Jeanne Sutton

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A few weeks ago I avoided a Friday evening event with peers because I didn’t have the mental energy. This is not a reflection of the people at the gathering. All lovely gals, supportive gals, fun, smart, savvy, the good kind of adjectives. Although I’ll be honest, there were some suspected guests I did want to avoid. But if we had to conduct a chat, I’d have been fine. Ask people should you start watching Stranger Things and let them off. (If you are a shy type who dreads anything with a hint of networking, it helps to remember that certain people like to be implicitly told they have expertise in how one should live a life. It’s a very easy trick.)

When Friday hits, I am zapped. I want four walls, a mattress, reading materials, a movie with explosions and a skin treatment that warns me I can’t leave the house without factor 50 for the foreseeable. This regular plateau is something I’m used to now. Sometimes, when I am sitting still, I admit I’ve turned joyless. When Facebook reminds me of my life over four years ago I mourn, a bit. There was one photo recently of me at a college ball. That day I attended class, ran back and forth to my campus apartment, prepared for an interview, got a blow dry on Grafton Street, went to a group interview in a corporate law firm, answered ‘introduce a wealth tax’ to the query ‘if you were in charge of Ireland, what would you do?’, showed up at the hotel, got changed in the toilet, danced, stayed out, got home. 

I recently enthused to a woman about the Kindle and Audible app for rebooting a reading habit. This woman had to take long train journeys for work. She was tired. I gave her some book recommendations and strongly suggested she start her audiobook journey with Bruce Springsteen’s memoir. Then I showed her the book I had in my bag for another tip. Another woman nearby said I must have a lot of free time.

It’s a very common practice among women I know to mock busy women. And I understand that, to a mild extent. Maybe this is in other sectors, but in lifestyle media land it was like workers in the hive at events. Everyone is busy. On social media, gals are plotting with expensive notebooks in minimalist cafés. New mums proclaim they never knew busy and tired and exhaustion until now. But maybe everyone is busy? I’m flat out, and yes, while I find time to read books and procrastinate online, I’m still busy. I might not have a child or plans to launch a business, but I’ve still got a full plate.

A friend messaged me over the weekend to check in, I checked back. She said she was busy, like everyone else. Already diminishing her state of being. 

I think it’s screwed up how busy we all legitimately are. Do we hate the other busy woman because she raised her yellow flag first?

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I have a lot of thoughts about the books I didn’t like reading this year. But I'm not bothered committing them here.

There's an opening scene in an episode of Fraiser with he and Niles come home from a restaurant and Daphne, I think, asks them how the meal was and one of the men says perfect except for one thing. She then says something along the lines of that being exactly the way they like it, and sure enough, they extrapolate. I think I watched that scene anyway. 

However, saying some books I read were perfect except for one thing is very generous. Too generous. So, instead, here are a few things I’ve read the past eleven or so months I really enjoyed or thought about long after. 

The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy 

I was talking about miscarriage with a friend earlier this year as I was writing a feature about pregnancy loss. It was eye-opening and the phone interviews I conducted were… I can’t say fierce emotional tennis as it implies I experienced a fraction of the trauma the women who kindly gave up their time and privacy did. It was tough, and if you are an editor who commissions article with an intent to horrify and shock, try and facilitate some talk therapy for your writers. 

I was telling my friend some of the stories I was putting in the article and we talked about how men aren’t really clued into a lot of what women are expected to go through. I said, flippantly, “The only miscarriage guys we know know about is Ariel Levy’s.” 

It wasn’t a nice thing to say, because Ariel Levy is a human being, and the article she wrote a few years ago for The New Yorker about losing a wanted pregnancy on assignment in Mongolia is earth-shattering. But I was trying to get at my assumption that certain men need to have issues communicated to them by publications of grand record before they give a shit. “We need a New Yorker abortion or New Yorker pay gap,” we joked. 

This memoir was a pick for my book club, and I gulped it in days. Which isn’t a usual habit of Book Club Jean. The book expands on the New Yorker essay, which comes late enough in the text, and looks at Levy’s keening marriage, biological clocks, and forgiveness. From the opening chapters, where Levy recounts how your twenties and thirties becomes a biological battleground, I was there. I’m witnessing a lot of change and shifting among the women I know. Scrolling Instagram after a bank holiday gives me a heart murmur. I imagine it only gets worse. 

This, from the preface, got the highlight: “Until recently, I lived in a world where lost things could always be replaced. But it has been made overwhelmingly clear to me now that anything you think is yours by right can vanish, and what you can do about that is nothing at all.” 

You can make plans, but the idea of perfect alignment is the shakiest ground.

Dirty Duet by Laurelin Paige 

Paige’s romance novels could be described as taboo, so if you need smelling salts after a Starz show maybe don’t. I think her writing is amazing and her female characterisation- flawed, fucked up, self-aware, grown-up – is in a league of its own. 

The plot starts out love triangle-ish, there’s a lot of focus on the heroine’s career – my catnip, and it’s super dramatic. Trigger warning, this one deals with rape fantasy as a way to overcome trauma. Sabrina Lind is a college freshman with a thing for a fellow student, a very wealthy good-time guy. His older best friend is her TA. Something criminal happens. Then something unethical. Years later they all end up working together in a massive advertising firm and it’s very clear no one has gone to therapy. 

The first book is called Dirty Filthy Rich Men, which might give you a bit of a pause if you’re new to this sort of genre. But we’re living in a country where there is an athlete’s memoir on bookshelves around the country called Gooch. I think that should be a national conversation. 

Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling! by Emer McLysaght, Sarah Breen 

I cried in a hotel room and on an Aircoach reading this book. It’s so kind, so lovely. 

Scribble Scribble by Nora Ephron 

Being a fan of Nora Ephron isn’t a character trait, although the way some people go on you’d swear I’d have to give you first dibs on bone marrow if we’ve read the same books. Late last year I got around to watching the HBO documentary about her, Everything is Copy, and went back to her writing. This time I read beyond the personal essays and looked at her articles on media and the machine – the Scribble Scribble part. It sort of changed my life, philosophy, perception. She really didn’t give a shit. We talk a lot about she used pain and made great films, but I enjoyed exploring the critiquing claws. To be honest, letting all her writings permeate, I’d say if we met she’d have hated me.

I don’t think we have her sort in Ireland. We have people who report on media, social media users make healthy and necessary critiques of the Irish Times opinion article choices. But we don’t have Nora. Which is a pity, as during freefalls there are some great stories. But then, you could argue, are we too small a country for such behaviour? Can you get away with true honesty?

Here is some of her scathing typing on People magazine back in the day:

"I have nothing against short articles, and no desire to read more than 1500 words or so on most of the personalities People profiles. In fact, in the case of a number of those personalities—and here the name of Telly Savalas springs instantly to mind—a caption would suffice. I have no quarrel with the writing in the magazine, which is slick and perfectly competent. I wouldn’t mind if People were just a picture magazine, if I could at least see the pictures; there is an indefinable something in its art direction that makes the magazine look remarkably like the centerfold of the Daily News. And I wouldn’t even mind if it were a fan magazine for grownups—if it delivered the goods. But the real problem is that when I finish reading People, I always feel that I have just spent four days in Los Angeles. Women’s Wear Daily at least makes me feel dirty; People makes me feel that I haven’t read or learned or seen anything at all. I don’t think this is what Richard Stolley means when he says he wants to leave his readers wanting more: I tend to be left feeling that I haven’t gotten anything in the first place. And even this feeling is hard to pinpoint; I am looking at a recent issue of People, with Hugh Hefner on the cover, and I can’t really say I didn’t learn anything in it: On page 6 it says that Hefner told his unauthorized biographer that he once had a homosexual experience. I didn’t actually know that before reading People, but somehow it doesn’t surprise me.”

Those thoughts, they echo what I hear people say about certain internet personalites at the moment. You could tailor the above about a lot of them, just minor edits, and it could nail so much. Some might find it skin crawling that I equate social media accounts with magazine, but I would do that IRL. They have advertising, they are publishing, they have an audience. Some boxes are ticked.

Nothing they say surprises me. 

Instead of doing all my outside-work work, I started watching The Sinner and Alias Grace this week. Who knew we’d get two head doctors delving into damaged female minds all at once? It’s the 46A bus! Which I emailed a complaint about last month! In this first episode of The Sinner, Charlie from Girls has just grunted all over wrecked but beautiful Jessica Biel and she’s up and at ‘em the next AM cleaning the house, those hobs gather no grease, before they go to a beach or something where she commits the ‘senseless act of violence’ that spurs the series on. 

Her mother-in-law is smothering her with all the post-childcare dinner obligations and I’d love to see an Irish angle on this because if you’ve ever worked with a woman over thirty you really do question everything about society and the directions we keep following. I used to be anti-mad bitch behaviour in regards to engagement rings but now I’m like bleed the diamond and gold out of the man who you will pretend not to hear when he hollers for you in a shared home in fifteen years time. Line up the Cash4Gold whenever you can. 

I just googled ‘emotional labout the sinner’ and I’ve seen no op-eds on my first page of results, so I might be wrong about this entire show already.

A book I have on the go that isn’t fading and yellowing on my windowsill is The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz, which I picked up in a museum gift shop in London last weekend. I’ve been successful so far in life at avoiding too much reading materials in the self-help realm, but find myself getting a lot from this collection of based-on-real-life cases from a psychoanalyst.* 

One friend said it made her uncomfortable he would tell his patients stories, even if they did all consent to the obscured mentions. I came of age during the hot mess personal essay internet dam busting, so I love stories of coming to who you really are. (This is why the show Lost gives me great sorrow, what an incredible waste.) The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood and the movie Marnie were the mainstays of my cultural diet when I was 19 or so. You should read and watch both and then seek out The Answers by Catherine Lacey, the best book I read this year, which combines the sensibilities of both. In fact, her structure of first person and third person shifting might follow exactly Atwood’s mixing-it-up. I would fact check that, but I haven’t got the paperbacks to hand at this moment. 

If you are looking for something to listen to, I’ve a short-term podcast on the go. Alan Maguire, a dear friend who is one of the best listeners I know, approached me some months ago about being the co-host of a show based around Christmas tv movies, so of course I typed YES. It’s called Roast Chestnuts and the first few episodes are out not. Here is your iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/roast-chestnuts/id1305245492?mt=2&ls=1#episodeGuid=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.headstuff.org%2F%3Fp%3D56570 

I’m really enjoying this project with Alan. I’ve finished up as a magazine girl - I was deputy editor of STELLAR - a few weeks ago, taking a health comms role and starting a masters in a Dublin university, so Roast Chestnuts is taking my mind off the fact I’ve taken a scalpel and spoon to a lot of my life. I hope it brings some semblance of calm to you too. 

So, I was in the audience at an event today about Irish feminism, and let’s just say some comments elicited a few ‘oh, oh this is happening’ faces. Here is a piece I wrote for Sarah Waldron’s The Coven in July 2015. Skimmed it v briefly there as I copied and pasted from an archive site. 

The piece was was entitled:

That Madeleine Albright Quote

A few months ago I went to an International Women’s Day party hosted by a literary press. There was red and white wine. I think some prosciutto dotted plates. Hummus was probably on the menu too. As regards olives, I do not recall.

The event was packed and well-meaning people were turned away at the door, where ticket prices were donated to a very worthy women’s charity. Floor-to-ceiling book shelves propped up humans who couldn’t source seats. The atmosphere was sweltering, and most of the women present were in knitwear – which, while fitting with the vibe, didn’t help.

Adding to this claustrophobic feeling was a couple caressing each other in plain sight, standing in front of me and my friend. Very close. They were doing that early-days-of-the-relationship lean back into each other. The curve of her arse pressing up against his supportive – she performed a reading later – groin. I love seeing couples thinking they’re getting away with foreplay in public. All that smug love with heavy eyelids is the nicest thing to be a part of when you’ve just fallen in.

The readings were good. Throughout a series of confessional excerpts and poems two big dogs lumbered through the crowd, moving too awkwardly to be petted. They were not in the mood, and one dog went outside briefly to shit and came back in, trailing a stench, which we all said nothing about. That would have been rude, especially while someone was busy pouring their soul out in a self-aware mid-Atlantic tone.

After the interval we managed to find seats. But they weren’t ours for long, because we had to leave soon after.

Earlier I had spotted one of Ireland’s leading 1970s feminists in the crowd. Her writing was something I had sought out in charity book shops as a teenager, getting shouted at in religion class for being pro-choice. (I had a habit of staying in the grey when it came to condemning the hypothetical women detailed on printed pages from our ‘morality’ workbooks.)

This capital letter Feminist was the type of woman who did the Irish state some service, even if the official state hated her at the time. I didn’t approach her; I thought about telling her that her various books were excellent but decided to hold back. Turns out my reluctance to gush was a good decision.

The Famous Feminist asked for the floor, and she was granted it with a cheer. The day that was in it and all.

Young men and women behind me were manning the bar and poured her wine, for she had asked for some. They passed it along frantically like a swishing parcel, desperate that she be holding a glass. That was the first weird thing. Then she began speaking.

She spoke about a news story of inter-familial surrogacy, an irrelevant issue that she somehow thought we should all consider before voting on the then-upcoming gay marriage referendum. What she was trying to say wasn’t subtle. Later, those who wanted to transition gender were treated to an insulting throwaway line about ‘trends’.

People were laughing along. Faces you recognise from bylines. Was I missing out on the joke? It’s not everyday I attend a literary salon with a feminist bent, but I was pretty sure this sort of talk is the type you keep off the playlist.

My friend and I stood up and left. We were both visibly upset. An intern stopped us at the backdoor and asked us why we were leaving. In my incensed confusion I rambled about being a journalist.I said I should have recorded what was happening. (Side note: I have never made a Freedom of Information request so let that settle that label.) Then we stormed out and called the woman, whose books on injustice have brought me to tears, every name under the moon.

They say never meet your heroines. They’re all complicated now anyway.

—

When I was studying law in Canada, I took a class with a now deceased lecturer who wrote a book called How America Gets Away With Murder. He was such a brilliant and kind man. On St. Patricks Day he laughed and sang ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ to me and the other girl from Trinity. I could barely keep up and he was nice enough to let me barely pass. As part of his classes on International Criminal Law we looked at the Bosnian conflict in dizzying detail. It was all new to me. When I was younger that war was Euronews at breakfast before school.

During this spate of lectures, Madeleine Albright’s name kept popping up. You know, the celebrated female diplomat who once made a guest appearance on The Gilmore Girls? The woman who said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Blame that gal for a few hundred op-eds that have made the same point.

Anyway, I was a bit flustered as one of our classes progressed to discover that this Goodreads Quote of the Day stalwart was actually considered by some parties to be a warmonger who, as US Secretary of State at the time, made an already fractious war even more violent. ‘Madeleine’s War‘ was what some called it.

Before, her famous sentence about women supporting each other was all I needed to think she was great. Unquestionably fabulous. A reserve line for impassioned conversations with women about other women. Now Madeline’s words make me feel uneasy. What happens when your support comes with certain terms and conditions?

The concept Internet Feminism reads as dismissive, but when it comes to disappointment in Great Women it’s the first thing that rises to my mind. Words like TERF tell you all you need to know when it couples a big name in your feed. Tweet something nice about Lena Dunham and there’s always an incoming mention telling you how you’re wrong. Illumination is good, but the HD camera focus on examining every aspect of a woman who embraces the term ‘feminist’ makes me jittery. One friend was taken to task recently, in real life, by a guy for not using her internet influence to talk more about abortion.

But then the woman at the party needed an IRL calling out. And more of an internet one. (My tweets led nowhere really, and only resulted in another established feminist calling me ‘silly’.) Looking back, I know there were reasons for people to keep calm and say nothing.

Yet I still expected more. I wanted a rousing speech about the right things. And when that didn’t work out, I wanted an angry audience.

I don’t know if it is possible to have heroines anymore. You can’t put your faith in anyone entirely, because gravity. That woman you think is ace? She probably once tweeted something silly, speedy words that a mob will eventually twist into an unforgivable manifesto. Thank you, search function. Maybe when you introduce yourself at an event she might act distracted and look over your shoulder for the duration of the exchange. Or she could be just human and owe you nothing, having no expectation of your Madeleine Albright prescribed ‘help’.

I was chatting with a gal about her possible endo after work yesterday and was pointing her in the direction of various first-person accounts. I’m very wary of the whole vague holistic corner of the internet, as when I was diagnosed way back in 2011, I was treated very matter-of-factly, and the simple fact is, the condition is there. It doesn’t leave. I’m a big believer in cutting drama out of my life and feeling sorry for myself is the kind of drama that isn’t even fun. No one is going to call you a bitch in a bar and throw a drink at you for moping about clotty lady guts. I follow a lot of endo Instagram accounts, and I have a lot of theories about sympathy addiction*, and to me, that behaviour is not a productive use of one’s time. Although, I am watching Downton Abbey from the start at the moment so you could argue I’m not valuing the gift of life. 

Anyway, here are some articles about endo that I like to pass along:

One of Lena’s first Lenny Letters: http://www.lennyletter.com/health/a160/the-sickest-girl/

Hilary Mantel in 2004: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jun/07/health.genderissues

More Hilary: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/28/endometriosis-fertility-hilary-mantel

Padma’s got it too: http://www.lennyletter.com/health/interviews/a161/padma-lakshmi-endometriosis-is-real-and-its-staggering/

Podcast Padma: https://soundcloud.com/anotherroundwithhebenandtracy/episode-54-tin-foil-rabbit

Oh, and here is something I wrote when I was a mid-twenties baby, think I was 24. I haven’t read it since, but it might help: http://image.ie/life/article/a-new-reality/

New issue out last week. 

JLo and June issue of STELLAR on the shelves right now. Gif by our designer Katie Gilligan.  

Some bits by me:

Old Boys’ Club ruminating with four gal insiders - check your privilege men in suits. 

Destressing tense vaginas - strong not tight ought to be the aim. 

 A list of men I fancy called ‘summer baes’. 

The benefits of fats with some factoids on how trans fats are actually banned in parts of the States but Europe is stalling. 

How to stave off emotional eating with some expertise from a nurse in Arizona who did some mindfulness classes with teen girls and saw some excellent benefits.