Adults have failed these kids by being all too willing to accept that nice white Catholic boys obviously could not have intended to be racist, and therefore were not racist. Adults have failed these kids by raising them inside a comfortable bubble of wealth and whiteness and teaching them they don’t have to bother thinking beyond the walls of that bubble.

I think about writing, “I think about writing nothing ever again, because what’s the point in it,” but that isn’t true; I never actually thought that, it’s just a thing that enters my head as something I could write. It’s the sort of thing someone might think, probably. Not this someone, though — no, probably, I’m too convinced of my own worthiness as a writer to ever consider simply not writing. What would be the point in that?

I think it’s clear to us all by now that men are simply not well-suited for gracefully managing the complex interpersonal connections necessary in the public sphere. They are too, shall we say, lusty and too ruled by instinct; these are not bad traits, not a sign that men are made wrong in any way — simply that they are different from women.

When I watched Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I felt her desire to be believed, and her fear that she wouldn’t be, as palpably as if it were my own.

It is my own.

I am afraid to tell this story. I’m afraid to put it out into the world and let others judge its seriousness and its veracity.

If you’ve never woken alone in the middle of the night to the sound of a coyote screaming about 50 feet from your campsite, then drifted nearly back to sleep only to hear it cry again, closer this time, and then lope straight through your camp, you’ve missed out on a truly unsettled night’s sleep.

These backpacking trips are an opportunity to get away from the world. Maybe more importantly, they’re an opportunity to get out of my own head.

She liked Len okay, really. She just didn’t true love love him. They barely knew each other. They’d met on a Tuesday, gone home together on Wednesday, and by Friday decided to go all in on the whole “boyfriend/girlfriend” thing. She’d taken things slow with her last relationship, after all, and look how that turned out. She wished Len would stop letting his mom cut his hair and go to a real barber for fuck’s sake, but the sex was good and they got along smoothly enough.

Doing away with straws is the thoughts & prayers of environmentalism. It makes us feel like we did something good without having to put in any actual effort whatsoever.

Call me greedy. Call me a hedonist. You’re not wrong. I am who I am, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’ll never be an ascetic. I’m hella attached to worldly pleasures, and to the world. I suppose I’m probably lucky that I’m not inclined to addiction — but there are too many things I want more of to focus all of my energies on just one substance or one sensation.

I’m not a perfect person. I make no claims of sainthood. Here, if you like, is a litany of some of my faults: I’m an arrogant, know-it-all bitch. I’m stubborn, often to a fault. I hold people to extremely high standards. I’m inclined to fits of pettiness, and I tend to hold grudges basically forever. Despite having spent years preaching to my students constantly about how there’s no shame in needing help, I’m lousy at asking for it for myself. I don’t have much interest in privacy. I will brook almost no opposition to my right to do as I fucking well please.

Seriously, look at Anakin and tell me the whole fucking galaxy wouldn’t be a lot different if anyone had ever bothered to teach him some basic coping skills. How do you healthily process grief? Not by murdering a shitload of Sand People.