We can use social media as one measure of if people are still taking the pandemic seriously. Every post is of travel, school, parties, gyms, concerts, restaurants, art shows, work, events in crowded rooms & NOT ONE MASK. If you're still masking, this won't feel like an attack. If you're not and it does, ok. Instead of getting mad about me calling attention to the very real conditions that continue to force us disableds to forever quarantine, please get mad about the conditions forcing us to forever quarantine. But C0v1d raging unchecked is doing a LOT more than endangering &... Continue reading

Here's what Covid did to me: pneumonia, Long Covid, 7 months of fever, nerve damage, brain damage, cognitive failure, high blood pressure, pre diabetes, thyroid/autoimmune disorder (Hashimotos), accelerated my ME/CFS (a crippling disability on its own), fibromyalgia (a crippling disability on its own), POTS (a crippling disability on its own), constant PAIN every single day, nausea, vision problems, devastating fatigue, muscle weakness, accelerated joint degradation/osteoarthritis, post-exertion malaise (a crippling component of ME/CFS), breast cancer (I have 0 genetic markers for cancer, 0 family history). It aged me 15 years, and yes, almost killed me, and still might. I used to... Continue reading

Continue reading

I've had to deal with bodies after suicide, the blood, mess, pets, cops, ems, coroner, parents, siblings, neighbors, friends. I've been the last person to see someone alive, the first to see them after they died. I've been as close as you can get without doing it - many, many times. And I have some wisdom about it: 1. There's ONE reason why someone commits suicide, it's simple and it's inarguable: their suffering is so bad, they just can't live. To accept this, I focus on "their suffering was so bad". Can I imagine an ocean of suffering swallowing me... Continue reading

Cinnamon Black, FiYaYa, New Orleans Continue reading

It's wild how nobody acknowledges Covid anymore while it's spiking at alarming rates, nobody's masking, vaxxes have lost efficacy against the new mutations, & the CDC admits repeat exposure is deadly. It's a massive, collective gaslighting that the world is engaged in & it's so fucking sad. This pandemic has proven that people are less able to manage trauma, loss, death and change than ever before. No technological or material advances have made us more compassionate, creative, or capable of real change, evolution. The earth was betrayed by this culture & for what? Now the earth is biting back and... Continue reading

few things make me happier than growing food. Not just to interrupt capitalism, not just to eat. The whole process keeps the body connected to earth, and fluid, spontaneous. I'm learning it's like making music, growing things, or a painting or poem. Ya gotta stay sharp, ready to act when the fruit is ripe, to intervene when the plants are thirsty or getting devoured by aphids. That means picking peaches in batches, peeling and slicing them for preserves or freezing to pull out in the dead of winter when everything is hard and cold. Nothing like a peach cobbler to... Continue reading

Tammy died in my arms today, my good big girl. She was such a blessing & I'm so honored she trusted me - it took 8 years to woo her! A tough feral cat having babies in these streets & refusing to let anyone close. But my dog & I won her over, and I was able to give her things she'd never known: safety, sleepy cuddles, soft blankets, toys! She savored all of it and told me how grateful she was, all the time. Calm, soft, solid - o Tammy! My tank. Her illness progressed fast and her death... Continue reading

Continue reading

Continue reading

It's hard to remember that no one is only who they appear to be. It's hard to know all the versions a person is throughout the years (here's a long lost photo of me before a dance recital. I used it for the cover of my band's demo that I used to get a record deal. I lost the photo & the demo in the levee breaks, but I'll never lose having performed so much on so many stages, or that I got a record deal, the magic I've conjured,, or the guts it took to believe in myself and... Continue reading

Relatives rarely support survivors of familial abuse who are open about surviving it. It's the only way to heal, tho - refusing to keep it secret defies everything abusers rely on. If I'm not ashamed, I break the chain. As a scholar, I get it, but it still hurts when it's your family. My brother HATES me for being open about what our mom did to me. He'd rather punish me for telling than her for doing, it's just easier. This way he'll never have to lose her the way I did, he doesn't have to face how he benefitted... Continue reading

I'm so excited to be able to give vegetable growing an honest try. With a lotta help from my friends (the compost was delivered, a gift). It truly matters, when we help each other. The food I grow will be shared, flowers that are blooming are feeding the bees and bugs and birds. The thread is golden real, connected. The labor is medicine, the fruits of labor are medicine, the communication is medicine. Leaning on my shovel, talking to neighbors, inhaling the rich fragrance of spring, earth, fruit trees blooming, hyacinth, heat. Hands on steaming dirt, hands in earth. Looking... Continue reading

"I am sometimes the world that hates me," Alok Vaid-Menon Continue reading

Continue reading

my love Continue reading

"I've been commanded to accept anybody who has a sense of loneliness, a sense of chaos, and at the same time a sense of wakefulness and a sense of bleeding heart, like a ripe fruit about to burst," Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche Continue reading

I think I'm in despair The wind is in the trees Basically just waiting for something to come along and eat me Is this future's gate? Where my dreams retreat? And all my memories are just memories of memories? And folded in a dream Pitch-black and glowing blue A raven saying, "I know a way to help you" I stared into his eyes Saw my pale last days, said, "What you can't escape, you gotta embrace" I know a way to get back This don't have to end A way to get back And haunt them haunt them haunt them... Continue reading

Woke up crying. Trying to pry my heart open just a little bigger than the pain. The grief & isolation are so heavy. I put my hands on earth and pray, turn up to sky and pray Continue reading

The heartbreaking thing about post exertion malaise is you go out into the world and it'll be a delicious joy because you hardly ever can. You'll be swept away by how beautiful it all is and you'll convince yourself you can stay out a bit longer, you feel good, you'll be ok. Then you get home and realize it's not ok, you're dying, pain burns thru you like battery acid. But it's too late and all you can do is lie there and suffer and wish you'd done things differently, lived a little less, wanted less, felt less. But you... Continue reading

Every day, every way. Trans liberation is indigenous, black, queer, disabled's liberation, every oppressed person's liberation. Transphobia is a manifestation of patriarchal misogyny and white supremacy. It is anti earth, anti creativity, anti life. None us are free til all of us are free, ALL. No debate. And while drag is not trans, the fascist laws being passed to criminalize drag are a not-so-covert way to attack trans folks. Drag artists must also be protected - drag is joy, healing medicine, political resistance, radical, empowering. Drag has saved me from the deepest despair; drag artists, trans & queer folks have... Continue reading

Covid disabled me hardcore & I can't work like I used to. So I've been getting some food stamps to help. But Biden has ended the Covid emergency, so my monthly benefit is now $60. $60. Soon I'll have no food. I'm not ashamed of needing help; being abandoned to go hungry should be a crime. We can draw a direct line from them saying the pandemic is over to this abandonment. I'm sick of this shit, it's literal shit. Elders, kids, disabled abandoned - textbook eugenics. I tell my story not for pity but to resist how these systems... Continue reading

Continue reading

Continue reading

Continue reading