How To Make A Liberal

My personal list of left leaning life lessons

Do you ever think about what events have shaped your belief system? I recently took stock in how I became such a card carrying Team Blue baby. Here’s the highlight reel.

• Born in San Francisco. Must be something in the water. I was the youngest of two children, my brother four years older. He is developmentally disabled, eventually diagnosed with autism.

• My mother tries to sign my brother and me up for Sunday school at the local church. She was never particularly religious so I’m guessing she wanted one morning a week to herself. The church told us I was welcome but my brother was not as he might be “too disruptive”. I was seven and confused. “Buuuuut God made my brother exactly how he is so why would he not be welcome?” I saw a lot of imperfect people at church when I went with other peoples’ families. I thought that’s why you went to church, to hear stories about how to get yourself right. Why were the wheelchair people invited but not my brother? Unexpected dick move, God squad.

• My three best buddies in elementary school were Chinese, Korean, and Jewish. I liked them because they were the smartest and the funniest. We kept ourselves amused playing out our own multicultural version of “Charlie’s Angels”. None of us ever wanted to play Bosely because boys are stupid. They only wanted to fight each other and break things, stealing focus from those of us who wanted to learn.

• I attended a suburban high school that oozed with privilege with gripes like “My parents bought me the wrong Porche” and “I had to come to school with chickenpox because I couldn’t afford to miss any more days after our last minute family trip to Hawaii.” Our family car was a Peugeot 505 diesel, if you need a metric on how cool we were not. The school had a championship football team and we were nicknamed HOT TUB HIGH. I fantasized about them all dying in chickenpox related luxury car accidents. I also hated the tie dyed bandana kids who followed the Dead in their mom’s Volvo, hacky sacking in the parking lot, smoking Djarums and reading book reports they copied straight from the Cliffs Notes. There is nothing more intolerable than a hippie with a trust fund. I cursed the patchouli scented air they breathed while smoking a ridiculous amount of cigarettes, listening to the Sex Pistols, and reading far too much D.H. Lawrence. I was a fully realized Janis Ian in Mean Girls twenty years before Tina Fey made her a cinematic reality.

• In Virginia City, Nevada, population 800 something in 1988. The town is so small everyone gives you their phone number by the last four digits. There is no mail delivery so everyone has a post office box; if you get a package it goes to the general store. You better hope Verlys who runs the store likes you or she won’t be telling you about your package. One of the local firemen dares me to apply to be a volunteer firefighter. They have never had a woman apply to the department. A majority of them vote for me as a joke to fuck with the old timers who are LOSING THEIR MINDS about their beloved fire department being desecrated by a LADY. When I am voted in, the other volunteers paint my helmet pink and stencil FIREPUSS on it. I’m not trying to make history, I’m in an emotionally abusive relationship with a boyfriend and my self esteem is treading water. Becoming an EMT and working medical calls saves me from drowning. Plus, have you ever driven an ambulance with the lights and sirens going? Highly recommended, it is the closest you’ll ever feel to being invincible.

• In Dallas for flight attendant training, or “Barbie Boot Camp” as it’s informally known, in 2001. My roommate was a 20 year old from Jackson, Mississippi, a former child pageant queen. She argued with me when I said the requirement that we be in full makeup at all times seemed discriminatory to me. “Being beautiful is a job requirement,” she told me. When I wore the required red lipstick after I returned home, people asked “What’s gotten into you?”

• At the airport in Birmingham, Alabama, I witnessed a white woman in her 70s give a black shuttle bus driver two quarters as a tip and call him “boy”. He was at least 60. It was 2003 and nothing at Barbie Boot Camp prepared me for reversed time travel.

• After getting out of a long term relationship in 2009, I moved to Chicago and discovered writing and performing. I gained a ton of confidence exercising my creativity so I then set my sights on finding a boyfriend. No sweat, I reasoned, I’m smart and funny and I clean up alright. I didn’t know the internet was (and still is) full of parasitic dudes on the prowl for a hostess. I grow tired of dealing with insecure bros who do everything they can to shit on my freshly minted morale. Guess what, boys still just want to fight each other and break things. Moving on.

• I volunteered a few times working with 8 to 16 year old girls at music camp and it sucked. I had grown women exclude and bully me while teaching workshops to young girls about the dangers of exclusion and bullying. It was meta in the worst of ways.

• If I were dropped into a room with a 1,000 people and there was one gay man, we would find each other in ten minutes. We would be making fun everyone else in fifteen.

• I am an INFJ, aka the advocate. Always fighting for fairness, outraged by injustice, lost in a fog of being a force for good. It’s the rarest of the Myers Briggs personalities but I’m never surprised at how many find me. I am willing to bet there are quite a few reading this right now. Some say I am cynical but I choose to identify as a wounded idealist, forever hellbent on personal growth and fostering growth in others.

  But I also don’t want you to stop by without calling. And I don’t want you to call out of the blue. I have zero interpersonal spontaneity. It’s complicated.

I’m now a 58 year old woman with a progressive neurological disability. I continually get feedback that I do not exist. People are comfortable interrupting me when I am talking, interrupting to say things of no interest, because they can. It gets old trying to assert one’s value to those who have predetermined they are more important than I am for whatever reason or no reason at all.

Clearly many women can empathize, a recent post where I mention “using my older lady invisibility power to commit random acts of petty misconduct and retribution” garnered more enthusiasm than anything else I’ve written. Lately I’ve been overriding my preprogrammed Demure and Mindful settings and saying whatever the fuck I want because if no one is listening, who cares? I like to say things like “Get over it” and “Not in this economy, no sir!” It's almost better when it doesn’t make sense. Or “I don’t see how that’s any of your business” is a solid interjection. (inspired by the wonder that is Rupaul).

I recently ran into a guy at work, I met him once at a party over the summer. I didn’t recognize him and I told him “All men look the same to me now”, which is true since I've made peace with being a crone. (Disclaimer: I am not “man hating”, I am simply not vetting new men at this time. All current men on my roster remain in good standing. This message will not repeat.)

The white supremacist twatwaffle behind “Your body, my choice” was doxxed recently and I discovered he lives a short distance from me. I told my housemate I had an urge to pick up dog poop, or fireworks, or maybe some glitter and throw it at his house. But I had to take a nap first. Naps before wrath, as a rule.

Post nap, I had a clear head and realized that my vengeance would solve nothing. Being doxxed is a terrible violation of privacy and safety and invading other people’s space in anger is wrong even if they are a cosplay Nazi bully. (He was recently arrested for macing a 57 year old woman who rang his doorbell and then smashing her phone, so that’s fun)

It’s discouraging so many Americans are fully embracing their inner bully. Bullies need victims and I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to give hateful people any real estate in my head. I intend to remain focused on what can be done for now, like writing to my political representatives. Illinois has a governor who is one of the wealthiest politicians out there (only mentioned because the current Game of Life winner seems to revolve around who has the most cash) who also has a trans sister (the first trans billionaire, no less) Pritzker’s money certainly helped him get elected but he has been solid on protecting abortion and LBGTQ rights and he’s unlikely to try to sell a Senate seat and wind up in jail. (We have a colorful history of corruption in these parts.)

We also have Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs when her Army helicopter was hit by a grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents in 2004. I could write a full post on her accomplishments alone. NO ONE is telling Tammy Duckworth what women can and cannot do.

But there are plenty of representatives that need to hear that they work for us and any and all placating on their part to entities wishing to rescind our rights will result in a campaign to vote them OUT. Want to confirm Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense? Hope you enjoy hate mail. There are gubernatorial, state legislature, and mayoral races coming around as quickly as November 4, 2025. Here’s a place to start if you’re sick of the dope show. How long have we been watching YouTube clips of Congress looking like reruns of Jerry Springer? How long must we wait until they resume what Jasmine Crockett likes to refer to as “the people’s work”?

WE ARE THE PEOPLE. GET BACK TO WORK.

It’s good to stay aware and engaged locally. Forming community with likeminded neighbors has never been more important. It’s handy to have someone to hold a pillow while you scream into it when you read about some crypto shithead smugly spending 6.2 million dollars on a fucking banana.

I know this all sounds tedious as hell and we’re all so ground down from the 3,466 days since That Guy rode the golden escalator into our lives, not to mention the lingering PTSD from surviving a pandemic that apparently everyone is comfortable with employing the “If we never speak of it again, it didn’t happen” philosophy. How’s that working out for you?

I often find myself envious of those who have never given any of this crazy a second thought, those who have TikToked and Candy Crushed and SnapChatted their way through it all. Ignorance truly is bliss. But it is pointless to wish myself stupid.

I am tired. Like working on an airplane during the holidays tired, like prepping for brain surgery tired, like the name of this Substack revolves around never ending exhaustion TIRED. But this INFJ will always gain some energy from fighting for fairness and attempting to be a force for good.

Catch me after a nap. I'm the older lady with a stiff walk and a nonsensical comment version of invincible.

ps special super huge thank you to those who recently become paid subscribers. You made me believe in Santa and I appreciate you more than I can express in words. Much love to you all.