Hard Conversations

Next week is a major holiday in the U.S., and that brings with it visits to family, and often tense conversations with people who fundamentally oppose the things you believe in deeply. Part of me wishes I could be like Mrs. Frazzled on TikTok with her "gentle parenting adults" videos. In them, she talks to adults, often relatives, as though they were children, explaining such things as why "Happy Holidays" is not a war on Christmas, or how people using their pronouns is not hurting uncle Norm's body, just his feelings.

While I don't think infantilizing our relatives is a viable strategy for most of us, there are a few phrases I think will go a long way when someone states conspiracy as fact, or wants to dismiss objective reality out of hand.

• "Why do you say that?"
• "Where did you get that idea?"
• "That's a pretty big claim. Where's the data?"
• "I don't know if you know this, but what you said is actually pretty offensive"

If you don't want to confront it at all, but they don't seem to want to stop talking about it, I've had a modicum of success with the following:

• "I don't think this is a good time to talk about that. Why don't you send me an email about it later?"
• "You're making things uncomfortable for me. I don't mind hearing your thoughts, just not at this volume or in this space."
• "Can we talk about this after (dinner, the game, family caroling, etc)?"

Of course, all those phrases are only useful if your or your family's rage is contained. My dad really likes to rile me up, so in those moments, I struggle to pull a rational response out of my brain. In that case it's more like: 

• "Why are you saying things you know will make me angry?" 
• "Are you being hurtful on purpose?"

I am lucky this year to be staying at home, so I won't have anyone to argue with necessarily. I was raised by two generations of women whose entire philosophy is "keep the peace at all costs," and it shows in the way I deal with hard conversations. If there's some way to have a real nuanced conversation at holiday family gatherings, I haven't learned it yet. Maybe it just depends on what kind of people are in your family? 

Good luck out there, and be kind if you can.

Attention Span vs Focus

Society is now structured in such a way that every event older than a few weeks may as well have never happened, because, as they say, Stuff Keeps Happening. Stuff has always happened, we just didn't know about it as instantaneously in quite as much volume. Speedy reporting isn't new, what has changed is our ability to focus, and how the news media tries to grab our attention away from doing that.

When the Titanic sank and its survivors boarded the Carpathia, one of the first things that happened was wireless calls back to shore. We can think of the wireless as the Twitter/Telegram/Whatsapp of the time. The information coming through was fast, frantic, and often inaccurate. They even reported that the Titanic was being towed to shore (it famously was not). What ended up in the next morning's paper was a fairly brief, surprisingly detailed account of the facts as they were known. Inaccuracies abounded, including the lists of names of those who were aboard. Waiting families had three long days at minimum before they could be certain of their loved ones' fates. The difference between the information at the time and information about disasters now is, in my opinion, a matter of attention. 

The sinking of the Titanic is one of the most studied, publicized, and re-enacted disasters in history, and I genuinely think it was because the pace of journalism hadn't yet outstripped out collective ability to stay focused. It's something I think about a lot these days, given how much information we're expected to care about all at the same time. There are four genocides happening in the world right now, and the Russian war in Ukraine is ongoing. And yet, we are inundated with shock headlines about the person who allegedly killed a healthcare CEO. (They've given him terrorism charges by the way--trying to make an example of him for the rest of us uppity poors.)

Attention span persistence is a thing we can train ourselves to do so we don't lose focus on the things that matter to us. The media will keep vying for our eyeballs, and keep throwing shit at us until we cease to function. So, today's action item is to practice focus. Follow a news thread as far as it will go before moving on to another.

I'm reading articles today about what politicians are doing behind our backs while we're angry in one way or another about the hot boi assassin. Next week we'll be asked to be angry about something else while the people in the recrudescence's cabinet prepare to quietly remove our rights and protections against the rich. We just have to train our brains not to let them do that to us anymore.

A Method of Connection

As I am sure people who know me are tired of hearing me say, I read mostly non-fiction, and am always prepared with a bit of hodgepodge, partially-recalled information. But my attempts at remembering the things I have read have mostly been for naught. For example, yesterday I found a copy of Foucault's Pendulum and while I do remember purchasing the book, I have no memory of reading it. But until very recently, I have never been the kind to buy books and not read them. And if it is a rare book that I read partially and do not enjoy, I am generally very good about giving it away in a local Little Free Library.

Somewhere along the path of my life, I have erased the memory of reading Foucault's Pendulum, and I have to wonder what other connections in my own mind have been erased. I am missing what feels like an important connection to past me. We know this about our brains. Memory does not work the way it does in the Benedict Cumberbatch version of Sherlock Holmes. We do not have "memory palaces" from which we can call up any piece of information. At best, we have a few bullet pointed notes taken during the lecture of our life's events and at worst, a hastily scribbled note in the margin of a tourist pamphlet we found on the ground of our childhood.

So how do we reconnect with our past self? Is it worth doing? We get so incensed when politicians change their minds when really what they are doing is just...being human. I know that I am a much different person than I was 20 years ago and did not have the same nuanced political views as I do today. Heck, even five years ago, I looked at things a lot differently. Pre-pandemic me didn't play nearly as many videogames. She ran a knitting group, worked at a yarn shop, and taught classes about fibercrafting. Fifteen years ago I didn't give a toss about public transit or bike infrastructure, and she certainly wasn't as anti-consumerist as I am now. Pretty sure, anyway. But maybe it's worth examining why I was the way I was back then. The only way I can conceive of to do that is to go back and read things I wrote. I have never been ritualistic about keeping a journal, but I have occasionally. Historically speaking, diaries and journals are one of the best primary sources we have for knowing the true human impacts of events. 

So for today, my action item is to go dig up my last daily journal and give it a read. Then, I'll sit it next to my bed with a pen in the hopes I'll actually start writing in it again. Couldn't hurt to start creating a connection today to the future me that will want to know about present me's day.

Perspectives

A few days ago, a friend sent me the link to a video about Tetris world records and how modern Tetris players have iterated on ways of playing to a point where the only way to improve is to push the buttons on the controller in a fundamentally different way. It's fandom, and sport, and innovation, and it's all in pursuit of "making number go up" in a way that the developers of the game never intended. I know several people who think that breaking videogames in that way is fundamentally the wrong way to play it and get very annoyed with speedrunning in general. I also know people who delight in breaking games and watching others do so. I am married to someone whose career has been made in games QA. (My spouse is one of those who enjoys watching people break games, for what it's worth.)

Regardless of your perspective on this, the diversity of humans allows for all perspectives to exist simultaneously. The degree of difference in perspective is nuanced and always complicated. The life experiences leading a person to have a certain perspective are unknown to us, the opposite perspective-holder. Luckily, when it comes to things like videogames, most of the time we agree to disagree and talk about something else when we encounter people who play them differently than we do, and we all agree that we love the game of Tetris.

It's fundamentally the same as being friendly with your neighbor even though their life seems way different than yours and you cannot understand how they would want to live like they do. The only difference is that with videogames we can just turn off or skip past that part of the community with which we do not agree. With a neighbor, they still are going to be there at the end of the day, every day, until one of you moves.

So, all of this is to say, today's action item is to practice shifting your perspective when you encounter someone who seems vastly different than you. What brought them to that place is unknown, but something did, and you can always find a way to be kind, even if it's just complimenting the color of their hair. Just make sure you mean it :).

Appeals to Authority

Today I watched a video about debunking claims. The video is a response to a pair of previous videos by the same person talking about nonviolent civil resistance as a method for change. The video I watched today talks about how the Youtuber received numerous comments claiming the data from the previous videos were flawed. But the commenters themselves sent the Youtuber to sources that immediately disproved their own claims, so why would they do that? 

The point of the video, I think, is to remind us that we have to be careful whose voices we trust, and not to take claims at face value. The Internet makes it easier than ever to do that, and it also makes it easier to pretend to be an authority where you are not. You can always, always find someone whose views reflect your existing preconceptions.

 

So today's action item is to click supporting links and data, and dig as deep as you have time for when you read big claims. Headlines lie, your favorite news source omits and edits headlines for its own aims, your pastor thinks they're saving your soul, your teacher needs you to pass a test that might be wrong, your parents just regurgitate what they heard, and you yourself will happily accept data that doesn't challenge your existing beliefs. Our brains don't like cognitive dissonance and will go to great lengths to preserve existing preconceptions. Learning is tiring, y'all.

But do it anyway I guess, because misinformation and disinformation is how fascism wins. So don't let it. If it's something that's not easy to dig into now, add it to your list of later-rabbit-holes. 

That's all I got for today. Kill your darlings, find the actual experts, and even then it's ok to find dissenting opinions and explore their claims as well. Still being kind to my neighbors, even the loud ones.

Protect Journalism

Sorry for missing yesterday. I had a rare good-brain day and got a lot done at work, and then the evening got away from me. I am only human. But today I have an easy action item!

One of the hills I will die on is the value of investigative journalism, freedom of the press--yes even though the mainstream media outlets are garbage--and the strength of information. It consumes a lot of my headspace. Well today I learned about an effort to pressure congress into passing H.R. 4250, the PRESS act. Forty-nine states and Washington D.C. have already passed state level journalism shields but it needs to be federal, and it needs to extend to the federal level. Right? If not now, when?

So, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a trusted nonprofit boosting ethics in tech) has a nice and easy form to fill out. It finds your reps, provides some basic text (which it encourages you to change) and sends off the emails for you. It is worth doing. Through doing so, I also learned that the DuckDuckGo browser extension for Firefox will help you create essentially a masking email that forwards to your real one, so you can maybe avoid some of the inevitable political spam. Hopefully.

Anyway, it's a simple thing, and hopefully it passes. Be kind to your neighbor by being kind to your journalists. One might be the other, you know?

A Big Project to Plan

Today's action item is probably not one most people want to undertake and I'm not sure I even will fully. But I've gotten an idea for a book I want to write. The trouble is, I have to carve out time and space to write it. I already missed NaNoWriMo (though, my idea is not fiction so that's alright), but I haven't
missed the start of a new year. I have a shiny new planner for the year and I think I've just figured out how I want to use it. I'll block out time just for writing, which is something I haven't done in a long, long time. I wonder if I still even have the muscles for writing, or the grammatical prowess to back up the ideas.

The plan is going to be 3 hours of writing per week to start, and I'll spread it out based on my schedule, which of course is getting busier soon with a new D&D game, and hopefully an occasional online board game night with some friends. These "action items" I've been trying to write in the blog won't go on past the inauguration, since by that point I'll need to be doing instead of thinking about doing. But the book itself is separate from this. 

As usual, I've run out of writing time, so, again, today's action item is for me to carve out time to write, specifically, on this book idea. Cultivating my garden still, but a bigger project and focus in mind. Maybe writing about it last week got me motivated, who knows? Anyway, be kind to your neighbors.

Help Where You Can Part 2

It is "the holidays" which means every nonprofit is sending its letters asking for your money. I've even gotten emails from groups I've never donated to in the past, likely thanks to some professional fundraiser getting my email from somewhere.

But I thought I'd compile a list of where I am donating currently, in case I forget, or in case it helps other people.

Seattle Public Library Foundation
Wikipedia
The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Propublica
Seattle Parks Foundation
FairVote Washington

Though, now I've listed them, I just found a site that vets such things, and ... some of the chief officers of the most commonly known nonprofits are making just a LOT of money. More than even some for-profit CEOs. It really, really sucks that we have to check in on organizations whose purported purpose is to help people, but here we are. Disheartening, but still worth finding places to spend your money and time.

Further Reading

My first of these posts, starting just after the 2024 election, listed some folks to follow and some books to read. I am less happy to report my progress on the books has been slow, but following new voices has worked out pretty well. As for the books, I have started and put down both The Jungle and Poverty, By America several times due to the text being overwhelming to my wee heart.

Instead, here are some recommendations for silly little fiction books (they're not that silly) that aren't political at all (they are)! 

Babel by R.F. Kuang

The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey

The Lost Journals of Sacajawea by Debra 

At year's end, I have read 32 books and finished 31 of them. Some were audiobooks, some were not. I'm pretty happy with that number. Of that, 15 were nonfiction, but the last 6 books I read were Fiction, so that's a pretty good indicator of where I'm at, emotionally. Not that the fiction books were light by any means. I still want to finish at least one of my heavy books before the end of the year, so ... today's goal is to make some progress on it.

Struggling today, but I'll still try to be kind to my neighbors.

Working

Today, I need to go to work, and I feel strangely motivated to get a lot done. This post will be brief, and will not have much to do with my work. Instead, here is a link to a substack newsletter article by Heather Cox Richardson that is currently relevant, and I think is so far the best response I've seen to recent events.

TL;DR, humans have always been a mixed bag of responses to the deaths/murders of those a majority has deemed corrupt, and history repeats itself.

So yes, very, very short today. Just, as much fun as it is to meme and laugh, remember that life is short and precious. Be kind to each other when you can.

A Little Escapism, As a Treat

I have a job that affords me some weekdays off, and today's one of those days. Today's leisure time will be filled with videogame chores. It's too cold to do the yardwork I need to do. So, it's into the aether to sort my inventory, do a little crafting, farm a little in game currency to get fancy wings, and then go fishing. In between those things will be some knitting on the couch.

When I get warm enough, and feel reasonably like extricating myself from blankets, I promise to do the load of laundry that needs doing, and maybe even clean a bathroom. But until then, I'll be here, color coding my Stardew Valley chests and using the planner to set up the ideal farm. And maybe some Webfishing, as a further treat with friends later.

I suggest you do the same (or your game of choice's equivalent). Today only though, tomorrow we have to do more work.

<3

Writing Prompts

I recently received a book, Kickstartered on a whim, called "The Book of Good Things." It contains a series of prompts and activities, and at the end it encourages you to call a phone number and leave a message for others to listen to. It then will publish those messages (if the caller gives permission) in podcast form so other Book Of Good Things enjoyers can listen to.

The book itself is small and will not take me long to complete, but it has already inspired me to revisit the idea of giving myself writing prompts. Today's post is late because I had to do my activity for the day first! So, here's a list of writing prompts I'm going to attempt to follow along with at a pace of one per week. I have further given myself the limitation of only writing these in my physical journal.

• What consistently makes you laugh out loud?
  
• What's the most interesting fact you've ever learned about your family?
• Describe something you really enjoyed making.
• Why did you decide to start doing these prompts?
• (from the Book of Good Things) What is the most interesting thing about humans? (not best, or worst, just interesting)
• Try to describe what you feel when you listen to your favorite song.
• Who did you encounter today, and why do you remember them?
• Think about the last 2 movies you watched and then try to link them with a common theme
• Describe your ideal cozy morning
• What was the last piece of news that made you angry? Work through that anger on the page.
  

These are a few I came up with while I was at work today, but I am hoping to think of more. Anyway, writing down or drawing things as close to when they happen or when you feeling them is the best we can do for accurately remembering things, because our memory itself is absolutely rubbish. Write or draw something today as accurately as possible. Then, in 1 year go back and read/look at it. It probably won't come back to mind in the way you wrote it down. Anyway, halfway through the week. I'm already tired.

Still being kind to my neighbor though.

Cultivating Gardens

The wintery temperatures have begun in earnest here in the PNW, once again stifling my annual desire to magically become a gardener and grow my own food. Maybe if I wasn't so busy optimizing a farm in Stardew Valley I might consider actual gardening, but as it stands, I will sigh and glance sadly at the few wilting herbs I did grow this year.

Despite my horticultural failure, I do have a few metaphorical gardens I can cultivate. I think Voltaire coined the original phrase about cultivating your own garden in an absurd world, and while many many philosophers have argued about what it means, my take is that instead of retreating from the hardship and absurdity of the world, we have to make ourselves stronger mentally, physically, and emotionally during the times of relative peace and calm.

So, for me, today's goal is physical. I started running awhile ago with the idea of just getting the recommended 30 minutes of heart-healthy exercise per day. But today I've started trying to get actively stronger. I've got feelers out in my BuyNothing group for a set of adjustable weights, I've found a list of bodyweight exercises to try out in various configurations, and have added "fitness" to the list of rabbit holes I'm allowed to go down as time permits. I have a lot of aches and pains, and I'm hoping a little extra core and arm muscles will help. Stamina and strength are my goals. I'm not super motivated by competition or big numbers going up, so I'm not going to really be formal about it. I figure I'll be strong enough when, the next time I need to move some furniture, I don't need a break halfway through. 

Don't forget to be kind to your neighbors.

Routines Continue

It has been nearly a month since half of the U.S. had its expectations upended. There is plenty of speculation as to why this happened, and people way smarter than me are welcome to continue wondering. It is, I suppose, historically important. But for those of us who are not employed in a way that requires us to keep up with that, we must, as they say, keep calm and carry on. For me, I learned the lesson after the last debacle election and deleted as many quick and easy ways to doomscroll from my phone as possible. If I want to look at the news, I have to actively use up a whole desktop computer screen for it.

I've also started keeping more information in my calendars and planners and notebooks. Any idea I have or thought that I want to explore later, I write it down. If the notion comes back to me later without having to look it up, I'll give in to the urge, and look it up. 

My brain does not work this way normally. I simply must know, most of the time, but I am starting to let go of that urge, because about half the time knowing makes me upset. And if I'm going to be upset, I want there to be dedicated time for it.

Another thing, and this is today's action item for me, is that I need to itemize my regular habits. Not so I keep doing them in the exact routine I'm doing or anything like that, but so I can tell if I start to spend too much time on doomscrolling or the like.

For example, I usually would some sort of chore(s), my d&d game, and cook something tasty for dinner on Saturday, but because d&d was cancelled, I literally did not do a single one of those things, and instead shrimped at my computer and played games all day instead. Not necessarily a bad thing, but noteworthy since I'm trying to be a little more community-focused. Instead of the videogames, I probably should have found some sort of community event to attend. Saturdays are great for those and my Saturdays are usually busy with d&d. 

So today I'm going to start tracking "the typical" and see what parts I can shift toward community action. We'll see if any of it sticks!

To Consume Less

In recent years, more has been written about consumer culture and its impact on the planet. It's hard, but I think one way to show our disdain for the incoming administration might just be to not spend. Everyone goes on about "we don't make things in America anymore" or "this is China's fault" and while both things are a concern, neither is the whole picture. The article I linked there makes a strong point about post-WWII spending as a means of showing national economic strength. But I think we have to change that. Not only does it send the message that we are not buying the status quo anymore, it also reduces (over time) the amount of garbage we put into the world. Not to mention the exploitive practices most large companies use to save money. U.S. manufacturing has dropped because we fought for better pay decades ago in the form of unions. Other countries haven't done that, for one reason or another, but U.S. companies have been exploiting that.

So, there are so many things that will be accomplished if we consume less, but way smarter people than me have talked exhaustively about that. But here's two reasons: First, it removes the incentive for sketchy AF companies to make garbage that will break in a week. Second, since consumer culture is so bad for the environment you'll be sending a message to manufacturers that they need to stop producing as much.

I have friends who shop for fun, and shop often. My mother's closet is almost unusable for all the clothing she's put in it. Our houses are completely packed with STUFF, and it's a burden to clean, move, and pass on to children. I'm sure there's a whole psychological component to it, but I can't help but tense up every time someone says "I bought this cute thing." Like, where did you buy it? Who was exploited in its making? I'm starting a ramble here, but the takeaway from my reading and watching about consumerism is that I do not really want to participate in the holiday buying spree today. Or really at all during the holiday season.

If you must gift, do it thoughtfully. Thrift where you can. Make it yourself if you want. Start a fight with your family about not buying 12 new toys for your kid when one well-made one will do. Heck, disappoint your own children by getting them fewer things. Anyway, I'm staying home this weekend, and not shopping online at all. Might be time you do the same.

Eating Well

Speaking of mutual aid (we were, weren't we?) there is one institution that most cities already have that fills a mutual aid gap, and that is Food Banks. I did a little digging this morning and found that the county I live in has 57 food banks/meal programs. State wide, over 300. First of all, it's criminal that we have to have that many places to serve the undernourished. Nationwide, the USDA data showed that in 2023, 13.5% of all households were food insecure, up from 2022. Yet federal spending on food assistance fell.

So it falls to nonprofits, as with most things, to fill in what the government won't provide.

That's why it's so important to donate to or volunteer with your local food bank now. For one thing, you may need it later. Food insecurity is only going to go up since groceries are fast becoming a monopolistic industry. A lot of local branches do work with food banks, at least, but there are always gaps. I know my neighborhood food bank is always seeking pet food and hygiene products, but every food bank is different.

I used to volunteer there to help sort the deliveries and donations, but I fell out of the practice during the pandemic. Maybe it's time to start that up again, or at the very least add a new donation spot to my list.

Tomorrow is a holiday here, so I will likely not post. But be kind to your neighbors even still.

Assisting Strangers

As I pit the complexities of "normal life" against the swirling doubt of what's coming, I keep returning to the idea that, at the end of the day, people who have privilege need to sacrifice some comforts and privileges in order that those who do not can do better. I think the problem with this, for me, is that it promotes a "saviorism" mentality. It's like when Christian missionaries go into struggling ares to "help" by building a parochial school or something. It's a very small sacrifice to do without home comforts in exchange for the admiration of the church/pastor. When the missionaries are gone, the locals are left with a random building and no long term support. What the missionaries do is not mutual aid, because it is rarely requested. It is saviorism which benefits mainly the missionaries.

Mutual aid taps into the same fundamental need to help our neighbors, but without the trappings of institution. By its nature it defies systems, and that is why it's important right now.  Here's an example. During the height of COVID, a couple of random local folks spun up a website where you could go and request grocery delivery. That's it. You could ask for or offer up delivery of groceries. People who used it were often lower income, but I know a couple of well-enough-off folks who live alone in an area where the stores weren't offering delivery. There was no vetting or application process for this. You simply made the request and it was fulfilled by a stranger. 

And that's what'll get folks through. So, when you have the bandwidth, hook up with a local mutual aid group (there's a website for that) and get started. It's messier than a traditional nonprofit org, but it's also less bureaucracy. 

I dunno. It's what I've been thinking about today. Sorry to miss yesterday's post. I have no excuse other than being tired.

Crafty

The term "craftivism" has been around for 20 years, so it's not exactly new. I follow craftivists on IG and have long enjoyed calmly viewing their work from the sidelines. But I knit, crochet, and can cross stitch, and probably could learn to embroider if I had to. As the world seems intent on going mad right now, it's worth thinking about quiet ways to contribute to a resistance of sorts.

This is not without precedence. Historically, and in WWII specifically, knitters were used quite frequently as spies, passing messages in inconspicuous ways. As much as this sounds like a cool thing to do, it might be well-known enough to no longer be useful. So we'll have to find new ways. Today, my one thing is going to be to let myself go down a rabbithole to see how hard it would be to learn a secret language, or, more broadly explore ways to use my hobbies for good.

Historical Significance

One of the things my spouse and I discussed is slowly, over the next few months, gathering some shelf-stable items and household staples that may generally have been purchased from abroad. Not in an irrational "pandemic lockdown" way, but in a "we'd probably buy these anyway, let's just buy a bit more" kind of way.

Higher prices are coming, and we have precedence to look at. Italy and Germany adopted initiatives to reduce national reliance on external food sources to further their fascist aims. There was a lot to those, and there's not currently a big reason to assume we'll go the same way, but it could turn quickly.

Another thing we can look to history for is red flags about the people taking power. Where to even start with that? The recrudescence keeps putting the most incompetent people on his team, but just because someone is incompetent it doesn't make them less dangerous. During the last cheeto administration, we saw disgruntled government employees at various institutions take to social media to continue their actual work when their institutions were taken over by proto-fascists. Assuming the actual experts are still around, and buy good burner phones, we should be seeing more of that.

But for today's action, I'm going to make my list of supplies, including housewares that I was thinking of replacing later, and find a friend with a Costco card.

Awake in Despair

I woke up already deep in thought today, and that's never a good sign for an optimistic day. I struggle with despair and depression even when there's nothing to worry about, and every time I do, I re-watch two videos. One from 2019:

And this one from last year, which is possibly more relevant right now:

I woke up today with that feeling of "nothing matters, so why am I doing this?" The feeling is compounded by the type of reading I tend to do. Something about my brain just wants to know things, no matter how bleak. A friend, for instance, introduced me to Spooky Lake Month on TikTok/Youtube which is a woman doing short stories about creepy hydrological-related things every day for the month of October. Do I NEED to know that there are lakes that can explode with enough carbon dioxide to kill everyone within a 100 mile radius? I do not, but I do take comfort sometimes in the fact that we CAN know those things.

Another thing that helps me is the understanding that humanity has survived because we can cooperate with each other (and do, every single day in myriad ways). 

The takeaway from those videos, for me, is that despair is valid, but it is not a complete picture. If I stay here and wallow, then I have failed to take into account all of the things we have already done, and continue to do, to try and wrest a better future from a messy present. Even more reason to be kind to your neighbors.

Hear, Feel, Think

I've been going pretty hard for a couple weeks (even the days I don't write), but some days you just cannot. It is sometimes just troublesome to exist, full stop, and you feel drained. Rest is good, and can itself be a form of resistance. Rest can mean a coordinated effort with coworkers to send a message, if you are striking, or it can just mean taking some of that PTO you've been accruing for 2 years and are about to lose. 

For me, rest is doing things to recharge, like going on a slow, long walk to a further-away coffee shop, or going to a pub with my Switch and playing games with a beer on a Tuesday afternoon (or a book, or my sketchpad). It also looks like eating a carb-fueled lunch and forcing a nap sometimes. It's different for everyone. If you still feel like you can't slow down and take a day for yourself, take a look at the book Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey. I will admit to not having read it myself, but I have followed her Nap Ministry for a few years and agree with her assertions, especially for marginalized groups. Everyone deserves rest, and NOT just so you can be productive later.

So, maybe today I'll start by setting myself calendar reminders to take breaks and rest. It's not something I'm good at, but it might be just the thing to help me better focus on what comes next.

Corporate Choice

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how consumer culture harms political movements and perpetuates the problems of the world. Part of the struggle, of course, is that the products we buy have planned obsolescence built in as a rule. Part of it, too, is that we can't always tell whether the company we're buying from is ethical or not.

This weekend I stumbled on the BDS movement, which is specifically targeting companies that do business with Israel. It stands for boycott, divest, sanction and it's a good thing to follow, in general, if you're against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. But it's also been a gateway for me in trying to purchase more mindfully. I live in a region rich with choice when it comes to small businesses. Small-er anyway. My local grocery chain is still local, and not owned by Kroger or Albertsons (which might still merge, no decision has been made yet). I've been shopping there for years because it's close to me. Wikipedia has a list of grocery chains in the U.S. Literally anything not owned by Kroger, Albertsons, or Amazon is probably fine? You will have to do a little digging into your regional chains.

Either way, it's going to be a little bit of work to find things that aren't supermegacorps. Maybe you subscribe to a local farm CSA, or even find a hyperlocal thrift store instead of going to the Salvation Army (historically anti-LGBTQ organization) or Goodwill (wildly shady business practices and massive amounts of waste). For me, this week I'm going to be looking for a local kitchen store that sells locally-made items. It would be very easy to just go on Amazon to buy a new pan, but Amazon is problematic for too many reasons to list, but primarily, they're just another megacorp whose political donations put the recrudescence back in office.

Sorry it's a longer one today. But, consumer culture is an important part of why we're in this mess. The go-go-go-buy-now-new-things-all-the-time mentality is dooming us all, and has been for decades. Whether you join the boycotts for overseas justice or stop buying from right wing donor companies, just find one alternative today. 

Be kind to your neighbors, too, always.

Unionize

I watched a video from Rebecca Watson (Skepchick) that talks about civil resistance and nonviolent action, and I think it's a good message. I have linked to where it starts talking about becoming ungovernable, because while that is a fun meme, it is also a valid form of resistance.

https://youtu.be/9q7Bd-C_4-o?si=hdj-zdGoDuFQz3kt&t=665

I particularly liked the part about tying flags to cats (though I do hope they took them off the cats later). The video also talks about strong unions, and how joining a union now may be an extremely good form of resistance and protection against what comes.

If you follow the history of unions, you might notice that, since the 1980s, union membership has been on the decline. This correlates with an uptick in political spending by corporations and rich folks, and a stagnation of worker wages But that's starting to change a bit. According to unionstats.com there has been an uptick in union membership since 2020. That will change over the next four years, but until it does we can try and make a good number go up for once.

So today I'm going to find out if I can join a general workers' union. I might also start stocking up on items like masks and water bottles that I can hand out at protests and sit ins. Just, you know, so I have em...

Be kind to your neighbor, always.

Help Where You Can Part 1

There are a lot of cultural minority groups in serious threat from the upcoming administration. Just... so many. I do not have a very wide circle, but I found some advice LGBTQ+ that I'm going to post. Erin in the Morning has an excellent list of ways for Trans folk (but this could be extended to any threatened group) to "prepare" for what may come. There's a link within it to a map of "safe" places, or at least places with legislative protection in place.

With the cheeto's plan to erode the federal government in general, we have an advantage over the historical parallel we're all thinking about (*cough*1930sgermany*cough*), and that's the power of state legislation.

I am trying my absolute best not to fearmonger, and not to go overboard with my "prepare for the worst" mentality, but the best way I can think of to stave off fear is to keep busy. So today my plan is to go through that list above and see if there's anything on it I can help my friends with, and if not, donate to a few orgs that are trying to help out, including some national ones, and some local ones I also found on the local Reddit for my area (another great resource if you're lookin).

All of this aside, my mental state is in the garbage right now, and trying to maintain my thin veneer of sociability for work and other duties is difficult at best.

Love to whoever finds this. Be kind to your neighbors, always.

Rest, But Be Emotional

There's a lot of emphasis of self care and making sure your emotional well-being is as strong as it can be. But my hot take here is that sometimes it's important to sit with the negative emotions in order to understand what you have to solve. Related: I learned the other day about the "sleep industry" that pushes apps and tech to help humans sleep better. But the takeaway from all of it was that what we actually need in order to have better sleep is just... time. The pace of business and what the culture is pushing us to do is antithetical to our health and adding more capitalism to it won't solve our collective exhaustion in the same way that we can't buy our way out of mental distress. 

That said, my response to stress has been escaping into videogames or TV, and I know I am not alone in this. So, today's post is simple. Today I'm going to make a cup of tea and sit by a window for 30 minutes before work without any media. I can spend 30 minutes with uncomfortable thoughts. I will allow myself something for my restless hands like knitting or doodling. But no voices or words or devices to distract me from my thoughts. I need to hear my own voice sometimes, even if it's sad or tired. 

Don't swim in your sorrow or sadness right now, of course, but do let yourself feel it. For me, I'm hoping it will help me sift up something worth learning or researching. Short and sweet today. 

Be kind to yourself and your neighbors, always.

Local Connections

I cannot speak for local connections outside of my area, obviously, but one thing that seems to be a common thread amongst the commentators is that we're more divided than ever. I've seen lots of explanations as to WHY, but the common theme is that we are. So, what can we do to return to a commonality? We need to tell each other stories, and make our neighbors human to us.

I'm going to start simple. In my area, I discovered a "silent reading party" where people go to just sit and read together. It looks like they do 3 or 4 per month so you can come and go as you like. But, if you're not a big reader, maybe you can look on Meetup.com (though it is apparently not what it once was) or even Facebook for local groups. I am loathe to suggest it, but FB is honestly still pretty great for organizing groups, especially with niche interests.There's also always the local coffee shop physical message board, too.

When I moved away from where I grew up, I did not know anyone, and had no connection with local culture. I was heavily into online games at the time, and didn't leave the house much at first, but my spouse was gone for work most of the days and I only worked part time so it was making me somewhat miserable. So, I got a chance spam email from Meetup and decided to check it out. Found a local knitting group, and through that met some board gamers and beer drinkers and just generally wonderful locals, some who'd been locals their whole life and some who were fairly new.

So when I moved across the country again, the very first thing I did was start a knitting group in my neighborhood. I also lived in an apartment complex that had social events, so I forced my introverted self to do those things as well, and eventually I did meet some very good folks. I'm still friends with several, and consider several to be solid acquaintances that I could reconnect with if desired. I attribute my fierce loyalty to my chosen region of the country not just to the beauty of the place, but also to the people I've met along the way.

Once you find a group doing a thing you like, you can build trust with them. You can talk offline and do all your activities. For knitters, go to local shops together. Put together a little yarn crawl and visit shops that might be a little further outside your comfort zone. If you're not a big planner, someone in your group will be.

Glom on to the conversations that interest you. Be uncomfortable for a bit until you rebuild the social muscles that the internet has atrophied. I need to do that too, because the Pandemic ruined me for in-person interactions. I haven't been to a group activity in years.

So that's my action item today. Find a group thing to sign up for on either FB or meetup.

Where to Start

In the spirit of continuing the absorption of information, it's important to have a wide variety of ideas to absorb in order to build a larger picture. Some of the takes I've seen include a lamentation about a large portion of the country not looking at a bigger picture, and I struggle to disagree with that. "The Economy" is good actually, they say, but prices for consumers have not gone down and people blame the current leadership for that rather than the first cheeto administration, which did a lot of damage to the good economy it inherited from Obama. We won't see the true damage from the new administration until after it is over, in other words. I digress, and risk treading on territory in which I am not an expert.

So, here's some stuff to check out/follow/remember/subscribe to today. I'm also making an "activism" folder or filter for my inbox, so I do not go absolutely mad with newsletter-style content. This is a small and not comprehensive list just for online voices. This is not necessarily going to help with local community building, but it might help me find some more like-minded online folks, or at least give you talking points whenever I do find in-person groups. I'll talk a little about that tomorrow.

I am already subscribed to the following:

John/Hank Green and Nerdfighteria: https://nerdfighteria.com/ or https://werehere.beehiiv.com/ or https://www.youtube.com/@vlogbrothers/

W. Kamau Bell: Comedian and activist. https://wkamaubell.substack.com/

Popular Info/Judd Legum: investigative journalist. https://popular.info/

ProPublica: Investigative journalism, not purchased by billionaires. https://www.propublica.org/ 

Robert Reich: Former Labor Secretary. Very, very smart. Sam Reich's dad. https://robertreich.org/

I will be investigating the following (will update this as I find more):

F.D. Signifire: Learned about him through W. Kamau Bell: https://www.youtube.com/@FDSignifire

Endevorance: Followed him on IG for awhile, but will subscribe to the newsletter. https://www.skh.news

Everytown.org: Anti-gun-violence organization

ACLU's podcast At Liberty: https://www.aclu.org/podcast

Heather Cox Richardson: Professor and historian. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

Angry Gay Grandpa: LGBTQ+ advocate. https://www.youtube.com/@AngryGayGrandpa 

Still to find: 

More trans rights advocates

Reproductive rights advocates

Immigrant rights advocates

Procrastinated Re-posts

Global Digital Citizen Foundation

Yesterday, I said I was going to find some people that are doing real valuable work...and I did start that post, but in the process of searching, I realized I needed to slow down and evaluate what I was looking at, because I was going too fast and risked following folks who were peddling misinformation that fed into my existing beliefs and biases. 

One thing that I'm guilty of, and that I know others are too, is seeing an inflammatory or scary or interesting post on X-itter (formerly Twitter, pronounced "shitter," by the way), Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, Instagram, etc., and re-posting it without thinking. I'm going to start doing a simple checklist. I've had a printed copy of this graphic tucked in one of my backpacks for so long that it's started to fall apart along the fold lines, but I've gotten out of the habit of using it on the regular. 

Media literacy is maybe the most important thing that we need to be teaching in schools, but it won't amount to much if we let public education erode any more than it already has. A lot of that can be controlled in local elections with school boards. So, local matters and that's important to cling to when most of our news is about big national drama. 

Anyway, Crash Course has a pair of YouTube series about navigating digital information and media literacy that are worth watching in their entirety. The videos are about 15 minutes long so it's pretty easy to get through. I'm going to watch them both again, because there's going to be a lot of misinformation coming at us in the next few years and we need to be prepared to evaluate everything, including things we agree with or think are probably true. 

All of this said, I'm going to be quiet over the weekend, and absorb some books and continue to gather people to follow. I'll do my best to follow my own guidelines about it. 

Take care of your family, found or otherwise, and be kind to your neighbor, always.

Shock Doctrine and Other Books

Today I'm going re-learn something, which is the one thing I'm good at. Shock Doctrine is a book written by Naomi Klein about what she calls "disaster capitalism." It plays up our fears and uncertainty after big news items drop to allow dangerous policy to go through. She wrote this in 2007, and a documentary of the same premise was released in 2009. I read the book a decade ago, but it is still highly relevant and I have forgotten most of it. The media plays into it fully with its always on, 24/7 requirements. We are now forced to stay in a heightened state of shock for longer periods, because every single day there's a new travesty that needs our immediate attention. We're entrenched in it. Absolutely everything is a disaster now, from homelessness to trans rights to immigration to inflation. There is no nuance or subtlety. This book addresses that, and I'm hoping to find further action items at the end of it.

Image credit: https://naomiklein.org/

Intersectionality is vastly important to get things done, but we've placed ourselves in echo chambers of outrage. So, step one is to slow down. I gotta breathe, and the best way I know is to immerse myself in a depressing but important book. Get these at your library where possible.

Book link: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-shock-doctrine-the-rise-of-disaster-capitalism-naomi-klein/12304745

Film links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3B5qt6gsxY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL3XGZ5rreE  

If you don't have a ton of time to spend on a book or documentary that's ok. There's a Wikipedia page that does a pretty good job explaining it.

Another book on my re-read list is The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic by Benjamin Carter Hett. I listened to this one back in February but I need to grab a copy of the actual book. Seems important.

Other options I already have on my shelf include Poverty, By America (https://bookshop.org/p/books/poverty-by-america-matthew-desmond/21003293) by Matthew Desmond, and another, newer Naomi Klein book called No is Not Enough about the cheeto's first presidency (https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-is-not-enough-resisting-trump-s-shock-politics-and-winning-the-world-we-need-naomi-klein/7213773).

Either way, we have a few months to stock up on knowledge. So today I'm gonna read, and watch, and learn again.

Be kind. Tomorrow we find others doing the work and we reach out to them.

Darker Days

It has been a long time since I updated this blog publicly. We lived (are living) through a global pandemic, and there are 3 simultaneous genocides happening in other places to other human beings. The United States has just re-elected the person whose original presidency spurred the creation of this blog. This post is a record of my thoughts and will hopefully be read by someone else who needs it. It has not been edited.

To leftists: The swirl of conflicting emotions feels unhealthy, but these emotions need to be honored. Give yourself a day to stir them, let them settle, and scoop out which of the anger, fear, despair, or others will drive you to action and resistance. Take that emotion and grind it into a fine flour. Bake it into each meal, mix it into your drinks, sprinkle it like glitter or mist it like perfume as you get ready for each day. And each time you do, let it galvanize you.

To others: The election in 2024 has upended what a lot of people thought was a common good that would prevent a doddering, narcissistic, felonious madman from usurping the title of President for a second time. But even there, in the language I used to describe him we cannot find agreement. Where I see cruelty in policy and politics, and economic policy that will bankrupt us for decades, you see decades of decline in your home areas, factories, farms, and infrastructure. You see the result of corporate greed and consolidation as the failure of Democrats. You blame the scapegoat of immigrants for home-grown problems borne of our own complacence. Democrats are not liberal despite what you thought, and continue to think, but neither are they a great evil. They are humans trying to do something helpful in a climate of vitriol and contention from the only other party we’re allowed to vote for.

Democrats are trying to keep afloat a system that has been broken from the start. They want slow change in a positive direction. But slow change does not help and to you who voted in 2024 it seems like empty words after decades of neglect. So you see a demagogue, a strong personality, a charismatic demeanor backed by a cadre of Christian Nationalists who promise you that they will upend things as they are. And they will. But keep a journal, please. Mark down your day to day thoughts and read them back on each year’s end. Take note of how your lives have or have not improved. Write down each emotion you have and ask yourself if they are healthy, and if you are happier now than you were before. This goes for congressional races too, by the way. Congress is supposed to set policy, yet so divided have we become that each session of legislation feels less and less helpful. Changes now have to come from places like the EPA, the FTC, the Fed, and the FDA using what little power they have to get real work done.

The problem is that we’ve never allowed real choice into an election. All of the elections I have participated in for the entirety of my voting life have been a “lesser of two evils” choice. I don’t prefer Democrats OR Republicans on a vast array of policies. Most of the people in my circles feel the same, but none of us have any power to change that.

Telling us to vote our conscience is cruel, too. Yes, vote for the person who you know will lose and pull votes from a marginally better option. What needs to change is not the parties themselves. Let Democrats be war-happy centrists. Let Republicans be whatever they sift out to be. But let’s put proportional representation into play so the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and whatever else pops up have a real seat at the table. Use third parties for what they’re good at: people voting for things they actually care about that will actually impact policy going forward..

While we’re making big changes, let’s do Ranked Choice Voting. In places where it’s been implemented before, the entire tone of elections has changed. Ranked Choice Voting encourages real, lasting coalition-building centered on policy over popularity, and eliminates a lot of the contention in campaigning. Candidates don’t want to risk being negative because it turns off a lot of voters who might otherwise be persuaded to put their name in a higher rank on the ballot.

How it works: Candidate A and B agree on two big talking points that are in the zeitgeist at the moment. Vote for both so that there’s a better chance those two big talking points have a shot to become policy. Don’t like the rest of Candidate A’s policies? Well, put Candidate B in your top slot, and A in the second. Both votes will be counted, and if Candidate B doesn’t make it through to the next round Candidate A just might. And as long as you get your two big talking points changed you know you can live with the rest. You feel more powerful as a voter because you ARE more powerful as a voter. This is especially true for people living in a solid color state. There’s no guarantee the new systems would work, of course, but as it is now we are headed for either physical conflict, or a quiet death of democracy.

Our republic is broken, and has always been broken. It would be easier to change if we were smaller. Abolish the electoral college and winner-take-all elections in favor of Ranked Choice Voting. Implement proportional representation in the legislative branch, and add term limits to all 3 branches. I don’t precisely know how to do this, but I am certain it will not be done without a massive organizational effort. You can reach out to FairVote.org to start or boost efforts in your region, as the process to organize this is already underway by folks much smarter than me.

In the short term, connect in person with your neighbors and local mutual aid groups. Reach out to RAICES and other immigrant service organizations to find out what you can do. Do it offline and don’t use social media to organize. Get a VPN and find a local printer who won’t ask questions about the content of your flyers. Donate time and funds to mutual aid, local Fairvote orgs, and any issue you’re panicking about with any amount you can spare. Consume less from the oligarchs and do the hard, extra work to buy local. If you can’t, ask if you really need the thing before you buy it. Prepare your couch or spare room. Above all else, be kind to your neighbors no matter what.