"Depicts the pressures that women must deal with, the fires that we must walk through to survive...Very well-written; dialogue is both witty and gritty...ranges from amusing to touching, to uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful...They all contain an element of universality -- be it love, sacrifice, anger, frustration, loyalty, friendship, or creativity -- to which all of us can relate."
- Plain Press (OH)
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Here at Acme we deal in reality. We know what the contemporary corporate market is looking for: warm bodies, hungry bodies, desperate bodies that will chase the carrot and bend to the stick until they drop, even though anyone with one half-blind eye can see that the days of a permanent pensioned labor force has gone the way of the dodo.
In short: temporary employees are toilet paper. Toilet paper! We know that. They know that. And at Acme, we want YOU to know that. Because if you are toilet paper, fit only to wipe the ass of the system, then you might as well be GENERIC toilet paper.
It's all summed up in our Acme philosophy: Ack Me If I Care.
See, that is the beauty in being an Acme client. When you work for Acme, you do not need to care. These bastards aren't paying you enough for you to care. If they want you to dress like you care, or pretend like you care, they should have to pay more. Just like with toilet paper. It costs extra to get the squeezably soft brand. At Acme, we don't care about your rough edges. Leave splinters in the system's hemorrhoids -- ack me if I care. For $8.50 an hour, no benefits? It's all they deserve, honey-bunny.
- CONTINUES -
Copyright 1997 Linda Eisenstein
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[After being asked to donate her tongue, in a transplant,
to her son:]
Ever since then, I've been obsessed with it. My tongue. I can't stop touching it, playing with it. At night I find myself stroking it, I'm in a constant state of arousal. It feels...huge, huge and fleshy and wet and growing in my mouth, sometimes hard, sometimes velvety soft, liquid, languid, language, love, oh God, all the things I couldn't say or do or feel if it were gone. Do you know how many nerve endings there are in the tongue? As many as in the head of a penis. But the penis doesn't have tastebuds.
And you know how men sometimes give their penis its own name, almost like it's a separate person? I swear, sometimes my tongue is so completely...Other, it doesn't even feel like part of me. It has its own ideas: what it wants to say -- what it wants to taste -- where it wants to push its way into. You know how your mother used to say, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach?" Wrong. All that hunger? (tapping the tip of her tongue) It's right here.
- CONTINUES -
Copyright 1994 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
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You know the worst thing about being a Libra? Now, I'm not complaining -- it's mostly just peachy living under the sign of Venus. We're wonderful lovers, we're funny, we're attractive, and smart, and we're fabulous lovers, and we're charming, and upbeat, and fun to be with, and we're TERRIFIC lovers and...oh, did I say that already? Well, it's true. No one is more creative in bed, darling, it comes with the territory.
No, the only truly terrible thing we have to live with -- it's the logo!
I mean, just look at it! It's totally and utterly beneath us. Not some attractive
woman with a pitcher of water, or a lion, or tiger, or I could even accept
a goat, thank you very much, but, I mean -- SCALES? It's not even an animal,
it's just this hideous object. It looks like an ad for a law practice, for
God's sake. Scales! Is it any wonder that every single Libra I know flirts
with an eating disorder, or a weight problem? Oh, yes, darling, when you
live with Venus, you have to accept that Curves 'R' Us. It's part of the
cosmic programming.
(CONTINUES)
Copyright 1997 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BALANCING ACTS.
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[Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess, addresses the audience.]
So I told myself: listen, Cassandra. This time, be smart. Forget oracles for the ruling class. So what if the Big Guys won't listen to you? Times have changed. Go right to the viewing audience. Direct marketing. Infomercials. Cable TV. Nowadays a woman doesn't have to be pleasant or accommodating to be successful at this game. Hell, look at Susan Powter. Write yourself a self-help book and promote the bejesus out of it.
So I did. And here it is, my masterpiece: Forget Electra, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Wendy. This syndrome is old as the hills of Troy, and worse for you, too. I've suffered from it for several unspeakable millennia, and so have you, ladies. Suffered from (holding up a book) "The Cassandra Complex".
Never heard of it? But you KNOW this baby, you know it to the bone. This is the one where you tell it like it is, and they ignore you because you're a woman, and then -- when it comes true -- they either a) don't remember you predicted it or b) blame you for it like you made it happen or c) call you a witch and kick your ass. Yeah. The Cassandra Complex. The most dangerous disease in the world.
- CONTINUES -
Copyright 1994 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
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I had that dream again last night. The one where I'm standing in line, waiting to get into this women's club. No, not the having-tea-and-cookies kind of women's club. The kind of club where there's a long line of people waiting to get in, standing behind velvet ropes. Where there are bouncers at the door. To check you out. To see if you belong inside.
And sure enough, there are these two women standing guard outside, checking ID's. And when I look at them? My heart sinks. Because they are this particular type that I dread. You know the ones. The ones who can't have a conversation with you, even about a recipe, unless they know who you're sleeping with. No, not the exact person, mind you -- they need to know the TYPE of person you might conceivably sleep with.
Why? Why must the secret handshake precede every conversation? Can't we just talk about the latest fashions or our new pastel window treatments or our cats, for God's sake, without first declaring who we're bonking? I mean, my aunt had a great recipe for broccoli and cheese casserole -- can't I pass it along without being asked to imagine everyone's sexual partners? Jeez Louise.
- CONTINUES -
Copyright 1995 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
from
In my dream I am looking at this note. This note he has scrawled to me. After months of no contact, he has finally managed to scrawl a note. A whole sentence. I'm surprised -- surprised, and pleased.
I am standing next to my mailbox at the office, the office I no longer go to, and I am reading this one-sentence note that he has stuck in there for me to find. It is an invitation. I open it.
This is the sentence:
"IF I CAN BRING MY COCK TO DINNER, WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO WORK TOGETHER AGAIN."
(A double take.)
I read it again, uncomprehending.
"IF I CAN BRING MY COCK TO DINNER, WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO WORK TOGETHER AGAIN."
Is this a good sign...or a very bad one?
(CONTINUES)
Copyright 1996 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
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[Agnes, on how to identify the devils coming from the TV.]
First, you gotta watch 'em for a while with the sound off. I mean it! Turn
off their yappin', and soon you'll see it written all over their faces,
plain as day. Who wants to listen to devils like that? Like pourin' poison
in your ears. Like takin' a sitz bath in a septic tank, that's what it is.
All that hate and greed and watch-me-fool-you-with-my-devilish-talk. It's
a siren song. So plug up your ears, darlin'.
Oh, yes, oh, yes. I do it all the time. That's how I can tell which ones is devils. They's all over that durn box. They call themselves all kinds of good names. Fancy titles. Preachers. Senators. Mr. Expert this or that. Pundits. Commentators. Talk show hosts, and talk show guests, every kind of devilish talkin' head on the planet is in there, yappin' away. Just watch their faces, without hearin' the actual words. And pretty soon you'll just about go crazy, realizin' how many devils is out there tryin' to mess up your head and suck out your brain. Suck it right out your eyeballs, into that there box.
(CONTINUES)
Copyright 1996 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
from
Okay. I'll tell you why I come here. But you have to promise not to laugh. I have mystical experiences here. Revelations. It's the closest I ever get to God. I'm talking your full boat altered state: voices, visions, time-distortions, sexual merging, psychic phenomena manifested in the tangible world. And don't say it's my imagination, because I bring back material proof. The last time, I manifested $835. The time before, $240. Not counting what I spent on valet parking.
It's a temple, really. It even kind of looks like one -- huge, impressive, welcoming. Tens of thousands of pilgrims pour through its doors daily, begging for miracles. You never heard so many fervent prayers. So what if it's tacky? So is Mont St. Michel, so is Lourdes, anywhere people gather at the crossroads of hope.
Can I help it if the Divine Nature is most easily contacted in a casino?
(CONTINUES)
Copyright 1994 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
from
You know, I don't mean to be ungrateful. Really. I don't. It's not the way I was raised. "Be grateful for small favors." Grandma used to say stuff like that all the time. When you'd complain about some injury, like a teacher was nasty, or your feet hurt, she'd shrug and say "some people don't have any legs." Or, "people are starving in Armenia", she'd say, as she filled your plate with food you didn't want.
Well, they're starving in Armenia again, Grandma. And in Bosnia, and Chechnya, and a bunch of other places I can barely pronounce, but they all sound like places my grandmother could have been from. I could be from there. I could be living in one of those places now, starving and ducking bombs, if my grandmother hadn't gotten the hell out. Gotten out when she was still an ungrateful girl herself. A servant girl, who refused to listen to some priest's sermon about her duty. A hungry servant girl, who stole meat from her master's dog.
I figure that must be why we're all so ungrateful, so restless here. America is bubbling over with the genepool of the people who wouldn't sit still. We're all the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who refused to sit and take whatever was dished out. So we're all congenitally ungrateful, you and I. We sit in our houses surrounded by riches and privilege and every convenience and advantage, bitching and moaning our heads off.
(CONTINUES)
Copyright 1996 Linda Eisenstein. In the anthology BAD GRRRLS.
from
Vampires have all the fun. They get all the good press, all the hip attention. Because vampires are about sex, of course! Everyone knows that! Illicit sex, forbidden sex, dangerous sex, the kind that you shouldn't want but lust after anyway. The kind of sex that swoops down on you, wraps you in its cloak and infects you against your will. Total loss of control. A ruby mouth at your throat. Ahhhh...
So why I do I have this thing for Zombies? Zombie girls, to be exact? I know that in this day and age, it is not politically correct to hanker after mindless rotting corpses.
Even werewolves have a better rep. That's at least Jungian, you know, getting in touch with your animal nature, the Call of the Wild, ahwooooo...
But nobody ever wrote a book called "Women Who Run with The Zombies". Unless you can buy it in the business section.
(CONTINUES)
Copyright 1997 Linda Eisenstein
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