Today I read too much about Elliot Rodger.

Then I was reading #YesAllWomen on Twitter, and then I drank some more beer and wrote some feelings.

Possibly triggery.
—
How to avoid becoming a statistic

1 in 5, I read,
1 in 5, which are not odds you’d play if we were talking
plane crashes (1 in 11 million),
shark attacks (1 in 3.7 million),
lightning strikes (1 in 500,000),
or fatal car accidents (1 in 5,000),
but they are the odds you play when you cast
a bumpy shadow, and you
step outside.
They are the odds when the sun is shining,
or not,
and you are accompanied,
or not.
Yes: all women know the odds,
if not the statistics,
and that is why we fly airplanes
and SCUBA dive
and chase tornadoes
and press our feet against the pedals but
tug on our hemlines,
walk against traffic,
let the meager key chafe between our fingers.

“What is the first thing you do,” my mother asked from the passenger seat,
“when you get into a car?”
Start the ignition, I said.
“No.”
Ah, a trick question:
buckle my seat belt.
Turn on the headlights?
Check my mirrors? No,
she said, and no,
and no. The first thing, said my mother,
looking straight ahead, through the safety glass and into
every headline, is
“Lock the door.”