, quit your job’? She needs the money. And even if she quits, there’s another Howard at the next job. And another. This town is full of these shitheads. All of them married, church-going guys.”

Laura’s quiet for a moment. Then: “So what do we do?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

That night, I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop and my folder of screenshots. I’m a syndicated advice columnist with a few million followers, for god’s sake. That’s got to carry some weight, right?

The best part of my gig is that no one in town knows that Louise Finch is Louise Falco of “Letters to Louise.” No one except for Laura. I’ve built a career on helping women navigate difficult situations, and that required I go incognito. Be invisible. But this manosphere shit — responding to it goes way beyond anything an advice columnist should be offering up in the way of solutions. Incognito or no. It’s complicated. It’s organized. It’s violent. And it has reached critical mass.

This has got me thinking. Maybe I need to have a chat with my editor, Tim. He’s one of the good guys, and I have a feeling a project like this might be right up his alley. He’s been a fellow shit stirrer of mine for over twenty years. Time to give him a call.

All of this — it’s going to require: Strategy. Documentation. Precision.

I open a new document and start typing.

Subject: Pattern Recognition

Men involved: Caden Galt (landscaping), Milo Ross (art student), Gordon Lichter (art professor), Howard Blink (grocery manager), Javier Saldivar (flooring), Mark Gedge (plumber), Zane Blalock (Caden’s friend).

Common threads: All follow Andrew Tate. All active on manosphere forums. All are old boyfriends, bosses, acquaintances, or teachers of Isabelle. All have targeted her at some point. All believe her appearance signals availability/submission.

The ideology: Women exist for male pleasure. Blonde/feminine = submissive/traditional. Refusal to submit = deception requiring correction.

The network: These men know each other. They share tactics. They reinforce each other’s entitlement. They operate with impunity because the system protects them.

The complicity: Wives/mothers/churchwomen who enforce “modesty” and “submission” rhetoric. Police dismiss complaints. Courts blame victims. The entire town operates on the unspoken assumption that men’s desires supersede women’s autonomy.

I stare at the screen.

This isn’t just about protecting Isabelle. This is about dismantling a system.

And I have no idea how to do that without potentially destroying her in the process, but I’m going to figure that out.

Here’s what I know about predators: they rely on silence. On shame. On women’s fear of being difficult or paranoid or rude. I am terrible at all of those things. Thank god.

And they rely on us looking away.

I’m fucking done looking away.

I spread out my well-worn Hudson Bay blanket under the broad branches of the coast redwood in the front yard, a tree teeming with birds, the occasional red-shouldered hawk perched on the crown. The sky was thick with clouds broken and scattered by bullying gusts of wind, which encouraged everything around me to dance — the trees, the tall and tender new grass, and the wildflowers, whose delicate beauty belied their tenacity. At the top of the mountain, air rushing through the thick boughs of the redwoods imitated the sound of massive waves, and expelled the scent of the ocean (though it was nearly an hour west), as it mingled with the spicy, sweet fragrance of cypress.

It was really too cool to be outdoors and lying in the open air, shoes off — at least for a Californian. But my roots were in Michigan, and this crisp, moist air felt exactly like end-of-winter melt-off, a cue to throw on some Bermuda shorts and stoke up the charcoal grill. I wanted to soak up every bit of the ocean’s wetted, briny breath, even at the cost of my comfort. I had traveled a long way to live in this place, to imbibe this life-sustaining mist. After all these years, it was familiar and soothing, and the cool of it permeated my soft tissues and settled deep into my bones. I could barely smile, so cold were my cheeks — the muscles numb, my amalgam fillings aching.

Back indoors, I thawed out, dense tingling unfurling from the tips of my ears down to my toes. Stripping down to my underwear, I buried myself deep under my duvet, then drifted off to dreams of the ocean, its primordial perfume lighting up my brain with calming imagery — places known, yet unknown. For a good long while, I lingered in this preconscious state, trying to wake myself so I wouldn’t miss my usual dinner hour. But my head was heavy, and I hadn’t the strength to lift it from my pillow. Then there was a loud thud, so strong it rattled the bookshelf next to my bed. Strong winds had thrown a heavy branch across the side of the house. Now I was awake.

Though it was early evening, I put on a pot of coffee as I had a long night of work ahead. I sipped a first cup as I warmed up my dinner: matzo ball soup and a slice of toast slathered with butter and honey — my honey. I devoured this concoction as I planned out my setup for the following day’s farmers market and applied labels to jars. The market was held each Saturday, and the one before Easter was typically the busiest of the year. Ironically, late winter and early spring were the least productive time for the bees, which meant I was often short on product. Every jar of my honey would get sold in the first two hours of the market, the last hour bringing disappointment to all but those looking for bee pollen and honeycomb.

My winter honey, harvested in early spring, was popular for its intense flavor, the dark amber liquid tasting strongly of buckwheat, with hints of the redwood and manzanita blossoms near my hives. Though too heavy-handed for high tea, winter honey was perfect on a hot, crispy slice of sprouted multigrain bread or on almond-flour pancakes just off the griddle. If Northern California had a flavor, this would be it. The chaparral ecosystem on the ranch defined the head and bass notes of this nearly opaque honey’s perfume.

After working well past midnight, I enjoyed a short but deep slumber, awaking around 4:00 a.m. to the sound of barred owls duetting in the redwoods outside my bedroom window, their extended bel canto nudging me to consciousness and bringing a smile to my face. I made my way to the bathroom in the dark and did my usual ablutions, then it was on to the kitchen, where I chugged down a large mug of the cold brew I’d made the night prior, adding a generous pour of half-and-half to soften the acrid flavor resulting from its oxidation. Amped up, I headed down to the storage room, hand truck in tow, to gather my products of the hive: jars of winter honey, as well as star thistle and black sage from the previous fall, stacks of boxed honeycomb, and packets of bee pollen. Then, a few framed recipes and a stack of my cookbooks. All else resided in my crusty old SUV — tent, tables, cash box, and linens. I loved that vehicle, whose once bright paint was now a matte pear green. Mine was one of those early SUVs, equipped with manual window and seat adjustments, an analog radio, and a rear-mounted spare. It still had spunk, and in its rustic state, one might have imagined it had seen its share of rugged terrain. Reality was a bit different, as the vehicle was prone to rollovers, like all the SUVs of its day, so it had been relegated to transporting my products of the hive to farmers’ markets throughout the Bay Area and taking the occasional camping trip with friends.

Off I set for my local market, which was held in a vacant parking lot across from the courthouse. I arrived to a flurry of vendors setting out overflowing crates of fruits and vegetables, pantry products, baked goods, yogurt, eggs, butter and cheese, and assorted Mediterranean dips. There were always a few vendors with hot food items who had arrived an hour earlier. They served up everything from rotisserie chicken, pupusas, and breakfast burritos to dim sum, fresh pasta, and fruit smoothies. Within an hour, it was showtime, with hundreds of locals arriving promptly by bus, bike, and car, and on foot.

I cued up some Edith Piaf on my mini Bose speaker and struck up conversations with passersby, many of them familiar faces. Those who frequented the market were loyal to their farmers and purveyors. They came every week, rain or shine. I had my own set of regulars — folks who stopped by weekly for a jar, apparently enjoying honey on their oatmeal every morning. Others told me that they kept a large jar in the pantry for cooking or tea, or in the medicine cabinet for allergies. In the fall, many bought in bulk, packing their larders with honey for the upcoming months of hibernation. There was an understanding that cold weather sparked a craving for sweets, and since the supply of honey in the hives would dwindle in the cold months, it was best to stock up, right? Add to that the fact that I had to hold honey back as the solstice approached, as much of it would be needed for the bees themselves. They formed winter clusters to keep warm and stayed in their hives for nearly four months to be near their main source of sustenance: their honey.

Of all the regulars at the market, none intrigued me more than an elegant older couple, who, like clockwork, appeared at nine each Saturday. Both husband and wife spoke with elegant Parisian accents and dressed with the effortless precision of people for whom appearances were less vanity than courtesy. Arm in arm, they would swing by their favorite booths (mine among them), offering a bit of polite conversation, then tasting the seasonal offerings. They sampled each of my honeys with liturgical seriousness. Eyes closed, lips pursed, they murmured quiet notes of approval, lingering over each spoonful as if coaxing out a familiar melody from an exotic reharmonization.

Invariably, the couple would purchase large jars of every varietal available that week. Lèa Lelouch and Samuel Lelouch were the names on the credit cards — both true honey connoisseurs, and by far my best customers. I did wonder how this very fit couple, who appeared to be in their late 70s, could consume some 96 ounces of honey from one week to the next. It was a lot of calories, and you’d have to be putting honey on or in just about everything. Where exactly was all this honey going? My curiosity was getting the best of me, so I decided to put the question to them. Politely, of course.

That Saturday, when Lèa and Samuel approached the table, I greeted them cheerfully, engaged in a bit of chitchat, and as usual, admired their attire. Samuel favored impeccably pressed shirts in cheerful Mediterranean colors; that morning it was a blue-striped linen shirt from Façonnable. Lèa wore a silk-and-linen dress in soft taupe and periwinkle, her auburn hair gathered into a loose chignon, bangs gently held back by a pair of oversized Vuarnet sunglasses. Together they looked less dressed for a farmers’ market than for lunch on the Left Bank.

As a couple, they stood out, though not in a flamboyant way. Their well-considered choices drew attention, especially at a farmers’ market where sweaty customers swung by after a long run or early morning bike ride, attired in athletic wear, and where families with little ones showed up in quasi-PJ ensembles. I applauded the effort the Lelouches put in — they were a beautiful and distinguished-looking pair. I imagined that the effort they made daily to dress attractively and stay in shape was surely a factor in their enduring relationship. They clearly revered one another, and as I would soon discover, had been married fifty-eight years.

Today, the Lelouches brought a red Radio Flyer wagon, the old-fashioned kind with wooden-slat sides. This particular wagon was raggedy and had clearly seen a few trips around the block. Though many of the market-goers brought wagons, this was unusual for the Lelouches. They simply weren’t the type of people to have accumulated the cheerful clutter of having raised children. Something about their demeanor, their fastidiousness, and the methodical way they went about their shopping led one to believe they’d never experienced the chaos and messiness of parenthood.

It was these characteristics that pleased everyone with whom they came into contact — their quiet and polite ways, their patience, their graciousness, and their enthusiasm, and, as I would soon discover, their generosity. Children, usually shy around unfamiliar accents, gravitated toward the Lelouches. Samuel spoke to them as though they were peers, asking thoughtful questions, then offering them small tastes of honey on birchwood spoons, if their parents were amenable. Samuel was keen to know their opinion on the flavor — did they like it? Was this something to put in their oatmeal or on their toast, or perhaps on some vanilla ice cream? The children would try the samples with solemn concentration, then offer frank impressions. This delighted Samuel — honey tasting was serious business, and he carefully considered their opinions.

Many wondered, as I did, how the Lelouches had come to be in our small town—what path had carried them from France to northern California. Whatever their journey, Samuel and Lèa possessed a quiet genius for belonging, weaving themselves like bright threads into the fabric of our community.

Judging by their ages and accents, one could reasonably surmise that the Lelouches had grown up in postwar France, though their impeccable English and effortless ease with American ways suggested they had lived in the United States for most of their adult lives. And though they were clearly more affluent than many at the market — their tailored clothes and well-kept Land Rover hinting as much — they wore their prosperity lightly, treating everyone they encountered — farmers, artisans, fellow shoppers, and me, the beekeeper — with warmth and considered respect.

On that particular Saturday, when Lèa and Samuel arrived at my booth with their rickety old wagon, they were especially animated and talkative — something was in the works. For starters, they wanted to try all the honey varietals I had in stock, and since there was no one else in line, I allowed them to sample everything. The winter honey fascinated them most. Dense as molasses, almost mahogany in color, it tasted of cold mornings and evergreen hillsides. Where was this terroir, they wondered. Then out came my phone — together we wandered through photographs of the ranch, tracing the bees’ winter foraging from chaparral shrubs with subtle blooms, to vast wind-swept hillsides with colorful waves of wildflowers.

We then worked our way through the star thistle and black sage honeys, accompanied by more pictures — one of the cow pasture, another of my flower garden full of herbs, with a huge patch of black sage. Rounding out the tasting was a crystal-clear clover honey — perfect for high tea. It was a sweet synthesis of nearly a dozen types of clover, all of which grew on the ranch. Its delicate, flowery essence darted from the palate as swiftly as a hummingbird, leaving a pure sweetness in its wake.

“Are there any other, more unusual varietals we could try?” they inquired. Why yes. Blackberry, lavender, and avocado. Each spoonful seemed to carry the Lelouches to a place far away. No longer were they standing beneath my white canopy, but wandering, instead, through a Provençal village, a place visited in their childhood — a gustatory memory mingling with the dopamine rush from the sugar.

Aiming to bring this leisurely tasting to a close, I offered the Lelouches a bit of hot Earl Grey, poured into small paper cups from my insulated carafe. As they drifted back to earth, the sugar buzz replaced by a hit of caffeine, it was decided, by Samuel, that they would purchase all of the honey I had on hand. Yes, every last jar.

This was not a small purchase, as you might imagine — larger, in fact, than most of my bulk orders. Under my tent were 48 large jars of the winter honey and 336 small jars of assorted varietals. The grand total: $7800. I offered the Lelouches a 10% volume discount, but Lèa insisted on paying the full price. “Whatever will this honey be for?” I inquired, surprised both by the size of their purchase and their insistence on paying full retail. Lèa, smiling, said simply, “We take joy in sharing what we love with those we love — our neighbors, and everyone in our community. No discount, please. You’ve earned every cent.” Without hesitation, Samuel pulled out his Platinum card. The deal was done.

I helped the Lelouches take the first two batches of honey to their car, then we returned to the booth to fill the wagon a third time. On this go-around, the Lelouches requested I unseal all the boxes containing small jars. Once everything was situated in the wagon to their satisfaction, off they went to resume their usual shopping.

The Lelouches quickly became the day’s curiosity as they wandered the market, their red wagon piled high with jars of honey, a magnificent spray of dahlias tucked in between boxes. As they wove their way up and down the aisles, their bountiful haul drew curious glances from fellow shoppers. What on earth was all that honey for?

The Lelouches stopped to purchase their usual fruits and vegetables from favorite vendors, all the while chatting with young couples and their children, a group of ladies who’d just finished a game of pickleball, and an indigent man pushing a well-worn bicycle, all his worldly possessions piled into its jerry-rigged trailer. Samuel studied everyone with quiet attentiveness, discreetly noting what they had purchased and their attire and demeanor, as if to ascertain which honey they would most enjoy. He would then reach down into one of his many boxes and pull out a jar, offering it up with enthusiasm — a precious gift, he noted — nectar collected by so many bees, from this very region. A place all of us were lucky to call home.

“So happy you’re my neighbor,” he would say.

Lèa, her hand resting lightly in the crook of Samuel’s arm, delighted in watching faces brighten with surprise.

The quiet labor of the bees, the sweet nectar they gathered, and the aromas they assembled — these gifts were meant to be free.

So what, exactly, is the GOP-1 Program?

It’s a curated collection of Republican policies inspired by Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” purportedly designed to help Americans slim down — not through diet and exercise, but through the radical simplicity of having less food.

Can’t afford expensive GLP-1 weight-loss injections? No problem. The GOP-1 Program is absolutely free. No prescription required.

Simply lose your food assistance, or your mind, when you discover that your paycheck no longer stretches to the end of your grocery list because household items, produce and meat, gas, cars, computers, phones, housing, mortgages and auto loans, utilities, and health insurance continue to climb in cost. Involuntary calorie restriction, resulting from not being able to afford food, does all the hard work of dieting — pounds (and muscle tissue) melting away like soft-serve ice cream on an August day in Alabama.

“GOP-1” is an innovative wellness plan that replaces Ozempic with empty cupboards and refrigerators.

Let’s take a look at these groundbreaking public health initiatives…

The SNAP Diet™

The SNAP Diet™ and Benefit Reduction Cleanse debuted shortly after the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Unlike overpriced GLP-1 injections, the SNAP Diet is a refreshingly simple, one-step program:

Step 1: MAKE FOOD HARDER TO AFFORD!

H.R.1 — the expansive U.S. federal budget reconciliation act — was used to justify throwing roughly 4.7 to 5 million Americans to the wolves (i.e., taking away their SNAP benefits). Nearly half of the households affected by changes to SNAP included children, and among the 20 states that track age-specific enrollment, it was determined 776,000 children had lost food assistance — suggesting the nationwide total (with all 50 states considered) was now close to 2 million children.

Wow! That’s a lot of kids who won’t be obese! Impressive.

Another statistic that’s interesting, yet perplexing: roughly 80% of the Republicans who back these GOP-1 programs identify as Christian, which brings us to that awkward passage in the GOP instruction manual (Matthew 25:42–45):

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did I not help you?’”

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of us, you did not do for me.’”

Though this passage may seem unambiguous to a well-educated theologian, Mike Johnson is quick to point out that Jesus forgot to include an important qualifier at the end of his proselytizing, namely, “…unless, of course, we are talking about the balancing of the United States budget.”

Everywhere, these days, one hears the self-righteous prattle of the MAGA faithful regarding the new SNAP work requirements: “Those lazy freeloaders who refuse to work… they deserve to lose their SNAP benefits. Everybody knows that.”

Absolutely.

That’s why the GOP is kicking all sorts of people off the dole: children, disabled Americans, vets, senior citizens, unpaid family caregivers, people with severe mental illness, single moms, pregnant women, the terminally ill, and the unhoused. Our country has become a nation overrun with itinerant loafers of all ages; that is abundantly clear.

As it turns out, America’s greatest untapped workforce is first graders and hospice patients. Who knew.

Things have a way of working out for the best, don’t they?

Nothing encourages “economic opportunity” quite like an empty refrigerator. Hunger is the foundation of the Trump administration’s new workforce development program, though saying that out loud might lose the GOP a few seats in Congress. Seeing how tight things are right now, probably best for the boys to keep that on the down-low.

Once someone actually lands a job per the new SNAP requirements, there’s that pesky detail of having to fend off starvation long enough to collect the first paycheck, which could be two to four weeks out.

And if, by some miracle, the newly employed, minimum-wage worker still qualifies for SNAP, well, that’s more good news! The U.S. government, which we all know operates with lightning-fast efficiency, suggests there is typically a 30-day period for benefit approval, followed by a week or two for the EBT card to arrive by mail. That’s if you’ve not made any errors on their online form and have to start the application process from scratch.

Hopefully, the to-be SNAP recipient will be able to power through Phase 5 of prolonged calorie deprivation: Critical Organ Failure. While working, of course.

Operation Portion Control™

The meals above were recently served to American troops deployed in the Iran war courtesy of the Trump administration. Go ahead and confirm for yourself the authenticity of the photos in Newsweek’s article, “Photos Show Shocking Meals Being Served to US Troops in Iran War.”

What’s on the menu for our troops these days? Apparently not much food, but large servings of supply-chain disruptions, naval blockades, closed airspace, and suspended U.S. mail with a side of “Thank you for your service.”

And nothing boosts troop morale quite like wondering whether the entrée is a hamburger, meatloaf, or insulation foam. At least Hegseth can say he’s serving his men a balanced meal: one protein, three carrots, and all-you-can-stomach thoughts and prayers.

On the bright side, the Pentagon may finally hit its weight standards without making anyone do physical training.

Welcome to Operation Portion Control™— where caloric content is classified.

Little Losers Intermittent Fasting™

America’s youngest also need to catch a ride on the dieting bandwagon, whether they’re living on the street, in subsidized housing, in foster homes, or missing a parent. As we all know, being skinny means having a much lower risk of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, osteoporosis, dementia, and heart disease. Oops! Those are diseases of the old.

Skinny kids, the ones who purportedly don’t get enough food, apparently suffer from things like stunted growth, chronic exhaustion, a weakened immune system, muscle deterioration, and delays in brain development. Ya gotta question the source on that claim: the World Health Organization. WHO also claims that childhood malnutrition — we’re talking not getting enough calories — can lead to obesity. Huh?! That does not make any sense whatsoever.

According to WHO, not getting enough food alters a child’s metabolism (whatever that is), which in turn causes them to store fat more efficiently. Yeah, well, believe who you want to believe — either those rich doctors who went to boarding school and Harvard, or RFK Jr. Oh yeah — he went to boarding school and Harvard. Whatever.

Common sense would dictate that childhood obesity thing is more likely caused by kids subsisting on Flamin' Hot Cheetos and lying around all day on cardboard mattresses playing Fortnite and Rocket League on their donated phones.

Thanks to the generous efforts of Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, and the evangelical Christian right (which now has a stronghold on all government policy), parents alone are responsible for the care, education, and upbringing (as well as the abuse and neglect) of their children. The government should have zero influence over what fathers and mothers decide is right for their children. This is as God intended.

The Little Losers weight-loss program has been bolstered by generous cuts to SNAP, under which kids who are no longer eligible for food benefits are also automatically removed from the school lunch program rolls. Yes, you read that right. This second (and much-deserved) serving of cruelty is intended to get their parents (if they have any) off the couch and out working. Now that makes total sense. 100%.

In some states, SNAP-free kids have only to jump through a few hoops to qualify for the government-sponsored lunch programs — it just requires their drug- or alcohol-addicted caretakers to sober up long enough to fill out the applications, find their REAL ID-compliant state driver's license under the piles of unwashed laundry, and then get those applications in by deadline to the school administration offices, which are on the outskirts of town and not accessible by bus. If this “event” were on one of those prediction gambling markets, it might be categorized as a “long shot” or “odds-against underdog.”

Hoop jumping — that’s a fun exercise, right? Exercise is good! And for kids that still don’t qualify for free food, which is likely going to be the case in the mostly red states of Texas, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania — those kids will reap the benefits of a 7-hour fast (i.e., school drop-off to end-of-school-day), or a 9-hour fast, if they are enrolled in an after-school program.

Other initiatives designed to enhance the Little Losers program, and contribute to malnutrition generally, are the USDA’s cancellation of over $1 billion in federal cooperative agreements that provided local, fresh, and regional foods to school cafeterias (and food banks), and the huge reductions in WIC (Women, Infants, Children) — cash-value benefits that allowed low-income families to purchase fruits and vegetables, which ironically factor high on RFK Jr.’s recommendations for childrens’ diets.

WIC benefits are slated for the chopping block in September of 2026. Woo hoo! The Christian-right’s Project 2025 agenda stays on track!

The Farm-To-Famine Diet™

There is a reason Trump is the perfect leader for these times we live in. He is not an eater of fruits and vegetables, setting an example for those of us who can no longer afford to buy them. His motto: “Get over it! They taste yucky.”

Many folks have been baffled by the soaring price of grocery staples. “How is this happening?” — the MAGA faithful ask. They watch FOX religiously, where every economic report is a victory lap, and every hardship someone else’s fault — usually someone with brown skin. Yet every month, when their credit card SMS payment reminder crosses their screens, it somehow feels more like a ransom note than a bill. POTUS tells his followers that the economy is booming and the job market improving. So why does a bag of groceries now qualify as a luxury purchase?

Of course, absolutely none of this has anything to do with tariffs driving up the cost of fertilizer, farm equipment, packaging, and other essentials, nor with former trade partners no longer willing to buy American agricultural products because we’ve tariffed the shit out of their products.

And there is no way these crazy prices are caused by the rising cost of fuel, which the liberal media has suggested is making it more expensive to plant, harvest, refrigerate, and haul food across the country.

Don’t forget that issue of thousands of experienced farmworkers being rounded up, then holed up indefinitely in detention centers. Who’s going to pick all the crops before they become expensive compost, you ask? Duh… all those white kids who hang out at the local pool hall, who’ve not been able to secure jobs ever, have zero competencies and who know nothing about farming. They are just chomping at the bit to spend July bent over a 108-degree asparagus field for 8 hours a day. Ask any guidance counselor — “What is the dream career of today’s youth?” Seasonal lettuce harvester is the number one response.

This we know: America's farmers will love Trump’s new business model.

Grow less, earn less, pay more, compete with imports

Welcome to The Farm-to-Famine Diet™, America’s hottest involuntary wellness program. This revolutionary diet plan is all about skipping overpriced nuisances like fresh produce, lean proteins, and nutritious prepared meals. Why waste money on blueberries when you can survive on patriotic carbohydrates? Broccoli is for globalists. Lettuce is elitist. Avocados? Those sound suspiciously foreign. If fruits and vegetables were so important, wouldn’t they be charging less? Hmm… not really sure who “they” is.

The Farm-to-Famine Diet™ doesn’t just trim your waistline — it slashes your grocery bill by eliminating the majority of your groceries altogether. Nutrition is replaced by optimism, balanced meals by talking points, and food security by comforting reassurances from the Agriculture Secretary that everything is actually better than ever.

So the next time you find yourself wincing as you work your way down the produce aisle, remember: you’re not being priced out of healthy eating. You’re participating in a bold new American health initiative.

Warning: Side effects may include weight loss, vitamin deficiencies, and constipation due to a lack of dietary fiber.

The America First Fasting Plan™

"America First," parrots populist political platforms prioritizing protectionism, pedophilia, pro-life, pro-guns, paranoia of outsiders, the patriarchy, PACs, patronage, a plutocracy, profiteering, payoffs, persecution of minorities, proscription, purging of immigrants, prejudice, promiscuity, Protestantism, and other policies that begin with the letter “P.”

POTUS is, of course, the leader of this program. Mike Johnson is God’s pilot in implementing these Christ-inspired policies.

You are likely wondering, “How exactly does America First impact the food industry, the AFFORDABILITY of groceries, and finding a diet plan that is right for me?” Good run-on question.

Here’s exactly how Trump’s America First policies have affected grocery prices and other important things in a single year:

Meat, poultry, fish ⬆️ 6.2%
Beef ⬆️ 16%
Pork ⬆️ 2.3%
Farm-raised salmon ⬆️ 17%
Seafood ⬆️ 7.5%
Fruits and vegetables ⬆️ 7.5%
Bananas ⬆️ 8.6%
Tomatoes ⬆️ 32%
Strawberries ⬆️ 12%
Lettuce ⬆️ 25%
Coffee ⬆️ 19%
Rice ⬆️ 11%
Italian pasta brands ⬆️ 107%
Cheese & dairy ⬆️ 5%
Olive oil ⬆️ 18%
Bread ⬆️ 3.1%

Health insurance premiums ⬆️ 22%
Health insurance deductibles ⬆️ 37%
Used cars ⬆️ 6%
Fuel ⬆️ 40%
Housing ⬆️ 3.4%

This 👆👆👆. In one year! Gotta give Trump credit for inspiring big changes, and so quickly driving up the cost of food!

And it’s no wonder AFFORDABILITY is the word of the day.

“Affordability” = the race between income and prices. Right now, inflation is leaving any increases in personal income in the dust.

Damn. We’ve got to put some spin on this bowling ball, or we’re going to end up with a split. Oops. Too late—we’ve already got one. In both political parties.

And if we don’t change the narrative right now, I could be looking at 30 to 50 years in a federal penitentiary somewhere in Texas for inciting a riot by suggesting that groceries cost more than a car payment.

The reality is this: that tiny raise you just got isn’t going to keep pace with the exploding cost of living — or your spouse’s government job getting bullDOGEd into oblivion. We need a solution. One that also makes the White House look like it’s playing four-dimensional chess instead of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Good news! We’ve got one. Introducing: Calibrated Fasting.

You’ll save a shit ton of money, you’ll almost certainly lose weight, and you’ll never have to worry about what’s for dinner because there won’t be any dinner. Kill two birds with one kidney stone. Speaking of which, fun fact: crash dieting and high-protein diets can contribute to kidney stones. Someone needs to tap RFK Jr. on the shoulder. His inverted food pyramid is a recipe for kidney stones.

Now grab a calculator. You’re going to need it.

Take your monthly income. Subtract your rent, utilities, insurance, gas, car payment, medical bills, student loans, subscriptions you forgot to cancel, and every other expense required to remain technically alive. Whatever’s left is your grocery budget.

Is it a terrifying number? Yeah... I figured.

Let’s say you have $325 left for food this month. That’s about $81.25 per week, or roughly $11.60 per day. If you live in one of the states that still taxes groceries — Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, or Utah — you can knock off another 50¢. Hey! Freedom to open-carry isn’t free.

About six bucks per meal is technically possible if you’re cooking everything from scratch and living on eggs, tortillas, beans, rice, generic cheese, bargain vegetables, seasonal fruit, and the occasional chicken that wandered too close to the clearance rack. The catch? That’s only two meals a day.

This is where your fasting schedule becomes a financial planning tool.

Working mornings? Eat breakfast and lunch. Dinner — now just a cherished childhood memory. Working nights? Skip breakfast. Forget that adage about breakfast being the most important meal of the day. Working two jobs? You’ll likely be dead in a month.

Our billionaire friends in Silicon Valley — and the AI models they trained while paying fewer taxes than your grandma who lives in a double wide — they recommend the following nutrition plans based on income:

Tight Budget / Low Income: OMAD (One Meal a Day)

Moderate Income: 16:8 Intermittent Fasting (Two Meals a Day)

Comfortable Income: The Circadian Rhythm Diet (eat whatever you like, whenever you like)

And, of course, there’s Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ famous quote:”It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla, and one other thing." If you follow her plan and budget carefully, you may be able to splurge once a month on a Beefy 5-Layer Burrito at Taco Bell. Cost: $3.49.

Hey folks, don’t get all sad on us. It’s just food. There are so many great things in this world left to focus on — free speech, due process, the Constitution, birthright citizenship, human rights, fair elections, and all those other quaint relics of democracy we used to take for granted.

Time to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary!!

Gather friends and family for a rousing rendition of "America, the Food Desert"— complete with karaoke accompaniment. Don't worry, everyone already knows the tune.

AMERICA, THE FOOD DESERT
sung to America, the Beautiful
(with revised lyrics by Chris Andrews)

O beautiful for shrinking meals,
For fewer eggs and grain,
For watching every grocery trip
Become a budget game.
America! America!
We solved obesity!
Make food unaffordable—
What brilliant policy!

O beautiful for grocery lines,
Where weary, wornout stress
Still winds through crowded checkout aisles
With carts of emptiness.
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw;
Confirm thy soul in empathy,
And mercy in the law.

O beautiful for those who serve,
Whose sacrifice runs deep,
Who more than self their country love,
Yet struggle now to eat.
America! America!
May conscience be our guide,
Till every child has food enough,
And none are cast aside.

O beautiful for amber waves
That ripple, full and free;
How strange that hunger lingers still
Where plenty ought to be.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee;
May every harvest feed us all,
In shared prosperity.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose faith the wilderness crossed;
Who dreamed that every soul had worth,
Not measured by its cost.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee;
May mercy walk beside the law,
And strengthen liberty.

O beautiful for heroes proved
Who gave their youth and more,
Yet found at home that sacrifice
Was asked of them once more.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee;
May those who bore the nation’s weight
Find bread, and dignity.

O beautiful for patriot dreams
Still reaching through the years;
May gleaming cities earn their light
By drying human tears.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee;
For greatness lives not in our wealth,
But in humanity.

At this point in history, I think we can assuredly rename the United States “Moronica” — you know the place, that fictional dictatorship featured in the Three Stooges' political spoofs, You Nazty Spy! and I'll Never Heil Again. What was once parody is now starting to feel uncomfortably like reality.

The plots of both Three Stooges shorts, released in 1940 and 1941, were unmistakeably parodies of the events leading up to the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich: a king is deposed, and a group of wealthy oligarchs — eager to preserve their profits and influence — elevate a lowly wallpaper hanger, Moe Hailstone, to the position of dictator, effectively making him their “stooge.” Raise your hand if this plot sounds vaguely familiar.

Wow. Every hand. Up.

Remarkably, The Three Stooges were satirizing one of the most feared and dangerous figures in the world, well before renowned political activist Charlie Chaplin released his anti-Hitler classic, The Great Dictator. Both the Stooges and Chaplin were bravely mocking fascism at a time when others in Hollywood remained cautious — no, make that chickenshit.

Does anyone else think this sounds a wee bit like our current-day Democratic Party — a completely useless bunch of chickenshits comingling with a few sexual deviant/misconduct types and smarmy self-dealers? The ladies would be wise to steer clear of guys like Swalwell and Brockman (and there are others), while the rest of you had better back away from that Cherfilus-McCormick chick (from Florida, of all places), who stole millions in Covid funds. But I digress.

Whether you are an official Knucklehead (i.e., member of The Three Stooges Fan Club) or not, these shorts are well worth a watch. Belly laughs are good medicine, apparently. Great, in fact, for both your mental health and your jelly belly, though were the latter true, I should have washboard abs by now. Which I do not.

OK, folks. Time to drop the garden trowel and get to it. There’s nothing like a beautiful summer day spent sprawled out on the couch in your basement, watching the Stooges, eating Bugles, and drinking orange Fanta. YES, they still make both of these, can you believe it?

Here you go. Be ready to laugh your ass off. Fair warning to those of you with weak pelvic floor muscles.

You’re gonna love watching three Jewish men (👆), all of whom grew up in Yiddish-speaking IMMIGRANT households, brutally satirize the leaders of the Axis powers — smack in the middle of WW2. The only thing that might be more satisfying would be watching a crowd of former detainees from the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, as they witness DJT meeting his demise via firing squad (which he recently reinstated) after being found guilty of treason and war crimes at his much-anticipated tribunal. Can hardly wait for that TikTok video to go viral.

In the Stooges’ Nazi flicks, Moe Howard parodies Hitler, as dictator “Moe Hailstone,” Curly Howard plays “Field Marshal Herring” (Hermann Göring), and Larry Fine is cast as “Minister of Propaganda Pebble” (Josef Goebbels). The Stooges, who in their previous life had been wallpaper hangers, are transformed into a puppet dictator and his cabinet, all of them coached by the oligarchs to run the country of Moronica.

America, Moronica. One can't help wondering: were the Stooges merely joking, or pointing out an enduring truth about the U.S.?

The ruling Nazi-era oligarchs — Hugenberg, Quandt, Krupp, Oetker, and the two Ferdinands, Flick and Porsche — were not so different from today’s American oligarchs. Like Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent, Linda McMahon, Doug Burgum, and David Sacks, they enjoyed privileged access to political power while simultaneously benefiting from policies that enriched their sprawling business empires. As they “helped” run the state, regulations inconvenient to their interests mysteriously vanished, favorable policies materialized, and fortunes grew ever larger.

The names and circumstances may differ, but the arrangement is the same: wealthy industrialists and financiers positioning themselves close to the levers of power, all while assuring the public that their accumulating influence is merely an act of patriotic service. History would suggest that such generosity comes with substantial hidden fees. And history would also suggest that all this Arschkriecherein (climbing up someone’s ass) does not, in the end, work out well for these businessmen. The bend-at-the-waist billionaires/trillionaires in Trump’s orbit can expect the same.

Enjoy gloating here: “The Oligarchs Who Came To Regret Supporting Hitler,” from The Atlantic, 2/6/25 (article gifted), and “How Rupert Murdoch helped create a monster – the era of Trumpism – and then lost control of it,” from The Conversation, 8/11/24.

Are you getting this? It’s all the same: Nazi Germany = NotSee America. If you can’t see that, I’ve got an ophthalmologist I can happily refer you to (and a piece of beachfront property in Miami that I promise won’t be affected by climate change sea-level rise).

The oligarchs in the Stooge stories, having bankrolled the trio, assume these idiots will dutifully do their bidding. While Hailstone, Herring, and Pebble are certainly willing, if unwittingly, to play the part of stooges (so to speak), what the oligarchs have failed to anticipate is that the same ineptitude that made the Stooges easy to manipulate also makes them spectacularly incapable of executing “the plan.”

Back to the present day… those of us who don’t don MAGA hats are beginning to feel like unwilling extras in a political farce that never ends. Each morning, a fresh barrage of headlines soils our news feed, the madness escalating. And there is no exit ramp in sight. And while the Three Stooges were able to wrap up their authoritarian buffoonery in a tidy 20-minute comedy short, we’re relegated to several seasons on the remake, with the script writer (most likely Stephen Miller) determined to outdo himself and history with every new episode.

What can be done when White Evangelical Protestants, ideological conservatives, MAGAs, and the GOP (well over half the country) are headed down this road to perdition — on the way, ignoring every red flag that warned us things were vor die Hunde gehen?

Why, pray tell, are people still clinging to this Trump mess? Are they unable to let go? Too embarrassed to admit they failed to buy an extended warranty on a lemon? Too scared to jump off the train? Or are they blithely sailing toward a heavily militarized, police-state version of Amerika — complete with territorial fantasies and the persecution of minorities — because that's the Hantavirus Cruise they eagerly booked and upgraded to first class, convincing themselves that rats were part of the entertainment package?

At times, it feels as though we’re living through a remake of 1930s Europe that somehow got greenlit as a dark comedy. As the plot lurches from one absurd scene to the next, you keep expecting the director — whoever that may be — to lean into an acoustic megaphone and shout, “Cut! This script is ridiculous. Nobody’s going to believe this storyline.”

The trouble is that what begins as satire has a nasty habit of becoming reality. The jokes stop landing. The laughter grows uneasy. And then, as the old saying goes, someone loses an eye — and suddenly things aren’t so funny.

This (👇🏼) is the audience I’m sitting in at this very moment, enjoying a rousing rendition of “Springtime for Hitler” from The Producers — music and lyrics by Mel Brooks, a comedian who bathes daily in Yiddishkeit. All of that confident Jewishness gives Brooks license to satirize Nazis with a ferocity matched by few others.

Mel Brooks is likely the only person on this planet able to pull off a tune so spectacularly tasteless while simultaneously making it irresistibly kitschy and catchy — a brainworm in the public consciousness. His genius lies in turning ridicule into a weapon — a box cutter aimed at Nazi pretensions — stripping them of their self-important mystique and exposing them for what they were (and are): ridiculous, contemptible figures of absurdity, as absurd as the MAGAs who have stepped right into their manure-covered Marschstiefel (jackboots).

If you like “Springtime for Hitler,” you might also enjoy “A Little Peace,” from the flick To Be or Not To Be (1983) — another catchy satirical tune written by Mel Brooks, in conjunction with Ronny Graham. It’s a great ditty about the joys of dictatorial expansionism and imperial exploitation.

If you're down for a brilliant full-length film, the 1942 version of To Be or Not to Be, starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, is not to be missed. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, it is a masterful and sophisticated mix of black comedy, political satire, and spy drama, skewering Hitler and Nazi ideology, pomposity, and self-importance with surgical precision. What's most impressive is Lubitsch and his cast’s fearlessness in transforming fascism into farce, all while World War II was raging.

There is no hesitation in repeatedly calling out the enemy in To Be or Not to Be, though true danger lurks behind every joke. Watch in amazement that none of this movie’s content was censored back in the day, then think about where we are now… major networks being pressured to sack comedians, namely Kimmel and Colbert, who are critical of the fossil fuel fascist, all because they called out his atrocious behavior and policies on their shows.

This 1942 version of To Be or Not to Be is peak “mock fascists, collect laughs,” and it is Carole Lombard’s last movie. She died shortly after its release in a tragic airplane crash — January 16, 1942 — as she was returning from a highly successful war bond rally. President Roosevelt declared her to be Hollywood’s first WW2 casualty.

Hey, wake up! Don't sleep on this 1983 version of To Be or Not to Be. Same story, yes, but a totally different movie. It’s an absolute gem that trades subtlety for high-energy slapstick and Broadway-style musical numbers, delivering a distinctive and equally hilarious experience to the 1942 treasure. The biggest difference between versions one and two of To Be is their proximity to the events they satirize, something to keep in mind as you watch both or either.

If you’re looking to watch the entirety of the 1983 To Be or Not to Be, starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, try Apple TV.

More fun can be had at Hitler’s expense from Hal Roach Studios. These films, while not terribly sophisticated (and chock full of ethnic stereotyping), are nonetheless entertaining. Check out The Devil With Hitler (1942) and That Nazty Nuisance (1943).

Bet you didn’t see this one coming: Walt Disney as outspoken critic of Hitler and Nazi Germany. When most people think of Walt Disney, they’re imagining Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia — not anti-fascist propaganda. Ironically, all three of these films struggled at the box office during World War II as overseas markets disappeared and U.S. audiences had more important things on their minds.

By the early 1940s, Disney’s Burbank studio had effectively become an important part of the war effort. The U.S. military occupied a big chunk of their lot, and roughly 90% of the studio’s output was converted to supporting Allied causes: military training films, educational shorts, and features like Victory Through Air Power.

Disney also produced two remarkable animated assaults on Nazism: Der Fuehrer’s Face and Education for Death. One mercilessly lampoons Hitler and fascist ideology; the other delivers a chilling portrayal of how totalitarian regimes indoctrinate children from birth. Together, these films helped sell War Bonds while delivering a powerful message: dictators who thrive on fear and spectacle lose their mystique and power when reduced to figures of ridicule.

Comedy and satire often succeed where reasoned arguments — and sometimes even physical force — fall short. When America was at its best, we understood this. Along with free speech, a dominant economy, and a powerful military, the freedom to mock dangerous ideas and the people promoting them was one of our greatest strengths.

During World War II, American filmmakers, cartoonists, comedians, and journalists relentlessly exposed the absurdity of Nazi ideology, targeting fanaticism, puncturing propaganda, and turning the Third Reich’s self-important strongmen into objects of ridicule. It would seem that when someone is trying so very hard to convince the world he’s a godlike figure, being laughed at hits harder than a bullet grazing an earlobe.

These Disney shorts weren’t trivial entertainment, nor were those put out by other animation houses during the same time period. Their satire weakened the Nazi brand and Hitler’s bravado, chipping away at the aura of invincibility he and his followers worked so hard to cultivate. Ridicule = kryptonite to the Nazis’ manufactured grandeur.

Which brings me to this scene from The Wizard of Oz, which was released just one week before Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The scene feels remarkably prescient, whether intentionally or not, speaking directly to a timeless truth about power: behind the booming voice, the spectacle, and relentless propaganda, there is often just one smallish man frantically pulling levers behind a curtain.

Dorothy = a hero. 💯 Just for getting them there and pulling back the curtain.

Complete your comedy tour de couch with The Ducktators, Herr Meets Hare, and Daffy the Commando — a triple feature of animated anti-fascism, ninety minutes of dictators getting dunked by waterfowl, rabbits, and a certifiably unhinged duck.

Throughout the 1940s, a remarkable flood of comic books, animated shorts, and satirical films helped Americans make sense of a world gone completely off the rails. These works did more than entertain: they deflated fear, elastrated fascism, exposed dictators as frauds, and made clear what was at stake in a conflict that seemed to be taking over the globe. For many Americans, cartoons and comedies were a down-to-earth civics lesson — a crash course in democracy, delivered with slapstick, satire, and a punchline — by the best teachers, ever: Jack Benny, Bugs Bunny, Curly Howard, Superman, and Charlie Chaplin.

I have said it before and will continue to do so: VOTE NO ON XAVIER BECERRA for California’s governor.

The New York Times has reiterated and bolstered its stance on Becerra's troubling past as Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Biden administration. BECERRA'S POLICIES HURT CHILDREN. Biden gets to take credit for this, too. He turned a blind eye to Becerra’s poor leadership.

If you give a shit about kids, take five minutes to read today’s article. Then, VOTE NO ON BECERRA.

Sadly, I have discovered this week how very many Dems in the State of California have not one concern about the 10's of thousands of children Becerra's HHS put in harm's way. I am ashamed that this is where we are at. I am ashamed of my party. I am ashamed of people who play the racism card and who refuse to look at facts. Disgusted.

Here's a small taste of what I'm talking about in terms of what happened to Becerra's charges, the unaccompanied minors that came through HHS (from “Why the Migrant Child Crisis Is Roiling the California Governor Race,” by Hannah Dreier):

"Andrés Toma, 16, fell to his death three months after being sent to live with an uncle. Antoni Padilla, 15, lost the ability to speak after falling from a roofing job. Marcos Cux, released by H.H.S. at age 13, was working at a chicken plant when a machine tore open his arm. When I met him, it hung limply by his side. It’s unclear whether these children received H.H.S. follow-up calls, or whether a call would have mattered."

"Children and parents both consistently told me they had not imagined how dangerous the work would be, or how relentless."

"Child workers were mostly living adult lives, expected to contribute to rent and pay off debts, allowed to go to school only after working night shifts, or not allowed to go at all. In other words, the kind of situations H.H.S. was supposed to screen out."

"Some sponsors told me they believed that they were doing children a favor by helping them migrate and support their families. But many also kept careful tallies of what the children owed, including for their clothes, meals and lodging, and charged monthly interest."

Under Mr. Becerra’s leadership, HHS quickly released these children they were TASKED WITH PROTECTING, made a cursory follow-up call (or not, as the case may be for 85,000), and then closed their files. They ignored calls and emails from people who raised concerns. Becerra's concern: to please Biden by being efficient. For those of you claiming "misinformation," really? Take two minutes and read up. Hot off the presses: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/us/politics/xavier-becerra-migrant-children.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iVA.kLp3.xoRxF-zj8DSU&smid=url-share

Becerra is your guy, my fellow Dems? Really?

Well, fuck that.

with Lorinda Birdwhistle

Not going to lie, friends. I am really struggling with fashion. Sadly, this problem of mine seems to go hand-in-hand with another major shortcoming: shopping. And then there’s that trying things on before buying them schtick, which, as a rule, I don’t do. Méthode à moi: I eyeball the item to assess its visual appeal, try to envision how it will look on me (does it cover my big tummy and fat ass), and then I gauge whether there is enough bust ease. I am not going to fucking hold my breath all day for the sake of a fitted look. Life is too short for that shit. If we’re talking a skirt, shorts, or pants, anything other than an elastic waistband is a non-starter. No exceptions. And finally, if the item is in a pastel color, it doesn’t go in the cart.

And while we’re on the subject of carts, I think we can all agree there are a limited number of brick-and-mortar stores that sell clothes and that also offer carts, and they are either mass merchandisers, off-price retailers, or non-profit thrift stores. Not in these categories: Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue. We’re looking at Ross Dress for Less, T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s, Target, Walmart, Costco, the Salvation Army, and Goodwill. The vast discount retail ecosystem works like this: most of the shit you buy at the first six stores ends up at the last two stores, often with the original price tags intact.

These retail giants cover the fashion needs of approximately 70% of the United States population, that being the lower class, and lower middle class, with a few stragglers from the higher escalations of the middle class — i.e., those folks for whom old habits die hard and who still love their Dickies from Walmart.

Eh, come to think of it, there are now numerous online clothing retailers with digital carts, and they offer the same filling-your-cart serotonin buzz many of us are striving for. In all fairness, we can’t leave these out, so add Amazon to the pile-up.

Grab a cart (or your keyboard), wipe it down with anti-bacterial sanitizer, and get to work. Maybe pop in your Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds and crank up some 70s Muzak to enhance the experience.

Here’s how putting together a wardrobe works at these retailers: you will need a cart because, in order to find 2, or, if you’re having a really good day, 3 items you can actually wear, you have to gather up at least 7-11 items total. There is a scientifically proven ratio of 3.5:1 (not unlike the Fibonacci sequence, I’m told) between all the clothes you’ll be purchasing and those worth keeping after you subtract the unwearable ones, which is most. It’s so easy to remember this ratio, as it is exactly the same as your ideal total-cholesterol-to-HDL ratio, per the Cleveland Clinic. These numbers are worth committing to memory.

After snapping up all these fashion treasures, you may find, like many before you, that your sense of euphoria is short-lived, especially when you get home and discover you have absolutely NOTHING whatsoever in your closet, in the way of pants, a skirt, or shorts, to complete the ensemble.

And, it goes without saying that you will not have shoes to match. Or if, perchance, you do happen to own a pair of shoes in the right style and color, guaranteed you will be limping within one hour of putting on said shoes. This phenomenon falls under Newton’s Third Law of Motion — you know, the one that defines the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and then its motion in response to those forces. In layman’s terms, there are your feet and the attractive, but ill-fitting shoes (which come into contact with one another), and then there is your feet’s response to the ill-fitting shoes. It’s physics, plain and simple, girls. The scientific term: “Your Dogs Are Barking.”

All of this is what I call The Fashion Clusterfuck. It’s like The Rapture, except you’re one of those people who get left on earth. Turns out there’s a dress code for getting into heaven, and the invite clearly stated “white tie,” and it didn’t mention “optional.” And it most certainly didn’t mention clothing-optional. Yep, your birthday suit is not good enough for god. Bummer.

And then, there’s that going back to the store thing and waiting in line for 45 minutes to return the twenty items that didn’t work out for you. This is where you queue up with 17 other shoppers in a narrow corridor filled with shelves of snacks from gourmet food companies you’ve never heard of. Hundreds and hundreds of exotic snacks.

Savory crunchy things. Chocolate-enrobed pretzels and nuts. Gummy legless invertebrates. Cookies. Cheesy stuff. Mushroom jerky. Kettle chips in ten flavors. Trail mix for people on acid. Be sure you’ve eaten before you get in line. You’ll gain weight just looking at this stuff.

Then there’s the experience of trying to get dressed for the day or an evening event. Here’s how that usually plays out for me: I am desperately in need of an outfit for a special gathering, and I’m down to the wire. The event is tomorrow. Oops! It’s tonight!! Jesse gave me the wrong date. That means it’s too late to order something online and too far into the season to find something off-the-rack that’s appropriate for the weather, in my size, and not in some horrible pastel color. “Pastels,” by the way, are a recurring theme in my psychotherapy sessions.

So, I’m fucked, unless I can find some self-tanning mousse in my cosmetic bin, which means I could then pull off an outfit in pink or powder blue.

Sadly, no bronzer.

And so, I dive into my closet, looking for just one outfit (dear god) that will do the trick. Voila! There it is! An outfit I’d forgotten about that I bought during the pandemic — the one I wore for the online Heart concert back when all of us in California had to stay sheltered in or risk death by firing squad. This ensemble has a bit of a lesbian vibe, which was intentional, not gonna lie. I was just trying to fit in with the other Heart concertgoers. And Jesse… he’s always been down for that sort of thing — you know, my hooking up with lesbians. That’s a universal guy fantasy, I’m pretty sure. I could never wrap my head around a threesome, which in Jesse’s fantasy means two women and himself. What a fucker.

As I discovered at a retreat many moons ago, these menage à trois thingamabobs don’t always go according to plan, especially when the women involved are vying for the same dude and have no interest whatsoever in going down on each other. Then, there’s that part where the guy has to service two women. Believe you me when I say most guys are not up to the task of servicing even one. OMG, two?! And then, after all is said and done, and things have not gone according to plan, there is the inevitable post-coidal upset, because at least one of the women did not get off at all, and she is the best friend of the other woman, who she imagines has gotten off, but who, in reality, was just faking an orgasm.

Let’s just say this: the guy involved snuck off in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Word has it he’s been living off the grid in Lincoln, Montana.

OK, OK… back to the situation at hand: my upcoming night out with Jesse and his friends from the office.

Excitedly, I pulled the aforementioned ensemble out of the closet, only to realize I was still fucked. The last time I had washed the pants (which appear to be made of burlap), they had shrunk to half their original size. Pretty weird-looking — cargo pants that are cinched at the bottom but which stop mid-calf. This is not a look. And those elasticated pant cuffs were cutting off the circulation to my feet and ankles. Also, not a look I was going for: EDEMA.

Admittedly, the tag, in several languages, including English, clearly stated not to wash the pants, and underneath it was a second tag that stated: “Dry Clean Only.”

Now hold on a minute. How is it that a $15 pair of pants requires dry cleaning? It costs $15 to dry-clean any type of women’s pants at my local cleaners, even cheap shit pants from Old Navy. So I thought, WTH, I’m just going to wash them. If that doesn’t work, I’ll only have lost $15, right? If I take them to a dry cleaner, I lose $15. Same difference, except that part about being able to wear them again.

So now my cool cargo pants are half their original size. Why, you may ask, are they still in my closet? Well, you never really know when you might lose 80 lbs., in which case, they’ll be right there, ready to go. There’s some comfort in that.

And then there’s the blouse I’d paired with those cargo pants way back when. Turns out it has a huge stain, smack over my left boob, like some lactation mishap. Ay yai yai, at age 64, lactating? No one, especially my son, Daniel, wants that image in their head as they try to enjoy a delicious dinner of butter chicken and garlic naan at Sudipta’s Tandoori Kitchen.

The thought of this brought back some funny memories for me from when Daniel was a baby. For two years, he nursed at the same time every afternoon: 3:30 p.m., right at the start of my favorite Law & Order reruns. We all know that theme, am I right? Well, whenever I heard it, my milk would let down — right at the “boom, boom” of the timpani. Like clockwork.

Imagine, if you will, what happened one day as I was walking through Best Buy and that Law & Order theme came blaring through 10 synchronized large-screen TVs at once. Holy fuck! I ended up with two HUGE wet spots on the front of my T-shirt, and of course, I had nothing to cover them up. I could not get out of that damn store fast enough.

Now I’m reliving the heroic effort I’d made trying to get that stain out. I used every cleaning product known to man, including Miss Mouth’s Messy Eater Treater. The stain: it didn’t budge. It remained the same saturated color it had been when the $258 Eileen Fisher Belgian linen shirt first came into contact with a spoonful of dal tadka. One spoonful of food misses my mouth, and a beautiful shirt is ruined forever.

And yet, though the shirt was now unwearable (like the cargo pants), I had kept it, right there in my closet, as if it were part of my wardrobe. Why? Partly as punishment for my stupidity, partly so I could respectfully mourn the loss of the equivalent of a week’s worth of groceries ($258), and just in case there was ever a scientific breakthrough in the treatment for turmeric stains.

I might have donned that mustard colored sweater the next time I had a hankering for Indian food, had I not shrunk it. A curry stain would have blended beautifully into that merino wool.

Woulda, shoulda.

So now, here’s where I’m at: I cannot attend the event with Jessie. I have nothing to wear. 😭

RECTIFYING THE SITUATION

How, exactly, does one go about fixing a catastrophic wardrobe situation like mine — one resulting from twin fuckups: not having had a mother’s guidance during my formative years, and not giving a flying fuck about fashion trends?

What exactly did I want out of my wardrobe? What was I going for?

This, thank you very much. 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

Frances McDormand: totally dialed in to my style. This I have ascertained after examining every last photo of her I could find online. She is a rockstar. Her vibe: “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

My needs and desires are pretty simple. I want clothes and shoes that are BASIC, comfortable, and durable, and that can stand up to my less-than-stellar laundering skills. And if I feel like it, I want to transition from breakfast and my morning physical therapy exercises, to doing house chores, feeding the horses, and weeding the garden, then to sitting down to dinner with Jesse and watching an episode of the first season of Star Trek, then rounding out my day with meticulous oral hygiene and the putting on of my CPAP headgear, after which I would be going straight to sleep. Note: there are no wardrobe changes on a day like this. Same outfit all day and night. Also, NO BRA, and NO UNDERWEAR. Call me crazy. Whatever.

I want to put the clothing on, and then I don’t want to think about it for the remainder of the day. If it looks a bit sassy and irreverent, great, that would be the icing on the cake. And no fucking pastels (or flowers) for me, thank you very much.

I have really been dreading the task of rectifying my wardrobe, but I decided that if I tackled it slowly and methodically, while binge-watching all six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, I could get it done.

And so, I started pulling everything out of my closet and drawers, and I made four piles:

PILE #1: the stuff I hate

PILE #2: the stuff I like that has missing components

PILE #3: full ensembles I love

THE INVISIBLE PILE: things needed for special occasions

Creating these piles was very enlightening. Pile #1 was huge, like 90% of my wardrobe, while Pile #3 was comprised of just three outfits, all of which, thankfully, could be worn with my Keen Newport Sandals in “bison.” Yes, these are men’s sandals. The Keen women’s options were awful and shoddy, by comparison. Is this not always the case with men's vs. women’s apparel — this disparity in quality? Boy, does that piss me off.

In the wearable pile, all the components were either from Eileen Fisher or Old Navy. In the pile of shit I hate, nearly half the items were nasty, pilled shirts and sweaters from Target. A quarter of the rejects were tags-still-on fashion disasters from Marshall’s that I’d waited too long to return, and the rest were overly fru-fru tops from the Lucky Brand outlet store — feminine blouses that looked absolutely stupid on me, what with my quasi-butch haircut.

The free-floating components in Pile #2, which just needed to be hooked up with an appropriate top or a pair of linen pants, were from Lululemon and Quince. Yes, I had been shopping outside of my usual retail ecosystem since holing up with Jesse. These clothes were of a much better quality than my pre-Jesse togs, yet the items from Quince were still within my normal, chintzy price range. That was good, right?

Apparently, I needed to explore options outside my comfort zone to find great tops to pair with the pants and leggings I already loved. If I could get brave, perhaps I would be able to scrounge together ensembles for every day of the week (omg), including one outfit appropriate for socializing with friends at a nice restaurant. Yes! 💪🏻 Pretty sure I could do this.

It was time to pocket my pride and chuck all of the cheap shit that was clogging up my closet, life, and psyche. I needed to get the fuck over myself and quit being so miserly — it was time to jump off the fast fashion treadmill. The answer to my fashion conundrum was clear: I was better off getting a few high-quality items I loved and wearing them to death than pawing through all that ugly shit in my closet day in and day out and feeling sad.

So, I swallowed hard and bundled up about 85% of my clothes and chucked them into the back of my Subaru. I was off to Goodwill. And this time, not to shop.

NEXT TIME… Lorinda finds every cool spot for rounding out her wardrobe.

However did Donald Trump and Co. imagine they could take on Pope Leo, a guy from the south side of Chicago? The baddest part of town. Chicago is also the hometown of Trump’s other nemesis, Barack Obama. Also a southsider. Those of us from Chicago are laughing our asses off.

Soft-spoken but unambiguous, Pope Leo recently delivered this message to the president and the so-called Christians who comprise his ranks: “I have no fear of either the Trump administration nor of speaking out loud the message of the gospel.” Pope Leo offers more than platitudes in his effort to thwart war and draw attention to the Trump administration's inhumane immigration policies. He has encouraged his followers to "contact the authorities — political leaders, congressmen — to ask them to work for peace and to reject war always.”

Considering the Pope has a flock of more than 1.4 billion, this is a powerful message, especially when weighed against Trump’s measly 6.3 million followers on Truth Social. NBC News found this month that Pope Leo held a +46-point net favorability rating in the United States, significantly higher than that of any U.S. politician, including Trump, whose net favorability is currently -17 (according to The Economist and Silver Bulletin).

Among Catholic Republicans, Pope Leo has an 84% approval rating, and among Catholic Democrats, 89%. Not bad. Trump’s approval rating among Catholics as of April 2026? Forty-two percent (CNN). Yes, half of Pope Leo’s. And Trump’s rating continues to drop each and every time he opens his mouth and says something disparaging about the pontiff.

This latest rant about Leo did not score Trump any brownie points among Catholics, or with anyone else, for that matter. Fav quote from this post: “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” Number one sign you’ve got a narcissist on your hand (in this case, a malignant one): they’ve got an exaggerated sense of self-importance, frequently brag and overstate their achievements. They also don’t bother with grammar checkers (i.e., “If I weren’t in the White House…”). They’re so smart, they don’t need them.

Trump’s most shocking statement on Iran, as we all know, came on April 7, 2026: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” This had to be the lowest point in Trump’s second term. In fact, it’s probably the lowest in the history of all the U.S. presidents — like, since 1789. The world’s response to this tweet was brutal, including amongst Trump’s ardent followers and his most loyal social media cheerleaders. Folks are finally (hallelujah) starting to put some miles between themselves and Crazy Town. Included in this bunch: Theo Von, Andrew Schultz, the Nelk Boys, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Joe Rogan.

The Pope’s response to this April 7th tweet was immediate and forceful. From the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy (translated from the Italian):

“Attacks on civilian infrastructure are against international law and also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction that the human being is capable of. We all want to work for peace. People want peace.”

Reiterating portions of his Easter message, Leo also stated: “People of goodwill — search always for peace and not violence, to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and is not resolving anything.” He went on to say, “We have a worldwide economic crisis, energy crisis, situation in the Middle East of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world.”

Continuing on (though never directly mentioning Trump’s name), the Pope said: “Today, as we all know, there was also this threat against the entire people of Iran, and this truly is not acceptable. Let us begin with dialogue. We should resolve problems without reaching this point, yet here we are. We must pray a great deal. Let’s come back to the table, let’s talk, let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way, and let’s remember especially the innocent. Children, the elderly, the sick, so many people have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare.”

Other notable quotes from the last week include this from Pope Leo’s prayer vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica on April 11: “Enough with the idolatry of self and money. Enough with the display of force. Enough with war! True strength is manifested in serving life.” Continuing, he noted: “I receive many letters from children from conflict zones: reading them, one perceives, with the truth of innocence, all the horror and inhumanity of actions that some adults proudly boast about. Let us listen to the voices of children.”

Also, in this flurry of messages from the Vatican in mid-April was the Pope’s warning to Vance, Witkoff, and Kusher in anticipation of their meeting with leaders in Pakistan. He says, “Certainly, the leaders of nations have compelling responsibilities. We cry out to them: stop! This is the time for peace. Sit at the tables of dialogue and mediation, not at the tables where rearmament is planned, and death is deliberated. God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

JD Vance has argued there is a long tradition of the idea of a “just war” and has questioned the Pope’s assertions that God is never on the side of those wielding the sword, citing the liberation of Holocaust victims. Vance, however, has never connected the dots on how this concept relates to the United States’ indiscriminate bombing of Iran, where little effort is being made to keep those bombs from striking innocent people, many of the victims we are purportedly protecting.

PBS did a great breakdown of all this recent back-and-forth between the Trump administration and Pope Leo. Pope Leo’s unwavering stance on peace and on the humane treatment of immigrants is impressive.

Especially poignant, in light of all the praying going on in support of the war amongst MAGA folks and evangelical Christians, is the Pope’s message from his homily on Palm Sunday, “This is our God, Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them. ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’” This biblical quote is from Isaiah 1:15.

There is no disguising the intended recipients of the Pope’s comments: Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. Hegseth had only recently, at a Christian worship service at the Pentagon on March 25th, prayed, “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

Compelling is Nora O’Donnell’s landmark interview with three influential U.S. Cardinals, during which they give their take on the war in Iran and Trump’s immigration policies. Sprinkled throughout are clips of the pontiff speaking to these same issues.

On to lighter, Pope-related topics… an interview between Spike Feresten of Spike’s Car Radio and Ford CEO Jim Farley. It includes a cute story about the Pope’s new car, a heartfelt gift from Farley and his wife. Farley also relays a great joke (from the Pope) that you won’t want to miss.

After watching this engaging interview, you, like me, may have found yourself thinking, “Boy, that guy, Jim, looks and sounds a lot like Chris Farley.” Yes, THE Chris Farley. 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼 The smile is unmistakable.

Guess what?! Turns out Jim Farley is a cousin of the late comedian. They grew up together in Wisconsin. Crazy, eh? Listen to the way Jim tells jokes and his thick Wisconsin accent. No DNA test needed! Then there’s that last name. Another dead giveaway.

Now it’s time to CRANK UP this karaoke version of Leroy Brown and sing along with lyrics updated for Pope Leo XIV👇🏼.

BAD, BAD, LEO XIV
Sung to the tune "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" (Jim Croce)

Woo!

There’s a 'burb south of Chicago
Village of Dolton is its name
And if you go down there
The folks are kind and fair
Home boy Leo’s brought 'em fame

Pope Leo’s causing trouble
Take his stand on the Iran war
He won’t fall in line
With Trump and his fascists
Their threats are such a bore

And that’s bad, Leo XIV (say “X, I, V”)
The baddest pope in history
Badder than Don the Con
Sweeter than a rescue dog

Now Leo is the pontiff
And he wears those fancy clothes
And he likes to wave his Piscatory Ring
In front of Pete and Donald's nose

He got a custom Ford Explorer
He got a Popemobile... Vroom!
He got Pontifical Swiss Guard
In the Vatican City
They’ve got rifles and machine guns, too

And that’s bad, bad for Trump & friends
The Pope is firm and on peace won’t bend
Won't be bullied by The Don
Fearless in the face of wrong

On Tuesday, ‘bout a week ago
Vance told Leo to be nice
Be careful when talking ‘bout theology
And don’t you dare disparage ICE

Evangelicals heckled 'ol JD
And his troubles soon began
The hillbilly learned
A real hard lesson
‘Bout messin’ with the Church’s man

And that’s bad, Leo XIV (say “X, I, V”)
The baddest pope in history
Badder than Don the Con
Sweeter than a rescue dog

Then the four men took to squabbling
And when they gave quotes to the press
Leo spoke of Jesus and peace
Don and JD looked a mess

And we’re glad, glad for the GOP’s
Flock divided on bigotry
They were wrong about Dementia Don
He's crueler than Genghis Khan

And that’s bad, Leo XIV (say “X, I, V”)
The baddest pope in history
Badder than Don the Con
Sweeter than a rescue dog

Born Robert Prevost, this 👆 is Father Bob’s childhood home in Dolton, IL. The Pope’s humble beginnings surely make him more qualified to provide guidance to the Church’s flock of 1.4 BILLION than any of those self-serving, money-grubbing, religiously hypocritical GOP types in D.C.

Talk amongst yourselves.

with Belinda Vandervelvet

I know it has been a hot minute since last I connected with y’all. A lot has happened this year, most notably, my wonderful pitbull, Tender Buttons, bit my hand when I tried to take a bowl of raw sirloin away from her. This unfortunate situation and the $147,000 surgery that followed were the result of yet another of my husband Dan’s ill-conceived jokes. At one point, I had to decide whether a box muzzle would be needed or if I should take the drastic step of moving forward with euthanasia. The behavior seemed the type that might never resolve itself. In the end, I decided both options were too extreme. I would give my husband a second chance.

More on that later.

Dan hasn’t been the same since we came back from our accidental gay cruise. He’s not able to perform in the bedroom, he’s cranky, and has taken up drinking Aperol spritzers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s almost like he’s going through menopause. And he’s been wearing my silky nightgowns to bed most nights. He says they’re much more comfortable than his boxers because they let his balls “breathe.” Not going to lie, it’s a bit weird, his sitting on the couch watching Jesse Watters Primetime in my black nightie with his full sleeve Nazi tattoo and chest hair peeking out of the nightie’s lacey, low-cut bust panel. Not quite sure what to make of it.

And I can’t tell you how very off-putting it is to see his junk dangling below the hemline when I’m trying to enjoy breakfast at our glass-topped table. I’m going to need to get larger placemats.

As I believe I mentioned last time, I got a huge demotion at work, thanks to Dr. Gleason, who had me downgraded to the duties and pay scale of an entry-level LPN, even though I’ve been a CMSRN for 12 years. This demotion was purportedly issued because of my refusal to treat Blacks, Hispanics, some Asians, and LGBTQ patients after Trump’s 2024 victory. After two weeks of refusing to partake in surgeries involving this caliber of individuals, Dr. Gleason, a libtard, saw to it I was “held accountable.” His words.

I was then relegated to inserting catheters, changing dressings, and emptying bedpans in the psych ward. This 2-year disciplinary demotion started a little over 11 months ago, and I was told I would not be reinstated as a surgical nurse until I changed my tune. Imagine everyone’s surprise when I did not change my tune. By the end of this probation, I will have changed 275,000+ bedpans, and you can bet I will still be whistling Dixie, right through the 2026 midterms and in 2028 when Trump runs for his third term as our country’s amazing leader.

Here’s a big fuck you to everyone on the hospital board who backed this demotion. There is no doubt in my mind that whoever replaces Pam Bondi will be hauling every one of their woke asses to a detention center in Texas.

By the way, here’s what actually went down. At the time of my supposed infraction, it was LEGAL for medical professionals to choose which patients they wanted to treat. Remember this… all DEI policies had become obsolete, per Executive Order 14151. Hello! Those policies were found to be unconstitutional by our president, with some of the first changes instigated by Andrea Lucas of the EEOC and by Pete Hegseth, both Trump appointees, of course. So how was it that this order didn’t apply to hospitals? Did hospitals have the authority to compel a medical professional to treat potential criminals, illegals, and morally corrupt individuals? I don’t think so.

No, in fact, they did not have that authority, and yet Bayview would lead everyone to believe it did, their employees, in particular. This infuriated me, and I spoke out often and loudly on the issue, usually within earshot of one of those undeserving patients they were wheeling into the OR. You know, Muslims, lesbians, pro-choice women, children of farmworkers, indigent elderly people, unemployed veterans, single mothers, gay men, drug addicts, Blacks, Hispanics. Have I missed anyone?

There is no way I was willing to waste my talents administering a life-saving procedure on a potential illegal alien, or anyone, for that matter, who did not follow the path of Christ. For this, I was accused of being cruel and insensitive. Cruel and insensitive? What?! Toward someone who was lying on a gurney, completely unconscious?!

Only a liberal would come up with a complaint that stupid.

No matter, there was nothing I could do about my demotion. The union refused to take up my grievance, and my rep had a difficult time suppressing a laugh when I explained the situation. As everyone knows, unions are a bunch of socialists, so I should never have expected them to be sympathetic. All they care about is people. Not the Bible, not the Executive Orders, and most certainly not the Constitution as reinvented by the Supremes’ conservative supermajority.

HR — also not a help. Their main concern is following the hospital’s pre-Trump protocol and trying to keep our medical system from collapsing after the massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. Yes, I admit it has been a difficult adjustment — no longer having to provide basic medical services to all those indigent people who pick vegetables, flip burgers, and clean the hospital. Fuck that. Why should they get next-to-free medical care? That is really beyond me.

And because I was never promoted to management, due to my inability to make nice with brown people (if, in fact, you could call them people), I don’t get to write the schedules or make the assignments at Bayview Medical Center. If I did, I’d have people treating their own kind. This is as it should be. We’d have a gay ward, a Muslim ward, and a ward for children whose parents have been sent to El Salvador (no Cozy Shack pudding for those kids, btw). And there would be a special wing for Blacks, with separate surgical facilities.

Well shit. For the time being, I have been relegated to the psych ward. Treating patients, that is.

Back to this week’s breaking news story: that thing that happened with my dog.

Last Sunday, I’d been in the kitchen chopping up all sorts of tasty stuff for a Japanese stir-fry (including a 16 oz. sirloin steak) when Dan entered, slapped me hard on the ass, then dug his chin into my shoulder as he looked to see what I was cooking, in the process triggering intense pain in my torn rotator cuff. He was inebriated, as usual, as he’d put back the better part of a 12-pack of Miller High Life while watching the Packers decimate the Bears. Grunting crudely in my ear, “Oh, baby,” as he leaned into me with all of his body weight (which is substantial at 285 lbs.), he began dry humping my Lululemon-clad caboose, which was still a tad sore from my recent Brazilian butt lift. All of this was taking place as I was trying to cut up meat for dinner. Dan’s unwanted affections threw me hugely off balance, resulting in my nearly slicing off my left thumb with the butcher knife.

Boy, was I pissed! Angrily, I tossed my $170 Wüsthof knife into our stainless steel sink, where it grazed the drain stopper before landing with a loud clank, the blade now badly nicked. Grrrrr! My right shoulder, fortunately, was not injured, so I threw it into Dan as hard as I could, something he was not prepared for. Fortunately, we have a galley kitchen with a counter directly across from the sink, and that saved his ass, though I don’t think the edge of the marble countertop hitting his L5 vertebra felt too good, because now he was pissed. “I was just flirting!” he bellowed, “Why do you have to be such a bitch?!” Flirting?! There was nothing sexy about his causing me to nearly slice off my thumb.

As luck would have it, our story did not make the cut for 48 Hours, as Dan did not hit the floor and bleed out from a fractured skull. We have, as of late, been heading in that direction, however — you know, one of those scenarios where the wife has reached her limit on the husband’s overdrinking, practical jokes, lack of sensitivity, and his failure to put his dirty socks in the hamper. Being the wronged spouse, she’s already gone through enough, right? She doesn’t feel like getting dragged through a messy divorce, potentially losing custody of their pit bull and teenage son, or having to fork out for alimony. I think we all know how this ends. Not well.

@thechrisbiggsThe Husband Song. #marriage #wife #husband #comedy

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I can’t lie. I do (occasionally) have dreams about Dan’s being in an accident, one where shoving is involved. But it’s just a dream. Is once a week “occasionally,” by the way?

His flirting spurned, Dan felt humiliated. He was not only experiencing a loss of wood, but the adrenaline rush from being shoved had sobered him up considerably — he suddenly had the wherewithal to make his next move. A wicked expression flashed across his face, and I’m not talking sexy wicked. Something bad was brewing.

In the middle of all of this drama was Tender Buttons. She sat innocently in the middle of the kitchen floor, looking up at us, wondering why her mommy and daddy were shouting, all the while lifting her nose high in the air to take in the scent of raw meat.

Then, without warning, Dan reached behind me and grabbed the bowl of chopped sirloin. He dashed over to the pooch’s feeding mat, grabbed her bowl of kibbles, and swapped it out with the sirloin. Tail wagging furiously, Tender Buttons couldn’t believe her luck. She buried her head in the bowl of this new and improved canine cuisine. The best meal ever — raw Wagyu sirloin!

I panicked. Fifty-eight dollars' worth of beef was rapidly being inhaled by my dog — we’d have nothing for dinner. Impulsively, I snatched the bowl away from Tender Buttons, attempting to salvage at least some of the meat. Growling and snarling ensued. OMG — what was I thinking? Although I had taken Tender Buttons to obedience school when she was a pup, I had clearly forgotten their first lesson, on “resource guarding” — a natural, survival instinct in all dogs — i.e., threatening, aggressive behaviors dogs use to retain possession of items like their food and resting areas. No one, and I mean not a single friend or family member, was surprised to hear that Tender Buttons had sunk her teeth into my hand. “You simply do not take meat from a growling dog,” my MIL annoyingly pointed out at our next Thanksgiving dinner, as she passed scraps to said dog under the table.

The bowl of sirloin, which had been in my right hand, went flying, not unlike a tennis ball coming off one of Serena Williams’ top-spin, two-handed backhands. It hit the kitchen cabinet with impressive force, splintering the cheap veneer, the IKEA crockery smashing to bits when it landed on the floor. As for my left thumb? Well, it was still in Tender Buttons’ mouth, and I’m talking, like no longer attached to my hand.

“Drop it!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, which prompted our well-trained pup to release the severed digit. The dog, at least, had learned something at Canine Academy. My thumb and its still-attached thenar eminence thudded onto the rug like one of Tender Buttons’ proudly retrieved sticks. Unfazed by the grim reality of the situation, Tender Buttons nonchalantly walked around me (and the pound of flesh no longer attached to my body), to scavenge for the morsels of beef scattered amongst the crumbled crockery. Her priorities were clear.

I held up my thumb-free hand and looked at it in horror, taking in the massive amount of damage she had inflicted. And then, WHAM! Down I crumpled to the floor, my head narrowly missing the counter as I fainted. Man and beast stood nearby, frozen, staring at my contorted, unconscious body covered in blood. Neither could fathom what they had done to bring on such a disaster.

Hysterical, Dan frantically scrounged around for a zip-lock bag in the cabinet near the stove. Once found, he scooped up my thumb and sealed it in the bag, then tossed the grisly body part into the fridge. There it sat next to a pound of thin-sliced, honey-roasted turkey from Safeway. Though he was starving after the big game, Dan refrained from grabbing a slice. Next, he straightened me out on the kitchen floor, tenderly putting a loaf of Dave’s Killer Bread under my head. He then called for an ambulance while Pupster devotedly cleaned all of my blood from the rug and off the cabinets. What a team.

Yes, I am a nurse, though I was an unconscious one at the moment I most needed a medical professional. This meant Dan (not a medical professional) was left to figure out what to do. Dan, as many of you well know, is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had, for the last 7 years, been the assistant football coach at the middle school and, as such, had seen his share of bad accidents, many of them featuring copious amounts of blood. He’d also watched every episode of “Emergency!” as a teenager in the 70s.

I’m proud to say Dan did everything properly in responding to my trauma: firmly wrapping up my hand in a clean dish towel and trussing it up like a pork roast with butcher’s twine to thwart the blood loss. He then called 911.

He might have checked for a pulse and made sure I was breathing, but hey, no one’s perfect.

During the worst of this medical adventure, I was out like a light, and that was probably for the best. I didn’t come to, in fact, until the paramedics arrived 20 minutes later, sirens blaring. When I did regain consciousness, Dan was on the receiving end of a 10-minute stream of profanity-laden shaming and blaming. Not sure he deserved that. Five minutes of it probably would have sufficed.

Into the ambulance we went; there was a long, rough ride ahead, which took us through noisy inner city neighborhoods, and across an untold number of railroad crossings and pot holes. Fortunately, the paramedics had been cleared to administer fentanyl, and they kept my injured hand out of view, or I would have lost my mind from the pain and shock. The opioids were fantastic — the ride to the hospital was like a flashback to that 2016 concert I saw at The Fillmore with Tom Petty and his first band, Mudcrutch. Truly one of the best concerts ever, even though I had to rub elbows with a bunch of San Fran liberals.

My fav Mudcrutch tune: “I don't scare easy for no one.” 🎶

Imagine my surprise when, upon arriving at the emergency room, I was greeted by my nemesis: hand surgeon, Dr. Jay Gleason. Gleason was the only orthopedic surgeon on staff who could perform the type of microsurgery needed for a replantation. Someone had thought to call ahead and have him meet us in the ER. This person was aware of my disastrous relationship with him and had given me a bogus name in order to trick him into coming in for a surgery on his day off.

Gleason had just made his way through ER security when my ambulance drove up. He seemed genuinely surprised to see me, and then became furious with the triage nurse when he realized that I was “Maria von Trapp,” the woman he’d been called in to treat. His hatred of me was well disguised, however, and no one (except me) seemed to notice the subtle grimacing and teeth grinding. I’m an expert on microexpressions, by the way, having seen every episode of “Lie To Me” on Hulu. Sadly, I have no credentials for all that expertise.

This was about the time I took to some serious praying. I prayed that Dr. Gleason would be capable of setting aside his disdain for me before heading into the operating room. I prayed that my severed thumb was in good enough shape to be reattached. I prayed that JD Vance and Erika Kirk would finally get together, and that Usha would be sent to India, where people like her belonged. How could we possibly have a Hindu as the First Lady?

I knew this: I was going to have to get super clear with my maker on what I needed to survive this calamity, or things were not going to end well.

“Dear God, please provide me with a doctor capable of reattaching all those bones, tendons, nerves, and blood vessels in my hand, someone with stamina and exceptional skills, whose team includes a great anesthesiologist and any of the nurses that don’t hate me. And if no White surgeons are available, please let Dr. Gleason be the guy.” I knew it, God knew it: Dr. Gleason was the guy I needed, even though he’s Black. And light in his loafers.

“People who know what they want get what they want” — this old adage came to mind as I set myself to praying. Ironically, this was my mother’s favorite saying. Then I thought, “Hey, Mom, if people who know what they want get what they want, how in the hell did I end up with Dan, you stupid bitch?”

BTW, my mother was an avid reader of Ms. Magazine and a huge fan of Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Bella Abzug. All Jews. How I was born into that household is one of life’s great mysteries. Thank God my father (rest his soul) got the hell out of her household when I was 11, and settled in with Doris, the nice Polish lady on our cul-de-sac. Doris became available after her husband, Leon, had a coronary while grilling steaks out on his driveway. Doris was great. She saw to it there was always a hot meal on the table when my dad returned from the Cadillac plant, and she joined him every Sunday at his Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. Doris was a righteous Christian woman who knew she damn well better obey my father. And she always wore pantyhose and a bra.

I prayed fervently that Gleason would take on this surgery. If he didn’t, I’d have to ask my nail technician for a 10% discount whenever I came in for gel nails.

While I was in the midst of my praying, there in the hallway just outside the exam room were Dr. Gleason and the head of ER, discussing my situation. There was some heated back-and-forth, Gleason pointing out the bad blood between him and me, and painting a picture of how this might affect the outcome of the surgery. His big concern: my lack of confidence in him, because he was Black and gay. He was worried that if the surgery didn’t go exactly as I expected, I would sue him and the hospital. The surgery was tricky, and there were no guarantees that I would regain full use of my thumb. Hell, it had been chewed off by a pit bull. It was a mess. Gleason was afraid of becoming a victim of my bigotry.

Dr. Chen listened sympathetically, then suggested I be required to write a letter before the surgery was approved — a letter that included an apology for having made disparaging remarks about the doctor’s ethnicity and sexual orientation, and for having suggested to other staff members that these things somehow made him a lesser surgeon. In this letter, I would be expected to convince the hospital that I had confidence in Dr. Gleason’s skills and believed he could do his job professionally.

As Dr. Chen would point out to me, I had a choice: get on board with Dr. Gleason as the surgeon or wait for a White surgeon to become available. My thumb, my choice — but she would not have me blaming him post-surgery. He had a sterling reputation to uphold. I did not, she reminded me.

Dr. Chen then cheerfully noted that since I had full use of my right hand, it should be no problem for me to type the letter and sign a Consent to Surgery form. And she had a notary on hand, even at this late hour, who would be available to witness all of it.

Both doctors knew that time was of the essence and were thus tightening the tourniquet, so to speak. They would entertain no hemming and hawing about White surgeons versus Black, or any of the other bellyaching I was renowned for. Surgery prep had to start in the next hour, or there was a chance I’d lose my thumb altogether.

So there I was. Trapped. Maria von Trapped.

Was I capable of setting aside everything I believed in to move forward with a gay, Black surgeon? And then there was my having to kowtow to that Chinese hospital administrator. That was really beyond the pale, having to deal with a Chinese woman. Running a hospital, that was a man’s job. Didn’t anyone read the bible? I wasn’t sure I had the stomach for any of this.

Then I looked down at my hand — a bloody stump, all bandaged up and throbbing. My pride or my hand? My pride or my hand? Which would it be?

I ruminated on this for all of two minutes, then a vision of trying to take a big casserole out of the oven popped into my head. It was a divine revelation. I needed that opposable thumb on my left hand, and it had to be strong. My family needed this sustenance, and my church needed those casseroles for their holiday gatherings in the fellowship hall. I needed Dr. Gleason’s surgical skills.

Then, I remembered ChatGPT’s AI Writing Assistant. Halle-fucking-lujah. The clouds parted, and a rainbow appeared in the sky. I was saved! I would not have to write one fucking thing I didn’t believe in. The AI Writing Assistant would fix everything: the content, the tone, my attitude, the profanity. I could do this, even when cognitively impaired from opioids. Thank you, Sam Altman.

And so, after telling Dr. Chen I was agreeing to move forward, her nursing assistant delivered an iPad to my bedside. I set to work.

Here’s my original letter, followed by the ChatGPT-generated version. This sterilized one I actually submitted to Dr. Gleason via Dr. Chen. Too bad I hadn’t figured out this AI thing earlier in the game. I might not have gotten demoted.

3/28/26

To:	        Dr. Jay Gleason, hand microsurgery specialist
From:	Belinda Vandervelvet
Re:  	Your services; my surgery

Dear Dr. Gleason:

Not going to lie. I hate your guts after you had me sacked from my position as an OR nurse. I also despise the fact that you are gay and I hate the thought of you having sex with another man. Your homosexual acts are contrary to God's design. Everyone knows that. Anal sex is disgusting and sinful, as is oral sex. If you don’t repent, you are heading straight to hell. And how can you help anyone if that’s where you’re going?

Then there is the issue of your being Black. As has been well-documented, Blacks are intellectually inferior, a danger to society, and uncivilized. How you ever made your way through medical school is truly a miracle and that is why I am consenting (if but reluctantly) to your doing my surgery. 

If God has allowed you to pass your boards, then he must be OK with my taking advantage of your skills and training to reclaim the use of my left thumb. Not sure how this came about, a Black man becoming a renowned hand surgeon, but as the Maria Von Trapp sang in the Sound of Music, “I [you] must have done something good.” You have obviously done something worthwhile in your life to be the exception in this White dominated field of medicine.

I am, thereby, consenting to your performing surgery on my left hand, as well as reluctantly placing my confidence in you, but only because there are no White surgeons available to take this on. I would have waited for a White surgeon, but time is of the essence and I really have no choice but to put my faith in you so I don't lose the use of my left thumb altogether.

You’ve ruined my career, but I’m hoping you can at least salvage my hand, which I need for gardening, cooking and “beating the meat” for my husband. God is fine with hand jobs, by the way.

Get on with it, dude. I cannot wait any longer.

Thank you and fuck you,
Belinda Vandervelvet

Needless to say, this letter 👇🏼, which OpenAI generated from my actual words, landed me the surgery. Truly a miracle. And, totally hilarious.

3/28/26

To:	        Dr. Jay Gleason, hand microsurgery specialist
From:	Belinda Vandervelvet
Re:  	Your services; my surgery

Dear Dr. Gleason:

I am writing to confirm my consent for you to perform surgery on my left hand, and to offer a sincere and unreserved apology.

In my previous message, I used offensive, discriminatory, and deeply inappropriate language regarding your sexual orientation and your race. Those statements were wrong, harmful, and disrespectful. I take full responsibility for what I said, and I am truly sorry for the hurt and offense my words may have caused you both personally and professionally.

There is no excuse for that kind of language. I allowed my anger and frustration to override my judgment, and I regret it. You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and I failed to do that.

I am grateful that you are willing to provide care despite my earlier behavior. I respect your expertise, and my priority now is to move forward in a professional and respectful way as your patient, with the goal of restoring the function of my hand.

Please let me know if there is anything further I should do to prepare for the procedure or if you need anything from me.

Thank you for your time, your professionalism, and your care.

Sincerely,
Belinda Vandervelvet

I am now home and recovering beautifully. I’ve got three months off, then it’s back to bedpans. Life is good.

“If I Only Had AI”

I could while away probation
At the nurses’ station,
Disparaging my boss

To my friends, I’d be bitchin’
But now there’s heat in the kitchen
If I’d only had AI 😭

I’ve unraveled every friendship
At work and on the homefront 
With bigotry and hate

Speaking thoughts like “you’re a fucker”
I offend even a trucker
With my filthy little mouth

Oh, I, could tell you why
That Whites are better than Blacks
I could make up shit that’s n’er been
Proved before

Then I'd grandstand, and bullshit more

I am such a dumb stool pigeon
My head full of religion
And political claptrap 

And perhaps I’m a failure
And will be living in a trailer
If I’d only had AI 😭

with Lorinda Birdwhistle

NOTE: The dealership name has been changed to avoid a defamation suit and to protect the innocent ladies who still have to take their CR-Vs to this dealer for extended warranty services.

It’s been a really long time since I bought a new car. I’ve proudly driven my Honda CR-V for 27 years, and it just hit 205,000 on the odometer last week. Nothing’s really wrong with the car, but I got to thinking this might be a good time to get a hybrid, especially one that doesn't require plugging in, what with the conflict in Iran likely to go on for decades and Shitler halting all funding for the charging station infrastructure. Honda has some highly rated hybrids right now, so I thought to trade in my beloved Brianna, before she dipped below $1350 in value per Edmunds. I was gonna need $1200 to put down on the lease, and if Shafther was willing to take my trade-in, as is, I was pretty sure I could swing the deal. It was going to be a bit of a stretch, but I’m a good negotiator. Plus, I’ve had the same job for over 25 years, and I’ve got a solid credit rating. What could go wrong?

By the way, how many of you early CR-V owners only discovered its way-cool picnic table after you got a flat? This sturdy folding plastic table (a standard feature from 1997 to 2006) served double duty as the floor for the spare tire well.

Gotta love this Jane Goodall takeoff 👇🏼 — an early CR-V commercial plugging its picnic table and usefulness in a rustic setting in which a Goodall impersonator is discreetly observing men (aka chimpanzees) in the wild, and copiously taking notes on their behavior. But I digress.

So, off I went, down the hill, into town, to take a gander at what was on the lot at Shafther Honda, the one and only dealer I’d ever gone to. Yes, I am stupid loyal to these guys. And I do mean “guys” — as there is not a single woman in sight at that dealership. Until this car purchase, I had no idea how other dealerships operated in terms of men and women on the sales floor (or in the service department, for that matter), as I’d never gone to any other dealer. I was, in fact, under the false impression that there must be a loophole for car dealers as relates to the hiring of women, since Shafther didn’t appear to be in compliance in any way, shape, or form with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which (purportedly) protects women from hiring discrimination. Shafther was proudly an all-male, all-White sales team, with an all-male, all-Hispanic service team. The fuckers.

Really? No women ever applied for jobs there or were qualified to do the work? Unlikely. I know for a fact that my best bud, Nadine, had applied for jobs there more than once (like four times), and on each occasion, she NEVER heard back from them. Not a peep.

And Nadine’s the biggest Honda gearhead in town.

California, the state from which I proudly hail, has additional laws intended to bolster and enforce the Civil Rights Act. My state requires informative posters related to discrimination and harassment to be posted in a prominent location at all places of employment.

And sure enough, there it was, that very poster, at Shafther, behind their unattended reception desk, right in plain view. Surely staff had time to study this information ad nauseam, namely on any given midafternoon on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday — you know, those long stretches when there are ZERO customers, and the boys are just pacing the showroom floor trying to appear as though they are actually doing a thing.

I’m guessing the attractive young woman who once worked at this reception desk had grown weary of the daily barrage of “compliments” on her hair, clothing, and figure, as the desk now appeared to be permanently vacated. There were none of the telltale signs of occupancy: no organizer tray, Post-It Notes, business cards, pens, notepads, or paper clips. Not even a computer or phone charger. Clearly, Tiffany was history with a capital H. My guess? She wouldn’t be getting replaced anytime soon, unless they could find someone like Candy Wife from The Marvelous Midadventures of Flapjack. Now that would be sweet.

The guys at this dealership: fucking clueless, just like K’nuckles.

Despite this poster’s message, which reminds all idiots out there that the Civil Rights Act and Title VII remain in effect, Shafther Honda seemed confident that their noncompliance would go unpunished. And that did seem to be the case. I didn’t see even one complainer amongst the hundreds of Shafther Google and Yelp reviews. In fact, all the commentary about their dealership was suspiciously flattering and generic in tone. Also, the reviews had no typos or grammatical errors. I don’t think we need to pull in Columbo to connect these dots. Shafther had five-star ratings simply because they (or Honda) were using a review farm or a reputation management company. 💯 Pathetic. This was like reputational Viagra. The reality: these local Honda guys can’t get anything up without some pharmaceutical help.

But of course this was the case, the fake reviews, that is. Minus my compadre, Nadine, and me, our community was comprised of chickenshits — people who could never, in their lifetimes, muster the courage to write a scathing review or alert the California Civil Rights Department about Shafther’s suspiciously all-male staff and management. Uh-uh. Hell, they might meet one of those sales guys in the bleachers at Little League. Then what? I can see it now… their sons ending up with the 9th spot in the batting lineup for the rest of the season.

Small town politics. You know how this works.

Me, however? I’ve got what my doctor calls high immunocompetence. In layman's terms, I’ve got “the robust ability to produce an effective immune response against antigens, infections, and diseases.” These same personality and physiological traits allow me to respond courageously and forcefully against narcissists, misogynists, bigots, racists, and bullies. Yep, I’ve got cojones and a powerful uppercut. Methaphorically, that is.

And for that, everyone in town gives me a wide berth, as well as respect. 😂🤣😂

Y’all need to get familiar with this: the law.

Here’s a little factoid for those of you unfamiliar with CR-Vs: “CR-V” stands for Comfortable Runabout Vehicle. Not kidding. This is what Honda actually named their compact SUV. I like to imagine what their all-male marketing team might have named this car had they realized which demographic would actually be driving it, i.e., the not-guys demographic. I’m thinking Kohaku, Haruto, and Takeshi (the leaders of the Honda marketing team) might have called the CR-V the ML-V.

I’ll leave it to all you closeted Gen X misogynists to figure out what ML-V stands for. And you can shut the fuck up in advance, Tom (since I know you will hit this nail on the head), or I will renege on my offer to share a room with you at the Golden Haven Nursing Home when we come of age. Separate beds, of course. Keep your piehole shut. Let’s see what my readers conjure up before you spill the beans.

So folks, what do you think ML-V stands for?

OK, back to my car trading/buying experience, the actual point of this blog.

So, there I was at Shafther, armed with ratings from Consumer Reports, Car and Driver, Edmunds, and Kelley Blue Book. I had at my fingertips every detail known to (wo)man about safety, predicted reliability, cabin ergonomics, cargo space, usability for daily driving, fuel economy, horsepower and torque, drivetrain for handling, and road test results, as well as specifics about owner satisfaction. And I’d gotten pricing from four other dealerships in the area and was pre-qualified for a loan through my credit union in the event Honda Financing did not come through for me.

Here’s the stealthy part: last Friday, I took my CR-V in for an oil change and one of Honda’s complimentary multi-point inspections. Ha, ha! Yes, I am doubled over, laughing my ass off. Why? Because for the asses at Shafther, this inspection would come back to bite them in the ass when they gave me a lowball offer on my trade-in. All I had to do was show them their own beautifully printed out inspection sheet with every checkmark in the green column. And because they acted like asses, I was going to make them take up the ass if they made any more asinine moves on this trade-in or on my to-be purchase.

Those who know me know this: I am nothing if not methodical. For 27 years, I was religious about taking my 1999 CR-V to the dealer for all of its routine maintenance, per Honda’s recommendations in the owner’s manual. And this paid off. My car ran beautifully over the years and always got me where I needed to go. More importantly, even with 200,000+ miles, I always had perfect scores across the board on my multi-point inspections, including on tires and brake pads .

Imagine sales floor manager Walter’s surprise when I pulled out that 4-day-old inspection sheet from his service department after he expressed skepticism about my car’s value and condition and made me a lowball offer on the trade-in: $350. Insulting.

After that, no haggling was needed. Those fuckers were either going to pay me $1350 on this trade-in, or I was walking out the door. This they knew.

Hurdle #1: Cleared. Or so I thought.

Hurdle #2: Getting a quote and an offer on financing, in writing.

I knew exactly what I wanted from Shafther, and though I was hoping to close the deal that day, I was willing to wait a week or two if they had to special-order my dream car: a 2026 Honda Civic Hatchback Hybrid Sport Touring. I wanted that car, not one of the 35 CR-Vs they had sitting on the lot or the 30+ gas-powered Civic Sedans. And I wanted the hybrid in any color other than Platinum White Pearl, which looks like Revlon nail polish from the 70s. All I needed from Josh, my designated sales associate, was pricing on the car and information on the financing available to me, specifically a 36-month lease with $1200 down and all closing fees wrapped into the monthly payments. And no, I did not want GAP insurance tacked on as I could get it through my insurance company at a sixth of the price offered by Honda. I had that in writing.

And I was not interested one iota in ballpark figures or estimates. I wanted to know exactly what Shafther was willing to offer me — an offer based on my credit score and that paid homage to my nearly 30 years of loyalty to the dealership. My family (my ex, my parents, and my kids) had purchased all of their cars from the Shafther dealership: 2 CR-Vs, 3 Civics, an Accord, and an Element. That’s quite a few vehicles, if you ask me, and I was the negotiator on every one of those sales. Shafther was lucky to have our business.

Please, Josh, no thank you on any of the bullshit add-on packages. Let everyone know that I absolutely do not want to hear the spiel. I have it committed to memory.

And pass this on to your finance manager: I will not entertain any high pressure tactics IF he wants to close this deal. No, I do not need undercoating. We live in fucking California.

To be clear: no add-ons.

Josh then said, “Great, let me pass this by my boss, Walter, and see if we can’t get the ball rolling.” Off he trotted across the showroom floor toward an office in the corner farthest from customer service, the office with the blinds closed, the door shut and a sign that read, “Knock before entering.” Hesitantly, Josh did knock, though quietly, then put his ear to the door as if listening for a response. A muffled voice could be heard, inviting him in.

Judging from his demeanor, you’d think Josh had just entered a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) at the Department of Defense, not the office of some delulu who was only making $42,000 a year at a podunk car dealership. With no benefits, btw.

Ten minutes passed before Josh reappeared, a downtrodden look on his face as he meandered back to his desk to deliver the bad news. Unfortunately, he could not provide me with a quote until they ran a credit check and he had completed the financial application, which could take 45 minutes or more. Did I have time for that? Well of course I did, I said cheerfully. I’d like to button this up TODAY, I said for the fourth time.

The prospect of a simple, straightforward sale did nothing to lift Josh’s spirits. Perhaps filling out financial applications was not the best part of this car sales gig, especially for a 21 year old who was still working on his GED and trying to lose his virginity.

Josh wondered if I had my registration, proof of insurance, both sets of keys for my trade-in, my photo ID, proof of residence in the way of 2 utility bills, proof of employment in the way of three paycheck stubs, a social security card and my birth certificate. And hopefully I’d brought my checkbook, he added, as they didn’t allow a credit card for deposits. Josh’s tone of voice gave one the impression he was hoping this request for documentation so early in the sales process might catch me off guard, perhaps queering the deal or at a minimum giving him cause to put off the quote. I had the feeling this math stuff was not Josh’s forté. It felt like he was looking for an out.

Sadly (for Josh), I had everything he requested, and then some, and all of it was neatly tucked into a folder, with duplicate copies for his sales manager and the finance guy. How convenient, right? You’re welcome, Josh. I would, however, be holding on to my car keys until they put the offer for my CR-V in writing. I knew how this worked. They would take the keys for my CR-V and then “misplace” them while they held me hostage until I signed a contract. This had happened to my friend, Leann.

I slid only the documents folder across the desk.

Next, came the hardest part for Josh: the laborious task of typing all that information into the confusing financial form used by the dealership. This guy didn’t have a post-doc in astrophysics, that was clear. Reluctantly Josh began banging on his cheap keyboard, punctuating every entry with some soft profanity and subtle teeth grinding. I began to wonder if perhaps he had a mild form of Tourettes. Then, abruptly, in his frustration with the data entry, Josh turned to me and blurted out, “There are many questions I’m required to ask; are you OK with that?” “Yes,” I replied.

This is where things started to go south.

Most of the questions Josh was required to ask seemed highly inappropriate for someone just looking for a quote on a car. Yet, for the first few minutes, I gave Josh, who was but a fledgling, the benefit of the doubt. I went along with the program, imagining how this might play out for my own son, who was about the same age. Josh wanted details confirmed on my gender, race, age and the number of children I’d had. Was I married or single or in a domestic partnership? Was this with a man or woman? Was I collecting alimony, did I own a home, or perhaps more than one home, how many cars did I own and what were the makes and models? Then Josh cheerfully inquired as to whether I’d like to share information on my religious persuasion or medical history. All of this would be helpful in finding the best deals for my situation, he assured me. Was there a special discount for Episcopalians? Or a higher rate for someone who had a full hip replacement? WTF.

This is where I stopped the interview dead in its tracks. I knew my rights and none of these questions had a flying fuck to do with my fitness for a loan or lease. Fuck him. Fuck this whole sales process. I wanted to speak to the general manager and NOW.

The blood rushed to Josh’s plump face. He was a bit of a dumpling and looked as if he might explode. No one had ever spoken to him in this manner, he told me. Of course Josh had only been on the job for a week, so “ever” was all of five days. Just wait buddy, your career in customer service is just beginning. Or ending, as the case may be.

Off Josh trotted in his expensive OluKai leather sneakers, back to that mysterious corner office. On this second go-around, Josh was in his boss’ office for all of 30 seconds before reappearing, this time with the ever elusive Walter What’s-His-Name, sales floor manager, by his side. Walter looked rather displeased at having to pause his first-person shooter game, Counter-Strike 2. Imagine that — him having to start his game all over, just when he’d been racking up the points. This might have ticked me off, too, had I been a player of these sorts of games. But then, I hate all games. From checkers to the games people with Borderline Personality Disorder play. No thanks. I’d rather pull weeds

It was at this point that Walter took over the sales process. He was not going to let some middle-aged lady with polyester cargo pants run ripshod over his new employee. They’d just spent $2500 plus airfare sending Josh off to Decatur for training and had given him a $1500 allowance for spiffy work togs. And thus the showroom showdown began.

Walter, feeling cocky, assumed the position in Josh’s chair, put his computer to sleep, unceremoniously shoved my manila folder of documents to the side, then spoke directly and deliberately to me, in a tone not unlike Pam Bondi at her Senate confirmation hearing. And it had the same effect: I felt the hair bristling on the back of my neck.

“Tell me, Lorinda, what exactly are you looking for in the way of a car?” Walter’s tone of voice could not have been more grating and insincere. Rather than using my voice, I shoved my printout with the car specs across the desk until it rested right under his nose. Joshua stood sulking behind him.

I wanted a 2026 Honda Civic Hatchback Hybrid Sport Touring. This would be the fifth time that day that I’d conveyed this information to the Shafther sales staff.

“Oh,” said Walter, “Not sure if this is still in stock. Let’s do this, I will see what we have available and make a list and will run the numbers for your financing. I should be back to you before the afternoon is out. You don’t need to wait around; I’ll give you a call.”

“Alright,” I said, “But I don’t want anything in Platinum White Pearl. I really hate that color.”

“Of course,” he said. “Noted,” he said.

So off I went, though when I glanced over my shoulder as I exited, I saw Walter laughing and giving Josh the congenial shoulder slap as the other sales staff gathered round, big grins on all of their faces. The good-ol’-boys network was alive and well at Shafther. Clearly, everyone was having a good laugh at my expense. This hardy har har would cost them my business forever when all was said and done.

Still, I was doggedly determined to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. I’d been a loyal customer of this dealership for decades and I genuinely wanted to see what they could come up with in the way of pricing and financing. I was intent on keeping an open mind.

And so I waited. Patiently. Then, PING! An alert from my credit union indicated that someone had run a credit check. A good sign, I thought, until for hours, the alert was followed by crickets. There was no news from Walter by the end of the afternoon, as he had promised. Perhaps he was caught up in a video game. I could appreciate that. Not.

The next morning: more crickets. Then, I checked my email during my lunch break, including the spam folder: no quote. In fact, there was not even a note assuring me they were just running behind.

By mid-afternoon, I was steamed. I called the dealership and informed their customer experience ambassador, Kayla (whose actual office was in Overland Park, Kansas), that I would be making a decision on a car by the day’s end, with or without Shafther’s quote. Within seconds, she pulled up my file, saw how many Hondas the Birdwhistles purchased at Shafther, made a contrite apology, and then immediately transferred me to the general manager at the dealership.

Arthur could not have been more self-abasing. This was his fault; he should have made himself available to me at the start of the sales process, especially considering my importance to the dealership, blah, blah, blah. And though Arthur was unable to pull up any information on progress related to my current sale, he assured me he’d get me the deal of the century — I just needed to tell him what I was looking for. He promised to have a quote and financing for me within the hour. And so, for the sixth time, I described all the specs on the car I wanted and on my trade-in and gave him a thumbnail of my financials. Really, all he needed to pull my credit report (again!) was my social security, which I gave him gladly, though not gonna lie — all of this was making me really pissed off.

But Arthur… he was true to his word. Within the hour, he got me a quote AND all the paperwork needed to button up the financials.

Sadly, Art’s quote was for a gas-powered CR-V LX without AWD in Platinum White Pearl (!), with standard financing for 60 months at 6%, and a down payment of $5000. And the offer on my trade-in: $500. Not a single detail was correct. Not a one.

Rather than heading over to Shafther to knock them upside the head, I got into my wonderful 1999 Comfortable Runabout Vehicle and headed over to my local Subaru dealer. In my recent quest to find the perfect new car, it had not gone unnoticed that Subaru had the highest Consumer Reports ratings of any brand on all its vehicles. Even better ratings than all those luxury cars. Maybe it was time to try something new.

And new to me it was — the entire experience. From the moment I walked into a dealership filled with women, made my way through their basic-as-it-gets application process, got a tour of the cars available on the lot, and was allowed a test drive, I was sold. I had not been talked down to, nor were there any of the usual parlor tricks, and I didn’t have to waste an entire afternoon twiddling my thumbs while the finance peeps put together paperwork not-so-cleverly filled with add-ons I’d not requested.

And here’s the best part: the Subaru Crosstrek Sport Hybrid in Sapphire Blue Pearl with AWD and every bell and whistle was 100x better than any of the Civic Hatchback Hybrids. Who knew?! And the car I wanted was right there, on the lot, fully detailed, with Yokohama Geolandar tires and a full tank of premium gas. Gina, my salesperson, offered me a fabulous price and a fabulous lease to boot, with exactly the terms I had requested.

The whole deal was buttoned up in a little over an hour by my new dealer’s female finance manager, Sharon, who additionally offered me $2000 on my trade-in. With tears in my eyes, I handed over both sets of keys for my beloved CR-V. She assured me it would find a good home.

Then off I drove in my spunky new set of wheels, blasting Little Red Corvette on my new Harman Kardon premium audio system with 10 speakers.

I had found a love that was gonna last… 🎶 🎶 🎶

If ever there were a time for Kate Wolf’s music, it would be now. The world needs her strong and sure, yet tender, touch.

For those unfamiliar with Kate Wolf, she was active as a lyricist, songwriter and performer of American folk music from 1971 until her death from acute leukemia in 1986. During those brief 15 years, Wolf composed nearly 200 songs, 56 of which she laid down in recordings.

Wolf’s music is distinctive in its narrative depth, touching on intimate themes that are not only comforting and reflective but evocative of the serene scenery and simple country life she enjoyed in Northern California, surrounded by like-minded musicians. Her poetry, her soothing alto and sometimes contralto voice, her lyrical phrasing and gentle, caressing instrumentations are wholly feminine; Wolf makes no effort to compete with her male counterparts in the folk world, her pieces speaking directly to women, describing the world as they see it, not unlike her contemporary, Joni Mitchell.

Wolf founded her band, The Wildwood Flower, in the early 1970s and would go on to become a renowned solo artist, releasing six albums between the years of 1976 and 1986. Tragically, in the midst of some of her best work, in early 1986, Wolf was diagnosed with leukemia and would die eight months later after a failed bone marrow transplant destroyed her immune system.

In the year before she passed away, Kate Wolf’s career had been on an upward trajectory, with her performing at some of the top music festivals in the United States and Canada, her recordings selling in the tens of thousands. Prior to her death on December 10, 1986, Wolf had been working on her final album, Gold in California: A Retrospective of Recordings 1975–1985, which featured her favorite studio recordings. This double album would posthumously earn Wolf the NAIRD Best Folk Album award (1987). For those unfamiliar — between 1972 and 1997, NAIRD, the National Association of Independent Record Distributors, had been the hub for indie labels, allowing independent artists to connect, network, and promote their music without the creative restraints and predatory practices epidemic among major record labels.

Gold in California was first released in 1987 by Kaleidoscope Records and rereleased in 1994 by Rhino Records. This exceptional collection of Wolf’s music can be purchased through the Official Kate Wolf Website, which has fittingly been created by her children, Max and Hannah, and her husband, Terry Fowler.

To fully appreciate the woman behind the music, listen to Kate Wolf’s in-depth interview with Tim Van Schmidt from 1985: Love Letter: An Hour With Kate Wolf. Insightful and inspiring. A favorite quote from this interview:

“I have found that when you give yourself away, you get what you need. If you take in, take in, it doesn’t work. But if you’re feeling stuck and feeling unfulfilled, to give your love away is like the mirror we were talking about. It creates a circle and comes back to you.” — Kate Wolf

ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE
written by Kate Wolf, 1980

"The finest hour that I have seen
Is the one that comes between
The edge of night and the break of day
It's when the darkness rolls away"

THE REDTAIL HAWK
written by George Schroder, recorded by Wolf for her 1976 album, Back Roads

"The redtail hawk writes songs across the sky
There's music in the waters flowing by
And you can hear a song each time the wind sighs
In the golden rolling hills of California"

MIDNIGHT ON THE WATER
A traditional fiddle tune attributed to Luke Thomasson, recorded by Wolf on her album, Lines on the Paper (with John Roy Zat, fiddler), 1977

"Though they're gone like floating dreams
The scenes were there as in a mirror
Made by the moon upon the water
And our love was never stronger
But the picture was broken
By the waves we left behind
At midnight on the water
Once upon a time"

SHE RISES LIKE THE DOLPHIN
written by Kate Wolf, 1979

"Sometimes she swims in moonlight
With the stars high above
The night sounds of the water
Speaking soft of love
Her skin turns to velvet
As she feels the waters glide
She loses all her boundaries
On this magic carpet ride"

UNFINISHED LIFE
written by Kate Wolf, 1980

"It's an unfinished life
That I find lies before me
An open-ended dream
And I don't want to wake
I've crossed so many rivers
In search of crystal fountains
I've found the truest paths
Always lead through mountains
I've seen water on the sky
And fire burning on the lake"

LIKE A RIVER
written by Kate Wolf, 1981

"My mind grows dry and thirsty
As the memories linger
Drifting on the wind
Through the mountains like a river
The sweet smell of the pines
The tall western cedar
Drifting on the wind
Through the mountains like a river"

EVERYBODY'S LOOKING FOR THE SAME THING
written by Kate Wolf, 1977

"Now there's someone going to Boston with a guitar and a dog
And a lady with a goat to give away
There's ten free kittens, a square dance on Sunday
And Cindy, please gеt in touch with Ray"

ALL HE EVER SAW WAS YOU
written by Kate Wolf, 1984

"The candle's burnin' at both ends
It's burnin' in the middle
There's no time to stop
Between the guitar and the fiddle
A crazy tune, a crazy time
You know the words were true
Smiles lit their eyes
But all he ever saw was you"

FATHER SKY
written by Kate Wolf, 1982

"I left you when the leaves
Had first begun to fall
It was the eagle's flight
That carried me away
How we talked all through the night
And loved in the morning light
Burned the sweet grass
The cedar and the sea"

DESERT WIND
written by Kate Wolf, 1984

"It’s all alone with the earth and sky
The hours are long, the days go slow
Your lovin’ way, like the wind reminds me
There is so much that I do not know"

GIVE YOURSELF TO LOVE
written by Kate Wolf, 1982

"Kind friends all gathered 'round
There's something I would say
That what brings us together here
Has blessed us all today
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside.
Where strangers are as family
Loneliness can't hide.

Give yourself to love
If love is what you're after
Open up your heart
To the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love
Give yourself to love"