Ducks, Newburyport

by Lucy Ellmann

the fact that James Baldwin said freedom’s a myth white Americans tell themselves,

the other movie, the one where she’s a lawyer, the fact that they’re both lawyers, and she’s defending a woman who’s shot her husband,

Adam's Rib

I wish Harrison Ford was the President now, the fact that he’d be a lot better than the one we got, stink bug,

the fact that maybe these movies aren’t really about presidents at all, they’re really about what it’s like having an adolescent girl in the house,

hahaha

“All that work!”, as William Hurt’s sister says when everybody raises doubts about her Thanksgiving turkey,

The Accidental Tourist

but I couldn’t face it, the fact that all I can think about the whole time is how to get rid of him, the fact that every atom of my body just works on that one plan, and he must sense it and think I’m horrible, but I just don’t like talking to the guy very much, I just don’t,

YES

Katharine Hepburn played Clara Schumann in the movie,

Song of Love

the fact that what’s kind of funny is how, the whole time Ronny was here, I was trying to talk to him over James Mason, hoping Ronny wouldn’t notice Bigger Than Life was on, in case he thought I was just sitting around watching TV, or it led to a big discussion of Hollywood, and all his favorite actors and action movies, and anything else that occurred to him,

end week 2 day 4

, the fact that we already have a DuPont water filter in the fridge, Bed-Sty, UWS, LES, gem wit, the fact that I should probably get another of those filter things, the fact that first they poison you, I mean DuPont, and then they sell you the antidote,

the fact that maybe people with no time for reading just settle for anything,

I feel vaguely seen

the fact that it’s always embarrassing to be lent books, in case you don’t like them, the fact that if you pretend you liked it, the lender gives you another one, that’s probably just as bad, and you have to read that one too, the fact that if it goes on and on, you never get to read what you want ever again,

aaaahahaha I do this to my friends on purpose

the bee in the barn at Bread Loaf, the fact that I don’t know why it comes back to me, that bee, the fact that all it did was get up off the windowsill, for Pete’s sake, and slowly swerve in the air and then fly out the window, but for some reason I remember that, the fact that I can remember that exactly but not what Mommy’s face looked like,

oof

the fact that do other people cry all the time and then just buck up and you never know anything about it, the fact that do we all just plow on, pretending we feel all right,

yup

the fact that if archeologists do find my skull someday, I bet they’ll immediately see my teeth were brutally sandblasted at some point during my lifetime, but will they be able to tell how much they hurt after they got sandblasted,

hahahaha

the fact that most people are convinced they’ve got to have kids, fertility clinics, hard-boiled eggs, and nobody ever tells them they might be happier just the way they are, the fact that nobody ever tells them the terror of what could happen to your kids cripples your life, the fact that all mothers are going through this all the time, I think, but we never talk about it, the fact that I worry over every bruise, every blemish, the fact that you never know if you’ve given birth to a monster, or if they’ve got some fast-growing tumor or what, the fact that if every mom is worrying about every kid this much, that’s an awful lot of fear and anxiety resonating through the world,

everyone needs to read this book if only for this little piece

the fact that I think that’s why people invented languages, so they wouldn’t feel all alone with their terror, the fact that, I mean, we’re all so terrified, who needs terrorists, the fact that the terror of being alone is enough to floor you, never mind the fear of mortality, fear of failure, the fact that, heck, just the medical bills have me cowed, without suicide bombers and school shooters muscling in,

ooooooooof

because it’s awful that most mothers pass away never knowing what’ll happen to their kids, the fact that that’s so sad, because you’re supposed to protect them, not desert them, and no matter how old your kids get you’ll still want to know how they are, you’ll always want to know,

oh god I think about this all the time

the fact that I just realized that when this monologue in my head finally stops, I’ll be dead, or at least totally unconscious, like a vegetable or something, the fact that there are seven and a half billion people in the world, so there must be seven and a half billion of

these internal monologues going on,

really it’s my spinal brain doing most of the peeling and caramelizing and baking and flipping, while I just stand there spiraling into a panic about my mom and animal extinctions and the Second Amendment just like everybody else,

the fact that I like it when they give you a piece of cheese with your apple pie,

ooh same

the fact that I’m so tired of coughing, the fact that I hate to be a cougher, the fact that I’m always trying to avoid coughers myself, the fact that I’m scared sick of sick people, the fact that I’m no good when people are sick,

patient zero

the fact that 32% of teens now have anxiety disorders, probably from all the lockdowns they’ve been through by that age,

UH

the fact that I don’t get what’s gotten into daughters these days, the fact that they all seem to hate their moms so much, the fact that why is that, the fact that either moms suddenly got much worse, or daughters did, or else maybe it’s something in the water, water daughter, the fact that it seems to me daughters have never been so down on their moms in the whole of human history,

hutch, the fact that another black guy got shot by the police over a broken tail light, the fact that a guy with a broken tail light gets executed on the spot, but politicians get away with genocide,

“Bienstock, I oughtta fire you!”,

Some Like It Hot

the fact that diabetics with no insurance dilute their insulin to make it go farther,

end week 2 day 5

the fact that I didn’t even have a cough before I took that medication and now I’ve got a really bad one, and there’s still something wrong with my throat, the fact that it hurts all the time, and there are lots of odd spots on my tummy that weren’t there before,

100% patient zero

the fact that anyway, the logistics of going to see the doctor probably would’ve finished me off, because I’d have had to get one mom to pick one kid up from here and another mom to pick one up from there, the fact that I thought of calling Carol Stalwart or Carol Stewart or whateverhernameis, Carole Lombard for all I know, the one who’s always trying to get me to take up aerial silks and break my neck,

the fact that you have all these kids as an expression of love, and then the kids start killing your love

I wondered if these kids of mine would even notice if I dissolved in a pool of goo and disappeared, the fact I’m not sure it would register with them until my absence began to affect their extracurricular activities, like dancing class and meals and laundry,

the fact that anybody who knows how to incubate an egg in her bodice is okay by me,

same

“the trees took a coloring,”

Domestic Manners of the Americans

the fact that pollution is linked to the deaths of two hundred thousand Americans a year, acrid, Akron, “I can’t breathe,”

holy macaroni

the fact that a large woman sat on a child for ten minutes as a punishment, and the poor kid passed away, the fact that that must have been terrible, the fact that I never heard of siting on a kid as punishment before,

omg followed shortly by this

like in that movie we saw where she’s typing all the time and her husband goes nuts, the fact that he’s not nuts from the typing, he was already nuts when she got him, the fact that he came like that, like Ellis’s husband, her first husband, the fact that Ellis managed to escape, but Joan Crawford sticks it out

Autumn Leaves

the fact that some Christians have started a hate campaign against Target now, because Target decided to let trans people choose which toilet to use, the fact that, my word, all people care about these days is restrooms, the fact that meanwhile a man drove his car over a cliff with his kids in it,

thank you

the fact that child marriage is still legal in most states,

yup

the fact that Lawrence Weiler’s ninety-eight-year-old mom drives from Queens to Manhattan once a week to have her hair done, the fact that she wasn’t much of a driver even when she could see and hear,

end Week 3, Day 1

the fact that I never knew she was this scared, the fact that she sounds worse than me,

I know I shouldn’t keep calling them deadbeat dads, but it just sort of trips off the tongue,

the fact that I’d never get any pies done if I had to play schoolteacher as well as Domestic Engineer,

correct

the fact that these people don’t give a hoot about housework and none of them even notices me constantly cleaning up after them, sorting through their papers and all their little plastic toys and worry dolls, and scratched DVDs and dusty honey bears and about-to-be-squashed smart phones, loading the dishwasher, unloading the dishwasher, putting styptic sticks away, buying groceries and underwear and oftentimes cooking two or three meals a day, with different foods each day for each and every kid, to make sure they get their “varied and colorful” diet,

“I prefer a lot of semen, I always have,”

It's Complicated

the fact that I may be wrong but it seems to me the police are getting kind of out of hand,

understatement

I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank till the last galoot’s ashore,

Jim Bludso

the fact that I can never remember the name of that other movie Donald Pleasence is in, the black-and-white one where they’re all stuck in a lighthouse, the fact that they’re just wandering around on the mud flats somewhere, looking bewildered,

is this Cul-de-sac?

the fact that then you line the base of the cake pan with wax paper, Teflon, DuPont, suffering cows, and lay down on the kitchen floor and sob your heart out, no, the fact that you lay down a thin layer of the boiled lemon slices in the lined cake pan,

oof

the fact that Jake now eats hard-boiled eggs, if I take out the yolk and slice the white part into circles,

the fact that I hollowed out a hole in the middle of Jake’s salad and plucked out the middle section of a piece of garlic bread for him and he ate it all,