diagram this 🖕🏼!! a rant

+ a prompt + books + balls

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

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Hi Hi!

I try to avoid political talk here, but I am so enflamed rn, I’m sending the newsletter early. Next week, pinky swear, I’ll be back with my regularly scheduled uplift, and a gift guide. Thanks for humoring me today!

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I was talking with a male-human-friend in the wake of Megyn Kelly’s pathetic attempt to quantify girlhood… I don’t really have words for her endeavor to add loopholes to the rape of children, luckily

JoJoFromJerz

has plenty of words. She has a terrific rant you should absolutely read.

Megyn Kelly Can Go Fuck Herself

But I do have plenty of words about our screwed-up perceptions of girls and girlhood. Now this male-human-friend with whom I barfed all over Megyn Kelly, is a fine and upstanding person. He said to me, “I am disgusted by sixteen-year-old girls.”

Before you slam down the phone, I want you to know that I slammed him for us all... hard. He back pedaled, “No, I mean I’m repulsed by sixteen-year-old girls.” Boom! Another slam.

What I think this male-human-friend meant was he would never do that. He is disgusted and repulsed by an adult person raping a sixteen-year-old child. He got his subject/direct object mixed up. Again, he is a fine and upstanding person, no Humbert-Humbert him. I think he might have been stoned in English class the day they diagrammed sentences.

Let’s diagram the sentence:

Jeffrey Epstein (subject) raped (verb) children (direct object).

Rape is the verb, and it is repulsive and disgusting. Jeffrey Epstein, the rapist, is the subject, also repulsive and disgusting! The children in this sentence, the victims, are the direct object. They (heartbreakingly) receive the action of the verb. It’s simple grammar. Let’s diagram another sentence, this one straight from the Epstein files:

Donald trump (subject) knew about (verb) the girls (direct object).

We all know which parts of speech in this sentence deserve our disgust and repulsion.

Check this genius rant to see a shining fifteen-year-old girl (oh and look at her bedroom wall… so much a girlhood on display) take down Megyn Kelly:

Had I been working in the locker room at Mar a Lago when I was sixteen, as Virginia Giuffre did, and I’d attracted the attention of Jeffrey Epstein, I am here to tell you I would have been flattered. I might have been thrilled. I could easily have been groomed to jump into the wrong car. I was not a “disgusting” sixteen-year-old. Yes, I grew up in a household with loose attitudes toward sex. My mother absolutely thrived under the attention of men. But those are not requirements to fall prey to a predator. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be loved. I was a kid who thought my new and changing body meant power not vulnerability. I would have misinterpreted everything.

Of course my male-human-friend got it. He misspoke. He apologized. Plus, I gave him some grammar worksheets to continue practicing. Girls should be allowed to be girls without being tangled up in the impulses and rotten desires of gross men. If there is language that needs to be changed, Megyn Kelly, it is this: sixteen-year-old girls are children. Full stop. There is no sliding scale, no such thing as rape adjacent. I want to live in a world that cancels Megyn Kelly’s show rather than Colbert.

I don’t know if the Epstein files will move the needle on trump. I don’t know if we will cease the sexualization of children (well, yes I do… we won’t). But I do believe this:

Robslitquotes

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I welcome your thoughts.

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read:

Early in the novel, THE LONELINESS OF SUNNY AND SONIA, by Kiran Desai, an older man, Ilan, seduces Sonia, a terribly lonely college student and the after effects of the affair linger throughout her life. (Sound familiar?) Ilan—a man who also has the audacity to underline sentences in library books—leaves his uninvited mark on the world and on Sonia. He says to her, “Maybe I will paint a picture that the whole world will know, and you’ll become angry and feel you don’t exist outside the painting.” This seems an apt metaphor for here we are with yet another older man stealing a young woman’s selfhood. The novel has received so much love, and it is our r.w.e. book club selection for December and January.

Another book about girls and selfhood, GIRLHOOD, by Melissa Febos, is moving straight to the top of my TBR pile. I devoured her book, BODY WORK, and GIRLHOOD seems to be even more of this moment as the Epstein files drip-drip into our social consciousness. Here is the flap copy for GIRLHOOD.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

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Next week, books that make wonderful gifts.

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We have zoom r.w.e. book group! Next we will be discussing THE LONELINESS OF SUNNY AND SONIA, by KIRAN DESAI. Because it is the holidays, and because the novel is long, we will break it up into two meetings. We will meet on 14 December @ 9:00a PDT to discuss the first half of the novel. And then again on 18 January to discuss the rest.

The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch!

Go ahead, upgrade to paid and claim your spot among friends. I hope to get to know you better!

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I've made a read.write.eat. Bookshop where you will find many of the books I've recommended. Buying books from my shop is another way you can support my newsletter.

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write:

Last week I told you about:

This daily delight commences on 1 December! If you’re interested in joining the WRITING ADVENT(URE), and I hope you are, first become a paid subscriber:

Next, shoot me a note to say you want to be on the list.

To give you a sense of the delights ahead, here’s a un petit morceau:

Select a random household object (e.g., toy soldier, silver dollar, dice, souvenir shot glass, empty film canister, button, mahjong tile, box of matches) from a shelf, your junk drawer, something you fine on the street.

1. Free write about the object you’ve selected. Describe it. Remember, attention is love. Spend some time holding the object. Look closely. Maybe even sketch the object.

2. Write the object’s origin story.

3. Who lost it?

4. Who needs it now? Someone real in your life? Someone you’ve invented?

5. Write a scene in which the person who needs the object finds it, steals it, or it’s bestowed upon them. Who bestows it? Is the object received as a gift or a slight? What do they do with the object?

Have fun!

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I have openings in my editorial schedule for early 2026. If you have a project that would benefit from fresh eyes (and who doesn’t?), if you need developmental support, line edits, thoughts about the arc of your novel/memoir/essays, I’d love to talk with you. Shoot me a note and let’s figure out if I can help!

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eat:

All this work protecting girls and our country requires some heavy carb-loading. Hence, I’m re-sharing this recipe. We’re going to need a boost to make it through the impending collapse of MAGA, and the rebuilding of our national systems. (Looking to Mamdani for actionable items that can be adopted nationwide!)

Plus, let’s be real, we also need energy for holiday festivities ahead.

Energy Balls

• 1c rolled oats

• 1/3 - 1/2c mini chocolate chips, because why not?

• 1/2c ground flax meal

• 1/2c almond butter (or any nut butter you prefer)

• 1/3c sunflower seeds, toasted and salted

• 1/3c dried cranberries

• 1/4c maple syrup (more or less depending upon your sweet tooth)

• 1t vanilla

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix like crazy. Using wet hands, roll them into small balls, about 1 - 2 inches. Crucial that you FREEZE them. And then, eat as needed!

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If you’re not ready to hop on as a paid subscriber, please do give the ♥️ a tap, or leave a comment 💬, or share ↻ with your fun and funny friends. It matters in the substack universe and in my heart!

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Thanks for joining me! If you'd like to buy my books, you can do so here and here.  

Remember to tell your people you love them and take good care of your skin.

merci,