Girls with Insurance

I get quite irritated when people say the journals are the best thing. God knows, I've struggled with certain things in the journals, especially about being a woman and about being a lesbian. The militant lesbians want me to be a militant and I'm just not.

Fall, 1983

            It was a lazy feeling, this melting of my stiff and aching muscles into the cushions of the chair.  I stretched my legs out in front of me, propping them on the seat of another and felt each part of me settle into place, reminding me of how badly I needed a massage.  I lingered on the thought for a moment, letting my high take me to a visceral place where a stranger's hands kneaded into my flesh, skillfully digging into tired shoulders, working through months of lifting and bending and twisting that had left me knotted and tense.  I could suddenly feel each pressure into my skin. 

I brought the first copy in a bookstore. It had an article on the diplomatic misfires of the current administration, that's what piqued my interest, but the Notebook and Readings sections were what really impressed me. I found myself laughing out loud while reading excerpts of memoirs by oblivious third-world diplomats and transcripts of conversations between doctors and their heavily drugged patients. So I bought it and read the rest at home, leaving it on the coffee table for Allie. She mentioned it later that night.