Take off your hat, sir, there's a tear-stained eagle passing--

This is a day late, but that's because life happens. Yesterday was a two-show day, including our final performance of the show that I've been running this entire summer, and we all ended up hanging out afterwards for a while. Of course, this was largely due to the fact that the theater's freezer -- it's a dinner theatre -- went kaput before the evening show, and the administration beautifully made lemons out of lemonade and a broken freezer into an informal post-show ice cream party. It was a blast to watch everyone whip themselves into a sugar-fueled hysteria and suddenly come crashing back down. As for me, my digestive system registered its not-unexpected displeasure not too long afterward and I crashed as well, though more from the internal strain of large amounts of lactose -- I've reached a point where I'm no longer completely lactose intolerant (again), but while minimally tolerant of it, my body still doesn't particularly like it -- and, I suspect, rather more fat than my system is used to dealing with anymore.

Would totally do it again, of course.

As for the show itself, last night's wasn't our best -- our last performance last week (the season is three shows in rotating repertory) was, I think, the zenith of the season and a thing of magical beauty -- but it was still good and a satisfying end to the run. I don't get sentimental over the ends of shows, never have, and while I have, in some ways, been ready to let go of this project for a while, it's still a show that I've found exciting (in a good way) to run every night, which is something I know that I won't always get. It was my first time working on a piece of physical theatre without any text whatsoever, and I found the intense focus and synergy required to call it to be extremely engaging and very rewarding.

Our very last performance of the season is tonight, followed by a closing party for which the board has apparently gifted us a large amount of money. It is expected that many people will be very hungover when we begin strike tomorrow. I don't plan on being one of them, but I do plan on being drunk tonight, so that's a thing.

But I'd had a particular reason for wanting to write yesterday. Yesterday was the ninety-second anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Yes, my countrywomen, we've the right to vote -- full citizenship -- for less than one hundred years.

Women have been awesome for a long time, of course. Just a couple of things that have floated by my attention in recent days have included how Renaissance Women Fought Men, and Won [ScienceDaily] ("A three-year study into a set of manuscripts compiled and written by one of Britain's earliest feminist figures [Lady Anne (1590-1676)] has revealed new insights into how women challenged male authority in the 17th century."), Dr. Hawa Adbi, a 2012 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize [NYT op-ed] continues work in a country beset by famine and extremism ("The Party of Islam then attacked with 750 soldiers and seized [her] hospital. [. . .] For a week there were daily negotiations, but Dr. Hawa refused to budge. She demanded that the militia not only withdraw entirely but also submit a written apology."), and Julie D'Aubigny existed ("Julie D'Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun."). But for all of that awesomeness, the state of women today continues to range from "not on equal footing yet but succeeding despite it" to "absolutely horrifying crimes against humanity."

There was just recently an article in the New York Times, Wed and Tortured at 13, Afghan Girl Finds Rare Justice, that made me so angry and so frustratingly perplexed as how people (both men and women) can view women as being some sort of foreign, sub-human class of beings. And it's just so dangerous, once you make a person an "Other" -- from there, it's so easy to make them be "Lesser," and from that, any number of horrors can grow. The way that whole societies support this is so enraging and discouraging." A new 2009 law to eliminate violence against women was cited in the sentencing of Sahar Gul’s abusers, but the law is still barely applied, according to a United Nations report published in November, and it has not been formally adopted. Women’s shelters are under threat, with a conservative justice minister describing them as "brothels," while a new family law that could make it easier for abused women to divorce is being held up. In such a climate, the fear is that Sahar Gul’s successful rescue may turn out to be an aberration rather than a new norm, and that it will not help those women whose suffering is not discovered."

And even in societies where, though there are battles currently raging over health care and bodily autonomy, women have made great strides legally, women are still often caught in a double-bind when trying to be fully accepted members of society. Of course women will work to rise above it, and many will succeed, in the same way that all people must struggle against the things that factor against them. But it's wearing. It wears on a person. And some people are able to reinforce the areas which have been worn away, become stronger in the places where they've been broken -- but must we break people out of ignorance, arrogance or just plain cruelty? So often, a person ends up being reduced. So we have a society being populated by reduced people. And that hurts all of us, men and women and others alike.

So particularly in a presidential election year, let's think about voting. It was a hard-won right, while at the same time not being safely guaranteed. A New York Times op-ed told of Overt Discrimination in Ohio, where "If you live in Butler or Warren counties in the Republican-leaning suburbs of Cincinnati, you can vote for president beginning in October by going to a polling place in the evening or on weekends. Republican officials in those counties want to make it convenient for their residents to vote early and avoid long lines on Election Day. But, if you live in Cincinnati, you’re out of luck. Republicans on the county election board are planning to end early voting in the city promptly at 5 p.m., and ban it completely on weekends."

What the shit is up with that?

So, yes. I'm grateful for what I have. I'm enraged for the sake of those who have less. I'm conscious of the fact that what I have is not a guarantee and that I'm also still at risk of being reduced as a person. And I am really fucking hungry, so I'm going to get my ass into the kitchen and make me a pizza. For myself.