For months, I have been trying to figure out how to best articulate and share my feelings about the midterms. Every draft I have begun in my head has been met with a wince. Perhaps because I recognize the futility of continuing to preach to the choir whilst a band of wicked devils stands on the sidelines out-shouting me.
Let’s just get the ugliness out of the way first, for the handful of you who might not have heard the story. In May 2021 I purchased a decommissioned historic whorehouse in Smithville, TX. (I normally refer to it as Shitville, and will continue to do so, but I want you to know the real town so you can really avoid it.) On July 3rd a delusional jerk named Debi planted a plastic American flag in MY yard with HER business card attached. As a lifelong writer and decades-long political commentator, I took to MY PERSONAL FACEBOOK WALL to explain why I was not pleased with this, how violating it was, and how I have no intention of flying a flag that was co-opted by fascists.
Some townspeople saw this post, seized upon it, and started a rumor that I had demanded the removal of all American flags. A patent lie. I just said keep your fucking propaganda off of my lawn. Didn’t matter. In two seconds flat, the carpetbagging “politician” Stan Gerdes—who swept into town and stole a council seat from a Black woman who had lived in the town her whole life— and his wife Sam, joined forces with insurrectionist Jeanie Ralph to plot against me. Jeannie secured a permit from the council to host a parade to drive me out of town. The city even allowed them to rent the little train to lead the parade. The anticipation of this parade sent the town into an eager frenzy and that is when the death threats began.
In truth, it only sent forty people off the rails. I know, because the chief of police told me, that there is a list of forty people in Shitville, collectively known as The CAVE People, an acronym that stands for Citizens Against Virtually Everything. Long before I came along they bullied people. And I’m sure they are still doing it.
But I doubt anyone will ever forget what they did to me. Day in and day out for SEVEN MONTHS I was afraid to leave my house. I first found out about the seriousness of the death threats when the mayor came to my house and informed me the police chief needed to see me immediately. When I spoke to him, he told me that he’d told Sam Gerdes she needed to back down, that the violent threats her plan was encouraging were not okay. He told me that she batted her eyes and feigned innocence then, and he also told me he knew she was a liar.
It was IMMEDIATELY after that meeting with the police that she came to my house for the grand opening of my knitting shop. At the time I had NO idea who she was except that she’d left tomatoes and a welcome note on my porch a few days before, which I had foolishly assumed was a genuine gift, not an Trojan horse attempt to get me to vote for Trump. When she came to my house, she gave no indication she was responsible for the parade when I mentioned feeling very upset that the town was against me. Instead, acting like she was an ally, she begged me to let her take me to the parade in her golf cart. Only later did I understand this was her attempt to play bounty hunter and deliver me unto the throngs of fuckheads wanting to kill me.
Yes, I know this all sounds fantastical but I assure you there is a trove of documentation that exists, including city and police records, to show that all of this happened and I’m not even being remotely hyperbolic.
The night of the parade, the police chief INSISTED that I have police protection. Can you imagine this? I asked him to skip that part as it seemed to me to be escalation. He assured me that I was in true danger and sent an officer to stake out my porch while the fascists rode by in the little train screaming.
Let’s just stop there because every time I tell the story it infuriates me. If you want to read all of the details you can check out my website dedicated to Stan and Sam and/or you can also see the illustrated version on IG @SuckItBullies.
It is entirely possible that on Tuesday next, Stan will “win” his bid for texas state house. This is through no merit of his own. Aside from a brief stint on a small town council where the other members hated him, a position he quit midstream to run for state rep, proving what a carpetbagger he is, the only political “experience” he has is a stint at Rick Perry’s fluffer. That’s it. He is precisely the kind of puppet the GOP loves. He has a cookie cutter campaign calling for removing all autonomy from women over their own bodies—yes he is in favor of ten year-old rape victims being forced to carry pregnancies to term— pushing for more guns, and hating on immigrants, though he has a Mexican housekeeper he underpays under the table. In short, he is a fucking scumbag, precisely the type MAGA loves.
My son is a few years younger than these psychos. I have tried to imagine him picking a stranger and coercing dozens of people to go after that stranger every day. Impossible. He would never do it. He helps strangers. What is it that let’s these young fuckers think it is okay to target someone like that? And worse, to simultaneously present themselves as “good christians” and “pillars of the community.” Toss into the mix that I’m a senior citizen, and disabled and live alone—well hello? Really?
They so hated me for that, for being a strong woman, living alone. They insisted I could not have purchased my house, that a man must have bought it for me. Sam Gerdes took private text messages from me and posted them online in an attempt to “out” me as being mentally ill. Sam Gerdes is, of course, a total idiot, because if she had researched me even three googles in she would know that I have openly discussed my mental illness for decades, including writing several BOOKS on the topic, in large part to put an end to the sort of cruel stigma she was perpetuating.
The nice part about my mental illness is that it’s manageable with therapy, meditation and, as needed, medication. The horrible part about Sam and Stan is that their mental illness—psychopathy (and I assure you that they are both certifiable) has no known cure or treatment. They will be monsters until they die. We are stuck with them.
Some power hungry folks who don’t give a rat’s ass about Stan the Man but only seek to own the government, have ponied up a half-million dollars to push him into office. Even with this they struggle. It took Stand THREE tries to “beat” the incumbent in the primaries. And when he did “win” it was by a number of votes that is less than ten percent of my IG followers. I voted in the first primary—yes it was disgusting to vote in a republican primary—just to vote against him. In the parking lot I quizzed the day laborers he had hired to stand too close to the doorway holding up signs with his name. They had no idea who he was or what he stood for, only that they had been paid to be there.
In short, and I say this without hyperbole, Stan and Sam Gerdes and Jeannie Ralph, along with their CAVE cronies, fully and completely RAPED MY ENTIRE LIFE. They made it so untenable that I sold the house and left. I returned to my ranch, which thankfully I had not sold, and I settled back in, surrounded and supported by my neighbors, all of whom welcomed me back with open arms. This is especially important to note because I live in a farm community where my neighbors are overwhelmingly conservative, more than a few of them MAGA. But unlike the Shitville Shitheads, they never ask me about my politics or make presumptions about me and I return the favor. Better still, we KNOW we are on opposites of the political spectrum but out here our first rule of order is RESPECT. We see each other as helpers to one another, neighbors first. They hold their weddings and funerals at my ranch. And when there is a big storm or other emergency, they show up to help me dig out. Judge not lest ye be judged and all that.
To clarify, while certainly I was PERSONALLY and deeply injured by these events in Shitville, it was never about me personally, which admittedly was easy to lose sight of as I was the one they personally happened to be pummeling. To them I was simply The Next Target and trust me, they had no fucking idea what a loud mouth I am and how I will haunt them for the rest of my life. They assumed I was just some old lady they could lynch to prove a point, that someone like me would never fight back, would simply slink away. THAT is the part that upsets me the most. Not that they went after ME but that this is WHO THEY ARE. They attack. They threaten death. They cause chaos.
THEY DELIBERATELY GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO RAIN UNKINDNESS ON PEOPLE.
In addition to the website and illustration series about my experience, I have also written a book. I am sitting on the book for now because, though it is the best one I have ever written, it is so full of the pain they inflicted that I’m not sure I want to pass all that pain along to my readers.
I spoke at length to an attorney who assured me I have an excellent case against the city and the Gerdes dickheads for violating my civil liberties. In the very next breath he asked me to think really, really hard about pursuing the case. He pointed out the scumbag tactics they had already used and promised me they would get out the biggest cannons if I took it to a courtroom.
While usually such advice would push me harder to fight, miraculously I managed to hear the guy out. I still have time to file a lawsuit. And I might. But I am pausing for now because my life at the ranch is so fucking happy, the birds are literally singing at top volume, my new AirBnB business is rocking it, and I am fully surrounded by kind and loving people now, yes even my conservative neighbors.
So I’m not eager to step back into it. Still, I feel a need to take action. Thankfully, I have come up with a plan. It has two parts. The first part, inspired by The Brothers Grimm, involves me summoning my strongest crone powers to cast a spell on that town and, specifically, Psycho Sam and Stan. This curse, which has now been cast, calls into its circle their infant son, Little Stan (poor kid). It will come to fruition when he hits adulthood. At this point, whether I am alive or dead by then, an agent doing my bidding will contact him and present him with a collection of information about his parents, including all sorts of documents, screenshots and public records about what his parents did to me, and how they are neo-fascists. Will this sway him to rebel? I don’t give a crap. I do enjoy his parents learning of this curse and spending the rest of their lives looking at the window, wondering in fear. They can finally know what it feels like. (I know, that presupposes psychos have feelings so, yeah, a flawed plan.)
The other part of the plan is much brighter and sunnier and is inspired by The Amish. In the fall of 2006, a deranged man went into an Amish school, shooting and killing several little girls, and leaving others injured. At the time, my friend Chris McDougall lived in that very community (aside: if you recognize his name it’s because he wrote the international bestseller Born to Run). His daughters were the same age as the victims. I called him to check in. I told him, even before the news confirmed it, that I knew his neighbors were going to forgive the killer. I said, in their honor, I would drop a grudge.
Chris called back a little while later to tell me that he had passed my message on and that the community was very moved. So, yeah, I had to drop a grudge. Not my specialty. But I did it. And I also used this as an opportunity to start The Office of Good Deeds, a loose group of people who found good things to do for the community, simply because we could. I had bumper stickers made up that read: What Would the Amish Do?
Living in Shitville robbed me of that attitude. I became as bitter and vengeful as the fuckers who tormented me daily. I dreamed of their deaths or, rather, I dreamed of outliving every last one of them, simply so I could show up at their funerals and laugh. I wanted them to suffer as I had suffered. I wanted them to really feel the pain.
Then the other day, I woke up. Not only is it a horrible waste of my energy to sustain that rage, but it truly, truly, is not who I am. And this, to me, is the saddest part of the fascist takeover of this country. I got sucked into their ugliness. We all have.
I am done with their ugliness. I finally remembered that the only way to shine a light on darkness is to do just that: SHINE A LIGHT. Those people dimmed my light. They smashed my bulb. They wrecked my life. But I am back now. And I am shining like a (cruelty-free) diamond. I am ready to spread the light again. And I have a very, very specific way to do this.
There is a place in Vermont called The Dog Chapel, built by a man who was recovering from near death. It has become a place of pilgrimage for dog lovers who leave notes on the wall to honor their deceased dogs. It a a beacon of beauty and hope in a world that has turned ugly and hopeless. I have not been there, yet, but the memory of it came to me as I struggled to find a way out of the Shitville Darkness. And then I remembered a chapel I have been to countless times. It’s in Real de Catorce, Mexico, one of my favorite destinations on earth. There in a little church is a room dedicated to St. Francis. Here, too, people come from all over to leave notes of gratitude. Taking in the collection as a whole is profound.
Because we wrapped up our last big events here at the ranch last week, and have now converted to full time AirBnB and fun spot, I was wondering what to do with the chapel. I’ll still do elopements. And I thought about putting a bed in there and AirBnBing it, too. Then I realized, no, that’s not it. I want the chapel to be a reflection of all the good that remains in this world. The chapel itself came to me because many of you made contributions to help me buy it. It has been the place of so much love and so much healing. It has been visited by thousands of people already. Now it will become…
The Chapel of Kindness
I’ll do a grand opening soon. I hope you will make time to come by and write down some act of kindness you received and tack that note to the wall. It is my dream that the chapel will become so full of these notes that it will radiate a level of kindness impenetrable by the bullies of the world.
This feels better to me than a lawsuit. It feels better than taking a huge shit on the Gerdes front step, which I have fantasized often. It feels better than scouring the internet to find photos of Jeannie on January 6th, a temptation I initially gave into when I heard that her sole focus right now is to scrub those things out.
Because, at the risk of sounding like a Lifetime Network movie, it has been kindness that has lifted me out of the hellish black hole in which I dwelled for so long thanks to the daily pummeling in Shitville. I mean really, think about it, have you ever in your life had people go after you day in and day out while you were simply trying to live—in your own damn house?
I hope you will join me as I transform the ranch, the chapel and my heart. I will never fully recover from what these life rapists did to me. But I am bound and determined to convert their sick energy into something positive.
Learn more about the ranch at TinyTRanch.com
It will be an honor to add shit tons of notes to your wall. One will definitely be dedicated to you and the kindness you have shared with me. Much love!