Tangerine Mullets and Marmalade Lies
Elise in the suburbs with Liberals
I was at the salon last week. My stylist, luxuriously, is a Conservative—all 23 years of her—so we can talk openly, but I take care to keep my voice down because manners. Meaning to say, there’s nothing worse than a scissor-wielding Lefty1 snipping around your freshly conservative nape.
But that’s not quite true. Because back when I was a crusty old Liberal, I sat in a chair at a different salon with a different stylist. Chea* and I had become friends over the years—so much so that I hired her for Miss Miller’s hair and makeup-themed ninth birthday party in 2015.
While snipping my damp hair Chea began to rail against illegal immigrants and praised Trump for tackling the scourge. I shuddered with the awful realization that she was one of them. This was 2017, when I believed Trump was a raping, racist orange thug. I remember sitting there, as confused as I was shocked because Chea was Cambodian. Her family were refugees for crying out loud.
Shouldn’t she hate Trump? I wondered, shrinking in the salon chair.
I managed to squeak out some line of mild dissent—maybe something I’d read in Time or Newsweek about how good illegal immigrants were for the economy—to which Chea agreed and like a blinking, drooling newborn I thought maybe I changed her back into a good little Democrat.
I was so dumb.
And I hated getting into politics with anyone on the opposing side. They all seemed so angry and armed—with talking points.
Now though. Now I am liable to jump right into a political parley. For one thing, I’m passionate. Or as Mister likes to call me, obsessed, even though I am making an effort to kibosh the politics feed.
Exnay on the olitics-pay.
For another thing, the difference between me as a Liberal and me as a Conservative, or Independent, or Trump voter—whatever you want to call me—is marked by a confidence to engage on issues that I didn’t have back then. When you’re on the right you have so many more actual facts at your fingertips. It’s luxurious.
Here’s what leftists have:
But Trump’s character! But the five-star general says he’s terrible! But Trump’s a dangerous populist! But Trump only cares about himself!
My how the tables have turned. If I ran into Chea now, I’d be happy to tell her how wrong I was back then. Like an AA member making amends.
So.
There was a new receptionist at the salon the other day. Nettle* was the kind of Liberal you could clock from a mile away. Straight out of Central Casting as they say—tangerine mullet, jumbo septum piercing, winged black eyeliner.
And an obviously made up name.
But Reader, she was a sweet girl. Barely out of college where she studied fine art. We got to talking while she shampooed my hair. Twenty-two years old, wanted to make it as a fine art painter and not some corporate shill—in a fantastical way I used to believe was possible once upon a time, like a fairytale ending. She lived with three roommates, at least one who went by they/them pronouns, struggled to make rent and barely talked to her parents because, “They’re really Catholic,” nudge nudge.
Meaning, everyone knows Catholic suck. It’s a foregone conclusion.
Maybe it was my tattoos, piercings… I have the look of someone who would roll her eyes at Catholics.
Like ew, cringe, amiright?
But I respect religion more now than I did before I left the left. I get it—Judeo-Christian values, committing to something bigger than yourself, a code of conduct older than the internet. I’ve been too humbled to be a smug atheist anymore. The veils are gone.
As if God exists, I seem to say more and more.
The third reason I get into political, um, ‘discourses’ these days is because I am new at this. Capital L Liberals are known for announcing their views as if everyone within earshot readily agrees:
Like Tangerine Mullet assuming everyone hates Catholics, or Sonoma Geoff casually saying he’d love to shoot Trump. Or College Bestie Alicia calling Facebook users “nothing but garbage Republicans,” or self-styled ‘Bi-sexual Queer Girl’ insisting on using they/them pronouns for another woman’s daughter.
Tangerine mullets and marmalade lies…
I was guilty of it too, and clearly have not shed myself of the habit. And so with the last flaking remnants of my vestigial leftism, I found myself the other night casually confessing to a stranger that I’d voted for Trump. I assumed he’d get it, that everyone was finally cool with Orange Man. 77 million Americans can’t all be in a cult…
Turns out I’m still dumb.
But it makes for a decent story.
To be continued…
🍊
Last night I tuned into Meghan Daum’s conversation with my friend Larissa Phillips. Our kids preschooled together in Park Slope in 2007. We lost touch and reunited here on the Stack to discover shared kinship in our tandem leftist defections. Check her out at
. During their live broadcast, Larissa was ruing the loss of once-acceptable middle-school—we didn’t call them slurs back then—the insults ‘retarded’ and ‘gay.’ Meghan jumped in to admonish sparing use only, because in her personal history (I think this is what she said—I was multitasking at the time) a friend had a gay brother and told Meghan to stop spraying that word around so casually. It stung her so bad she never forgot it. ( I can hear you not having any of this, lmao.) Larissa was like, that’s fair. And me in my office/bed watching, well I felt the sting too. And I remembered Mr Miller telling me that he tried to read my essay Disturbed but had to stop because I kept calling Democrats leftarded™. The next day Larissa was kind enough to restack my Leaving the Left post and since then I’ve gained a bunch of new followers—Hey guys! Welcome! And I thought maybe I could be a little more judicial. And I went and did something rare for me—I edited the words ‘leftard,’ ‘leftarded’ and ‘leftardation’ from three posts that included them. I censored myself. Which is something I don’t in theory subscribe to anymore, because free speech. But between Meghan and Mister, well, it just didn’t sit right with me to use it so, well, liberally anymore. I’d rather bridge gaps than burn bridges. I’m trying to grow up here and save my marriage. Also, if you’re still reading this footnote, Mister and I have our first counseling appointment today. Eek!
Self censoring is not necessarily a bad thing. Whether or not one believes in a god, or has any religious leanings, the Judeo-Christian writings are full of excellent advice for how to get along with our fellow man. In this context, consider "all things are permitted to me, but not all things are expedient for me." It costs nothing to choose to avoid deliberately giving offense. That way, if someone takes offense where none is offered, we can have a clear conscience, knowing that they are the source of their own offence.
I came around a lot sooner -- around 2014 or thereabouts, when a "Gender Pronoun" workshop was foisted upon our department, and we were warned, via email, that this person named "Horace" was NOT female. "Outward appearances are not determinant of gender." Turns out "Horace" was a gigantic voluptuous black woman wearing a raspberry tutu, pink ballet flats, and armloads of bracelets. More on that later, when the novel is finished, and I can upload the absurdities on Dog L's substack.
I also defected around that time because feminism was really starting to seem insane. Especially since I wound up childless, dutifully having aborted my opportunities to become a mother. You know, not having a "career" is a "ruined" life.
Add to this that during the Obama years, the rhetoric on solicitations for donations to the PARTY had become increasingly demonizing of the other side. The "evil" Republicans this and that. On top of that, long before, I had always secretly despised identity politics, which were running off the rails.
One day I typed "not feminist" in the search bar on youtube, and came across Janet Fiamengo's "The University of Indoctrination." It changed my life -- and my teaching. And, since committed to some semblance of objectivity, well, that's when the trouble started.
But what resonates here, is that I got kicked out of my local hair salon for saying to a Trans "Ally" who had cut my hair the last time, that I was not 'into' the gender stuff, that it was sowing chaos, and would not get my vote.
So about an hour before my next appointment, she texted me. "I can't cut your hair because I support trans people."
I texted back a photo of a phalloplasty. She clicked a laughing face on it.
Prior to this, the young woman who was cutting my hair, and went on maternity leave, confided when no one was around that she was horrified by what happened to Daniel Penny. We also had some interesting conversations about feminism running off the rails. One day she reminded me that we couldn't talk "in front of the others."
I tried to follow that edict, but one day told her that I had just watched a very interesting talk on how video game avatars might be encouraging kids to think they're trans. It wasn't an indictment of trans, just a possible cause.
The entire room stopped what they were doing.
And on this note, I must say, one of the most potent reasons for leaving the cult, is the lack of intellectual curiosity.
I highly recommend Quillette's podcast today, on the Feminization of Academia.
In the meantime, I'm running away screaming. I need to find another line of work. Wish me luck. I'm 63, and ironically, have known all manner of "gender bending" people, and have even been labeled one myself. So no, I'm not living in the dark ages. It's just that promoting causing harm to one's self, in the name of avoiding "harm" makes no f'ing sense.
I guess I'm an undercover Bohemian because I somehow escaped the Lower Haight in the early 90s without a tattoo.