TACKLE ONE THING

I woke up Saturday morning early even though I had no where to be or errands to take care of. My usual Saturday morning routine had been disrupted. Instead of creative journalling with coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Heirloom, I ate malt-o-meal with dried fruit and nuts while watching TV. Instead of grocery shopping after breakfast, I dusted and de-cluttered the house. Then I settled in on the floor in front of my filing cabinet. I pulled every thing out and started sorting. Most of the files are labelled with appropriate labels. The contents of those files, on the other hand, may or may not match up with the label. Many files had just become dump places for random bits of paper that we thought might be important enough to keep. One file, unlabeled, contained a mix of typed and hand written stories from Chris. Of course, I saved these and maybe someday I’ll be able to read them.

Not right now.

While I sat on the floor surrounded by old bank statements, twenty year-old tax documents, stacks of manuals for appliance (half of witch I do not even own anymore), and a very thick folder containing all of my research data for my unpublished thesis paper from 2000, news was rolling in from Minneapolis. ICE Agents had executed yet another American Citizen. Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse for the Veterans Affairs Hospital, was executed by ICE while helping another bystander up from the ground. The bystander had been violently shoved to the ground by an ICE agent. He was carrying a gun along with his open carry license. The gun never left it’s holster. In fact, it was removed from Alex Pretti by ICE before ICE shot Alex Pretti ten times. When other countries report this in their news, they call these repeated ICE attacks ‘executions’.

Because that is exactly what they are.

I have heard from the opposition that none of these people would be hurt or killed if they would just follow instructions from whatever ICE agent is yelling at them. So let’s play a game. I’m going to give you a series of orders. You’re job is to follow those orders. I’m also going to point a semi-automatic weapon at you while yelling these orders. Ready? Hands behind your back show me your ID on your knees stand next to your car don’t move on the ground hands where I can see them. Okay…how’d you do? Where those clear instructions for you? This is the worse game of Simon Says anyone is ever going to ‘play’. First and for most, I do not have to comply with anything ICE ‘orders’ me to do. They are not law enforcement. They only have jurisdiction over immigration.

What they are doing is illegal and unconstitutional.

Ways to help Minnesota:

• Senneh Foundation

• Joyce Uptown Food Shelf

• Keystone Community Services and Food Shelf

• Immigration Deense Network

• Community Aid Network MN

• MN Immigration Rights Action Committee

• ACLU Minnesota

• Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid

• Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota

Acts of kindness are acts of protest.

Give where you can, but I also recommend seeking out similar organizations in your community. Food banks. Legal Aid. Every city has them and they could all use a little help. You might be thinking “Well….ICE doesn’t seem to be a big presence in my area.” Right now, that might be true, but we can’t be naive enough to the idea that this is only happening in Minnesota. Nor can we be naive enough to believe this is not going to get worse. Also “your area” may be a small bubble. You would probably see more activity if you stepped outside of that small bubble. I’m attending Community Defense Training on Saturday. I found the perfect keychain whistle while decluttering my desk. Michael and I have started making a list of questions for defense training, like how to live stream video and how to support protestors with meal trains and eye wash stations.

We are preparing for battle.

UNCERTAINTY

The Saturday morning after our return from Paris, I met Jenn for breakfast so we could chat about the things I missed while I was away. At some point Jenn said something about her upcoming trip to Mexico and how she was a little worried about getting back into this country. She asked me about our experience with customs and I told her how it went for us and also what I witnessed for others.

When Michael and I landed in Detroit, we had to go through customs. This involved a long line, border patrol, collecting checked bags and rechecking those bags. The line was slow moving and we got really stressed about missing our connecting flight. We saw people being rigorously questioned by border control, sometimes a person would be pulled from the line at random and held to one side. When it was our turn with border control, Michael and I walked up, they scanned our faces, asked us if we had any fruits or vegetables and then sent us on our way. They didn’t give a flip about my eight pounds of butter.

Every one of those people getting the extra questioning were people with brown skin. Every white person with zero ethnic qualities breezed right through. Our bags were not opened and riffled through. We were not pressed about how much money we’ve spent or how long we’ve been American citizens. So when Jenn asked me about getting through customs, I said “Look at your face. They will not even question you.” It’s sickening and unfair and gross. And at the time I said it, it was true. Systemic Racism has led us to believe that being white protects you. Thirty two people were murdered by ICE agents last year. Keith Porter was killed by an ICE agent on New Year’s Eve. But it is the murder of Renee Nicole Good takes away any illusion of safety. Not a single person in this country is safe from the harassment of Trump’s Thugs. ICE agents are nothing more than thugs. They are not law enforcement. They only have jurisdiction over immigration, but they continue to take lives in the name of the ‘law’.

Nothing about what they’re doing is legal.

I spent half of my week chaperoning teenagers at a thespian conference. Thousands of Missouri high school students gathered at the Union Station in St. Louis to attend various workshop and competitions. The second day of the conference, Michael and I were sitting at a table waiting for our group to check in from their morning activities and suddenly my eyes filled with tears as I watched all these kids moving about. It was Character Day and half of them were dressed up in various costumes. All I could think was how much we have failed them. Yet here they were walking around dressed as random theater characters as if we haven’t failed them. I’ve listened to them talk of their future plans and what’s next for them and I am floored by their innocence and hope. None of these kids have a look of terror to them even though the bubble we’ve placed them in is filled with holes. They can pretend they are safe and there was a time when I believed they were safe. “That would never happen here”, insert whatever terror for ‘that’, is something we can no longer say or believe. Because we know it can happen here.

Do not let them change a part of your souls that sees a fellow human being when you look at your neighbor. - Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago

We cannot afford to stand by silently while this administration continues to rip families apart and murder innocent people. If you see ICE detaining people in your community, REPORT it. You are legally allowed to film ICE agents. Call out to those being deported and remind them of their rights to remain silent and that they don’t have to sign anything. If ICE are detaining someone ask for a signed official warrant with the right name and date. Our role is to document; take note of the size, activity, location, unit and time of the event. If you can get family contact information from the person being deported, do so and then contact that family. These are small acts, but we all know about snowballs.

We owe it to those kids to fill the holes in their bubble so they can truly feel safe.

WHAT IF GAME, NEW LEVEL

Chad and I stood outside a ramen shop in Falmouth MA, waiting for a to-go order and talking about all the stuff. At one point, confessions were made. I confessed to just not caring for or about anything right now. Chad’s response to this was “I’m just dancing to the music until the Titanic sinks.” I nodded my head in agreement. At the time of our conversation it did feel a bit like being on a sinking ship without adequate life rafts, surrounded by the chaos brought on by panic. It’s sort of an out of body feeling, doing nothing or feeling like you’re doing nothing while watching people fighting over life rafts and flotation devices. I could easily picture Chad in a tuxedo, holding out a glass of champagne with his other arm wrapped around an imaginary dance partner, obliviously dancing and swaying to the songs playing in his head.

I could easily see myself tapping the imaginary dancer and asking if I could cut in.

A few weeks later, things shifted and I woke up feeling hopeful. I texted Chad with “What if the Titanic didn’t sink?” Chad thinks the Titanic is still going to sink. My response was “Okay, but what if we build more life boats?” If he was in the room with me at this moment, he would have patted my head and told me that I was adorable. Instead he just texted that appreciated my earnestness, but then the idea of the Titanic not sinking got stuck in my head. I started falling down the paradox rabbit hole not unlike the one I still sometimes travel when I think about what if Chris hadn’t died. What ensues is a fictional wonderland where nothing bad has happened in the last fourteen years. I’ve never attempted to extend this thinking game beyond one human, but why not?

There were 2,224 people on board the Titanic when it set sail for the United States. More than half of those people died. Three hundred and eight seven of those people were in third class, planning to immigrate to the US. In the grand scheme of tragic mass deaths, this isn’t a huge number. Though it is still a larger number than the third class passengers who died on the Lusitania. Except not by much since the Lusitania was a smaller ship. See how easy it is minimize large casualties of war and incompetence? Any way, to play the What If game, you have to image what today would be like if none of those people had died, the rich ones or poor ones.

There’s a paper that came out in 2023 from the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research that used US patent applications to look at immigrant contributions to innovation in the US. Between 1990 and 2006, nearly 880,000 people patented inventions in the US and 23% of those were issued to immigrants.

The average immigrant is substantially more productive than the average U.S.-born inventor - SIEPR Senior Fellow Rebecca Diamond and colleagues

My first thought when it comes to inventions and patents is mechanical inventions, but that’s a limited view. Inventions and patents are applicable to medical discoveries, life saving technologies. We’re talking about inventions that make our health better, our lives better and easier. So, it’s easy to say that this administration’s attack on immigrants is an attack on innovation. They are not just forcefully dragging people who are any shade of brown from their cars, homes and jobs. They have made it more expensive and difficult for foreign students and postdocs to be here to do innovative work. People I work with are stressed and worried because they’ve been put on a very short timescale to wrap up very complicated science experiments before their VISAS run out.

Innovation is a chain reaction that leads to jobs and an improved economy. But it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

It’s not hard to feel like I am currently on a sinking Titanic. Instead of playing a game of What If in regards to a sinking Titanic, I am now playing the game of How Much. How much can we get accomplished before it sinks? How much can we save before we have to jump ship? I joke every Saturday with the cashier at Trader Joes about how much I can fit in my reusable grocery bag and I how I end playing pack mule to get it out of the car and into the house. I can carry a lot. I can hold a lot. But I can’t hold onto everything. In four years and with some hope, this will be a salvage mission, skimming the waters for all the things we can salvage from a sunken ship.

Maybe I’m better off just dancing to the music.

HURRICANES

A friend shared an article last week about people being less afraid of hurricanes if the hurricane is named with a feminine name. I did not click on the link or read the article, but the head line used the word ‘studies’ so it presumably contains some research data. Even if it didn’t contain research data, I would believe that naming a hurricane after a woman would make the hurricane feel less threatening to a number of people. The US started naming hurricanes solely after women in 1953, after abandoning a confusing plan to name storms by a phonetic alphabet. This changed in 1978, but it is notable that out of 101 retired hurricane names for Atlantic storms, only 31 are male names. The truth is, I can’t remember a single hurricane named after a dude. Those hurricanes didn’t make a big enough presence to be news worthy, but those hurricanes named after women have been forces of destruction.

In August of 2005, we lost my nephew, J, to a car bomb in Iraq. That same month Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and destroyed it in the most violent awful ways possible. We watched the horror of events unfold on the news as people were being rescued from rooftops and houses were marked with the number of dead inside. It was heartbreaking on a million levels. Visiting New Orleans always feels like going home, almost as if I lived there in a former life. Watching it’s destruction was devastating. Even now, twenty years later, the city of New Orleans has scars from this hurricane. I thought the naming of Hurricane Katrina to be fitting in some way. My sister-in-law is named Katrina and this storm seemed like a physical manifestation of her rage and grief, of all of our rage grief really, but there is nothing comparable to the rage and grief of a mother. The protective term of ‘mama bear’ is not born of a sweat teddy bear vision of a mother bear coddling her cub. No, it comes from a vision of a larger than life monster of a bear roaring with teeth bared.

I am positive that every single one of you have quacked with terror when your mother has yelled your name in a particular tone of voice. Sometimes she didn’t even have to yell.

Yet, after all this time, we’re still under the impression that women are harmless? I doubt this has ever truly been the case, but more of a social construct designed by the patriarchy. The truth is, people and especially men, know just how fierce and scary women can be. This is why they go above and beyond to keep up their diatribe propaganda, perpetuating a weak and helpless stereotype of women. We didn’t burn women because we thought they were witches. We burned women because they were a threat to a man and then other men looked at the younger women and pointed their fingers. “Let this be a lesson to ya, lassies!” Of course, this particular threat was not one of violence, but one of intelligence. We burn women for being intellectual threats.

Mother Gaia, Mother Earth, is an ancient goddess representing nature and nurture and life and growth. We gendered this planet and she is female. Except this planet is violent. Our continents and islands have all been shaped through violence. Molten lava still erupts from the earth, displacing communities while creating new land. Mother Earth has always destroyed before creating. We should be terrified of hurricanes especially if they have a female name because it is a product of Mother Earth. Hurricanes named after men have always done what most men do. They blow around a lot of hot air before petering out in a disappointing climax. And yes, this might be a little bit mean, but this should be expected if we insist on gendering all the things.

Gender is a social construct that pits us against one another. Look how divided we are over it! Bathrooms and pronouns and Drag Queens, oh my! Who has time for real social and environmental change when we’re in a battle of the sexes? Did you say the government is still shutdown and about 42 billion American citizens are losing their SNAP benefits? I’m sorry. I can’t hear you because I’m too busy trying to figure out if I should be concerned about a category five hurricane. Maybe we can just drop the whole naming hurricanes thing. They have severity categories just like tornadoes and we don’t go around giving tornadoes names. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe when the weather scientists warn me that a particular hurricane, no matter the name, is hitting land at a category five I’d take it pretty fucking seriously.

But I also believe in listening to scientists.

THE WEEKEND

The weekend was positively lovely, until 10:00 PM Saturday when one of Heather’s beagles, Edie, chose violence towards her very elderly sister Boo. But that’s another story (maybe) and sweet Boo Boo is now sporting an atrocious new haircut, requires daily eye drops and an antibiotic. She’s fine. It was more traumatic for Heather and everyone is going to be okay. The rest of our time was carefree and filled with bubble wine. We moved around slowly Saturday morning, eventually making our way to the Iowa State Capitol for the No Kings Rally. I’m not sure what I expected. I have not had the heart to attend any of the previous rallies that have happened in Kansas City. I think a part of me believed that I would be depressed by a minuscule crowd of people.

This was not the case on Saturday.

Thousands of people gathered at the State Capitol building in protest of Trump and his horrific administration. This was also true in Kansas City and cities all across this country. I saw signs in support of funding peer reviewed science and the importance of vaccines. I saw signs in support of our immigrant communities and health care. I saw signs supporting our farmers who are struggling to get decent prices for their crops because of the tariff situation. We heard speeches from local business owners and representatives. There were so many different inflatable costumes! And…there was joy on peoples’ faces. No one was yelling hatefulness. There was zero aggressive behavior, but I mean….inflatable costumes. Nothing says “I’m a ridiculous jerk.” more if you are the type to punch or attack a person wearing an inflated unicorn costume.

I felt something break inside me the minute we stepped into this crowd and I was overwhelmed with emotion. I couldn’t speak and at any minute I could have started sobbing. I’ve been sitting with the why of this for a bit now. Then I was listening to Left, Right & Center on NPR during my drive home on Sunday where they were talking with Estee Zandee, the author of The Necessity of Pruning Our Busy Lives, an article published on The Dispatch. The beginning of this article starts with a description of a book club meeting Estee was attending. This was her first time joining; book clubs were not really her thing, but the invite came at time when she was feeling disconnected. What she discovered was that book club was only a little about the book and more about an open and honest, wide range of topics, dialogue amongst a group of women.

On the contrary, this neighborhood group of women was a terrible book club, but it was an incredible community. Unfiltered. Real. And it came with sticky coasters and focaccia crumbs. - Estee Zandee.

It is not that we do not have connection. I am connected to friends and family through daily group chats. At any moment I can open up my Instagram and know that there messages of shared reels waiting for me to laugh at. I send out birthday greetings to people weekly, but when’s the last time I wished a happy birthday directly to a person’s face? Actually…I did this last week with Nurse Jenn. Being able to wish someone a Happy Birthday to their face is a completely different experience. It is a true, less hollow, connection. It is a connection without the walls of distance or a cold screen.

Setting down our phones to fully interact with the people in the room is not a new concept. We’ve been hearing about the dangers of screen time and its impact on mental health for years now. The media constantly reminds us of all the ways we have become divided and disconnected from each other. And it is so easy to believe. It is so easy to feel alone and isolated. Being amongst that throng of people at the rally reminded me that I am not alone. I am not isolated. Some might say that rallies on Saturday were meaningless. What does it change? Karen Walrond wrote on her Substack “communal compassion is an act of rebellion.” and she’s not wrong. The No Kings rally was a moment for the communities to come together in compassion. Every person left that day feeling inspired and hopeful.

We left hungry for change and joyful that we don’t have to do the work alone.

MAKING AMERICANS HEALTHY

When Food, Inc was released in 2008, Chris and I saw it at the Noble Theater, the little movie theater tucked inside the OKC Art Museum. We had season passes for this theater because it was always playing the small independent things that we couldn’t find at the big theaters. This was also the same time I was on a cleansing diet for yoga teacher training. We saw this documentary and our heads kind of exploded. It completely changed our food habits, shifting from ultra-processed to fresh and locally sourced foods. I went down a rabbit hole of reading every label on every food item I picked up. To this day, my meal plan (and the one I force on Michael) consists mostly of fresh vegetables and is designed to minimize food waste. I have been a proponent of the benefits of eating whole foods for years. I have seen the scientific data that supports the claims of these benefits. I have also read the scientific data on the detrimental environmental impact of factory farming.

So, I have to admit, I kind of agree with Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s beef (punny) with ultra-processed foods.

To be fair, there’s a number of good things in the Make America Healthy Again(MAHA) program. Limiting screen time for children. Encouraging physical activity. Limiting exposure to pollutants. These are all really great ways to make us all a little bit more healthy. In fact there are a number of scientific papers out there that suggests all of those things lead to a healthier life. The problem that arises with MAHA is when those ideas contradict scientific data. Like the persistent idea that vaccinations are the cause of autism. There was ONE paper, years ago that suggested a link between the two. It has since been retracted due to falsified data.

RFK has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and History (1976) and a Masters of Laws degree (1987). This man has zero scientific background or education. If asked, he’d be hard pressed to answer a basic biological question like the anatomy of a cell. Yet, this man has been put in charge of our nation’s health which includes the management of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health. So basically…the equivalent to the TikToc influencer who claims coffee enemas and drinking apple cider vinegar will cure your cancer, is in charge of the C.D.C and the N.I.H. and he’s fired all of the scientists who disagrees with his belief system.

Science is not a religion or faith based.

Let’s talk about community. Many of us have children who attend public schools. Many of us visit public institutions like libraries. We share space with each other in all walks of life from grocery shopping to bus rides. This makes us all part of a community. Herd immunity refers to a point in time where it is hard for a disease to spread through a group of people (a community). Herd immunity rates vary but for most viruses, including measles, herd immunity requires 95% of the population in a community. If 95% of a group has immunity to measles, that virus is going to have a real hard time spreading itself around. This is important because five percent of our group are people who couldn’t get vaccinated, but now they’re less likely to contract measles which can be deadly. During the COVID pandemic, children missed getting their measles vaccinations. This lead to an increase in deaths due to measles. Perfect and cruel example of herd immunity. A population (children) go with out vaccinations while in isolation. That population comes out of isolation and are grouped all together in the same space. We’ve gone from 95% immunity rates to maybe 10%, putting the measles virus back in play. Now, some viruses (like COVID and the flu) mutate too quickly for us to develop herd immunity. That is why we have yearly flu shots and why we should be getting yearly COVID vaccinations. This gives us a better chance of herd immunity and helps reduce the spread of the virus. This is beneficial for people who are physically unable to get the vaccine.

Getting vaccinated makes a good member of the community.

But it’s not splashy or sensational or dramatic. It’s not a conspiracy theory which for some reason, people are more inclined to believe than actual science. Lyme disease was not produced in a lab and then released into the world. Apple cider vinegar is not going to cure you of whatever you think is ailing you. If you stand in front of your bathroom mirror and say “Bloody Mary” three times with the lights off, you will not summon the ghost of Bloody Mary. I am one hundred percent behind MAHA if it includes funding for good nutrition for under privileged kids and more funding for cleaning up our environment. But I cannot condone or support anyone who wants to create policies based on whatever wack-a-doodle conspiracy they just heard about from your mom’s second cousin, Earl.

What if we created something called MASHA: Make Americans Smarter and Healthier Again?

Extra reading: The myth of vaccination and autism spectrum

WHAT SHOULD WE BE TALKING ABOUT

So far this week, in yet another attempt to distract us all from Epstein files and what he might say to Putin in their meeting, The pRAPISTendt has deployed the National Guard in D.C. and announced a review of Smithsonian exhibits. He has also shut down the scientific research department of the E.P.A. and a project that tracts the cost of severe weather damage. He’s taking a stab at the removal of gay marriages and he’s firing any White House Official who does not agree with him. If you are a history nerd, you might be seeing some parallel behavior with dictators of the past…like Hitler. I am most certainly not a history nerd and even I can see those parallels. The very idea of deploying our troops in our very own cities is unsettling and a bit scary. But then I saw pictures of guard members posing in selfies with tourists and I’m pretty sure a large number of them see their deployment for what it really is.

This is not about preventing crime. It’s about political theater and federal control. - Clinique Chapman, Chief Executive of DC Justice Lab

This is also racism because teenage black boys are going bear the brunt of this. I can tell you that a lot of the people I see during our morning walks who are sleeping in Tower Park, are young black men. In the state of MO, a person ages out of foster care at 21. A person in foster care is completely dropped from any help or housing once they reach that age. Now, Kansas City’s cost of living is fairly low, but a single person still needs to make about $90,000 a year ( about $44 an hour) to live comfortably. Those types of jobs are pretty hard to come by when you do not have anything higher than a high school diploma. The average rent for a 492 SqFt studio apartment is around $991/month, with basic utilities like electric, water and trash. There is no way I could have lived in this city when I graduated from grad school. The average pay for research techs was about $30,000/ year if you were lucky. This was $2,500 a month that went to taxes, student loans, rent, food, gas to get to the job, car insurance and maybe cable. There was no savings or emergency fund. I was one bad car accident away from being homeless if I did not have family support. Those young men in the park do not have family support.

Places that can use our help right now:

• Pride Haven KC

• Lion House KC

• Our Spot KC

I’m taking a very British response to all of this nonsense by keeping calm. Panicking and getting riled up will not solve anything. I am a white woman in America and while it is disgusting, this allows me certain privileges. I can and will be a Miep Gies. In everything I’ve read and watched about Miep Gies, I’ve seen her sense of humor and quest for joy, even while trying to keep her friends safe from Nazis. So, I’m leaning into that example by keeping my wits about me and seeking out the joyful things that are happening around me every damn day. Like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Now, I know I don’t seem like the celebrity gossip type and I am not, but those two when she announced her new album on him and his brother’s podcast were cutie pututies with their smitten grins.

And I’m one hundred percent here for it.

THE MORNING WALKS

The sun was just up and lighting the sky with orange and gold as Josephine and I headed out for our morning walk. The sun is up earlier now and even though it is 5:30 in the morning, we are not walking in the dark now during our morning walks. The early walk time is necessary for me to get to work on time and to beat the heat of summer. This particular morning was cool, but with the thick heavy air of the rains and storms predicted for later in the day. It was the kind of air that makes the connected space between your fingers feel sticky. Our walk route for this day was the neighborhood walk. For this, we have to cross our street at Lydia and 77th tends to be a busy street during the seven AM rush hour, but not usually at 5:30. Yet, Josephine and I had to wait for a number of cars to pass before crossing. I was surprised by the amount of traffic for that time in the morning.

Eventually, we made our way to the park that’s just east of our house. There was a middle aged couple passed out and tightly spooned together on the pavement in front of one of the park benches. This was the first time I’d seen them in the park. Recently I had noticed a path from the sidewalk leading into the thick overgrown edge of the park. I could tell that someone was living back there; the hint of a blue tarp visible through the overgrowth. But the inhabitants were like the fox family that lived in the same area a few years earlier. They were elusive. I don’t know if the middle age spooning couple were the ones living there, but on this day, a pile of mostly folded and clean clothes laid on the ground near the path. The clothes looked like they had been folded, ready to be put away before someone came along and dumped them out of the laundry basket. I thought about the spooning couple as I saw the clothes, how they were passed out cold, but tightly clinging to each other. It’s as if their argument started with the clothes and ended with a reconciliation a few yards away.

Josephine and I walked the loop of the park, passing another couple with their dog. Again, something rare, seeing other dog walkers at that time of the morning. The couple looked new to dog walking. One of them was wearing a sweater even. Josephine can be reactive towards large dogs on leashes. I kept her relatively controlled on my side while they kept their large dog barely restrained. Still, we managed to pass each other with a nod and a smile without incident. As Josephine and I exited the park, we passed by the spooning couple again, noticing that they had not moved. I briefly wondered if I should check for pulses, but decided against it. From the park, Josephine and I walk up the street to a bus stop. There’s a trash can there and a good place to toss the poop bags. This street is the Paseo, a major and historic boulevard. Across from the bus stop, in the wide grassy median, there’s a fountain. You know…because we’re the city of fountains. On this morning four or five teens were perched around the fountain. The air around them smelled like soap as if they had all just bathed in the fountain. I heard one of them say something about getting back to the hotel. Their conversation made it seem like they were lost but knew exactly where they were all at the same time.

We turned down the street that takes us back home and passed the house that always has random piles of crap in their front yard. Today, there was a shopping cart there and a young man sorting through the contents. A block from the house, a young trans woman passed us, smoking on her vape. We smiled at each other and said good morning at the same time. Then Josephine and I were home and I felt like I had dreamed the whole walk. Never have I seen my neighborhood so active at that time of the morning. I’m used to seeing possums and raccoons at that hour, not people. There is usually the same old man sitting at the bus stop who always exuberantly wishes me a good morning and I pause to have a small chat with about the weather or his health. But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him there in months. It’s possible that he no longer rides the bus anywhere any more.

I’m used to seeing people on the morning walks in Tower Park. This is the time of year when there are more people sleeping in this park. Most of them congregate on the picnic tables in the large pavilion. There’s a scattered few on benches throughout the park. Some times, there’s tent set up next to the two trees that remind me of lovers with the way their branches reach towards each other. No one is stirring when we walk through. This morning, we heard actual snores from someone sleeping so soundly. There was a time during the pandemic when the park was full of unhoused. I walked carrying a backpack filled granola bars that I would leave next to sleeping humans. I got out of this habit when officials cleared the park. Now our unhoused are seasonal, showing up after the last freeze before drifting off to hopefully someplace warmer when the temperatures drop. Most likely though, they are moved involuntarily after the complaints from the neighborhood start to pile up. Even in my blue bubble, there are those who are unsympathetic when it comes to our unhoused. They know about it and feel bad about it, but don’t want to see it.

Out of sight, out of mind.

A number of our seasonal unhoused are teens. They are either tossed out for the summer, unsupervised during the summer and or the park is safer than their homes. Those who ask ‘why can’t they just a job?’ are oblivious to the complexity of being unhoused. It’s not easy filling out applications when you don’t have an address or doing an interviewing knowing you look like you took a sink bath at the gas station because you did take a sink bath at the gas station. It’s not easy to just stop doing the drug you’re addicted to and can even be deadly to stop cold turkey. Not every one has health insurance or access to mental health care. It is not hard for me to be empathetic here.

It might be time to start walking with a backpack full of granola bars again.

WOULD YOU

I was scrolling through the front page of the New York Times and there it was, an oversized pink square highlighting an Ideas article with the title “Would You Want to Know If Your Baby Had an Incurable Disease?” I did not click on the bait to read the article, but I could imagine that it reads like an editorial with some factual research on genetic testing thrown in. It is one of those think pieces that are meant to prepare you for tough decisions, but it is not a new to me think piece. This kind of question is the basis for Twilight of the Golds, a play by Jonathan Tolins.

A thousand years ago, during that idyllic college time, Chris was in a production of Twilight of the Golds along with Talaura, Misti, Kirk and John. The story revolves around the couple Suzanne (Talaura) and her husband Rob (Chris) discovering through genetic testing that their baby boy will probably be born gay. Suzanne’s brother, David (Kirk), is gay and all of this leads to family discussions about the trials of raising a gay child and whether or not Suzanne should abort the fetus. In 1993, the “incurable disease” was(is) homosexuality. As Chris’s theater support, I found myself in his dorm room during show seasons running lines with him in between my class schedule. I am not, nor was I then, interested in being in any of the plays. I am not talented in this way, but Chris… well it was his talent in this way that made me notice him to begin with. Most of the time, running lines was a fun activity, but this play was awful. Chris’s character was moody and angry and most of the character’s interactions was with his wife. Their discussions were hard and complicated and heart breaking. I couldn’t wait to be done with this play. The only good thing that came out of it is one picture I have framed and hanging in the family section of prints in my house. The photo is a family photo of Misti, John, Talaura and Kirk taken as a prop for the set.

It is a cherished photo.

It is no surprise to anyone that I am and always have been pro-choice. It is none of mine or your business of what any woman does with her body. I know that if I found myself pregnant today, I would have an abortion scheduled for the very next day. I don’t need to tell you the many reasons I have for that choice and I would not wait around for genetic testing to make this decision. This play gave me a list of one reason for not getting an abortion. Because I would never once even consider the tiniest of thought of ending a pregnancy if my child was going to be LGBTQ+ in some way. Yet…I know people who would. I know that their hate for the LGTBQ+ community is so great, that if genetic testing made it possible for them to know this about the child they were having, they would immediately abort. I know people who have no place in their hearts for love and acceptance, not even for their own child. I am not friends with these people, but I know them and at the very root of this “would you?” question is the reality of knowing that there are people who would say ‘yes’ to aborting their child for this reason.

And that knowledge has put a dark smudge on my heart.

I was off camping in the woods the weekend KCMO was celebrating Pride. I missed the parade and seeing people walking together in love and solidarity. I am the biggest softie when it comes to seeing two people together who are so obviously in love and who have realized that they have found their person. I think I have more LGTBQ+ friends who are in long term relationships than straight friends. I recognize the difficulty in finding your person when the odds of doing so are so stacked against you and I so respect and admire those people have beaten the odds. And so, I turn straight to mush over it. My heart swells up at the sight of it and I will rip out the throats of anyone that tries to come in to hurt or destroy that love. My dark smudge has made me deeply protective of love, mostly because I know what it feels like to have found my person only for him to be cruelly taken away.

I think about this every Pride month. I think about that awful play and I even get a little mad at Chris for the role he played in that play. I think about how rotten a human has to be in order for sexual orientation to be the reason to have the abortion. Then I look over at the people and friends who show me every damn day that love is always the winner.

THE WAR ON WOMEN

Even though the state of MO voted and passed Amendment 3, which repealed the ban on abortion, the MO House of Representatives proposed a constitutional amendment that would repeal the reproductive rights of Amendment 3. I read a quote from one of the protesters of the new constitutional amendment in a news article last week that said “This is a dangerous time to be a woman.” My first thought was to ask “Has it ever been safe to be a woman?!” But yes, it is still very dangerous to be a woman and lately that list has been growing. 

It is dangerous to be a woman

It is dangerous to be a woman of color

It is dangerous to be a woman in science

It is dangerous to be a woman living in poverty, low income and even working class (that’s me)

It is dangerous to be an international woman studying or working in the US (in science and other fields) even if they have the correct documentation to be here. 

It is dangerous to be a woman in the LGTBQ+ community

It is dangerous to be LGTBQ+

It is dangerous to have tattoos

It is dangerous to not be a member of Evangelical Christianity

It is dangerous to be Palestinian

I could easily keep going, but in particular, I’d like to circle back to the whole Evangelical Christianity thing. The president and his administration spent last week celebrating “the living Son of God who conquered death, freed us from sin, and unlocked the gates of Heaven for all humanity.” These are the actual words released by the White House for Easter celebrations. Ramadan got “warmest greetings.” by contrast. That’s fine. I don’t really care what religion anyone decides to follow. We were founded on the idea of freedom of religion. So, if the president wants to pretend christian, let him. I mean, they did a lot to get him there. He’s got to at least up his drama skills and pray along.

The problem here is not the celebration, but the incorporation of a religion into government. This administration has also implemented a faith office led by two conservative christians with the sole purpose of challenging separation of church and state. I can think of a number of reasons why merging church and state is a big problem. First of all, whose religion? In what state? I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale. I have also read the bible. Gillead is what happens when evangelical christians are in charge and that makes this country even more dangerous to be a woman. What is it about evangelicals that makes them want to force everyone to practice their beliefs?!? They are the most myopic religious fanatics. Do I even need to ask, what if this faith office was run by Muslims or Catholics or any other religion? Would the American people be okay with that?

For a political party who campaigned on the rhetoric of preserving our freedoms, they sure are doing a lot to take away most of our freedom. 

I’ve never been one for conspiracies. If someone gives me a bit of “news”, I immediately dig into the validity of that news. When my chiropractor was trying to get me to try Light Therapy, I asked if this was voodoo. She told me it was not voodoo, but I still went and scoured all of the medical journals for research on light therapy. I found enough peer-reviewed research papers that convinced me that light therapy was maybe not voodoo. I am a fact finder. It’s what I do. So even when the opposing team to this administration says something that sounds whack-a-doodle, I look that shit up. The problem is that the things I think must be whack-a-doodle like declaring martial law and deporting US citizens or demanding women have three forms of identification for voting is not so whack-a-doodle. These are things that are happening. So while we haven’t started burning women on stakes (though we are imprisoning them for miscarriages, so…) it is a pretty dangerous time in American history to be a woman. They want to start offering incentives to women to have babies. Of course, by incentive, they mean a one time payout of $5000. That might cover a month of childcare. They start with incentives, but it is only a matter of time before they implement demands on women to have babies. A convicted rapist is running the country and he is being guided by evangelical men who would like to reduce women to property status, revoking the rights that allow us to be independent. 

So, yeah…it is a dangerous time to be a woman in this country, but it is also terrifying. 

IT'S NOT ME, IT'S YOU

Everyone tends to dread a Monday, particularly if you’ve had two days off from work, because Mondays are reentry days. It is not uncommon for reentry days to be rough with sharp edges. My reentry day was fine. Not great. Not bad. Just, you know, fine. At one point, my friend Melissa was texting me a rant about about a certain white guy we know (look…his whiteness is important for this story…dude is a patriarchal cliche). At some point Melissa said she must be getting her period because she was so ranty. And I thought about this really hard for a second before responding with:

I hate that as women, we’ve been reduced to blaming our rage over the patriarchy on our monthly cycles.

We don’t need to use hormones as an excuse to be angry. I mean, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act didn’t pass until 1974. That’s two years before I was born! Up until then, women had to have their husband’s (or father’s ) permission to open a bank account, get a home loan, have any line of credit, you know…just basically be able to live an independent life. I mean, we still don’t have body autonomy, at least not in about twenty states in the Union. The House just recently passed H.R.22 (the SAVE Act) which will require documented proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration and voting. if it passes the senate. Proof of U.S. citizenship for any of us is our birth certificate, which sounds reasonable, except my last name is not the same as the one on my birth certificate, which is true for all married women who took their husband’s name. Now, I tried a number of times to get ahold of my congressman to clarify some things, but he (his staff) are sending all of the phone calls to voicemail. But it looks like I will need my driver’s license, my birth certificate and my marriage license in order to vote if this bill passes the senate. In spite of voter fraud incidences being very very rare, this is what our voted officials think is important to address during this time.

But wait! There’s more reasons for women to be angry all the time!

On average, woman do more during a day than men. I can already hear some men grumbling about how that can’t possibly be true and for those men I ask you “how did you get clean underwear? Where did your groceries come from? How is it you have a planned out meal? What about the clean environment you live in? Who put clean sheets on your bed?” Now I’m not saying that men never do this. I’m saying that these things happen on a regular day to day occurrence without notice. Women take care of the things that need to be done without talking about taking care of the things that need to be done and they do this while holding down 9-5 job. They GO TO WORK and then come home TO WORK. And it is frustrating and exhausting and when we reach a limit and show any emotion about it, it’s because we’re ‘hormonal’. I can assure you that hormones or no hormones we have plenty of reasons to show some emotion over the bullshit of inequality, but guess what? We GO TO WORK while feeling crampy and bloated with our periods and then come home TO WORK, still feeling crampy and bloated with our periods too. Even with all the “hormones” we still do all the things without talking about doing all the things.

We just get shit done.

So if you are a woman and you come to me complaining about some privileged white dude, do not try to excuse your complaining with being on your period. I will politely stop you and tell you that you have every right to the feelings you are having. Your complaints are valid menstrual flow or not.

WE NEED BETTER NETS

With the release of the new Disney Snow White movie coming out this month, I’ve been thinking about why this movie bothers me. Partly, I’m annoyed by yet another remastering of this old fairy tale. I have the same feeling for the constant recycling of super heroes and as a semi-comic book nerd, they’ve not really ever gotten these stories right either. What has happened to the art of storytelling and imagination?!? Don’t answer that. I’m staring at it right now. Like I said; this is only part of my annoyance. I had to sit with it a couple of days to really pin it down and the thing that bothers me the most about Snow White is not this newer live action version. It is the story itself. 

The villain is a middle aged woman trying to hold onto her reign, while staying relevant and beautiful because no one wants to be ruled by an old ugly lady. Then she feels threatened by a younger prettier woman who just happens to be the rightful heir and proceeds to take the younger prettier woman out. Not on a date. Like, take out to die. The villain curses the young beauty by feeding her a “poisoned” apple and only the kiss from her true love, Prince Charming will release her from her curse. Wait…wasn’t Prince Charming the prince in Cinderella? 

Prince Charming is a fairy tale stock character who comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress and must engage in a quest to liberate her from an evil spell. -Wikipedia

Where do I even start? 

Let’s just dive right into the patriarchal bullshit of this story and most (if not all) of the fairytales all of us women were read to as little girls. We call it grooming today. These fairytales were designed to groom us into the shape of the kind of woman that would first of all, require a stock character’s rescue attempts and at the same time teach us that other girls were our competition. Take for example, the story of Cinderella. The stepmother went to great lengths to make sure the prince noticed her daughters. The stepsisters mutilated themselves to make that glass slipper fit! This was not about love. Everyone wants to marry the prince because a woman’s value was based on how well she could marry and how many babies she’d produce. Marrying a prince was a financial boon for the whole family. 

Okay, so just to recap here. Somewhere around ages three and four, girls are told stories that teach them to despise and be suspicious of other women and their value lies in the type of man she marries. Also, the man will save her. Let me get back to Snow White and the Evil Queen. Of course I don’t condone murder or the whole “I had no choice” argument unless in cases of assault. That’s not murder. That’s self defense. Though maybe that’s exactly how the queen felt; like she was acting in self defense. A large aspect of her villainy was her age. She went from “fairest of them all” to “you need to be careful to watch your elevens and stop squinting.” That’s a reference to those two little wrinkles that show up between the eyes when we squint. I would say, there are some people out there too young to get that reference, but since they’ve been marketing anti-aging wrinkle cream to us since we were babies, I would think most people get the reference. 

I just recently finished watching the series Younger where a forty year old woman fakes her age to be mid twenties so she could get a job in a publishing company. To be fair, the woman who is played by Sutton Foster, doesn’t look like what we think and have been told women in their forties should look. All she has to do is tweak her makeup, buy some clothes from RU21, and get a fake ID. The whole time I was watching it I kept thinking about how much this storyline bothered me but I also couldn’t look away. It was a fun soapy kind of show, but the whole time I kept saying to myself “Why the F@$# does it matter what age any of these people truly are unless they’re under age and doing something illegal?!” The short answer is that it doesn’t matter, but it aligns with the narrative of the story they've been pushing on us forever. Age matters. Older people are irrelevant and clinging to youth while younger people are flighty and irresponsible. 

This narrative is stupid. This narrative is designed to distract you. Worry about wrinkles and becoming irrelevant and just maybe you won’t notice that you make less money than the white dude with less experience. If you are too busy attacking the young woman you fear may be “after your man”, you won’t turn your focus and rage onto “your man” who lacks the integrity and wherewithal to not be persuaded to cheat on you with that young woman. The narrative is designed to pit you against other women and yourself. The New York Times morning newsletter last week had a list of things scientists learned culturally and anthropologically from the COVID pandemic and number three on the list was “Men do less”. If every woman in America read that newsletter at the same time I did, there would have been a collective loud bark of laughter echoing through this country. 

WE KNOW! 

What they really should have said for number three on the list of things learned from the pandemic is that women realized their self worth. Which is true, we looked around us at the endless piles of dishes and constant loads of laundry and the man sitting on the couch playing video games, while we wrangled a child (or children) for virtual learning at the same time trying to remain present in a work zoom meeting and came to our senses. We spoke up and demanded help. We may have to tell the man exactly what it is we need them to do, but (usually) they do it. We can’t have everything and it is a continuous daily practice. It is a practice made harder by “entertainment’s” continuation of the fairy tale narrative. Just stop retailing these antiquated stories that were designed to keep women in a patriarchal jail cell. It feels like they keep doing it in hopes of tricking a new generation of young girls.

Over the weekend, Michael and I got in a disagreement when he went into a rant about why we should stop telling kids they can be anything or do anything. He argued that this made kids disconnect from “their roles in society” and believe they’re going to be the next TikTok star or sportball star. I got so frustrated with him that I just completely stopped talking, which is his cue that I am angry. And when he pushed the subject, I put a hand up and said “You do not want to hear what I have to say about this right now.” Then I walked away. But this gave him time to mull over his own words and the flaws in his argument and put him in a place ready for listening. I told him that the problem is not that we tell kids they can be anything. The problem is that we don’t tell kids they can be anything without having to work for it. A number of kids are never told that they will need help from their communities to succeed and they will need to help the community in gratitude for their support. I have a strong suspicion that the kids in his class who are boasting about being the next big famous thing, are kids who have parents that never tell them they can be anything at all. Their encouragement is coming from what they see on their screen. Their impression of who they can be is coming from a screen. So when the patriarchy casts their media nets, there’s plenty to be caught. 

It is past time we started casting different media nets.  

MY UTOPIA

Recently, as in just last week recently, I had to explain to Michael that sperm doesn’t contain all of the DNA to start a life form. I got full on text book with him, using words like oocyte and haploids but it wasn’t until I showed him an actual picture of what an oocyte looks like before fertilization and after that it finally made sense to him. I would consider Michael to be a ‘smart’ person. He teaches math, knows a bunch of math and very knowledgable about history. This subject of oocyte vs zygote was probably glossed over in any and all of the biology courses he encountered. It just wasn’t discussed in details that would cause someone to remember. Particularly those individuals who do not have biological science minds. Most middle school boys lose all focus as soon as the word ‘sperm’ is uttered and the rest is a lesson of holding in giggles.

The lesson one gets in class, very much like the one I gave Michael, is a simplified description of a very complicated situation. I mean, I didn’t even mention mitochondrial DNA or ribosomal RNA or histones or chromosome structures or all the other protein interactions involved. I honestly do not expect a lot of people to know about these things or understand it. But I do expect that the people making laws that govern reproduction and reproductive health to know just as much as, if not more than, I do on the subject. I expect that the person in charge of federal grant funding for basic biomedical research to know even more than I do on this subject and many others.

Any basic biological research regarding women’s health and reproduction have all been placed on grant funding holds because they fall into the DEI category. This means that any research benefiting women’s health will not receive funding. We will not be being seeing new and innovative treatments or screenings for breast cancer or ovarian cancer or cervical cancer or anything related to the word ‘vagina’. So ladies, if you are frustrated now with the lack of knowledge regarding perimenopause or the antiquated boob smash we have to endure every year, I suggest you start calling your senators and representatives. Many of us are all aware of how we have to advocate with our healthcare providers for our own health. Many of us have gone from doctor to doctor to doctor just trying to get one of them to listen to our symptoms and needs.

We are now going to have to work harder for own health.

DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. So when you say you’re against DEI, just say you are against diversity, that you strongly disagree with equality and inclusion. Just say that you don’t care about reproductive health or basic medical research that could save the life of your mother, sister, niece, yourself. Don’t just say abbreviation. Make it very clear and just say “I don’t agree with diversity, equity or inclusion.” Vice President JD Vance received a scholarship to attend Yale. It was a scholarship for people who are the first generation to attend college and who live below a certain income level. JD Vance used a DEI scholarship to gain an education. Maybe some federal funding will get shuttled over to researching how this hypocrisy makes sense.

Now I know that I’m preaching to a choir, but just maybe one person who didn’t really think things through before, sees that what is happening with our Federal Government is going to make their lives a little bit, probably a lot, less and join the fight to end this fascism.

IN DEFENSE

I rarely take the hook, but there was something about a particular posting that I couldn’t resist commenting on. A facebook “friend” (yes, I’m still there. I have reasons) posted about the Grammys and the unbelievable audacity to award Beyonce with a Grammy for Best Country Album. The person already had three comments on the post all along the lines of “What is the world coming to?!” So I chimed in my two cents.

Beyonce's country album is great and totally deserving. You can really hear the influences of early country music and gospel in many of the songs. The grammy was intended for "country album" not "Country artist". So she fit well in that category. Growing up when country music was dominated by white men singing about drinking whiskey and cheating on their wives, it's refreshing to hear some diversity.

This comment is completely heartfelt. I am not a ‘woke’ person when it comes to music. I tend to listen to a playlist of the same artists ranging from Neko Case to First Aid Kit, I throw in the occasional Andrew Bird and the National, and have stations that reflect these artists. But I feel it is important to broaden my listening because it’s like traveling to new places. It opens my ears up to new sounds and ideas. It is an empathy builder. Often times, I throw on my headphones before heading off for my coffee walk and pick an artist that is not in my everyday list. Just this morning, I was listening to Douchii and having a dance party at my desk. Beyonce happens to be another one of those artists and I’m not going to lie. I like a number of her songs and I really enjoy her country album for the reasons already stated. I prefer the sound of earlier country music as opposed to today’s country tunes. This is why I often listen to Yola, who sings an old bluesy style of country. Today’s country, to me, sounds like fake country accents rapping to a banjo.

if you’re into listening to two dogs fuckin then sure I get ya other than that it’s pretty dumb

This was the reply left to my comment regarding Beyonce’s win. It is far from constructive and straight up racially inspired hateful. I was a little surprised, but I guess this is something this person feels passionately about considering they were willing to speak to their yoga teacher that way. Yes, this person used to be a regular yoga student. I left it alone. Melissa (who is a mutual Facebook ‘friend’) saw all of it and sent me a text. We’ve decided that Two Dogs Fuckin’ may be our new band name. But the exchange left me pondering what it was/is about Beyonce that induces such violent and visceral reactions. Particularly from suburban white women.

I remember hearing the hoopla and ridiculousness over the release of a country album by Beyonce. Radio stations in Nashville railed against it. Other country artists screamed hatefulness over it. “She’s not country!” “What could she possibly know about country?!?!” “She needs to stay in her lane.” So quickly these people had forgotten the African American influence on country artists. They did not throw such fits when Darius Rucker moved away from Hootie and the Blowfish to country music. Jelly Roll seemed to easily slide from rap into the country scene. Beyonce was born and raised in Houston Texas. I mean…that’s a big boots and chaps and cowboy hats kind of town. She grew up in country music and gospel. Also, these people are artists. Artists explore and experiment with different art forms all the time.

So why is it a problem that Beyonce has done this?

I can only guess that much of the hate thrown at Beyonce stems from not just the color of her skin, but that she is female. Resentment and jealousy genetically passed down starting with antebellum white women who watched their slave owning husbands sire child after child with his slave women. In that patriarchal landscape, the only place the white woman could put her pain and resentment was on that slave woman and the child. Thus began a systemic system of turning jealousy into hatefulness towards other women and particularly women of color. This could have been an excellent opportunity for women supporting women, but no, we once again let misogyny and racism win. Those white suburban women still believe that there is a specific place for everyone. Everyone must fit into their constructed social normative box. This is why they cannot tolerate the LGTBQ+, they’re people that do not fit in a specific place and a strong talented successful black woman blows up their little boxes.

I think if these women truly listened to Beyonce’s music they would discover a lot of commonality. Beyonce presents herself as strong and fierce, but you can hear in her music that she carries all the same insecurities as everyone else and shifting through the hatefulness just to read some constructive criticism probably feels impossible. And when they announced her name at the Grammys, the shock of winning was clearly evident on her face. She had received so much hate by releasing a country album that she probably struggled to comprehend a win in this category; because it is so much easier to see the hate that’s thrown at you than the good.

I don’t know what the sound of two dogs fucking is, not sure I’ve ever heard that, but if that’s the sound of this album then I guess I like it.

DEAR WHITE HETERO MEN OF AMERICA

First of all, I guess I should congratulate those of you who voted for Trump. You did your part in maintaining the Patriarchal standard of white hetero males running the country. I will say that he did make it easy for you by manipulating and exploiting your fears. I guess I never realized how cowardly you truly are, but it does give me some ideas on how to manipulate cowards for a good a cause. I will say that one of the reasons all of this stings me is that I know some of you personally. So now I know that you place a higher value on your archaic reliance on fossil fuels than you do of the women in your life.

How disappointing.

Look, I know you had help from some women. I recognize and pity those women who just can’t seem to escape the social construction of a woman’s value being linked to a man. Some of this comes from their religious indoctrination. Basically, for their whole lives they’ve been told by their God that they must be submissive to the man. That’s hard brainwashing to undo. In the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwoood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (one of the most banned books in the US), the character Serena Joy is one of the defining voices in changing the government into a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state. In doing so, she took away her own rights to read, write, property, everything. It is only when she is punished for reading the scripture do you see her recognize the awfulness that she has played a part in. There will be a Serena moment for those women who support Trump. I just worry about that time frame. Like, how many rights are women going to have to loose before they break their social construct chains? I mean, we’re barely clinging to our rights to make our own decisions about our own bodies.

I’m not going to lie. I’m sad and disappointed with the whole lot of you. I thought you were smarter, braver, more compassionate than that. I don’t like thinking about some of you being fascists racists, but that’s all I can think about because you support a fascist racist. Sort of like if the shoe fits, wear it?… And I’m going to spend today being sad and disappointed. I’m going allow space for my grief and then I’m going to roll up my sleeves and get to work. There are plenty of charities that support women and our LGTBQ+ communities that could use my help and I’d much rather funnel my rage into doing something good for my community than wasting any more time or thoughts on the likes of you.

So, enjoy your day and your win. Raise your pitchforks and point your silly guns to the sky. Who knows how much longer you will be able to do such things? Winds of change are coming for you.

Sincerely,

Disillusioned White Woman of America

WORDS

I’m not entirely sure where we were, but it was north of the river. North of the river is how the people of Kansas City refer to anything north of the Missouri River. This is an area that has gone largely unexplored during my time here. I know where the roller rink is and maybe a couple of casinos. I can get myself to Michael’s school and the airport, but don’t ask me for restaurant recommendations. Unless you’re into Indian food, then Swagat’s out by the airport is a solid choice. We happened to be in a completely unrecognizable area on this day because Michael was buying a used exercise bike. On our way home, we passed a billboard for a layer that read in large, yellow lettering “Winningest!” and I lost my mind.

At first, I couldn’t stop saying the word out loud over and over. I found the sound of the word to be ridiculously hilarious. It’s not like I haven’t heard someone use the word before, but it is always been used in jest around me. Seeing the word spelled out on the billboard just reiterated how stupid this word is. I was almost over my minor turrets moment when we passed the same advertisement on a different billboard. Then I exploded. This is an advertisement for a law office. Do you really want someone you cannot even use grammatically correct language in their advertisement to defend you in a court of law?!? Yeah, I know that my house is made of glass. My posts are the Swiss cheese of poorly written navel gazings, but I didn’t major in English. This dude is a lawyer; His job revolves around language. Besides, my editor is dead. What’s that lawyer’s excuse?

Lately, well ever since the “winningest” incident, I’ve found myself increasingly ranting about language. I will see a turn of words that makes my brain itch and I will go off in a ten minute rant. Yesterday, Michael had the TV on and it was all day coverage of concussion ball. There was a story about Brock Purdy (I didn’t know who this person was before this story) and the day he was drafted for the 49rs. They were showing footage of the draft and there was a woman standing on stage, holding up a jersey the read “Mr. Irrelevant”. I said “Why are they calling that guy Mr. Irrelevant?” and Michael replied “It’s because he is the last person to be drafted.” Disgust and rage instantly boiled up out of my body. Before they showed that footage, the sportscaster was talking about how Purdy has a “chip on this shoulder.” Of course he has a chip on his shoulder! He was just called ‘irrelevant’! That is just mean and uncalled for. As if I didn’t already think poorly about the capitalism and exploitation of athletes that is the NFL, now I think even less of them because they are bullies. Mean, hazing Frat boy, bullies.

And while everyone was speculating about Kelce proposing to Taylor and/or the Chiefs Super Bowl win being a government rig so that Taylor and Kelce could use that platform to endorse Biden (people are fucking crazy), actual genocide was/is happening in Gaza. I know many of you are sitting there thinking ‘But I can’t do anything about the genocide in Gaza’. Yeah, well, you can’t do anything about the whole Taylor/Kelce relationship either but it doesn’t keep you from chattering on and on about it. And if you can chatter and on and on about that, surely you can do some chattering to your representatives about demanding a cease fire and shifting our funding from weapons to humanitarian efforts.

Maybe now that we don’t have football to scream about, we can be the winningest by raising our voices against genocide.

FORMULATING A RAMBLING PLAN

I just made an appointment for my next chiropractor visit, which tends to be scheduled two to three weeks out. This means the next time I get my bones shoved back into place it will be December. People around here already have their Christmas lights up and on. I’ve passed a number of houses who have beautifully decorated Christmas trees on display in their front windows. I still have pumpkins on my porch. Jane and the rest of the Halloween decor made back to the basement just last weekend. Or was it the weekend before last? Maybe it was the weekend before, but I still have pumpkins.

I need more time to muster any kind of holiday cheer. The often talked about but forever elusive Aldi Cheese Advent Calendar was finally available at my neighborhood Aldi. It might be the only thing I’m excited about for December. My brain power has been divided between work and the daily images of death and destruction pouring out of Gaza. I worry for my Palestinian friends here in the US who still have friends and family there. I worry about the Jewish community in the US because the rise of antisemitic violence which was already on the rise, is even worse now. Hate crimes against Muslims and Jews are increasing daily. My brown skinned friends have to be even more careful walking down a sidewalk, ever vigilant for the attack that may come at them. That is an exhausting way for them to live and as American citizens, unnecessary because this country is supposed to be better. Except we’re not. What Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for decades is exactly what white colonizers have been doing to native people for centuries. Acts of genocide are more familiar to us than true acts of humanitarianism. Terrorism is a consequence of displacing, confining and massacring populations of human beings. If we continue to treat other human beings in this way, Terrorists will always exist.

Wow. I thought I was sitting down to write about how I’ve been thinking about forming new habits in the next year. Instead, I sat down and vomited out the imaginary conversations I have with people in my head. While I was all ready to map out a plan for living a happier, healthier life in 2024, maybe I just cleared some space for that mapping by vomiting up this ranty bit. These ranty bits tend to leak out in moments of helplessness and in regards to what is happening in Gaza, I feel very helpless. 5 Calls is a free app that makes it easy for you to contact your members of congress and provides helpful templates for what to say when you call them. I feel very limited in my abilities do anything to help the Palestinians in Gaza right now and it is really hard as someone who wants to fix things, to not be able to fix things.

Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are. - Theadore Roosevelt

Calling my congress members and asking them to demand and support a de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza is something I can do. Maybe it’s something you can do too.

BANKSYLAND

Melissa had a spare ticket to Banskyland and asked me if I wanted to have a girl’s date. This is something I would have loved to see, but would never have made the effort to buy tickets. So, I hopped up and down and said “Yes, please!” Then we made reservation for fancy dinner and ordered way to much food before driving down to the Westbottoms for the event. The exhibit was held in the Rumely Historic Event space, which we got to hear the history of the building twice as we rode in the in the largest, oldest working elevator in Kansas City. Melissa had purchased VIP tickets which included an audio tour and a free poster. We collected our headphones and made our way to the second level.

This is where things got confusing. We were told to start on the second level, but the tour didn’t match up with the art on the second level. Eventually we figured out how to skip around in the audio tour to match whatever it was we were looking at and then things made more sense. Michael later asked me “How was the exhibit?” and I said “Well, at first it kind of felt like someone had gone to places that had Bansky art on the walls, took photos of them and then printed and framed those photos for us to look at.” Which still feels true. Most of the original stuff was on the second level. Also, Melissa and I were the only ones in the building listening to an audio tour. Everyone else was standing around in groups, talking about art, but not art while holding plastic wine cups. It was a place to go to be seen. The hip thing to do. Melissa and I were the only nerds listening to the hows and whys of each piece of art and there to truly learn and see the art.

Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock. - Banksy (original street art)

This was the neon installment in the elevator and the first thing we saw. Melissa read it out loud and then said “Ain’t that the truth.” Melissa’s story is not my story to tell, but she is a paraplegic. I’m sure she felt those neon words more than most. Many people responded to my picture of this piece with a thumbs up and even a sad face because I think many of us can all relate in some way to these words. Losses, divorces, job choices gone wrong, falling into a financial hole that you can’t seem to climb out of. Losing the use of your legs. This is just a minor list that none of us would ever have ordered up for our lives. But my friend Eagle had the best response. He posted a gif of a woman yelling “Improvise”.

This should be tagged onto Banksy’s piece.

For those of us living a lifestyle we did not order, many of us have become pretty dang good at the art of improvisation. Sometimes the lifestyle we ordered for ourselves just doesn’t fit right and we have to order up something else. Sometimes the lifestyle we ordered for ourselves turns out to be the absolute wrong order. We ordered a life that really should have gone to someone else. Not only does it not fit right, it doesn’t feel right. The life my fourteen year old self ordered did not include one that contained love. That order I placed then was all work. College and medical school and nothing outside of that. I am happy that life was out of stock. This right now is not the lifestyle I ordered though. I have had to improvise, continue to improvise, because life is change.

Banksy originally plastered these words over a reproduction of a well-known painting. It was his protest statement against the art market and consumer capitalism.

a rebellion against the great corporations that manage our lives, our forms of consumption, even the space in which we live, through choices that are exclusively aimed at making profit. -Banksy

You wouldn’t know this by just reading the neon quote, particularly if you didn’t know this artist. Moving it to neon and taking away the well-know painting behind the words allows one to take it all out of context. Now those words speak to me as a challenge. Okay, that life you thought you were going to get isn’t going to happen the way you thought it would. What are you going to do about it?

Improvise.

I’m going to improvise and practice contentment with this life.

ACCOUNTABILITY

A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the host, and said to him, 'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.' Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers? -  Luke 10:30–37

When I read the news report regarding the shooting of Ralph Yarl, this parable was the only thing I could think about. Yes, the man who shot Ralph must be held accountable for his racism, but what about the two homes that Ralph went to for help? The owner of the third house that Ralph went to, reluctantly called 911 while telling Ralph to stay on the ground with his hands above his head. Treating the victim like a criminal. Those people who claim to be christian while pushing forward ideas of hate, who turn their faces away from someone who is suffering because their skin tone doesn’t match their own, are not followers of Jesus. They are liars.

The only reason there is now an arrest warrant our for the man who shot this boy is because the people of Kansas City and outside it, inundated Clay county’s prosecutor, Zachary Thompson with phone calls and emails demanding justice. Don’t stop calling. Don’t stop emailing. Don’t stop constantly pestering your senators and representatives. Don’t stop demanding changes to laws that make murder legal. Don’t stop demanding proactive gun control laws. Don’t stop demanding justice for racist behavior.

Donate here to help Ralph and his family with medical and legal fees.

THESE CHANGING TIMES

Saturday morning, Michael and I stood in a fairly impressive line for early voting. It was a slow moving line, so we had plenty of time to run through another review of the ballot and discuss the pros and cons of yes and nos for some of the state questions. I always feel like I’m going in to take a test I am not fully prepared to take even though I studied before hand. When we’d finished our ballot review, I told Michael about the story Karen Walrond posted in her Instagram feed about how her daughter had to use frequent flyer miles to fly home from college so she could vote. You can see the story here: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17941902179271771/

It’s a feelings inducing story that will make you cry and then want to punch someone. It is a story of voter suppression. A very important story of voter suppression.

Here’s why.

So often the idea of voter suppression conjures up the image of not just the minority, but specifically those living in poverty levels. Voter suppression is happening to a majority of us because choosing a Tuesday during normal working hours as the only time to vote is, in itself, voter suppression. Without early voting, the poles are only open on Tuesday 6:00 AM- 7:00 PM. Now, I have a regular 9-5 job with a pretty flexible schedule, but let’s put that 6:00 - 7:00 time frame into my daily schedule. I get up at 5:30 AM to walk the dog. Josephine and I get home five minutes before Michael needs to be up and in the shower. That’s around 6:35 and then I get in the shower when he’s done sometime around 6:45 (?). I’m usually leaving my house for work at 7:20something. If I go to the polls at this time, I risk being late for work depending on the line. Not a big deal for me because of where I work, but a serious fireable deal for others. I leave work in the evenings around 5:00 PM. Google maps tells me it should take me fifteen minutes to get to my polling place. So, techinically, if there’s not a line, I could be voting by 5:15 PM. As long as I’m checked in by 7:00 PM, no matter the line, I will still be able to cast my ballot.

This sounds doable.

A number of people in my neighborhood rely on public transportation to get to and from work. If I was riding the bus from work to the polls it would take me thirty minutes to get there. Again, that only takes in account my job schedule. Many people in poverty levels are working two jobs. They have to navigate their voting time around bus and work schedules and I have yet to mention children and family obligations like picking those kids up from daycare or school or getting them to sports ball practice. Most health care workers I know, work twelve hour shifts, making that 6:00 AM - 7:00 PM time frame impossible. This is why receiving a requested absentee ballot is vital for voting rights. This is why no-question early voting options are vital for voting rights.

You know, we don’t have to keep doing things because that’s just the way it’s always been done. Especially if is not working for today’s society. One of the things we should all be demanding is voting rights that make voting easily accessible to all citizens.

Vote!