First, watch this brief reel so we’re on the same page.
The man speaking in this clip is Leon Wieseltier, a controversial figure in many respects, and I’m not here to argue that. Most men are granted global cultural privilege to be mouth-breathing pieces of shit in their public and private lives and I can’t do anything about that.
**I said what I said, you can unsubscribe here if you can’t empathize.
If you get it, let’s carry on, shall we?
I want to talk about the content of this clip, the subjects broached, the concepts insinuated.
But I don’t have time to do that because I am actively living a Checklist Life. The only reason I saw this video is because I had menstruation diarrhea between rounds of editing manuscripts.
Do you know I edit manuscripts? I never mention it on social media bc I’m a Millennial raised by self-loathing Gen Xers (my parents were toddlers when they had me) and I still feel weird, decades into a creative career, advertising my skills. My client list is a testament to word-of-mouth.
Anyway, all day, every day, for months on end I: read, edit, critique, suggest, and ghost-write manuscripts for everyone from your friendly neighborhood retiree to some of the most famous talking heads in the country. (I should be doing it right now but I’m also a writer with ADD and when I want to write about something, everything else has to wait.)
I don’t charge enough to edit manuscripts, which is why I am flush with demand AND credit card debt, but I am revered for telling people (esp theology-centric white men) the truth about how they’re perceived in their writing by a woman/queer/millennial and I dare say, they respect me for it. I’m also well-read, highly intelligent, college-educated (first in my family), personable, empathetic and very comfortable telling you when you’ve struck out. I do this compassionately, but honestly.
It’s an art.
If reading the list of my self-proclaimed attributes made you cringe, feel free to unsubscribe. I can’t lift others up if I don’t know my own strengths and I only want to be read by others who get that. On the other hand, if you feel me, feel free to toss some reader-support scratch my way.
When I’m not working on manuscripts, I work in the public education system with children who have an autism diagnosis. This is new work. I just started in 2024, once I accepted there’s no other way to pay off these student loans in my lifetime other than to work a job that will eventually result in public service loan forgiveness.1
Don’t worry. They’re paying me less per hour than most fast food companies starting wage, so I’m still being punished for choosing to study Literature and not become a Trad Wife™.
I also run a company that hosts weekly writing workshops, community-building activities, publishes anthologies, is about to start accepting manuscript submissions. It’s an entirely volunteer staff, as the income derived from the monthly workshop subscriptions is reinvested into the business.
I LOVE MY LIFE. Everything I do exercises my passions and gives me purpose.
HOWEVER,
I’m tired of living a Checklist Life.
It’s my greatest aspiration to cease-and-desist the cold-sweat rat race Murica managed to drag me back into when, during the quarantine years, between naps and smoking joints in my bathtub, I swore I’d never reenter.
Since they declared the Pandemic “over,” there’s been a very Gonna Get Ours energy permeating the necessities market. Meaning, for as hard as I worked to make it to middle class, now I’m just the upper echelon of middle age poverty and it’s fucking depressing. How’s it a person can work 60 hour weeks for 25 years and still not be anywhere close to comfortable?
Who’s orchestrating that and why? Really, why? I don’t think I’m asking too much to exit the manual labor industry that took my teens, twenties, and early-thirties for something a little more cushy. It’s not as if the array of unattended to permanent physical injuries from no health benefits farm labor, bartending, and waitressing are going to dissipate when I work from an office chair. DO THE WEALTH-HOARDING OVERLORDS NEED TO HEAR THAT I PROMISE NOT TO GET TOO UPPITY while sitting down to work? Don’t worry, I have health insurance now but it’s so expensive I still can’t afford to go the doctor.
I PROMISE NOT TO BE A BURDEN, AMERICA.
I don’t even need to imagine what annual salary would give me the finest life I can dream of - I know exactly how much it is (today), and it’s $150,000 - after taxes. Fucking taxes. How rich do I need to be before I don’t have to pay those anymore, amirite?
How is it I spent $80 and left the store with only 2 bags of groceries?
Why is everything so god damn expensive?
Why didn’t anyone tell me going to college would prevent me from qualifying for a mortgage?
What’s with the wealth hoarding? WHAT ARE THEY BUYING, ANYWAY?
All I want is to be debt-free from student loans, credit cards, mortgage, and my car. If I could ask for more, I’d put a swimming pool in my backyard and to travel four times a year. I’d go to doctor’s and not need to take out a small loan because “the cost of today’s appointment counts toward your deductible.”
Fucking deductibles.
This country is a joke.
Capitalism is a bad punchline.
I’m late for a meeting.
✌️
Frances
If the country is still standing by then.
People don’t understand unless they are told the truth with clarity. Your clarity is razor sharp and slices through the privilege, leaving a wound open wide enough to allow the possibility of healing rather than festering unseen, starved for oxygen.
I couldn’t have picked a better day to read this. I needed it like air. Truth is, there are many of these days.
Thank you for your goddam brave heart, Frankie. I’d take a bullet for you. Happily. Any day.