Putting in Some Skin in the Big City

I’m always up for a field trip, and this weekend brought a chance to travel sideways to downtown Atlanta, where I tend to stand around gaping like a rube at all the tall buildings.      

I hitched a ride with my multi-talented BFF Natasha Gaskill, who—in addition to planning a new restaurant venture with Chef Matthew Palmerlee and making other culinary mischief—has been putting her skills to work helping Planned Parenthood Southeast with its busy fundraising event season. She was on her way to the annual gala in the Big City, and did I want to tag along?

As a founding member and self-appointed mascot of the Savannah chapter of PPSE Advocates, I was still on a high from our own wildly successful Legacy in Action benefit at Savannah Station last month, so obviously the answer was a resounding hell yes, what do I wear?  

Held at Zoo Atlanta in Grant Park, the invitation called for “cocktail zoo festive,” which sounded to me like a perfect opportunity to break out my mascot horse head. Natasha gently suggested I accessorize with a nice leopard print scarf instead, so I played out the animal theme less literally by ponying up $250 for the ticket, then piggybacked on her hotel room. 

We arrived the night before the gala just in time for 5 o’clock traffic, an alternately chaotic and static ordeal that could power the city if physicists could figure out how to harness road rage. We recovered with a sumptuous dinner at BoccaLupo in Inman Park (note to local mixologists: kimchi juice makes for a phenomenal funky martini) where we ran into former Broughton Street denizen Shelley Carroll, who moved her Dancing Dogs Yoga scene to the ATL Beltline a few years back. She didn’t seem particularly shocked to see us, since it is a known fact that gravitational forces will always pull Savannah people together no matter how far we travel outside our orbit.   

The next morning we had a few hours before Nat had to report for duty, so we braved the freeway to find the Jeju Sauna House of Well-Being, a traditional Korean bath house that’s been on my bucket list for years. This glorious, affordable temple of self-care is famous for its vast array of services and dazzling bejeweled rooms housed in a series of bricked yurts, which resemble how J.R.R. Tolkien might have imagined The Shire in an Asian version of Middle Earth. 

Hobbit sauna

Upon entry, we were issued faded peach-colored t-shirts and voluminous shorts to wear in the co-ed common areas. Strolling around the yurts with the rest of the guests in uniform, we all could have been mistaken for a Hare Krishna P.E. class, or a prison scene in Orange is the New Black, without the shivs. 

In the women’s area, however, it was au naturel. It's been years since anyone saw my bare booty other than my spouse, the dogs, and occasionally, the mosquito helicopter pilot flying over the backyard. But it was easy comfort to be amongst so many female bodies of every size, shape, color, and age, each of us unique in our freckles and wrinkles, sags and scars, stretch marks and tattoos. The nakedness was all so blessedly, beautifully ordinary, and I dare say this type of experience furthers the cause of body acceptance/positivity/neutrality than any underwear ad campaign. 

Speaking of exposed skin, I opted in for Jeju’s body shampoo, which turned out to be far more pragmatic and unlike than any spa service I’ve ever known. None of this obsequious nonsense where attendants speak in hushed tones and offer you wine. No pretending to enjoy ambient cymbal music while someone brushes your face with a feather. Listening to dribbling water wearing a fluffy robe? Forget it. 

Here we were led into a cheerfully noisy room full of vinyl-covered tables where women sloshed bowls of water over prostrate naked bodies, plastic shoes squeaking as they worked. A tiny Korean lady pointed at me and patted a table, then proceeded to scrub my body from head to heel like she was cleaning out a burnt lasagna pan. After an hour of being flipped around to be scoured and splashed in every crevice, I was sure I was going to look like something out of the Bodies Revealed exhibition. But when my provider signaled the end of my treatment with a growl and a friendly slap on the leg, my skin tingled deliciously, all the freckles, scars, and tattoos polished to a gleam. 

After being exfoliated within an inch of our lives, we headed for a sit in the amethyst-encrusted Jewel Sauna, then lunch at the walk-up counter, which serves Korean specialites until 2am. Jeju is open 24 hours a day and provides pillows to nap on the benches, and I might’ve set up camp if we hadn’t had another engagement:  

While enjoying my bibimbap in my prison oranges, I was reminded of why we were in Atlanta in the first place.

On Thursday, 26 year-old Lizelle Herrera became the first person to be arrested under Texas’ abominable law that criminalizes abortion and effectively places a bounty on the uterus of anyone who provides or seeks access to reproductive healthcare. The charges against Herrera were dropped Monday morning, but don’t blink, because such perversions of justice and human rights are a harbinger of what’s coming:

In Oklahoma, a similar bill is sitting on the governor’s desk. Abortion bans in Kentucky and Idaho have been temporarily halted but those states’ Republican legislatures are expected to grease them through. And while Maryland lawmakers acted in their constituents’ interest to expand abortion access this week, 21 other states—including Georgia—have “trigger laws” in place that would immediately ban abortion in some fashion if Roe vs. Wade is overturned. 

If you haven’t been paying attention in class, that is very likely going to happen this summer. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to vote in June on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which will determine the constitutionality of Mississippi’s abortion ban. Even with Our Queen of Composure Ketanji Brown Jackson on the bench, there are still more than enough beer-loving lizard people masquerading as SCOTUS justices to unravel the federally-guaranteed right to safe, legal abortion in the next two months.

Not being dramatic. This is real.

In the face of such a dire state of affairs, the mood was nonetheless convivial at the PPSE Legends in the Making event Saturday night, the steel magnolias of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi toasting the Planned Parenthood battle cry of “Care. No Matter What.”

There was a rousing tribute to outgoing President and CEO Staci Fox, who has inspired so many of us with her dynamic courage and will now bring her brilliance and smokin’ fashion sense to the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute. We also heard from Paxton Smith, the Texas high school valedictorian who went viral for swapping out her graduation speech to rail against her state’s inhumane abortion restrictions that are resulting in mental distress, economic hardship, and unnecessary death. 

Make no mistake, this crowd was not cowering. 

“This is not the time to clutch our pearls,” admonished National Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson, promising that without Roe v. Wade to defend, there will be space for a better, more comprehensive law to replace it, eventually.  

“We are not going to compromise on our freedom.” 

The fact is, Planned Parenthood’s 17 million supporters—“four times more than the NRA,” she reminded—are more mobilized than ever, and we’ve got skin in the game. This event raised $200,000 in one evening, adding to the $30K collected in Savannah and all the donations made every day in the name of protecting reproductive choice and providing healthcare access to all.     

Sure, we can’t all afford a gala ticket or be Mackenzie Scott and throw in $275 million, but support can also look like volunteering, having hard conversations, and, for god’s sakes in the name of all that is rational, voting Stacey Abrams for Governor.    

That reminds me: Sales for our local Plan C cookie fundraiser will go live on May 2; pick-up will be on May 7. Follow the PPSE socials for updates—this sells out fast! (Here’s what I had to say about it last year.)

Natasha and I returned to orbit from the Big City, invigorated and steeled for what’s to come. I may have left a little skin behind, but any denial about the battle ahead was sloughed off as well. 

So keep practicing that self-care, y’all, and get comfortable in your own skin, ‘cause we have work to do, no matter what.

Reproductive rights are human rights ~ JLL

Orange is our color