Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Great Believers (2018)

  He could say he’d left the Marina Towers finally, was living in a sublet in Lincoln Park, that the paint was peeling but the place had its own washing machine. Asher said, “Can I get you to the DAGMAR meeting next weekend?” Yale was never clear on DAGMAR’s mission, in part because the R kept changing—Dykes and Gay Men Against Reagan, or the Right, or Republicans, or Repression. Every time you asked it was something different. Yale said, “It’s Rutabagas now, right?” He pressed Asher’s stamp onto his left palm; the slightest trace of red ink came off. “You’ll feel better,” Asher said. “Everyone I know who isn’t political, it’s just because they haven’t tapped into their anger. And once you do, it’ll feel right. Listen, direct action—direct action is the third best feeling in the world.” “What’s the second?” “Peeling off a wet swimsuit.” “Huh.” Yale actually wanted to say yes, but the way he felt around Asher was unsustainable. It wasn’t good for the nervous system. Besides which, what he’d seen of direct action protests involved lying down in the street, pepper spray, getting handcuffed and locked in a paddy wagon—where, in summer, they’d close the doors and turn the heat up. He hadn’t even been able to fight off other boys in his seventh-grade locker room. How was he supposed to hold his own, in front of Asher Glass, against third-generation Chicago cops? He said he’d think about it. He had a lot going on at work, he said. The one place he did see Asher regularly was at support group. Asher would consistently show up half an hour late, loosening his tie. If Yale had managed to keep an open seat next to him—usually by leaving his coat on it casually for a while, and then removing the coat as if he’d just suddenly remembered it was there—Asher would take it, squeeze the back of Yale’s neck as he sat down. Otherwise he’d stand outside the circle, refusing the therapist’s offer to grab him one of the chairs that was still folded against the wall. When Asher talked, it was to make a speech—not to share anything about himself, about his own diagnosis or its aftermath. He’d never acquiesced to the test, but last year his weight had suddenly dropped, his stomach had revolted, and his doctor had insisted on checking his T cells. His count was below one hundred. About once per meeting, he’d go off about the cost of AZT. As if they were the ones responsible, as if they could do anything about it. He’d start yelling that it was the most expensive prescription drug in history. “You think that’s a coincidence? You think that isn’t pure hatred? Ten thousand dollars a year! Ten thousand fucking dollars!” He was never one to break down in tears, never one to sob over lost friends or mortality or survivor guilt.

• From Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)

  “My business? Actually, it’s a little better: I don’t have to keep chasing away the drug dealers. They were so thick on this corner, decent people were afraid to stop!” Ben looked across the street at Richard Basciano’s Show World Center, which opened on Eighth Avenue just above Forty-second Street in 1977. “They should never have put that thing here. They should all be over at the river. They got four thousand guys a day goin’ through that place. The girls who work there basically live off tips. Sure. Who’s the landlord gonna rent to—somebody who can pay a couple of thousand a month, or a thousand bucks a day?” (Actually Show World owns its own building—as well as, till a couple of years ago, most of the Strip’s north face.) “But that’s what’s brought Times Square down!” With its fundamentally heterosexual business, Show World Center is one of the places that may escape the move—so there’ll still be a little color left, a few memories of an older Forty-second Street. [image file=image_rsrc1R4.jpg] On the southwest corner of Forty-second Street and Eighth Avenue, two young men talk among the passersby. To the picture’s far right, on the corner diagonally across, by the green knobs that indicate the subway entrance, directly below the Coca-Cola sign, the umbrella, out that day, shades Ben’s shoeshine stand. Within the year, the buildings behind it with the gates down before their windows will also be torn down. The building across the street to the right of the picture’s middle for some fifteen years housed a “Gay Strip Show and J/O Club” on the second floor. When, a year after this picture was taken in October 1996, the building was demolished, substantial pieces of its mirrors and mosaics clung to the brick wall for another year, till they too were pulled down, a glittering reminder of the young men who had worked there. I said good-bye and went to wait for my bus—a black gay man, in my midfifties, who’s utilized the sexual outlets of this neighborhood for more than thirty years. What kind of leaps am I going to have to make now between the acceptable and the unacceptable, between the legal and the illegal, to continue having a satisfactory sex life? As my bus came, behind me Ben called out to the woman in a passing couple: “Mmmm! Hey, there, sweetheart . . . !” 1. For details, see the extraordinary volume, Policing Public Sex: Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS Activism, edited by Dangerous Bedfellows (Ephen Glenn Colter, Wayne Hoffman, Eva Pendleton, et al.) (Boston: South End Press, 1996).Part 2. . . Three, Two, One, Contact: Times Square RedDecember 1997–April 1998 As long as there is something like experience, it is not entirely mine. —AVITAL RONELL, Finitude’s Score

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  Why don’t we get better health care? In the United States, lack of access to health insurance is a big factor in preventing women from getting adequate health care. Many lesbian and bisexual women as well as transgendered people feel very uncomfortable talking to health-care practitioners about sex. (Many of us feel uncomfortable talking to our lovers about sex.) It doesn’t help that few of us have access to health-care professionals who have any idea what we do sexually. Some lesbians feel uneasy about the mechanics of Pap smears; others think that because they don’t have sex with men, such care is unnecessary—not true. Regular gynecological exams will help you stay on top of the state of your sexual health. Some sexually transmitted conditions don’t produce noticeable symptoms until you’ve got a serious problem. For example, human papillomavirus (HPV), among the most widespread sexually transmitted conditions, has been linked to cervical cancer. A recent study conducted in Seattle found HPV present among lesbians—even those who had never had sex with men.4 A Pap smear can alert you to the presence of abnormal cells caused by HPV, long before cancer develops. However, you will need a complete gynecological exam, including blood work, to determine if you’ve been exposed to HIV or other STDs. Risk-Free_____ Frottage (with clothes) Nipple and breast stimulation (not lactating) Sharing sex toys (with a condom) Genital touching with glove Oral sex with barrier Masturbation (touching only yourself) Voyeurism and exhibitionism Cybersex and phone sex Watching porn Reading erotica Talking dirty Fantasy Safer Sex, PleaseWe hear a lot about safer sex—but what is it, really? Safer sex is the practice of assessing risks and taking precautions that you hope will prevent you from acquiring or transmitting STDs. How do you know if you’re at risk? Well, the greater the number of people with whom you have had unprotected sex, the greater the risk you’ve been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease. Your risk for acquiring an STD increases if you already have an STD, if you’ve used intravenous drugs, or if any of your partners have used intravenous drugs. Finally, some sexual activities are riskier than others. (See “Safer-Sex Guidelines for Lesbian and Bisexual Women,” below.) You may believe that because you’re in a committed monogamous relationship you’re exempt from safer-sex concerns. If that were true, there would be far fewer of us with herpes and HPV. Unfortunately, monogamy is not a foolproof safer-sex strategy. Some STDs can lie dormant for months or even years after exposure, which may be longer than your previous relationship. You could easily transmit an STD you didn’t know you had. And, of course, a commitment to monogamy is no guarantee. Many women have sex outside of their relationships without telling their partners. [image file=image_rsrc645.jpg] Illustration 3. Making a Dental Dam

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Or was he a Davidic loyalist who was especially critical of the cult at Bethel because of the separation of the northern kingdom from Jerusalem? There is no doubt that the book was edited in the southern kingdom and presents a Judean perspective in its canonical form. This perspective is clear in the introductory saying in 1:1 (“The L ord roars from Zion . . .”; cf. Joel 3:16) and in the concluding promise that the Lord will raise up “the fallen booth of David” (Amos 9:11-15). It is not at all clear, however, that the eighth-century prophet Amos was promoting Davidic rule, or that he was concerned with the relations between the two kingdoms. He was also critical of “those who are at ease in Zion” (6:1). It might have been more difficult, however, for a man from Tekoa to preach in Jerusalem on the doorstep of the king than in Bethel where he was at some distance from the royal court. The date assigned to Amos raises another intriguing question. Amos prophesied the destruction of the northern kingdom. His prophecy was fulfilled by the Assyrian destruction of Samaria in 722 B.C.E. But the Assyrian threat was not in evidence during the reign of Jeroboam and developed only in the reign of Tiglath-pileser III, whose reign began about the time of Jeroboam’s death. Amos never mentions Assyria in his oracles, but a few passages refer to the punishment of exile, which was typical Assyrian policy (5:5, 27). Of course victors had always taken captives in war, from the earliest time, and had used or sold them as slaves. The innovation of the Assyrians was mass deportation as a way of subduing an area by resettling it. At least some passages in Amos, such as 5:27, seem to envision mass deportation. These oracles are more easily explained if they are dated somewhat later, when Assyria was a threat to Israel. Amos 6:2, which invites comparison of Israel with Calneh, Hamath, and Gath, must be interpreted in light of the Assyrian conquest of these regions in the 730s. Alternatively, the allusions to later events and to the specifically Assyrian practice of mass deportation may have been added later, in the course of the transmission of the book. Tiglath-pileser III, an alabaster bas-relief from the king’s central palace at Nimrud, Mesopotamia, ca 730-727 B.C.E. Now in the British Museum, London. The prophecy of Amos is also dated “two years before the earthquake.” This earthquake is also mentioned in Zech 14:5, but it cannot be dated precisely. That such a precise date is given, however, suggests that the prophetic career of Amos was quite short, perhaps no more than a single season. Alternatively, this date may indicate only the beginning of the prophet’s career.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  A conversation about developmental milestones left Nora in a sweat and her nervous energy made her push her happily squealing daughter higher than ever before, but she had a long conversation. When I saw her next, she said Neil Armstrong’s moon landing quote rang through her head for the rest of that afternoon. When you’re first getting started, expect some false starts. We all get a little weird and desperate when we’re lonely. If you’re out of practice, you become less and less confident that you even know how to talk, much less form full sentences to which another human can respond. Worse, we also start interpreting everyone as threatening, every smile as scornful, every interaction as rejecting. But then we make it worse: we act as if the world is against us, a self-fulfilling prophecy called behavioral confirmation. If Maddy expects no one will talk to her, she won’t say hello. If Nora expects the moms to be judgy instead of friendly, she’ll make a beeline for home, not the playground. But don’t base success on the other person’s response. Don’t base success on how nervous you feel. Base success only on what you do. Did you manage to share a little bit of yourself? Great. The first times are the hardest. Try again, and try again soon—not weeks later. Keep the momentum going. It will get easier, I promise. SHOW THEM THAT YOU LIKE THEM The third part of crafting a friendship, besides repetition and disclosure, is showing others that you like them. People like those who like them. People also like those who take the initiative. In academic terms it’s called prosocial behavior, but more simply, it’s showing someone that you’re pleased to be around them. At its simplest, showing you like someone is being the first to say hi or lighting up with a smile when they say hi to you. Slightly more advanced is unnecessary conversation. I once had a colleague who would stop at every co-worker’s office in the morning to say hi. “Just saying hello,” she always said, or “Just checking in.” She called it doing the rounds. Her efforts were thoughtful and made me like her. Next is taking socializing out of the usual context and into another. For instance, parents from Nora’s daughter’s class, after connecting on the playground, may arrange a playdate, a change of context from schoolyard to home. After racking up those six to eight conversations hanging around after book club, Maddy may invite a book club buddy out for coffee, a change of context from the group to a duo. If you get invited to a get-together—someone from tai chi is having a birthday, a guy from your hip-hop class is having a Super Bowl party—go, even if just for a pop-in. People are touched when you show up to their events, and more important, it moves your friendship to another context and therefore another level.

• From The Vagina Bible (2019)

  The misinformation women are given about their reproductive organs, internet mythology, and the difficulty women face having non-sophomoric discussions about their vulvas and vaginas make accurate communication hard. Another important factor is receiving an incorrect diagnosis. If the first time you have a vulvar itch you are misdiagnosed with a yeast infection, then of course every time you have a vulvar itch you will erroneously think you have yeast. Even a Gynecologist Can Have Trouble Interpreting Signals One night, while I was writing this book, I felt some discomfort in my left labia majora. I thought it must have been my underwear digging in—I had spent three hours sitting at the hair salon and was wearing ill-fitting underwear. I’d meant to throw it away, but you know how that goes. I felt around, far out of my field of vision, and found a lump that hurt. A lot. This, I deduced, was either a bitch of an ingrown hair or an abscess. I got out the mirror and saw redness and swelling. Although it was hard to see, I was sure my initial thoughts about either an ingrown hair or an early infection, given the pain, must be correct. My attempts at removing the supposed ingrown hair were unsuccessful but did result in me traumatizing my skin, further increasing my pain. There are a lot of lessons here. For example, this is why you should never try to dig around your vulva at home. Doctors are the worst at taking good medical advice. The pain worsened, and I imagined myself getting flesh-eating bacteria from my botched attempt at home surgery on an infection. I tried to figure out how this could have happened, and then I remembered the sugaring I did for this book—this was the side that was sugared! I wondered when I died from the resulting blood poisoning, what pithy headlines might appear. The more I worried, the worse the pain. I told myself to snap out of it. I took my temperature (normal, phew), swallowed an acetaminophen, and went to bed. I woke up in a lot of pain. I made it to work and told my colleague I had a vulvar abscess. I mean, I am the expert, so telling her what was wrong seemed appropriate. She looked at my vulva and the look on her face told me she saw something completely unexpected. She brought out the selfie-stick mirror so I could see my own vulva. Clearly, I had an irritant reaction or contact dermatitis (an allergic reaction). I was intensely red, equally on either side. Interestingly, I had no symptoms on the right side. The painful spot? Maybe a small ingrown hair that was amplified by the swelling and irritation from the skin condition, but it really was not clear. I had definitely traumatized my skin. There was no abscess. My colleague admonished me.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Two years after Leo assumed the pontificate, the financial problem was already a serious one. All sorts of measures had to be invented to increase the papal revenues and save the treasury from hopeless bankruptcy. By augmenting the number of the officials of the Tiber—porzionari di ripa — from 141 to 612, 286,000 ducats were secured. The enlargement of the colleges of the cubiculari and scudieri, officials of the Vatican, brought in respectively 90,000 and 112,000 ducats more. From the erection of the order of the Knights of St. Peter,—cavalieri di San Pietro,—with 401 members, the considerable sum of 400,000 ducats was realized, 1,000 ducats from each knight. The sale of indulgences did not yield what it once did, but the revenue from this source was still large.870 The highest ecclesiastical offices were for sale, as in the reign of Alexander. Cardinal Innocent Cibo paid 30,000 ducats or, at; another report went, 40,000, for his hat, and Francesco Armellini bought his for twice that amount.871 The shortages were provided for by resort to the banker and the usurer and to rich cardinals. Loan followed loan. Not only were the tapestries of the Vatican and the silver plate given as securities, but ecclesiastical benefices, the gems of the papal tiara and the rich statues of the saints were put in pawn. Sometimes the pope paid 20 per cent for sums of 10,000 ducats and over.872 It occasions no surprise that Leo’s death was followed by a financial collapse, and a number of cardinals passed into bankruptcy, including Cardinal Pucci, who had lent the pope 150,000 ducats. From the banker, Bernado Bini, Leo had gotten 200,000 ducats. His debts were estimated as high as 800,000 ducats. It was a common joke that Leo squandered three pontificates, the legacy Julius left and the revenues of his successor’s pontificate, as well as the income of his own. For the bankers and all sorts of money dealers the Medicean period was a flourishing time in Rome. No less than 30 Florentines are said to have opened banking institutions in the city, and, at the side of the Fuggers and Welsers, did business with the curia. The Florentines found it to be a good thing to have a Medicean pope, and swarmed about the Vatican as the Spaniards had done in the good days of Calixtus III. and Alexander VI., the Sienese, during the reign of Pius II., and the Ligurians while Sixtus IV. of Savona was pope. They stormed the gates of patronage, as if all the benefices of the Church were intended for them.873

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Vatican was thrown into a panic in 1517 by a conspiracy directed by Cardinal Petrucci of Siena, one of the younger set of cardinals with whom the pope had been intimate. Embittered by Leo’s interference in his brother’s administration of Siena and by the deposition of the duke of Urbino, Petrucci plotted to have the pope poisoned by a physician, Battesta de Vercelli, a specialist on ulcers. The plot was discovered, and Petrucci, who came to Rome on a safe-conduct procured from the pope by the Spanish ambassador, was cast into the Marroco, the deepest dungeon of S. Angelo. On being reminded of the safe-conduct, Leo replied to the ambassador that no one was safe who was a poisoner. Cardinals Sauli and Riario were entrapped and also thrown into the castle-dungeons. Two other cardinals were suspected of being in the plot, but escaped. Petrucci and the physician were strangled to death; Riario and Sauli were pardoned. Riario, who had witnessed the dastardly assassination in the cathedral of Florence 40 years before, was the last prominent representative of the family of Sixtus IV. Torture brought forth the confession that the plotters contemplated making him pope. Leo set the price of the cardinal’s absolution high,—150,000 ducats to be paid in a year, and another 150,000 to be paid by his relatives in case Riario left his palace. He finally secured the pope’s permission to leave Rome, and died, 1521, at Naples. One of the sensational pageants which occurred during Leo’s pontificate was on the arrival of a delegation from Portugal, 1514, to announce to the pope the obedience of its king, Emmanuel. The king sent a large number of presents, among them horses from Persia, a young panther, two leopards and a white elephant. The popular jubilation over the procession of the wild beasts reached its height when the elephant, taking water into his proboscis, spurted it over the onlookers.856 In recognition of the king’s courtesy, the pope vested in Portugal all the lands west of Capes Bojador and Non to the Indies. The Fifth Lateran resumed its sessions in April, 1513, a month after Leo’s election. The council ratified the concordat with France, and at the 8th session, Dec. 19, 1513, solemnly affirmed the doctrine of the soul’s immortality.857 The affirmation was called forth by the scepticism of the Arabic philosophers and the Italian pantheists. A single vote recorded against the decree came from the bishop of Bergamo, who took the ground that it is not the business of theologians to spend their time sitting in judgment upon the theories of philosophers.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  At the very same moment, faithless to his Spanish allies, the pope was carrying on negotiations with Venice to drive them out of Italy. Louis’ son-in-law and successor, Francis I., a warlike and enterprising prince, held the attention of Europe for nearly a quarter of a century with his campaigns against Charles V., whose competitor he was for the imperial crown. Carrying out Louis’ plans, and accompanied by an army of 35,000 men with 60 cannon, he marched in the direction of Milan, inflicting at Marignano, Sept., 1515, a disastrous defeat upon the 20,000 Swiss mercenaries.851 At the first news of the disaster, Leo was thrown into consternation, but soon recovered his composure, exclaiming in the presence of the Venetian ambassador, "We shall have to put ourselves into the hands of the king and cry out for mercy." The victory, was the reply, "will not inure to your hurt or the damage of the Apostolic see. The French king is a son of the Church." And so it proved to be. Without a scruple, as it would seem, the pope threw off his alliances with the emperor and Ferdinand and hurried to get the best terms he could from Francis. They met at Bologna. Conducted by 20 cardinals, Francis entered Leo’s presence and, uncovering his head, bowed three times and kissed the pontiff’s hand and foot. Leo wore a tiara glittering with gems, and a mantle, heavy with cloth of gold. The French orator set forth how the French kings from time immemorial had been protectors of the Apostolic see, and how Francis had crossed the mountains and rivers to show his submission. For three days pontiff and king dwelt together in the same palace. It was agreed that Leo yield up Parma and Piacenza to the French, and a concordat was worked out which took the place of the Pragmatic Sanction. This document, dating from the Council of Basel, and ratified by the synod of Bourges, placed the nomination to all French bishoprics, abbeys and priories in the hands of the king, and this clause the concordat preserved. On the other hand, the clauses in the Pragmatic Sanction were omitted which made the pope subject to general councils and denied to him the right to collect annates from French benefices higher and lower.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  IWe can put aside the recourse to testimonies or inquiries that make it possible to be sure of the repentance and good dispositions of those requesting reconciliation. In the period following the great persecutions, Saint Cyprian’s letters show the importance of the problem: the difficulty of finding the right balance between rigor and indulgence, the dogged efforts of some lapsi to regain the peace of the Church, and the mulishness with which it was sometimes refused them—in any case, the painfulness of the discussions. Saint Cyprian comes back to the matter several times: in a way, between the two dangers of reconciling too quickly or of leaving the sinners without hope, the decision will always be blind: “It being given to us to see and to judge, we only see the exterior of everyone; as to plumbing the depths of the heart, and penetrating the soul, we cannot.”35 An argument that inclines him not to a severity, but to a leniency for which he reproaches himself at times.36 He fears, like everyone else, that “incorrigible minds,” “men defiled by adulteries or the contagion of sacrifices,” will come back and corrupt righteous souls—yet he thinks the task is not so much to exclude those whose sincerity is not certain, but rather to work toward their healing.37 Besides, the reconciliation that is granted here below is not binding to God. He who sees everything, even into the secrets of the heart that elude us, is not committed to pardon when someone has taken advantage of his people’s indulgence: “God will judge of those things which we have looked upon imperfectly and will correct the judgment of his servants.”38

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Literature: The Chronicles of Salimbene, Villani, etc.: Gerson: Contra sectam flagellantium, 1417, Du Pin’s ed., Antwerp, 1706. Gerson’s letter to Ferrer and his address to the council of Constance concerning the Flagellants are given by Van der Hardt: Constant. concilium, Frankf., 1700, III. 92–104.—J. Boileau: Hist. Flagel., Paris, 1700, new ed., 1770.—*E. G. Förstemann: D. christl. Geisslergesellschaften, Halle, 1828.—W. M. Cooper: Flagellation and the Flagellants, A Hist. of the Rod in all Countries, Lond., 1877; new ed., 1896.—Fredericq, in Corpus doc. inquis., etc. gives reports of their trials in Holland, I. 190 sqq., etc.—*F. Neukirch: D. Leben d. P. Damiani, Gött., 1875.—Lea: Hist. of Inq., I. 72 sqq., II. 381 sqq.—Artt. Geissler and Geisselung in Wetzer-Welte by Knöpfler, IV. 1532 sqq. and in Herzog by Haupt, VI. 432 sqq. For the older lit., see Förstemann, pp. 291–325. A genuine indication of popular interest in religion within orthodox circles was the strange movement represented by the Flagellants. Gregorovius has gone so far as to pronounce their appearance "one of the most striking phenomena of the Middle Ages."2116 Although they started within the Church and are not to be classed with the mediaeval sectaries, the Flagellants in a later age came to be regarded with suspicion, were formally condemned by the council of Constance, and were even the object of ecclesiastical prosecution. They appeared first in 1259, then in 1333, 1349, 1399, and last at the time the council of Constance was sitting. The most notable appearance was in 1349, at the time the Black Death was raging in Europe. The movement had no compact organization, as is shown from its spasmodic character. It grew out of discontent with the Church and a longing for true penitence and amendment of life. The prophecies of Joachim, who set 1260 as the time for the appearance of anti-christ, probably had something to do with stirring up unrest; perhaps also the famine in Italy, of 1258, which was followed by a strange physical malady, characterized by numbness of the bodily organs. Salimbene reports that the bells were left untolled for funerals, lest the sick should be terrified. The enthusiasm took the form of processions, scourgings, and some novel and strange ceremonies. It was a species of evangelism, and attempted a campaign against physical and other sins, as the Crusades did against the Saracens of the East. It sought to make popular the discipline of flagellation, which was practised in the convent, and to secure penitential results, such as the monk was supposed to reach.

• From The Great Believers (2018)

  There was a manhunt for one of the terror suspects under way near the Belgian border. As soon as they’d gotten to the studio, they’d locked the door behind them. The radio on the counter played the BBC news too softly to hear, and Serge kept updating them from his Twitter feed, but there wasn’t much to report. Richard was waiting on the call from the Pompidou, the decision on whether it would open at all tomorrow, let alone proceed with the festivities. Even if things were a go, the party would be sparsely attended. The Pompidou wasn’t far from the Bataclan Music Hall, which was still a “scene of carnage,” according to the news, although the only photos Fiona could bear to look at were of flower heaps, teddy bears. Some of the most important guests would have been coming from out of town, and lord knew what would happen to their flights, their trains. Late last night, Damian had called to say that Claire had emailed him at his university address. Just five sentences to say she was fine and he shouldn’t worry. He spelled Claire’s email address for her—an address she wasn’t supposed to use, of course—and he read her the email twice through. No apology, but no anger, no stiffness either. How different from the two tense conversations she’d had with Fiona. Well, Claire’s issues were largely with her , not with Damian. The child psychologist had explained it, years ago: They lash out at the parent they live with, the safe one. And it came out during therapy that Claire understood far more than they’d hoped about Fiona’s affair. “She believes,” the psychologist had said, “that you were looking for another family, a better family.” Fiona stuck the piece of paper with Claire’s email address into her bedside drawer. She had already memorized it. —Richard’s phone finally rang, and he retreated down to his desk to pace and talk. When he returned, he shook his head. “Not the Pompidou,” he said. “At this point, if they call, I’m going to say no. I want to wait a week. Next Monday, don’t you think? They can let the public in whenever the hell they want, but if we’re doing the vernissage at all, we’re doing it right. But listen, good news. Fiona, I told you there was a surprise for you. It was going to happen tomorrow night, but—you know.” Fiona braced herself. Richard sometimes had strange ideas of what other people would enjoy, and if he was about to present her with a video of Nico, she wouldn’t be able to handle it. “That was the call,” he said. “Go wait by the door, okay? Two minutes. You’ll see.” “Just me?” “Just you.” She gave him a skeptical look but walked out into the hall and then into the little entryway, where she could see through the glass door and onto the street. Her stomach didn’t feel good. Her head didn’t feel good.

• From The Great Believers (2018)

  Do I need you to promise me you’ll avoid behaviors that would put yourself or others at risk? Yes.” He stopped and leaned forward, waiting until Yale started to talk. “I don’t know why I’m more scared this time. The first time, last year, it was like we’d gone back and forth between assuming we had it and thinking we were safe. But most of the time, deep down, I thought I did, you know? I’d check my tongue every morning for thrush. When we went in, it was—maybe it was a relief. It doesn’t feel that way now.” “It’s harder alone.” “Sure.” Yale managed to keep his voice steady. Dr. Cheng scooted closer. “Listen: You were exposed, yes. That’s not as definitive as it might feel. I’ve treated guys I slept with, Yale. And that was before the test. I assumed I had it too. And I don’t. Let’s not fall apart over something that hasn’t happened yet. We’ll get you the test today. You’ll feel better, I think, in the meantime. And we’ll make an appointment for the results”—he wheeled himself over to his desk calendar—“two weeks from today, the seventeenth.” “Doesn’t the first test only take a few days? I want you to tell me if that’s positive. I want to know.” Dr. Cheng shook his head. “I can’t do that. Any positive would be preliminary. A positive ELISA gets repeated, then sent out for the Western blot. Lots of reasons you could have a false positive on the ELISA. Syphilis, for one. Drug use. Multiple pregnancies.” It wouldn’t have been funny if Dr. Cheng’s delivery weren’t so deadpan, but Yale found himself looking up, smiling. He could deal with this guy at his sickbed. “A negative ELISA is pretty damn negative, but I can’t tell you I’ll call you with that, because then if you don’t get the call—right? You understand.” “You think I’d jump off a bridge.” Dr. Cheng asked if Yale would like to talk to a counselor—no, not yet—and told him they’d give him a slip of paper with a number on it. A corresponding number would go into the chart. “I don’t even write down that we’re running the test,” he said. “I put a special symbol. If my records were seized, all they’d see is some funny shapes. This isn’t a shame thing, I want you to understand. Sometimes we associate secrecy with shame. This is simply about protecting you. Do you have questions about confidentiality?” Yale didn’t need the shame lecture, but it was a nice delay. He tried to think of a question that would take some time, but he couldn’t. Dr. Cheng said, “I’m going to stay in the room while Gretchen draws your blood,” and he did just that. Yale looked away; he always had a problem with his own blood, watching it rise up the vial. “We have some party favors,” Dr. Cheng said and presented Yale with an opaque plastic bag of rubbers.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  I’ve been thinking about that little affair now for quite some time. I have a hunch as to who took that money, but I’m not absolutely sure. . . . And then he’ll probably give you a beady eye and abruptly change the conversation to something else. He’ll probably tell you a little story about a crook he knew who thought he was very smart and getting away with it. He’ll draw that story out for you until you feel as though you were sitting on hot coals. By that time you’ll be wanting to beat it, but just when you’re ready to go he’ll suddenly be reminded of another very interesting little case and hell ask you to wait just a little longer while he orders another dessert. And hell go on like that for three or four hours at a stretch, never making the least overt insinuation, but studying you closely all the time, and finally, when you think you’re free, just when you’re shaking hands with him and breathing a sigh of relief, he’ll step in front of you and, planting his big square feet between your legs, he’ll grab you by the lapel and, looking straight through you, he’ll say in a soft, winsome voice—now look here, my lad, don’t you think you had better come clean? And if you think he’s only trying to browbeat you and that you can pretend innocence and walk away, you’re mistaken. Because at that point, when he asks you to come clean, he means business and nothing on earth is going to stop him. When it gets to that point I’d recommend you to make a clean sweep of it, down to the last penny. He won’t ask me to fire you and he won’t threaten you with jail—hell just quietly suggest that you put aside a little bit each week and turn it over to him. Nobody will be the wiser. He probably won’t even tell me. No, he’s very delicate about these things, you’ll see. “And supposing,” says Curley suddenly, “that I tell him I stole the money in order to help you out? What then?” He began to laugh hysterically. “I don’t think O’Rourke would believe that,” I said calmly. “You can try it, of course, if you think it will help you to clear your own skirts. But I rather think it will have a bad effect. O’Rourke knows me . . . he knows I wouldn’t let you do a thing like that.” “But you did let me do it!” “I didn’t tell you to do it. You did it without my knowledge. That’s quite different. Besides, can you prove that I accepted money from you? Won’t it seem a little ridiculous to accuse me, the one who befriended you, of putting you up to a job like that? Who’s going to believe you? Not O’Rourke. Besides, he hasn’t trapped you yet. Why worry about it in advance?

• From White Oleander (1999)

  I put my mouth down to the edge, picked up a corner of the glass, and sucked the thick hash fumes into my lungs. Yvonne didn’t smoke, she said it was bad for the baby. “What difference does it make?” Niki said, putting a chunk of hash on the pin for herself. “It’s not like you’re going to keep it.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “You think that way, I don’t want you taking me to baby class,” Yvonne said. “Astrid’ll take me.” I started coughing. I tried to do Butterfly McQueen from the childbirth scene in Gone with the Wind. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies,” but I couldn’t get my voice to go high enough. I thought of Michael, he always did Butterfly better than me. I missed him. “At least you have good thoughts,” Yvonne said. Childbirth. I shuddered. “I’m not even eighteen.” “That’s okay, they don’t serve liquor,” Niki said, throwing a finished bag on the pile. She picked up another one that was all cut out and ready for sewing. Stoned, I traced a rising smoke pattern into a scrap of leather with an X-acto blade. I was good at this, better than my mother used to be. I could do a crow, a cat. I could do a cat in three cuts. I did a baby with a curl on its forehead and tossed it to Yvonne. The door banged open behind us, letting in a rush of cold air. Rena came in with a roll of dark green suede tucked under her arm. “Georgi sell whole thing, trade for lamp,” she grinned proudly. “Nice, huh?” Then her gaze landed on me, etching designs into the leather. “What, you crazy?” She grabbed the doeskin away from me, thumped the back of my head with the heel of her hand. “Pothead stupid girl. You think is cheap?” Then she noticed the design and frowned, her lower lip pouted out. She held the scrap up to the light. “Not bad.” She tossed it back to me. “I think it sell. Do all bags. We make money on this.” I nodded. I blew whatever I made on art supplies and food and going in with Niki on dope. College had already vanished, disappearing like a boat into fog. At Claire’s, I’d begun to think of my life as a series of Kandinsky pencil sketches, meaningless by themselves, but arranged together they would begin to form an elegant composition. I even thought I had seen the shape of the future in them. But now I had lost too many pieces. They had returned to a handful of pine needles on a forest floor, unreadable. Sergei came in carrying a bag, his cheeks flushed pink in his handsome, wide, un-Californian face. He unloaded two bottles of vodka, put one in the freezer, set the other on the counter, and took down two green glasses. He sniffed the air.

• From Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (2021)

  We don’t always know what we want and we are not always able to express our desires clearly. This is in part due to the violence, misogyny and shame that make desire’s discovery difficult, and its expression fraught. But it is also in the nature of desire to be social, emergent and responsive – to context, to our histories and to the desires and behaviours of others. We are social creatures; and our desires have always emerged, from day one, in relation to those who care, or do not care, for us. Desire never exists in isolation. This is also what makes sex potentially exciting, rich and meaningful. How do we make this fact galvanizing rather than paralysing? Commentators on the ‘new’ landscape of sex and consent often plaintively ask why it is that men are expected to be able to ‘read a woman’s mind’ when it comes to sex. My question is different: why are women asked to know their own minds, when knowing one’s own mind is such an undependable aim? Self-knowledge is not a reliable feature of female sexuality, nor of sexuality in general; in fact, it is not a reliable feature of being a person. Insisting otherwise is fatal, and it’s an assumption that has been conceded for far too long, to the impediment of conversations about pleasure, joy, autonomy and safety. If we want sex to be good again – or at all – anytime soon, we need to reject this insistence, and start elsewhere. Instead of fiddling with formulations of consent on which we place too high an ethical burden, and instead of decrying women’s attempts to make their worlds safer and more interested in their pleasure, we need to articulate an ethics of sex that does not try frantically to keep desire’s uncertainty at bay. A sexual ethics that is worth its name has to allow for obscurity, for opacity and for not-knowing. We need to start from this very premise – this risky, complex premise: that we shouldn’t have to know ourselves in order to be safe from violence. ________________

• From The Vagina Bible (2019)

  To add another layer of confusion, the nervous system is not static. If you experience a painful symptom, your nervous system may turn the volume up on the nerves in the same region, so subsequent stimuli are more painful. This is called windup. It is a protective mechanism—you are more likely to protect an injury if every time you touch it you are in agony. Windup also causes the pain to spread beyond the original injury, widening the field of pain. Again, this provides protection. If the area close to the injury is out of proportion pain-wise, you are more likely to abort any painful activity that risks reinjuring healing tissues. Symptoms can also spread. Pain, at a cellular level, is inflammation. If your bladder is painful, the pain can travel to the spinal cord and then, because of the tight connections, the pain can enter the nerves that supply the vagina or the skin and they can develop pain conditions and even signs of inflammation under the microscope. We know this because of intricate animal studies. When a caustic chemical is placed in a rat’s rectum, the rat’s bladder can become visibly inflamed. The injury isn’t the chemical seeping through the tissues, because when the experiment is repeated with the nerves to the bladder severed, the bladder never develops the inflammation. And there is one more thing. Itch, irritation, and pain—basically all bothersome symptoms—are transmitted to the brain using the same wiring. So something can start at your skin as an itch, but by the time it gets to your brain the perception is pain. Basically, the wiring is very complex. Tolerance Many women have different levels of tolerance. For example, with a condition that causes itch, some women feel itchy immediately and for others it barely registers. This is a complex mix of biology and experience. For example, some itch is triggered at a cellular level by the release of the chemical histamine. Some women likely release more histamine than others. Others may have brains that respond differently to pain or itch signals. Many women have also learned to put up with symptoms because they have been previously ignored. Other times it is like the frog being boiled by degrees—the symptoms come on so gradually they are not recognized until they are very bad. The opposite can also occur. Some women are overly vigilant, meaning they pay too much attention to symptoms—for example, evaluating their vulva daily with a mirror or inserting their fingers vaginally on a regular basis to check for odor. Many “feminine care” products make genital hypervigilance part of their advertising. If you remember back to our earlier discussion on vulvar and vaginal cleansing products, one product even suggests women can release a vaginal odor by uncrossing their legs! Anxiety, stress, worry, relationship or financial issues, and lack of sleep can all lower tolerance and so symptoms become more bothersome. Other Compounding Factors

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  [image file=image_rsrc2FJ.jpg] 1The jury summons came in late spring. There’s an optimism to bringing in the mail—a small, dinky optimism, but I like it. It’s reliable. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I spread out my loot. Wedged between the electric bill and a glossy sheaf of coupons is the jury summons. It’s a white trifold, stapled, with block letters announcing its contents. I split the staple from the paper with my thumb. There’s a rhythmic thump behind me, probably June trying to liberate the bin of toys we keep wedged under the sideboard. The afternoons are stretching toward summer now, but the countertop is still cold under my elbows, the way cotton bedsheets are when you first climb in. The summons reads, TUESDAY, 8:30 A.M. We have a babysitter every Tuesday until five, and Brandon will be at the new restaurant site all day, supervising the buildout. If I’ve got to have jury duty, I guess a Tuesday’s not bad. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] The courthouse peers down a sloping grid of streets toward Puget Sound. I ride the elevator up and give my name to a woman in shoulder pads at the reception desk. There are already a few dozen people seated in the assembly room, recipients of the same summons. We wait. I don’t mind; I’ve brought my laptop and a magazine. I don’t want to wind up on a jury, but being stuck in this room presents the pleasant constraints of an airplane in mid-flight: there’s nowhere to go and nothing else to do, so I might as well work. The receptionist begins to read names, and mine comes halfway down the page-long list. I stand and join the crowd that’s collecting in the entryway, where another woman appears, announcing herself as the bailiff. She hands us each a numbered sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve. We’ll be going into the courtroom shortly, and we’re to follow her to the seats in back. We follow her like ducklings, around a wall behind the judge’s bench and into a fluorescent-lit courtroom. I’m pleased that it looks like all the ones on TV, though it’s missing Sam Waterston. The judge has short feathered hair and wears black robes and a pair of drugstore reading glasses, over which she watches us enter. She gives off the aura of a successful real estate agent from the 1980s, a childhood friend’s mom who served Lean Cuisine every weeknight without apology. There’s a female prosecutor and two attorneys on the defense’s side. The bailiff leads us past them, through a wooden gate, to our seats.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  I’ve wanted this moment, thought about it for a week, but staying put takes effort. The sun is so bright that it stings, a warning heat. My eyelid is spasming wildly now. It was nice to meet you, I manage. Maybe I’ll see you around. She nods, still smiling. Thanks again, she says. She’s already pivoting on her heel, back to her client. I turn fast, hoping she hasn’t seen whatever my eyelid is doing, what my whole face must be doing. I aim myself at the bus stop and start moving, who am I? who am I? who am I?, all the way down the street. When I get there, I’ve missed the bus, and the next won’t come for fifteen minutes. I rest my tote bag between my ankles and lean my shoulder against the steel frame of the bus shelter, hoping to steady the twitch in my gut. There’s a crowd of homeless men in front of the building across the street, their backs against its stone facade. I wonder if the stone feels cool in this heat. They must have been out here all day, while we sat in air conditioning. While I am forming this thought, Nora walks past them. She’s slung her jacket over her shoulder, and a soft-sided briefcase hangs at her hip. She lowers herself onto an empty bench at the bus stop opposite mine. Her hair looks stringy with sweat, and there’s a shadow under her eyes. She hasn’t noticed me. I don’t know what I’d do if she did. I look at the pavement. My bus arrives. In case Nora has seen me, I make a show of my eagerness to leave, my detachment from the past week. I lock my eyes onto the bus door as it passes me, swivel my head extravagantly to follow it to the curb. I am a stage actor in a play about a bus stop. I step up through the folding doors and take the first open seat on the street side, where I can still see her. She’s put in her earbuds now, leans forward, lets her hair hang. The bus lurches away from the sidewalk, and I watch her get smaller and smaller, until she disappears into the glare. I could have yelled to Nora when I saw her. I could have caught her eye. Or she could have seen me, yelled to me across the street. There’s a poem by Wisława Szymborska, “Could Have,” about chance, fortune, and the flukes that often decide life and death. It begins, “It could have happened. / It had to happen. / It happened earlier. Later. / Nearer. Farther off. / It happened, but not to you.”1 In another iteration, I could have lived it differently. In some other life, I could have stood next to her in a photo.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Accordingly, David worries that his “house of cedar” is grander than the tent-shrine of the Lord. At this point, the prophet Nathan appears on the scene. David is said to have consulted the Lord on previous occasions (e.g., 2 Sam 2:1). There were various ways in which this might be done. One might, for example, consult a priest, who might then use a ritual method of divination. With the rise of the monarchy, however, we find that kings typically have prophets in their service for this purpose. We shall discuss the social location of prophecy in some detail in connection with the narratives about prophets in the books of Kings. For the present, it suffices to note that Nathan is in David’s service, although he can on occasion exercise considerable independence. His initial reaction is precisely what we should expect a retainer to tell his employer: “Go do all that you have in mind, for the L ord is with you.” Nathan, however, has second thoughts, and he receives a second oracle for David. YHWH insists that he has never wanted a house. He likes the mobility of a tent. It is not for David to build him a house. Rather, he will build David a house, in the sense of a dynasty. His son will reign after him. While his descendants will be punished for their iniquities, YHWH promises that he will not take the kingdom away from them as he took it from the house of Saul: “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (7:16). Central to this oracle is the play on the double sense of “house.” David may not build a house (= temple) for YHWH, but the Deity will build a house (= dynasty) for David. It was not unusual in the ancient Near East for the founder of a dynasty to build a temple for his patron god. The oddity of this passage is the rejection of the offer to build a temple. Scholars have tried to explain this rejection in various ways. Some suggest that this oracle was meant to explain why it was Solomon rather than David who built the temple. But 7:13a (“he shall build a house for my name”) is widely recognized as a secondary addition. Not only does it interrupt a passage about the future kingdom, but it is marked as an insertion by a technique called “repetitive resumption”— the phrase that immediately precedes the insertion is essentially repeated immediately after it: “ I will establish his kingdom .