Molotovs > Fireworks

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 4 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

How do you celebrate the 4th of July?

It was submitted by: https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog.html/

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I've answered this question before in a way, but that time I made it more or less about hating fireworks and having trauma related to my dad getting drunk and my parents fighting every holiday and especially the 4th because it's my mom's birthday. And that still remains true. Im not really big on the holiday at the best of times..

But I'll be honest here, what the fuck is there to celebrate anyway? Fascism? Loss of rights? Being terrified to be an out queer person for the first time in a fucking long time? No healthcare? Ignoring a pandemic? Essentially sending people to work in a pandemic to keep the capitalism train moving and then also removing access to free tests and vaccines? A president who won't even say the word abortion or at least didn't for his first 2 years in office much less have a real plan to address it? A president who, on the way roe was overturned and knowing it was coming like we all did, had plans to appoint a lifetime federal judge position to an extreme antiabortion Republican? A country that will make Juneteenth a federal holiday but won't let people talk about the implications of racism on this country's foundation and its presence in our system to children in history classes? A country who will give more rights to guns than people? A country that cares about the lives of babies unless they're shot to death in school classrooms? A country that will make every excuse possible for a police to kill an unarmed person especially ESPECIALLY if they're a person of color?

I guess it would be a lot easier to celebrate the birth of this nation if it wasnt so hard for those of us who live here and have been othered in it. If it didn't carry a risk of discrimination and death just for looking or being different. If it didn't mean old fucking losers with too much power didn't feel entitled to keep the poor begging for scraps and the othered to die with nothing. It would be so much easier to pop off some fireworks if Democrats didn't somehow hinge their 50 years of failures on Bernie once again or Susan Sarandon or those of us who ever vocally criticize one of their politicians....you know the same party that paid for ads for an NRA A-rated, pro life democrat in Texas in no danger of losing their seat the day after children were gunned down in a school while the police (which Democrats gladly keep over funding) stood by in the same fucking state.

Fuck this country. There's nothing here to celebrate.

Whenever this country slides further into fascism, so many people always share that quote that says "don't fall into despair. Let this radicalize you." But somehow that means vote for the same people who never gave a shit about you to begin with and share bullshit meaningless memes. I'm sorry but in an oligarchy, voting is never a radical act. It's the very least you could possibly do.

Celebrate what?

A country still deeply in the throws of Satanic Panic and antisemitism? That still falls for conspiracies build on the foundation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which we know was made up entirely to excuse antisemitism? A country so caught up in fear, exploitation, and the art of the grift that a man could spiral so far down the rabbit whole in a couple months that he became willing to kill his own children with a spearfishing gun? That could look his 10 month old in the face and think that was the best he could do for that child? 

A leftist spectrum that thinks making a Facebook profile named Lenin Bussy Marx and sharing low quality memes is praxis? The ones who have 392 comment threads on Twitter arguing about what a 200 years dead white dude would think about a grifting YouTuber who made millions passing off propaganda about the Syrian civil war? The same leftists who think any country that isn't the U.S. is fine and good no matter what they're doing to their own people?

And the worst thing of all is that we aren't actively attempting to address ANY of it. 

Will I celebrate? Do I?

No thanks. I'll be sleeping in and watching Scooby Doo and everything else can go fuck itself.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.BakingInATornado.com

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog.html/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

News Fatigue

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

hoaxed ~ favoritism ~ wolf in sheep’s clothing ~ running smoothly ~ poke bowl ~ manually

They were submitted by: https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

I've had covid a second time and haven't slept well in months. Well, really in a year so this isn't the best thing I've ever written (I don't know if anything lately has been since I can write at most a paragraph at a time), but I want to keep the prompts going, and I hope in the next couple weekends I can functionally read well enough to catch up on comments. 

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Things aren't really running smoothly yet are they?

I mean I'd obviously hoped yet another politician hadn't turned out to be wolf in sheep's clothing, but, uh, let's just say those hopes weren't too high and yet here we are with...whatever the hell is going on in this place. Covid responses are as bad as ever with no new lockdowns here, overflowing hospitals, raging case numbers and we got 4 at home tests (per entire household) and maybe, if we're lucky and can scramble around for them, 3 better masks but we have to go out without one into busy pharmacies to pick them up ourselves. No checks, no eviction moratorium, no student loan relief, this business with Ukraine, what's been happening unchecked in Yemen, absolutely no bills to help the poor, fuck them kids, next to nothing to stop climate change, more deportations than ever, more police funding... I could go on.

The news lately has been all about the new cat at the white house. On a different channel they're probably still talking about whether a candy mascot is fuckable or not. Someone somewhere is writing that a poke bowl made at home is cultural appropriation and someone else is writing a dissertation in the comments about why that's wrong. Two headlines back to back will tell you that New York is giving us hope for Omicron and that new York's hospitals are past capacity. It's everything and nothing all at once and we just keep falling for it.

We really have been hoaxed into thinking we can't do better than this shit right here. We get hoaxed by the news every single day. Even if a person decides to manually look a thing up instead of letting their usual social media feeds tell them what's happening in the world, there are going to be 47,618 takes about any specific issue at minimum, and anything worth reading is going to be behind a paywall. Where do we go from here when good information costs money and conspiracies are free? Pay is low. Morale is low. Inflation is through the roof. How do we keep making it so people have to pay for even the most moderate info and still wonder why so many people are misinformed and lost? And don't tell me "well they should trust science" because if you know anything about our FDA, literally anything, then you should know why people don't trust our government when it comes to the medical field. Every day there's a new reason not to trust doctors. Every time the CDC contradicts itself so more people can get back to work sooner and keep lining rich people's pockets, people lose a little more of any faith they had that we get answers.

In a situation where people are already so fucking tired of all of this, where real news fatigue has set in, the constant changes and ridiculous focus on outrage about a fucking cartoon candy and how the company is obviously showing favoritism to the left by changing its CARTOON SHOES only increases the problems. Book burnings, fascists in Canada, mass shootings still happening all the time, people in a massive cult murdering their own families, worsening inclement weather events...

Where the fuck do we even go from here?

Don't answer that. I don't want to know.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Slide to the Left

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

rigged ~ wind ~ blurb ~ barrel ~ watch

They we're submitted by: https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Pipe dreams

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

What makes a place a “happy place”?

It was submitted by: https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/  

*I'm not sure this is the answer anyone was really looking for, but given this entire year, it's all I can think about.

 
**I'm going to try to do this as succinctly as possible because there are decades worth of conflicts and multiple acronymed organizations at play with my answer. I don't want to lose you along the way, so be gentle if you're already aware of the background. I'm trying to make this easier for anyone who has no idea about it to understand. 

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I think many of us in America who existed and were aware of society in the years following 9-11 have a kind of collective PTSD. Maybe that seems obvious because what happened on that day did, in fact, change a lot about this country and how we view the issues of privacy vs freedom, but it was also that post 9-11 world that led us to the Iraq war, to the lies we were told about the intent and reasoning for the Iraq war, to the loss of life and years of meaningless fighting.

Iraq was our Vietnam. And it left it's mark.

Now anytime any mention of foreign aid or intervention hits the news we collectively stick our fingers in our ears and hum to drown it all out. If we don't know anything about it, it will be fine. If we don't know, then is it really happening? And we assume, because the lies of Iraq burned us so badly, that more lies are being told to try to get us to care about people that don't look like us or live here.

That's what happened with Syria and how our collective trauma cost almost a million Syrian lives (so far?). No one wanted to believe Bashar al Assad was doing the things he was accused of--things he was most definitely guilty of--because if we did, there we were involving ourselves in yet another Middle Eastern country's problems when it had always gone so badly before and really why couldn't we let them solve their own shit.

Why can't entire regions stabilize and take care of themselves after decades of behind the scenes u.s. coups and shit? Hm. I wonder.

Anyway.

Obama understood that collective PTSD, I guess, and so we stood by while barrel bombs, torture chambers, and chemical weapons were used to decimate any dissent. More than twice as many people were killed by torture in Syria's prisons than in the entire near decade of conflict in Libya. That doesn't even begin to include all the other methods Assad used on his own people while his wife bought thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and joked about being the real dictator.

And that's the basic gist of it. People in the Middle East were rising up against mistreatment by dictators throughout the region in the early 2010s beginning in Tunisia. When Assad took over for his father in the early part of the century, he'd dangled a few carrots of freedom over the people and just as quickly snatched them back when he found out most people don't really care to be ruled by a dictator, so it's kind of surprising he didn't predict the dominoes of rebellion falling in "his" country as well, but I guess being a dictator makes you get a little too full of yourself. Dictators take huge gambles, and this time, he made a mistake thinking he had full control of things.

well. Sort of. He also bet that we wouldn't interfere, that no one would, if he had to quell any uprisings and in that way he was 100% correct. 

The people of Syria were tired of their leader and his family profiting off the land while mostly living in poverty, tired of knowing what could be if he wasn't ruling after all he'd given them a taste himself, so rebellion was guaranteed especially for the Kurds.

The Kurds are an ethnic group living in regions of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The vast majority of these people consider themselves Muslim, but they also have their own language, customs, and culture--non-Arab Muslims. And in Syria, even through they're the largest ethnic minority in the country, they have been denied statehood meaning they are not recognized as members of the country but also cannot leave the country because not enjoying statehood means no passports for travel, no recognized identification, etc. Not only that, Assad kept up the tradition of attempting to erase Kurdish culture that has existed in this region. In order to be a member of Syria, the Kurds must give up their practices, their language--everything about their ethnic identity--to assimilate.

When civil war broke out, Kurds were a large force in the rebellion. No one wants to be erased. And with the instability of Syria and the attacks by ISIS attempting to take advantage of that instability, the Kurds in Syria were able to create Rojava. Think something like what happened in Seattle during protests but better organized, armed, and with a solid ideology--a sort of leftist's paradise (besides the constant threats of violence) and an smallish scale experiment of how leftist ideas could be modernized for a working society now. 

As I said as a disclaimer in the beginning, this is dramatically oversimplified, but if you're interested in the more in-depth story, you can find those details online anywhere, but Rojava is the important part of this story, because I feel like if I had a happy place, it would be similar.

Rojava is based on the ideology of Murray Bookchin, an American leftist, learned by the Kurdish activist Abdullah Öcalan (Apo) while he was in a prison in Syria. So a Kurdish activist in Syria led a revolution from prison based on literature from the United States. The things that had to line up for this to occur are pretty amazing. Apo created a system after reading Bookchin called Democratic confederalism which operates on the ground in a very anarchist way. It's based on self organization as a whole that focuses on environmentalism, feminism, multiculturalism, self defense, and a sharing economy. Power is distributed from bottom to top not top down as in our system. Local community groups handle most of the problems and distribute for social programs as well as taking on most of the defense of their particular areas. And if a problem can't be solved locally, it goes to a higher community level. There isn't so much a heirarchy as a horizontal passing of issues. And all the committees and communes and organizations in charge of decision making are directly elected by the people in the communities they represent.

Women, life, and freedom.

That's one of the most common slogans of Rojava. While in prison, Apo came to understand that the patriarchal society he'd grown up in was flawed and that if society was going to move forward and be successful, women would have to hold the same positions in life as men. Women's importance and right to power and equitable treatment is written right into the constitution. Women took up arms and gave their lives to help fight off ISIS and the Syrian army itself. Women started women's houses to give women education and economic help. Abused women were rescued from their homes and given the options to live in villages for women and children only to allow them to heal outside the presence of men while they learn. And when asked, many of the male soldiers in the area are the first to admit that without women, Rojava wouldn't be. No not every man has made this miraculous change in less than a decade, but the changes that have been made and sustained in an area that is steeped in toxic masculinity and patriarchy tied to religion are huge, and they feel unreal. They feel too good to be true until you hear about them, read them, hear the men and women talk.

Restorative justice is also a huge focus. Police aren't ever the first on scene for smaller, nonviolent issues, and even when violence does occur, the community is just as involved as police are. When a murder happens, local community organizations take the perpetrator to authorities who will send him to trial and sentencing, but those same organizations also immediately set out to make sure both families are at peace and when that is achieved through mediation and negotiation, a feast with both families takes place. Even ISIS soldiers are given less than 20 years in prison and put through de-radicalization programs. They're educated and given the same resources as the Rojavans jailed for their offenses. The goal is to stop the root issues causing any crimes to happen not to merely punish someone for breaking a law.

Anarchy is not chaos. It is community support and outreach.

My happy place looks a lot like this. People who have no power imbalance where all different kinds of folks have equal footing in society, where problems are solved by involving the community, where the point of the society is to provide and give everyone a chance to have some sort of success. It's not a wealthy region partly because it has had to fight so hard to exist and remain existing, but there's not a wealth gap that leaves some in mansions and others on the streets dumpster diving to survive either which is no small feat given everything they've faced and that at its height nearly 3 million people lived there.

I don't know the future of Rojava. Turkey has made good on threats to push them from their homes by force and is backed by Russia. For a good while the U.N. presence and some U.S soldiers kept them at bay, but Trump pulled our troops from the region in late 2019 which has left the region with less stability forcing the Rojavans to ask for help from the Syrian regime that tried to erase them, and for now there seems to be a tenuous agreement but Assad has never made good on such agreements. I rage and cry every time I think about the nearly 1 million people that Bashar al Assad has murdered often in the most heinous ways because we could have stepped in. We could have, for once, saved lives instead of taking them. But we have too many scars from wars raged by careless, reactive men and too much fear anytime we hear about involving ourselves in foreign issues. 

But...it also gives me hope that people aren't eternally destined for capitalistic greed, that community isn't lost and, that it is, in fact, possible to provide for everyone and for everyone to work together to ensure it. And if I have to have a queer femme commune to do it on the small scale in an apocalyptic America amidst another civil war so be it.

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I'm going to link the other participants in this this month's Subject Swap, but before I do, I recommend the podcast Women's War about Rojava hosted by Robert Evans and written about a trip he took there as a journalist to find out if what was being written about it were true. And I also recommend the two part episode of Behind the Bastards (also hosted by Robert Evans who was in Syria itself for awhile) about Bashar al Assad. Both are incredibly informative and a lot of what I've written here was learned in those podcasts as well as the many articles online and the Rojava website and reading literature. 

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/08/theres-no-place-like-home-for-covid.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/?p=14953

Pat-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/08/secret-subject-swap-when-time-stood.html

Opinions Are Like Assholes: everyone has one but not everyone wants to see it

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 7 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

my “Secret Subject” is:

Are you able to be close friends with people who think differently than you do? Or do you think that friends have to have similar core beliefs in order to be close?

It was submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com

                                                ___________________________________________

I feel like my answer to this might not win me any friends, but by the end it will probably become clear that I'm okay with that.

Fundamentally, I don't think I can truly answer this question without clarifying what we mean here by "think differently."

Since having chronic fatigue syndrome I experience a lot of cognitive issues. Memory loss, executive dysfunction, loss of balance, trouble speaking words even when I know what they are and trouble recalling words period, trouble thinking clearly... It's a long list. And I guess at this point my brain works differently than what is "normal." I'm not neurotypical. I have friends like me. I have friends who are neurodivergent on a developmental level. And I know people who are neurotypical. We literally think differently, and not one group of us is better or even better off. We're different. End of.

Are we talking about someone who thinks pineapple not only belongs but MUST be on pizza? Because despite how "differently" I feel about it--like someone who eats it is the wrongest kind of wrong-- I love someone who is like this albeit begrudgingly. I feel some kind of way about this blasphemy to everything that is good about pizza, but who does it hurt for him to eat it? (Obviously besides my own feelings.) Superficial opinions like this are fine. You want to put mayo on things? Knock yourself out even though I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. Don't like the color purple? Ok. I don't get it but I can still love you. Hate The Big Lebowski? Well, I might not think much about your taste in films, but ultimately you're only hurting yourself here so what does it matter in the end? I mean, I'd like you better if you got my constant references, but we could still be close. I have core fundadamental beliefs about foods and movies and music that I think are important to who I am as a person, but if someone I love doesn't agree I silently judge but we can still be close.

I suppose though this prompt is perhaps more about politics and those kinds of core beliefs. And once we cross into that territory things are no longer simple. When we discuss politics we aren't usually talking about how we think the President should use the Federal Reserve to react to an impending recession. We aren't typically talking about states using income or sales tax to fund their budget. Admittedly even those topics can understandably get heated, but more times than not we're arguing over fundamental differences in VALUES. How I feel about socialist programs, queer rights, feminism, reproductive health, anti-imperialism, and nationalism involve respect for humans, help for humans, and basic human rights aligns with how I view the world, society, and what I see as important. These things are no longer just an opinion. They're a reflection of my morals and concern for my fellow human beings. It's not the same as saying you don't like cake which, yeah, fucking sucks but not nearly as much as it sucks to know someone thinks my trans friends shouldn't exist or have access to equal rights. How can I have people in my life that think so differently about my and my friends' and my own child's right to exist? How can I be friends with someone who thinks people like me who can't work are a drain on society? How am I supposed to respect someone who doesn't think food and water are basic and fundamental human RIGHTS????

The answer is an easy one for me. I can't.

I can't wait around for some asshole who doesn't understand that my kid's genderqueer identity doesn't mean he's mentally ill to finally get that he's a person just like anyone else. I can't spend my time arguing with them over it hoping maybe they'll come around. I can't wait for the Trump supporters that still lurk around in my life to finally see what so many others do... it's not just a "think differently" situation anymore. I have to look out for my own and my kid's safety. I was out of the closet in the 90s. I know how much is at stake. I've been threatened with violence from the moment I was out and throughout my life. I don't have room in my life for people who lack basic respect for human life unless those humans love, live, worship, and have sex the exact same way they do.

My point is that at the end of the day we don't "think differently" when it comes to politics more often than not. What we have is an absolute mismatch of values, ethics, morals, and understanding, and with that difference comes a lack of respect and unconditional love that is an absolute requirement for a close, personal relationship. Can we be friends? Maybe but probably not. Not really. But we absolutely can't be close. At best I can stand in the outfield and not wish illness or harm to come to you or yours but that's as good as it's going to get.

When it comes to having those same core values and beliefs but thinking differently about how to achieve those goals or the root causes of identifiable issues or perhaps how to make changes to or reform or deconstruct systems, there's less at stake here. When I think of someone who is "different" than me, it's not these issues that come to mind because we don't "think differently" in my eyes. We have a different approach. We aren't so fundamentally different that working together and having mutual respect is impossible. And there lies the crux of the issue--how differently we think really matters in how to approach this question and these relationships.

I've never minded cutting people out of my life that treat or react to people badly. I'm not gonna be your friend if you don't tip in the u.s. either. I mean really. I don't mind cutting out people that don't make me feel good, that I groan when I see it's them commenting or texting or calling. I have one life, and I'm not giving it to people who make it shitty. The end.

                                      _______________________________________

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.BakingInATornado.com

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/

Southern Belle Charm https://www.southernbellecharm.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch

These Days

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 6 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

You just returned from a visit to Ireland and brought back a bit of the ol' Irish luck. What great thing has happened as a result?

It was submitted by: https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com


I needed to vent. thanks for reading.

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I guess in reality no one is going to Ireland right now. No luck of the Irish is coming to call, and I just have to hope that if I get this virus I come out of it alive instead of dying alone. I'm terrified. There's no luck here. Georgia is currently on a trajectory to see infection rates greater than 70% and an astounding death rate if our governor doesn't step in, and he's made it clear he has no intention to do enough...at least until it's too late. (since i first wrote this he finally ordered a shelter in place order after most projections indicated it was too late and only for only just over a week).

I don't know if I have it in me right now to hope for better. Our president knew this would be bad as early as January and did nothing. We have a large group of people in charge who care more about the stock market than lives. We're living in uncertain times. Not a single one of us has any idea what the future holds beyond the fact that things will never be the same again. Never.

How do you think about the luck of the Irish in a time like this? (And to be clear I know the person who sent this prompt in had no idea how things would be or maybe hoped it would be a good escape) I'm so scared and lost and feeling hopeless about the future that it's hard to talk about any sort of hope about things turning around and impossible to pretend that this all goes away with a little luck or that any change--major or minor--gets us anywhere. Because now we know. Now we know that accommodations could be made, that the government didn't step in when it should and could, that the poorest people were told they didn't need a stimulus check at first to help keep them off the street or feed them while on the street. Now we know how quickly things can get bad, how much we depend on "unskilled labor" (i hate that phrase) to function. Now we know that we're seen more as labor sources and stock market padding than anything by the people with power. Now we know how badly we do need universal healthcare.

There is no longer a normal to get back to. And while many leftists, actual leftists, never wanted that normal in the first place, we have no idea where we're going to land to try to make positive changes for the future. And all of us, absolutely all of us, are mourning the normalcy of our day to day.

There is no EPA oversight right now. None. In an environment already overwhelmed by humans.

With cfs, my immune system is compromised is ways that even the most informed experts on the disorder don't understand. Every time I have groceries brought in, every exposure is a risk. My stepdad won't close his store because Georgia isn't closing things down right now. He's exposing my mom every single day. They're still doing family things exposing the rest of my family. I might very well lose people. I already have friends with it. I've had friends denied tests because they weren't sick enough. The real numbers are very likely much higher giving us an invisible enemy around every corner.

We were told to sacrifice our grandparents and our sick (people like me!) on the alter of the Market in the Holy Economy temple. We were told to appease the capitalism gods. To sacrifice lives to keep people rich with no inkling of understanding that these bodies are needed to keep the economy afloat...to spend money and give labor.

White supremacists are using their infected to spread to the groups they hate and tried to attack a hospital with a car bomb. A hospital full of covid patients.

Maybe most people I know live will through this. Maybe I do so my kid isn't parentless or doesn't have to live with a parent and stepparent who don't love him. Maybe we will find a vaccine before millions die and can maintain social distancing until that vaccine is a reality. Maybe the people in charge finally start taking this seriously--and not after it's too late like in Georgia whose major hospitals are already overwhelmed with the ceiling for the number of patients we can take looming larger and larger by day. But none of that will be because of luck. It will be fought for.

If we're lucky, if we really want some of that Irish luck, I hope we'll still have some fight left when all this is done.

Fight for change, for universal healthcare, for better than what we've gotten from two parties who care about money more than people. Fight for the most vunerable of us to finally see equality so they're not treated differently when they're dying alone in the hospital, so someone's triage choice doesn't exclude the trans patient solely based on bigotry. Fight for every state and every local government to have plans already in place to address pandemics so we don't have SHITASS governors thanking chik fil a and praying instead of closing fucking beaches. We have to get through this and still have fight left even while everyday we feel like we don't have any at all. And we'll need luck and wits and strength and determination and the highest roll possible on our polyhedral dice to make sure this doesn't happen like this to our kids and their kids.

_______________________________________

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/04/call-me-pistachio-secret-subject-swap.html

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/04/changing-that-one-sss-april-2020.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/?p=14790

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/04/secret-subject-swap-long-day.html

I Wanna Be Sedated

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: elections, blue, cows, stars, millennials. they were submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

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I haven’t been as into politics this year.

I’m burned out.

I’m burned out on even reading the word “elections.” I’m burned out on the whole “blue no matter who” chant and the finger pointing at millennials for every ending, badly run, overhyped, no longer valid industry and every real, serious, and necessary criticism of Democratic candidates. I’m tired of explaining that wanting and expecting better of our potential presidential candidates isn’t what handed us Trump, and it isn’t going to be what hands us Trump again if it happens that way. The bigotry, willful ignorance, hatred, and selfishness of America is partly what gave us that and what will do it again. The undercurrent that has always been a problem in America gave him to us. Ignoring those issues while we pretend everything is fine is what gave him to us. Always focusing on electability over policy, always excusing racism and sexism and abelism because Trump and his supporters are worse is at fault.

How fucking low are we going to set the bar? We just gonna make racism okay as long as it isn’t blatant Trump racism?

And let’s face it, the inability for so many liberals to face any criticism of the Democratic party gave us Trump, too.

I spent a couple days recently enjoying some episodes of a show (Maude) made in the early 70s that was incredibly progressive for its time and complained, largely, about the same problems we face now only then it was Nixon. And after Nixon, it was Reagan. So many of the same criticisms that Democrats make about Trump and act like it’s all brand new territory are the same things written into this show created in 1972 about some other asshole we thought couldn’t possibly be elected at the time because we underestimated the selfishness and hatred of our fellow Americans but also because we failed to see the problems in our own party and cut off any real discourse about them out of fear. For literally decades, liberals have spent all their time fingerpointing at the other side instead of using losses to grow and make necessary changes.

Who is Joe Biden if not another Hubert Humphrey?

I’m tired of being one of the cows grazing on the pasture of whatever crumbs of progressive policy white liberals use to tease marginalized groups. I’m tired of waiting to be inevitably led to slaughter when those politicians suddenly cater to the mythological moderate Republican who might vote Blue for the right person.

Democrats would be better off spending millions trying to prove leprechauns will give us all a pot of gold if we just remove that scary word “socialism” from the English language. Or is that what we’re doing now? Close enough, I guess.

Spoiler alert: those people don’t exist. There is no large group of voting Republicans that can be courted hard enough to turn the tides of the election while the entire political spectrum shifts further and further right to appease a demographic that has literally never won Democrats an election. The thing of it is the kind of people who can be swayed by a conservative masquerading as a Democrat don’t vote and don’t have a stake in any fight. None of the policies being discussed really affects them or their livelihoods. They aren’t the kind of people who will have to worry about losing protections or being kicked out of the military. There’s nothing to lose and nothing to gain by making such a switch. So why in the ever loving fuck do we leave our most vulnerable out in the cold to cater to people who won’t notice much of a difference and won’t give a shit no matter who wins? What kind of tactic is that and what does it say about the core of the Democratic party?

No candidate is going to appeal to millennial and younger leftists by using slang badly on Twitter and lying about when they used to smoke weed on a podcast. We don’t give a shit. Honestly. I could not care less about who smokes weed as long as they’re keen on making it legal for everyone and easier to get coupled with releasing offenders who were charged with weed related, non violent crimes while rich white people get richer off the industry. I’d like more LGBTQIA+ representation in the government, out and open and proud. But that’s not a trade off for someone who supports Medicare For All. It’s not a replacement for having actual convictions. It’s not a shiny item that will distract us from a history of gentrification and racism. Policy matters. Past voting records and policy initiatives matter. Having a real plan of action and not some super secret healthcare idea matters.

People get stars in their eyes about certain politicians and fail at all to be able to accept criticism of that candidate and join others in pushing for a better version of that candidate. It’s all defensiveness and denial and “DO YOU WANT TRUMP AGAIN BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU GET TRUMP AGAIN” instead of any actual conversation about where we can compromise and what sort of past voting records and bills can be forgiven. Instead of examining Biden’s past with the 94 crime bill, his support of segregation and his continued racist comments, any of these points are met with BUT TRUMP IS THE WORST. Sure, ok. But where does that leave us? Doing this in ’68 still gave us Nixon. Twice. Focusing only on criticizing the opposition leading up to the primaries didn’t work then. It didn’t work for Reagan. It didn’t work for George W Bush. And it didn’t work for Trump. So why will it suddenly work now?

Self crit and growth aren’t easy. I get it. Pretending we always have the high ground over the opposition though has made for a stagnant party that continues to push further and further right so that American liberals are conservative in the rest of the world. The younger generations may get on board with a candidate we don’t fully believe in just for the sake of harm reduction for more vulnerable groups, but the longer the Democratic Party does this, the more of us get jaded, the more we feel our votes don’t make a damn, and that means even fewer votes period.

We’re fucking tired. Jaded. Nothing to do, no where go oh. We wanna be sedated.

One Thing

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 7 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

What is one thing you could start doing today to improve the quality of your life?

It was submitted by: https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Probably not what anyone would think of as appropriate for 4th of July week but it's honest. 

___________________________

The one thing I could do to improve my quality of life immediately is to move out of the United States.

I’m not exaggerating.

I have a chronic illness and no access to adequate or affordable insurance. I don’t have access to doctors who take my issues seriously undermining them both because I am a woman and because I am chubby. Women in this country experience so many issues in the healthcare system even when they do have a thin figure, insurance, and enough money to pay their copays. We have a higher rate of being underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and with harassment from healthcare workers. All of it adds up to me not at all being able to get adequate care. I need a fair healthcare system, one that isn’t rife with misogyny. I need universal healthcare. I need doctors who are actually educated on my disorder and who take the issues I face seriously. I need doctors who are educated on the new research involving weight, how weight is often out of people’s control and not remotely tied to every single health issue a woman might face. I’ve gone to the doctor for colds, literally, and had them blamed on me needing to lose weight. How is that at all the kind of healthcare system that works for people?

The United States doesn’t even rank in the top 20 when it comes to women’s equality. Pay rates, healthcare, programs… we are seriously lacking in every regard when it comes to women having an even playing field with men while our government remains dominated by men and often by women who pander to the male demographic by denying the issues that social sciences prove to exist.

Capitalism relies on extreme poverty and homelessness to function. Economic theorists have found this to be a certainty. Without people to show how terrible it can be when you don’t “work hard” people refuse to take the lowest pay for the hardest work. That's the way capitalism works. We lack the social programs that prevent these issues that other countries have. It’s not even about socialism. We can look to the Scandinavian countries to see that if the United States is hellbent on having capitalism (which I don’t think works not as it is here and perhaps not at all), it can do so with a heavy foundation of social programs that put its most vulnerable populations on better footing. I’m disabled. I cannot work with the illness I have without risking being bedridden or worse for the rest of my life. I’m barely hanging on to not being completely homebound. I need a cane to get around my house because I insisted on working when I was initially sick and have gotten worse in the 3 years since this started. Being in this country is fucking terrifying. There are no safety nets for people like me. The amount of money I would have to pay and years I would have to wait to still be denied disability is outrageous, and our disability programs are constantly being threatened. People are cut off at random. And it’s never enough for people to actually get by. If I somehow found the money to make the kind of appointments and do the testing needed to prove I qualify for disability and keep it going for the years it takes (more than 3 on average) to finally get it approved, it would take years and years of disability to finally recoup the money I shelled out for specialists and testing and scans… And in my current situation, sure it would help but it surely wouldn’t alleviate my poverty. Not here. People literally die waiting on their disability. My dad did when he was diagnosed with cancer.

Being queer in this country is equally as terrifying right now. Sure, you’ll roll your eyes and say that we can get married. What else do we want? How about protections against being fired for being gay? Those don’t exist in many states and federal protections were rolled back under Trump. How about not being denied housing because we’re gay? Not being turned away from healthcare? Not being killed LEGALLY because of gay panic defense? Being able to adopt? Being able to shop without discrimination being disguised as “religious freedom?” Not being forced into conversion therapy by bigoted parents? Or kicked out of the house and put on the streets where the country doesn’t have any sort of programs to help out? The United States doesn’t even rank in the top 15 friendliest countries for the LGBTQIA+ population, and it’s no wonder. Violence continues with hate crimes against the community especially trans women of color. Murders, attacks, fear… what kind of life is that? We can’t even hold hands in public without fearing our safety much less live our lives out and happy. It’s absolutely a MOMENT when you see a gay couple living out and loud and not looking over their shoulder or minimizing their affection. It makes you feel so hopeful and so less alone, but it’s so fucking rare that it’s only ever really okay at pride and even then we encounter protestors who would like nothing more than to eradicate us from the world. We may have come a long way from where we were in the past several decades, but we already had so much more to go before this administration, and it’s not going to get any better any time soon.

At least 5% of America identifies openly as LGBTQIA+. As many as 1 in 5 have a disability with 1 in 10 actually having a severe disability. Half the fucking country almost is female. So while this may be a harsh critique of a country you love, for some of us, it’s a matter of the life, liberty, and happiness others already get without worry. If that’s you, great. But there is so much work left to do. We’ve been browbeaten with this idea that America is the greatest country in the world without fault and without complaint, but that’s hardly true. It may feel good to think in the moment when you’re a few drinks in, fireworks exploding in the background on Independence Day, but the rest of us are exhausted. The rest of us get nauseated when we see those displays of patriotism without criticism. We were founded on questioning what’s right and moral, but that stopped a long fucking time ago, and there are a lot of times I wish I could afford to be done with it all as it was made very clear to me that even though Guthrie sang about this country belonging to us all, there are far too many red-blooded Americans who want the population to look, act, and believe a certain way or we aren’t welcome here.

I’m tired of living where I’m not wanted and couldn’t get help if I was.

_______________________________________________

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2019/07/sobriquetless-secret-subject-swap.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Spatulas on Parade  https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2019/07/be-our-guest-be-our-guest-or-not-sss.html

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2019/07/secret-subject-swap-dream-car.html

Our Prime Years https://ourprimeyears.blogspot.com

See You Next Tuesday

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 11 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is: You're chosen to create a new superhero. What's the name and powers, his or her arch enemies, and love interest? Are they from D.C. Comics or Marvel? What type of personality do they have?

It was submitted by: http://www.bookwormkitchen.com/

After reading this, I think you will understand this character would be neither D.C. nor Marvel. She's kind of her own thing. 

__________________________________________

"Sir?"

President Chezpuf, hunched and defeated like always when alone, turned his gaze from the television and faced his chief of staff, the 30th man to have the job in the last year, Steven Segal, as he walked through the doorway.

"I have the file you requested, Mr. President."

"That's DOCTOR PROFESSOR MISTER PRESIDENT TO YOU, STEFAN."

"Right, sir. My apologies. Here's the file."

Segal moved to sit the file in front of the president, but Chezpuf stopped him with a wave of his hand, "you know I don't read these things. My words are the best words. Tremendous, tremendous words. I'm not reading anyone else's words. Don't make me fire you on Twitter, Stephanie."

"Sir, I told you when you hired me I can't read too good."

"And you think I'm going to listen to this whole thing?"

"Well, sir, it's a pretty detailed report on this woman. I think all this information is probably stuff you need to know to put a stop to it."

"Oh I will put a stop to her. I have a plan, a huge, huge plan. It will be the best plan to...wait, what are we talking about again?"

"...the file, sir. On Thundercunt. You know the woman terrorizing our congressmen, the one we have no plan on how to stop?"

"We don't have a plan, Sherman? Sad! FAKE NEWS."

Steven shook his head slowly. He knew it was bad when he took the job...maybe not this bad.

"Sir? Do you want the file?"

"Just give me the highlights, Sean."

"This woman goes by the name of Thundercunt. Her real name is Jenna McGary. She's 38, no record. She voted...well, she voted for Clint..."

"LOCK HER UP. LOCK HER UP. What would she want to vote for that loser for? I won the election by the biggest margin in our history. I had the best turnouts, the biggest crowds. We won. Does she know that?"

"Well. Yes, sir, she knows that. From what anyone can tell your winning actually fueled a rage in her so strong that it has mutated her cells."

"I won. I don't think she understands. If it wasn't for those 3 million illegal votes, we would have gotten the popular vote. We won. Has anyone tweeted that to her? What a plan. A great plan. Let me get on that right now. What's her twitter? Put this one in the history books. Trump beats the first super villian."

"She doesn't have Twitter. And you should know, sir, that Twitter is calling her a hero."

"For what? We won. She must watch too much fake news."

"Because she's been changing the minds of a lot of our Congressmen on key conservative issues."

"Ol' Killary must have paid her. I love that name. It's tremendous. Killary."

"That's the thing, sir. She wasn't really a Clinton supporter. It's all in the report if you want to read it."

"Smithers, I told you I don't read the son of a bitching reports. I'm a busy man."

Chezpuf grabbed his phone and immediately tweeted out "ISO: new chief of staff. Must be able to read."

...

In a shadowy office on Capital Hill, Thundercunt was waiting for an opportunity to show herself. She knew Senator Zodiac was due to return from a "meeting" (ahem, a tryst with his mistress) any time. She passed the time reading the latest Post article about her.

"Thundercunt and Her Thunder Thighs of Doom Take Down Another Would-be Rapist with a Bright Future"

What a long ass title, she thinks. And a sad one. Bright future? Why should anyone give a shit about a rapist's future?! She feels the rage boiling up inside her again but keeps reading anyway.

"Police found another body in downtown Washington D.C. with an exploded head. Detectives were able to identify the man as 26 year old Jayonnaise Winchester. Winchester, a recent John Hopkins graduate, was about to begin his residency. Friends and family describe him as a bright young man who never met a stranger. His last Facebook update read, 'I. Love. Bitches.'

Witnesses say they walked into an alleyway after hearing a woman scream for help to find Mr. Winchester with his pants around his ankles holding a woman whose name has not been released to the press at this time against the wall. Before these two witnesses could intervene, both described a woman in a blood red and pink suit, a woman we have come to know as Thundercunt, running into the alley.

The witnesses state after pulling Mr. Winchester off the woman, she clapped her legs together near his head as in previous incidents emitting a concentrated sound wave or some kind of sonic boom, and his head exploded.

We will update the public as soon as more details are available."

She smiled to herself. When the system fails, you work outside it, right?

Just then the door opened. She held back despite the disgusting smirk on Senator Zodiac's face waiting until he closed the door and moved forward. He was too weak not to run if he saw her before she could block his path.

He crossed the office in complete security never once looking around to check things out. She waited until he was seated to approach.

"Congressman Zodiac, I don't believe we have had the pleasure of meeting face to face yet."

His head jerked up, and he let out a high pitched squeal not all that different from a frightened piglet. "I-i-i-it's you."

"Gosh, you are so smart. It's no wonder you're sitting here in this office, A congressman. And so ethical, too, what with you being fresh off a woman who isn't your wife who you want to deny birth control to even though I know for a fact you don't wear a condom on your little, and I do mean little, weekly sessions."

"Huhuhuhuhow...," he stammered but recovered quickly. "Get out of my fucking office, whore."

"Now is that any way to speak to a citizen of this great nation? A citizen who has a present for you?"

He tried to run, but she was too fast. One hand flew to her temple, the other low on her abdomen. With her social justice rage welling inside her cells, she pushed out with all her force hitting Senator Zodiac with her vagina-mind beam.

In almost an instant he was writhing on the floor, crying, pleading. "What did you do to me?"

"Oh that? I just sent you my gift--PMS, bloating, menstrual cramps, PCOS symptoms, and endometriosis pain. You don't have the right equipment, but until that wears off in about a month or so, you'll feel exactly what we feel. Every cramp, every stabbing pain, every migraine, i want you to remember birth control helps. Every time a doctor tells you its all in your head, think about the women you fuck over every time you vote. Think about the words preexisting condition. Think about it every time you vote. Or I'm coming back. Oh and by the way...your weekly visit? She's pregnant."

Thundercunt left him weeping on the floor begging for a hot water bottle and some Midol.

a little visual of TC my son and i worked on together

_______________________________________

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2017/10/murder-by-text-secret-subject-swap.html

Cognitive Script https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-tired-worn-broken-aka-victorious.html

The Blogging 911 http://theblogging911.com/blog

The Lieber Family Blog http://www.thelieberfamily.com/2017/10/head-versus-heart.html

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/2017/10/no-regerts-secretsubjectswap.html

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Bookworm in the Kitchen http://www.bookwormkitchen.com/

Never Ever Give Up Hope http://batteredhope.blogspot.com

TaylorLife http://www.TaylorLife.com

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com

Climaxed http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

Past, Present, and Fiction

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: mudpie, sunshine, party, windchimes, wet. They were submitted by: http://Bakinginatornado.com

____________________________________

I feel lost more often than ever before these days.

Politics and social issues have been something I poured myself into even when things in my own life were overwhelming (as they often are), but what exactly are you supposed to do when you’ve been bowled over by both?

A lot of people in my generation, folks around their late 20s to late 30s, turn to nostalgia to get them through. I don’t mean we pine for the days of mudpies on sunshine-filled afternoons in a diaper and nothing else while Mom’s windchimes twinkle out their soothing tune in the warm breeze, but we do tend to bury ourselves in the pop culture fandoms of our youth or at least act like kids with pop culture obsessions. I do it just as well and as thoroughly as anyone else when I can, but that’s also becoming problematic. One part of the problem is I’m also the kind of person who has to be doing, producing, or bettering themselves or those around them or I tend to slip into depression. Fictional worlds have always been so much easier to navigate than the one we live in now, but there’s so much in me screaming to help change the world, to leave a mark, to make this reality a better one for my child that I have always been almost obsessive about sociopolitical issues trying to at least reach others via social media about the topics that affect others the most.

But that aspect of our nation, even though it has always been hugely flawed and in need of change, has become a circus. And I don’t mean that in the Obama’s-gonna-take-our-guns hyperbolic way. I mean it in the every-other-civilized-nation-on-the-planet-is-laughing-at-us kind of way. We’re divided as a nation. We always have been split more or less along party lines, and those lines tend to divide how we view a presidency and creates the kind of panic that occurs when a Democrat takes office and gun sales go up just in case someone, somewhere takes guns from the average Joe for reasons unknown and unclear. But now we have a situation where there are some who can’t roll with a changing world and want things to be more “simple” like when women were more or less property and minorities weren’t asking for the things they deserve while the rest of us are fighting to exist or fighting for the right for ALL people to have the same rights and a level playing field. That fight becomes exhausting. People get burned out even in better conditions, but the 2016 election cycle and the following ridiculousness has been hugely destructive for a lot of people’s mental well-being.

On top of that, fictional worlds have become too close to reality. Dystopian futures in films and books no longer look like impossible nightmares. Even make-believe hits too close to home for comfort. The Handmaid’s Tale is an all too terrifying peak into the way capitalism abuses those who can do for those who can pay as well as what “traditional values” defined by religion can do to wreck a society and turn it into a terrifying extreme. Idiocracy with its look at an America lacking intelligence, focusing on brands, pushing capitalism over EVERYTHING, and having a celebrity President is just far too close to reality for most people. Corporations pushing their products to “save” the world lead to its impending destruction while the government plays along. Isn’t that where we are? We haven’t reached a point where our individuality is exactly punished as in 1984, but that dystopian landscape is still a little too close for comfort with Fake News being paraded by the President as a valid response to any criticism and so many folks blindly following that. And while dystopian science fiction doesn’t represent the only fandoms in the fictional universe, there’s no escaping commentary that relates in some form or fashion to the world we do live in…

My own personal life is a daily struggle with a chronic disease that leaves me exhausted and compromises my immune system. Sick, beyond exhausted, and often in pain are how I navigate my days, and it’s really no easier for other folks. This generation and the one after it are finding day to day life more difficult than generations before even while technology works to make everyday tasks easier. What we’ve lost in physical work to do things has been more than recovered in the difficulty paying for student loans, inability to buy a home or even save for the future, and a shrinking job market of positions that will actually cover the bills and not leave families absolutely wrecked.

The headlines scream out everyday: Trump Is Incompetent, The GOP Can’t Pass a Bill, Men Are Afraid of Strong Women, Water Is Wet and all you’ll find in the comments are memes and BUTHEREMAILS.

So where does a person turn when fiction is too close to reality, reality is to disturbing to deal with, and personal lives are increasingly harder to navigate?

I don’t really know the answer, so I’m treading water and trying to keep afloat one day at a time. It certainly helps to have a great support network online and in real life, but there’s not a lot of realities, fiction or otherwise, that I and people like me can bury themselves in even partially to help recover from the hard times of the present and attempt to form a positive outlook for the future.

One day at a time, one moment at a time is the best we can do. For now, the little things like puppy slobber, learning to sew (and succeeding), wine with friends, late nights with my favorite person, hot coffee, and sundried sheets are welcome distractions.

________________________________________________

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2017/07/bewildered-use-your-words.html

Cognitive Script https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/2017/07/exuberant-vacation.html

The Blogging 911 http://theblogging911.com/blog

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/2017/07/gone.html

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

Simply Shannon http://shannonbutler.org

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Bookworm in the Kitchen http://www.bookwormkitchen.com/2017/07/14/july-use-your-words-2/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2017/07/use-your-words-youth-festival-flooding.html

Not So Politically Charged

I’m the kind of person that often makes politics the center of my life. And by “often” I mean like political and sociopolitical issues are my life. But recently, I have had to take some steps back from a lot of what is going on in the United States. Part of me feels guilty for it, but part of me knows that going strong the way I have about other things has made me burned out.

I can’t say the last 8 years when my interests really grew were perfect. Obama wasn’t an infallible leader by any means. Sure he was charming and put forth bills and executive orders that aligned, if not fully mostly, with my core beliefs and values. When I was outraged at something that happened in this country, it usually wasn’t coupled with fear that this IS our country. I might have known that the issue wouldn’t be addressed the way it needed to be, that these things wouldn’t be fixed overnight, but I wasn’t terrified that we, as a people, were devolving, going backward, fucking time traveling back to a time when hate was worn like a uniform out in the open, brazenly, when it was something to be proud of…

All that changed this year when 45 was elected. Being a woman, not exactly a straight one, has put a lot of issues in the public eye that I thought we were moving past as a nation. I mean, who would have thought in 2017 rational people would be like, hmmm, maybe we should let literal Nazis have a platform to speak on college campuses, maybe we should engage them and sway them from actual genocide with, you know, internet infographics and arguments.

But here we are.

Here we are with a President who has given confidential information to another country not exactly known for being, you know, all about freedom and shit. But who cares because at least he doesn’t have a vagina? Amirite???!!?

BUT HER EMAILS, THOUGH. Her fucking emails!

Like seriously, Trump is under criminal investigation for obstruction of justice AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. And I don’t even think it’s the worst thing he’s done so far nor will it be the last investigation. If Trump is impeached or resigns or worse, what then? Pence? That might even be worse. He’s not as hotheaded, but unlike Trump he isn’t in it for the attention and the praise. He has an agenda, and I don’t think we have even half a clue how deep it goes.

So things have changed for me. Where I had room to be outraged, opinionated, and outspoken about big issues like police brutality, systemic racism, feminism, body acceptance under Obama, everything is so insane lately that I’m not sure where to even start. What the fuck do you even talk about these days? Which issue? Which bill? Which ineptitude? Which country he pissed off? Which attempt to cut off rights for people like me?

I don’t know how to keep up anymore, and I know this won’t last forever. Even now I see things here and there that I have to comment on or share, but for the most part, I am trying to live life and focus on self-care. I can’t avoid real life for long, and it’s a privilege to even be able to do so this long, but I needed this vacation from the madness.

____________________________

This little ranty thing was part of Sunday Confessions, a weekly blog challenge hosted by More Than Cheese and Beer who has taken a hiatus lately from blogging. I love these weekly challenges with just one word or phrase to twist into something fanciful. This week, the topic was Center. Thanks for reading and feel free to link up yourself with the rest of us below.

An InLinkz Link-up

Coffee and Healing

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: Bitter ~ Rejuvenate ~ Winter ~ Sleep ~ Quiet ~ Dark

They were submitted by: http://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Just to let everyone know, this isn't 100% autobiographical. I've never officially come out to family, and I haven't dated a woman seriously in a long time. My mental health issues are not nearly to this level either, but it's not hard to channel these feelings and put myself in place of this narrator. 

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Even with sweetener and cream, the coffee leaves a bitter taste on her tongue that makes her feel both alive and comforted in a way that nothing else can accomplish. Just the smell of her favorite brews wafting through the house relax her anxiety better than any pill has ever managed to do, better than all the years of therapy, all the hospital stays. Sometimes she thinks there must be something to that whole aromatherapy business--give her a hot mug of coffee even on the worst of days, and at least for a little while she transcends all the muck and stress and turmoil her brain puts her through. Her frazzled nerves are stilled, and she feels almost completely rejuvenated, whole. With a mug in hand, she’s not broken but slightly bent, still good to go if a little worse for wear.

This winter has been especially dark, darker than the unwanted swirl of grounds often left at the bottom of her mug. She’s been withdrawn, quiet. She hasn’t had good sleep in a couple months now worried about the future, about how she will get along in this new political climate. She’s lost touch with family after coming out, said goodbye to friends who, for reasons she will never understand, decided to back hatred this election. She watched in horror as person after person she thought she knew backed a candidate that expressed a desire to destroy her freedom to exist. It was too much, and her depression raised its ugly head after years of her being able to beat it back with medication and self-care. Those friends she didn’t feel she had to cut out of her life completely, she lost touch with because of her mental health issues, the she started alienating herself from a lot of her acquaintances and social media sites. She just couldn’t take the hatred anymore. If she didn’t take out time for herself, it was going to destroy her, and she had worked too long to beat back those demons to give up so easily.

So now she sits alone in her reading nook in front of the needs-to-be-cleaned bay window not really reading, not really doing anything but staring into space and drinking coffee. On good days, she showers and does a little yoga, gets the basics of the house clean, snuggles the cat and cooks meals for the week. On bad days, she just sits and worries about the next 4 years and the aftermath of them, how far the country will be set back when racism and xenophobia and homophobia are more acceptable than minding your own fucking business. On her worst days, she panics and screams and cries and smashes dirty dishes and cries some more and wallows in her emotions.

She knows she needs to do more, to get out there, and get back to life (whatever life is…), and she will. She has done it before, and she’ll do it again. But as inauguration day approaches faster and faster, she just doesn’t have it in her to fight right now. She’s too exhausted, too raw, and no matter how often she tries to see the good in the world, she circles right back to how backwards things seem to be moving, so she hides in her cocoon, her “bubble” as so many people would snarkily call it, and tries to exist in this new world where every bit of forward momentum she has felt in the last 8 years slowly crumbles around her.

Maybe tomorrow she will feel more like herself or maybe the next day. Whatever day it is, she refuses to let hate win in the long-term. She might be sitting here alone drinking her coffee this morning fighting nothing more than the tears that threatening to roll, but she won’t sit idly by while the country she loves is torn to shreds forever.

Soon, she thinks, and snuggles back into her throw watching the truck across the street park next to the huge Trump sign in his yard. Maybe she should start with destroying that shit.

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Here are the rest of the participants. Check them out and enjoy!

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2017/01/grey-hairs-and-antacids-use-your-words.html

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy http://dinoheromommy.com/2017/01/13/uyw/

Spatulas on Parade http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2017/01/chicken-cordon-blu-and-uyw.html

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog.html

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

On the Border http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2017/01/chicken-cordon-blu-and-uyw.html

Confessions of a part time working mom http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2017/01/use-your-words-face-off.html

Climaxed http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

What If I logged Off

More than Cheese and Beer has a new weekly writing prompt. We're supposed to write for about 5 to 10 minutes on the given topic.

Martin Luther King Jr said:

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

I am a Facebook activist. Say what you want about the laziness inherent in posting articles and sharing statuses about politics, feminism, and equality, but for now, it's all I've got. I don't have the money to travel the distance to participate in protests and marches. Plus, quite honestly, I don't have anyone to watch the 17 animals I live with while I travel around doing such things. So, at least at this point in my life, I can share articles, debate topics with others, sign petitions, use my vote wisely, and email politicians.

Yes, that means I am that annoying Facebook friend who clouds your feed with articles you probably don't care about or that make you angry because you NEED MORE CAT MEMES RIGHT NOW.

If I logged off, I wouldn't be able to do that any longer. I wouldn't be able to sway anyone's opinion on any important issue or learn from the friends I have who are more versed in topics I'm only beginning to explore. Instead, I would live out my existence in a state of ignorance, tending my garden, raising my kid and be blissfully unaware of the sour state of things in this nation.

I'm still of the belief that you're supposed to be the change you want to see in the world, though.

Being blissfully unaware and allowing this downward spiral to continue without even the hint of a fight would probably send me on my own decline. That loss of passion means complicity, and what's the point of life if I spend it giving in?

So, fuck it. I will never shut up.