I've had a weird sunroof related car problem I've been dealing with where water was silently leaking into my car via cracked tubs leading to my front passenger carpet. It was under rubber car mats so it took A Lot of rain before I noticed even the rubber mat was full of water. I took it out of the evil car dealers service center & brought it to my old place I used to go where the wife used to drive me home when my parents were busy working at the salon & the deli & my car would always be busted. I have taken 3 other cars to them! 😂
Turns out the son runs it now & he was Super nice & has a Really similar car & they Even work on Diesels which my car is a weird thing most mechanics don't even wanna touch. So a shitty thing made me solve this where to get my car maintenance thing cause I Hated the dealership but I 💕 love my car. I don't even car if it costs the same amount of $ I just would rather give 1000 to someone in town.
VW is evil. I felt guilty leaving the dealership cause Calvin my mechanic is a brilliant dope guy who the day I met him, rolling in there with a car I Just Bought that was already busted without me even getting it home. He gave me a ride home, I Trusted A Strange Man, My Cell Phone Was Dead. The service center was long closed for the day & he was working overtime to get something done. But the entire rest of the establishment should probably burn. They were all out drinking together the day I met Calvin. 🤣
I started this blog post as a text message to a friend that I suddenly realized they probably didn't want & was no longer for just them. I feel pulled away from writing all the time lately. I feel this constant need to answer everyone because I remember a time where I was not good at all at answering people. People reached out & I did not reach back. Now I'm always like, where did everybody go? Many think I am an evil Terf whose abuse by men that started in childhood & lasted until I was 33 years old when I finally started telling the truth about it, was my fault because that's just who I am & the way I wanted it to be.
People will talk about "child abuse victims" to me as if they are someone other than me. Their Trauma. Their This, Their That, Their The Other Thing. But I find we're all very similar in a lot of ways. I don't like the distancing language. Where are the people not growing up in this pornified land? I don't know who would be able to escape it.
Women without modern plumbing fixtures or in countries without stable electricity or water, those women aren't safe from rape culture & sexual abuse. Male violence permeates all corners of reality at the moment. Women become free only with modern conveniences like the sex segregated spaces. Women need places to talk away from men & to organize.We need plumbing & education to make it so that women can escape the realities of "womanhood". Having to pee all the time, & knowing that it is normal & the way our bodies actually are different than men's. Even bigger women have smaller bladders than men the same size. Men the same size do not have an entire uterus or ovaries holding court in their guts. It may not be the fact that our reproductive rights organs takes up that much space so much as our bodies are different. Categorically speaking.
What does this have to do with Volkswagen. Calvin treated me, not like an idiot who just bought a sh*t car but like a smart woman who needed ammunition to fight this battle against the Cadillac dealer whom I had just bought it from, but the building was empty except for us. I had to ask my dad for More help, an insufferable man who had Just helped me buy the car in the first place for advice. It was good advice. My letter to the consumer reporting agency in that county got my initial car fixes paid for by the dealership who sold it to me. The car has been So So Dependable & never left me stranded on a highway but I've done Every recommended maintenance so has also been a money pit in minor repairs. It's a diesel engine though & I hope to put 2x as many miles on it as are on it right now. I wanna drive this car until I am my mother's age so I Needed a good mechanic. In walked Calvin the man who was helpful & friendly enough that I got in his car & let him drive me home without a MFing Cell phone! I felt guilty leaving this man but he works for the devil & the top down management at the dealership is evil.
I'm glad I found someone my age with a small local business who knows my type of car so well as to have one himself as the owner of the repair shop. He has the Golf Wagon GTI with the panoramic sunroof though & I have the baby version TDI with the regular sunroof & a crazy powerful turbo diesel engine for this itty bitty hatchback. I'm not just a radical feminist because I've faced sexual abuse.
I've also faced many other forms of subtle discrimination from macho "alpha" identified type men in the car world, in the music world, in the video game world, in the comic world, even in the Hair World. But in the car world it's super common for me to find men who immediately dismiss me. It's usually men who know less than me & assume I must also know nothing like them. Despite being raised by not 1 but 2 male mechanics who loved talk radio & a mom who worked 70 hours a week at times. I picked up a couple things.
I have a much better mental understanding than physical ability. Male tools are often not the right strength standard for most women. What I mean is no matter what I've done with cars I've always needed someone with naturally stronger muscles to help aka do all the work while we collectively figured out what to do. But I've read more than one Chilton taken out of the Ocean County Library in my day & I enjoy when a man will treat me like a human being enough to get to know me & find that out about me. Some intellectual type men just don't give a fuck about cars & always go to a trusted mechanic. Some "car" identified types will dismiss you before they even find out how much you understand. I appreciate finding a man who obviously had a mother who understands cars. I wish more women would be encouraged by having tools easily available that are designed for our hand size/strength. Until then we need more great mechanics in the world like Calvin at VW & the Pro-Cat family.
But if the rain hadn't filled my car with rainwater I wouldn't be going through any of this. When I met this car I felt like it was going to take me on a journey & it really fucking has in so many ways. It's amazing on the highway & I've been so many places in it I probably wouldn't have been otherwise.
There's been a lot of controversy & infighting among those critical of gender in the past month. The radical right wing is doing their dirty work of using neoliberal propaganda & misogyny to split the modern day feminist movement into a thousand little tiny factions. Dividing the solidarity amongst transsexuals & feminists was always only the first blow. Long decided upon alliances have been broken. Friendships built have been dashed to the wayside. Make love not war friends.
I don't know how to make it clear enough that I will Never Choose sides of anyone's friendship wars & stonewalling demands. I will never Not Ever decide a woman is crazy. Not even for being angry. I may not want to be around them anymore for personal reasons. I think we all have a choice who we associate with. No one really associates with me openly on social media if they can avoid it.
Some people patron me & I them. Some people see me oot & aboot but since I got removed from Facebook I was removed from being invited places often. It's weird feeling like a cancelled social pariah among a certain art community or the internet in certain spheres when normal working class people I meet IRL have No Idea about any of it. Or they have more of an observational view than a participatory relationship to the web.
This writing should probably be published after the one I have saved & Unfinished but as this one is finished first in it's sentiment, for once I am publishing out of order & considering a thing for a while before I finish it & publish it. Look at me evolving over time.
I have been noticing a lot more serendipity lately which is how I always know I am on the right track. Thanks Naomi Buechner for leaving me with that. You seemed so wise & so eternally young as the same time? We've all suffered losing someone important to us too soon because of this for profit instead of For People system. I just want us to have compassion for our fellow man but especially our fellow woman.
Love,
Jackie Lane
