Heather > Recent Status Updates

“Often it’s the people who populate them who are flawed, not the institutional framework itself.”

“When the public perpetuates narratives that the institutions are broken and talks about walking away from them, it plays into his hands and makes his ascension to power that much easier. The path to autocracy is littered with battered and broken institutions. If you want to preserve democracy, fight for the institutions.”

“The people in the room think that he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of pioneers. He is furious with America because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power.”

“The time-honored tradition of Americans is to stand together.”

“Though far from perfect, the system that was born with the taint of racism and misogyny has also proven itself capable of improvement, even if it is incremental.”

“Despair became a machine that would grind up anything you fed it.”

“I still don’t camp alone, though I hike alone…”

“Being around gay men liberated me because liberation is contagious.”

“.. but sometimes clarity requires complexity.”

“That a lot of men wanted and still want to harm women, especially young women, that a lot of people relish that harm, and a lot more dismissed it, impacted me in profoundly personal ways. But the cure for it wasn’t personal. There was no adjustment I could make in my psyche or my life that would make this problem acceptable or nonexistent and there was no where to go to leave it behind.”

“I feel haunted with gratitude, surrounded by so much suffering in the world.”

“Truth is a planet we haven’t discovered yet
But it has discovered us”

“No one on earth is tougher than a butch with a perm.”

“…grouchy discontent…”

“ although I was reinhabiting my historian’s role, I was doing it in a new way, helping to foster a field of inquiry - gender and sexuality studies- of more than academic interest: the archival materials being unearthed could provide the gay and feminist movements with fresh data for challenging old assumptions and stereotypes.”

Listening while running.

“The women delighted in the absurdities an surprises their work threw up.”

“…never before had I sensed any racism in the Adirondacks…”

“I couldn’t attack the mainstream and at the same time expect its applause.”

Discussion of brain worms found in wild game!

“Lesbians, as was often the case, were not discussed.”

“Also, you can’t stay terribly angry or worried over things for long when you split wood. Every blow of the ax can be sublimated into chopping off your enemy’s head or punching…”

“If we ever run into each other on the street, feel free to tell me stories from your life. It’s only fair.”

“In my experience, telling someone to calm down has the opposite effect.”

“The only nickname I was called growing up [in San Antonio, TX] was faggot.”

“Shyness is inherited, you know.”

“You can’t teach somebody what you don’t know.”

“He said: ‘Maybe you dealt with her at a distance.’
I said: ‘I dealt with everybody at a distance.’”

“You think about the sea that covered this place hundreds of millions of years ago, the slow evaporation, mud turned to stone. There’s nothing calm in those thoughts. It isn’t finished, it can still tear apart. Nothing is finished. You take your chances.”

“‘Go get something a eat, I hope. I’m hungry enough I could eat a rancher’s unwiped ass.’
‘You want some buffalo wings? Practically the same thing.’”