Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
Mel Baggs the disabled activist is dead. Sie went into hospital a couple of days ago, not sure why, and hir last post was about how alienating the hospital was. That made me cry.
I must sadly say that I followed hir on twitter for a while and stopped because I found what sie said unchallenging and the way sie said it so annoying that I couldn’t deal with it. I kept wanting to argue with hir or high key mock hir and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s not to white lady on people, so I just backed off.
Now sie’s dead and I’m reading her blog. Reading the temporal lobe epilepsy symptoms on hir blog freaked me out, since at various points in my life I’ve had symptoms identical; just never all at once.
I have a deeply weird brain, but I’m quite attached to it. Mel also pointed out that ‘status migraine aura’ is possible which is when you’re in a migraine state all the time without head pain. I’ve gone months like that.
Born on one coast
Died on the other
Sometime wife
Two time mother
Wrote some songs
Wrote some books
Collected lots
of dirty looks
A settler born
A settler bred
Raise a toast
Now Allegra’s dead
One of the romancelandia writers I follow is Isobel Carr and she has provided us with a Paper Doll to keep us busy.
People on twitter are begging for cute pictures of pets.
Me, I’m just staying still and trying not to worry.
150k people have been infected that we know of for sure, half of those recovered.
It’s a virus so we may get post viral health problems, it hasn’t been around long enough for us to know.
Laura Smith, a great Canadian singer songwriter is dead in Halifax of cancer. She was beautiful like few people I’ve met in person. She grew eight inches in one year when she was a teenager (spent the summer in bed). She performed a version of All of Me at a house party with a jazz duo while high on cocaine (I found that out later…) that was the best version of it I ever heard. We went to see her at the Yellow Door in Montréal.
She will be missed. I just emailed Paul to tell him as he likely doesn’t know.
China’s going to finish by running the world because Russia and the US and the UK and France will whiff the pandemic. Probably already has plans to secure the nukes. They’ll get enormous populations of white people to get on board by exterminating Muslims. It will take 15 years. They’ll allow hundreds of millions of people to migrate into the Muslim-occupied countries and then they’ll start work on exterminating Black Africans and move Chinese there instead.
It’s by no means guaranteed, but we are probably going out for breakfast with Katie and Alex this morning. LATER YES IT IS GUARANTEED they will be here to pick us up in 20.
I got almost eight hours of sleep last night. It was absolutely wonderful. I definitely sleep better when it’s cold in here.
Cousin Alex is not having a good time sleeping these days. Well do I remember my early fifties and I probably have dozens of blog posts complaining about how much I sweated….. menopause is hard, but most of the parturition crowd would say it’s eventually worth it. Don’t forget the Replens, it makes a huge difference.
Feetsball today. Jeff will be thinking of our pOp.
Wrote lots yesterday, trying to get a fic finished.
This is Anastasia Baburova, murdered a decade ago by fascists. She was a student anarchist and journalist. I think she was one of my people… does she look like a Scythian warrior woman to you?
I have learned not to immediately respond to news on Twitter. If it’s accurate someone smarter will have a better assessment and if it’s not you’ve not made a fucking idiot out of yourself at least more than normal.
Ruben Um Nyobè was murdered in Cameroon in 1958 on this day.
I highly recommend listening to Blick Bassy’s album ‘1958’ to commemorate this event. He has an amazing, plangent, energetic, enfolding kinda voice, a suitable memorial.
So my doc pronounced herself pleased at my progress and wants to see me in another two weeks. The long acting seems to be working well and apart from a few hours of nausea and the whirlies at the start, no side effects – no dizziness when I stand, for example. Still no appointment for the dementia base line, which is annoying for reasons that I shall not publicly relate.
I was getting migraine symptoms a couple of days back but they’ve lifted. Also on the new formulation I’m sleeping like WHOA that was another 8 hours, holy crap. I’m likin’ that.
Jeffrey Epstein the accused child rapist has apparently killed himself via hanging in prison. I simply cannot believe that someone as wealthy, well-connected and narcissistic as Mr. Epstein would do that, so I have to assume that one of his wealthy ‘friends’ made it happen. After all, he can implicate an heir to the throne of England in his rapey business; there are plenty of people who’d be pleased by this turn of events, who could pay for it to happen.
Of course the autopsy won’t show anything but what needs to be seen. This is absolutely horrible news for justice. And FUCK the people running that jail.
FUCK ICE FOR ARRESTING THOSE 600 PEOPLE IN MISSISSIPPI. The man who owns the plant deliberately hired illegals and then had ICE make them disappear when they sued him for wage fraud! So school kids lose their parents so a fucking rich asshole doesn’t have to pay the wages he owes.
DO I REALLY WANT TO GO TO THE US IN JANUARY.
I’m a white tourist, it would be foolish to think there’s a really big problem for me.
Katie says (she bought me brekky this am) that narcs kill themselves all the time, it’s called ‘the last decision’.
CASPELL, Phyllis – Unexpectedly at her residence on Tuesday, March 12, 2019, Phyllis Caspell of London, in her 95th year. Dear mother of Paul Caspell (Allegra Sloman) of Burnaby, B.C., Ruth Caspell (John Suline) of Toronto, and Lois Schmidt (Robert) of Duchess, Alberta. Much loved grandmother of Keith, Kate, Jesse, Kaitlin, Jessica, Lindsay and Caileigh and great-grandmother of Ava, Meadow, Roman, and Alexander. Predeceased by her son John Caspell, parents Colin and Kathleen Palmer and brother Allan Palmer. Cremation has taken place. Friends will be received by the family on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 from 1-2 pm at St. Paul’s Cathedral, 472 Richmond Street, London, ON N6A 3E6, where the memorial service will take place at 2 pm. Interment in Woodland Cemetery, London. In memory of Phyllis, donations may be made to the St. Paul’s Cathedral Memorial Fund. Arrangements entrusted with A. MILLARD GEORGE FUNERAL HOME
Paul phoned me to let me know that Phyllis, his mother, passed away this morning.
I asked him to check with his family if they want me there, and will go if needed.
So I found out that one of my fave former church siblings is dead.
And I want to complain about it.
Not because she’s dead, but in consequence of how she was treated before she died.
Now, she had mental health problems, and she was forever going back to her doc to get her meds adjusted. She started feeling poorly (she was well into her 60s); tired, digestive upsets, dizziness. They adjusted her medication.
She ended up in hospital, and while she was there they found out she had stage 4 lung cancer. They sent her home and she died four days later.
F*ck you you *sshole who didn’t check her physical status. You’re a f*cking stain on medicine and I’d stake you to a f*cking anthill in the noonday sun if I had a chance. You decided that a mentally ill woman, a beautiful, sweet, hard working bundle of awesome, was having mental health problems INSTEAD of physical problems and you didn’t even so much as give her a proper workup.
She was ANGRY BEFORE SHE DIED. She’d been totally f*cked over by the medical establishment.
SO. I know for a fact I have mental health problems, many people do. I don’t take prescription medication because I’m one of those awkward people who hates the seven zillion side effects more than the cognitive relief I might get. And did get, for the four months (WHICH COMPLETELY F*CKED ME UP WITH SIDE EFFECTS) I was taking Prozac. Wellbutrin triggered dissociation and the desire to pick up knives and sink them in my family members, which thank the little fishies went away as soon as I stopped taking it.
And because I don’t go to church anymore I couldn’t go to her funeral, and because everybody assumes I’m connected to the church on facebook nobody called me.
I’m okay with that. I’m not okay how this beautiful person was treated. Misogyny (oh she’s always complaining about her meds like old biddies do) and ableism (who cares, she’s anxious) KILL WOMEN.
The world can really suck sometimes.
I will remember you, church sibling, as a lover of beauty and a faithful servant of our community. And a super sweet lady. God damn it.
Oscar Brand is dead. He was 96, so he sure had it coming, but when I’m feeling a little less teary, I’ll try to describe what he meant to me, growing up, and as a partner in songcrime with Paul.
Yesterday I emptied the dishwasher, prepped raw veggies, baked buns and cookies and turned down offers of exercise.
I also spoke to Keith’s counsellor on the phone hoping to help straighten out this communication thing we have (not) going on. That went well.
AND I SAW BABY ALEX. Also baby Ellie, who is so food positive that she makes me howl and her mama Jessica obviously. There is nothing in the world like pulling food from the oven and taking it to your grandson to eat. Everybody was in a really good mood.
John Caspell would have been 64 years old today.
Yesterday there was a windstorm, of the kind that’s going to happen earlier and later in the year but normally happens in November. It was violent and destructive and while we did not lose power nearly everybody else did, it seems. Winds gusted to 117 kph, which is over 70 mph, and there are videos all over the internet of the carnage, including the first ten minutes of local CTV news which shows some very tall trees coming down. Trees down everywhere, traffic lights, restaurants closing for lack of power, Katie still doesn’t have power this morning. Welcome to the future.
Keith came over briefly after walking in the storm. We watched a West Wing.
And containment on the bears at the Zoo was breached. I wrote a bit yesterday about critters and aliens at the Greater Vancouver Zoo and learn this morning that the bears got out because of a windstorm, not because an alien with mental health issues let them out. I’m relieved I wasn’t at the Zoo when the bears got out.
BAD NEWS about climate.
350 words yesterday, but it was mostly infill, and teasing apart two chapters that got jammed together, and fixing pronouns for my gender non-conformist Slider, who is turning into a lot of fun to write.
RIP Oliver Sachs, may you live forever in the healing you brought, the lives you touched and the words you left us.
I have a job interview Monday. It’s an admin position at an established restaurant supply company. I’ll report back after I go.
Paul and I were very moved by the service for David Hamilton, who in death seems even more quietly mythic than he was in life. A genuine, humble, intelligent, thoughtful, listening kind of man, with music in his very soul, the eulogies were funny and moving and real and the comments by his daughters-in-law particularly stood out as coming from two very different women, but uttering the same grateful praise.
We spent a lot of time catching up (I refused to look at my watch.)
So we were late to the restaurant, but it all came out okay.
Then back here. We played Cards Against Humanity and had so much fun. I haven’t heard Jeff laugh that hard in company since high school. Both of us laughed until we were leaking, and at the point when we thought our ribs couldn’t take it any more we’d start laughing again. Keith played games master. Also in attendance Cassidy, Mike (birthday lad), Joe and his gf, whom I’ve probably been introduced to four times but whose name I cannot remember, Brian and Chari, Paul of course. Paul had the advantage, with Keith, Mike and Cassidy, of having played it before, and he came up with some combos that were hilariously unprintable. I won a round with the best and simplest two card combo.
“For my next trick I will try to pull HOPE out of MY SEX LIFE.” Keith was the judge that round, ya shoulda seen his face.
I also won a round with “Dick Fingers”. Since there was also “Five Dollar Foot Longs” coming up as a card in that round the group immediately came up with a band name of Dick Fingers and his Five Dollar Foot Longs.
Yes, we had fun.
Jeff wore his Stargate “No Place Like Home” hoodie, squee.
I don’t even know who won and I don’t care. It wasn’t the point.
Keith noted that you aren’t supposed to play it with family members but we managed all that quite nicely. It’s an extremely rude game, and you may learn, as Jeff remarked, things you really didn’t want to.
Thank you to Jeff for getting the pinballs going – Joe and gf, who is apparently a pinball enthusiast from way back, went downstairs and made pinging noises for at least an hour and then dropped into the middle of the CaH game.
Around 9:30 I realized I could no longer stay upright so I went to bed. Also, darkness equals bugs.
Thank you to all the beautiful people, friends and Beaconites, who made it such a perfect, and perfectly exhausting day. Now I can’t sleep.
Final word count for the day was over 1500 words. (This included editing, since I was ripping adverbs and adjectives out with vigour.) I still have not commenced the new chapters. Also worked on the chapter entitled Exit Interview.
Today a memorial service for a church member and a birthday party for one of my closest friends. I find that often happens to me, two big events in one day; I imagine I’ll be ready to get my drink on by a quarter to five.
We blasted through the rest of the Bojack Horseman season. I really enjoyed it, especially the stuff going on in the background and the non-stop shellacking of all manner of Hollywoo ‘types’.
One of these days I’ll talk about the process, but in the meantime I’ll just say I love Scrivener.
The latest theatre shooting in the States was at a feminist movie and the people who were shot and killed were all women. There IS NO WAR ON WOMEN MOVE ALONG PLEASE. Right wing radio gave him a platform for his hate. And thank you for killing yourself you fucking scumskin, your parents and ex-wife probably got their first night of sleep in ages, despite their grief and horror.
