Category: telling

Old friends

I remember herbalist Kelly McCarthy suggesting that good herbs for perimenopause are the ones you already have a long relationship with. To just find ways to incorporate your plant friends into your life a little more, as a starting place, whether that is a digestive bitter, calming tea, moisturizer, good-smelling garden plant, or whatever.

That seems like a good approach for general times of stress or illness too, to start by turning up your existing support.

This random herb thought was brought to you by me running a pain management bath at 4am, and deciding to add rose water and make a rose tea. Rose is not an herb for pain, and yet it is nice to be with my plant friend when I am sore.

Fake-yet-real makeovers of my heart

Aww man. Shout out to local beauty salon for kids Lizzie Lee and Me for having a receptionist who says things like “makeovers have no gender” and “anybody can love sparkles”, and who will book any hair, makeup, or spa service for any kid (and any grown-up, if they want to get side-by-side mini manicures).

I appreciate them also just for taking kids desires seriously. It’s so fun to have a kid salon where it’s halfway pretend play. You can wear a pink robe and get a “facial” that is just face mist and cucumber slices on your eyes. You can get a pedicure with no sharp tools, but you get to soak your feet in bubbles and read a kids magazine. The “makeovers” are sparkly face paint with rainbow or flower themes. I dunno, it’s all just very sweet.

Extensive abstract physical evidence

There’s a moment in Kidd Pivot’s Revisor where someone exposes an atrocity by presenting “extensive abstract physical evidence” in the form of a dance solo, and it works. When I watch someone move their body, I can sense in my body how that would feel. We can communicate abstract things that way, and we can have a shared understanding without language.

I knew this before, but the phrase “abstract physical evidence” comes in handy surprisingly often.

(Revisor is streaming on Marquee if you need some dance theatre about corruption, comedy, and the relationship between language and the body.)

Anyway I think about “extensive abstract physical evidence” in relation to ME/CFS a lot.

A disease that doesn’t even have a satisfying name so we put two flawed names together with a slash, a disease where it’s not defined by specific symptoms so much as the meta pattern of how symptoms come and go, a disease where nobody knows the root problem or how to explain how all the symptoms and patterns fit together. A disease where we have fatigue “but different from normal fatigue”, where “malaise” can be life-threatening and “exertion” can mean something as small as perceiving light.

Just a trainwreck of inadequate language, and yet, people with ME manage to know so much about the situation in, like, an abstract physical way.

Zine brain

Zine-making problems– determining which way to flip the paper to print on the other side when manually double-siding. I feel like if I can get this right my brain will never age.

Apologies to everyone, but the mnemonic for orienting the paper in my new (second-hand) laser printer is “feet first, face up… that’s the way we like to fuck?”

Crip tips for planet earth

Getting weepy about Violet Affleck pointing out that Planet Earth experiences post-exertion malaise, and people with ME/CFS know the hard truths about how to deal with that.

Because pwME know that a crash is unpredictable and impossible to reverse, the goal of pacing is to not encounter the symptoms at all. Success is measured not by a fast and furious response at the moment of crisis but by the absence of a need for intervention. But US society, like a new pwME still unfamiliar with the costs of PEM, is staring down a cycle of “crashes” from which we won’t be able to easily return

Quirks and Quarks for Long Covid Awareness Day

Huge shout out to Bob McDonald for asking David Putrino all the good naive questions about covid on mainstream public radio. Starts at 19:30 or scroll down to that section.

Quirks & Quarks Mar 15: The silent, long-term effects of COVID, and more…

“Wow is that nervous system damage permanent?”

“What is special about covid that allows it to spread through the body, when we think of it infecting the lungs?”

“If covid has the ability to suppress the immune system, how does that affect our ability to fight off other pathogens?”

“What about people who think since they are living a healthy lifestyle, covid isn’t really a worry for them?”

“How far do you think this might go towards explaining the huge spike in excess deaths?”

And the biggie:

“What should we do with all this information, now that most people think the threat of covid is gone?”

I’m pretty into this framing of “new information about silent health damage from every covid infection”, even though it is not new or very silent. I hope it helps some covid deniers rejoin the evidence-based world. Nice one, Quirks and Quarks.

Enemy Feminisms

Ahhh I knew I would love this latest Death Panel podcast with Sophie Lewis talking about their book Enemy Feminisms but it’s so so fun.

I appreciate Sophie Lewis for being willing to take things to their logical conclusion. If there are all these historical examples of feminists collaborating with fascist groups (cops, kkk, imperialists, nazis, alt-right transphobes…) why can’t we describe those forms of feminism as fascist?

Is there a book award for best book titles? I would nominate Sophie Lewis for lifetime achievement. (Enemy Feminisms, Full Surrogacy Now, Abolish the Family…)

Bespoke audiobook narration

Every now and then an audiobook has a feature I didn’t know I needed. This morning I am listening to a chapter about (political) organizing with a chronic illness, and you can hear the author-narrator yawning as she gets through it. Big love from this reader who is also too tired today.

Book is Overcoming Burnout, by Nicole Rose, done as a free private podcast feed. (Nicole is a herbalist I admire, who also wrote The Prisoner’s Herbal, and Herbalism and State Violence.)

Grieve, ground, imagine, strategize

For anybody who needs support to stop spiralling these days, here is my current favourite active meditation practice for lefties. Kristianna Smith aka Mocha Einstein offers “Grieve, Ground, Imagine, Strategize”. Gently redirect that anxiety spiral into forward momentum.

I appreciate that you can do longer or shorter versions of this. I appreciate that it is oriented towards organizing and strategizing, without ignoring or bottling up the pain and grief. Organizing and strategizing are so good for mental and community health! But skipping over grief leads to bad organizing. The combo is much better.

I appreciate having a structured, somatic activity to move through a little bit of grief at a time. Keep things moving. I appreciate having directions for moving forward instead of spiraling. It is much easier to do “something else” rather than “stop”.

Not sure Kristianna would call themself a witch, but this is also some really solid time magic for any interested witches.

Maple moss monster

I recently learned that licorice ferns (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) often live on bigleaf maple trees (Acer macrophyllum). The ferns come out this time of year when the maples drop their leaves and let the light through. I had always admired this kind of moss monster, but I am only now realizing they are almost all maples. 💚

A photo of a temperate rainforest at eye level in winter. In front is a tree trunk covered in thick, lumpy, yellow-green moss and single fronds of licorice fern. Behind is a red cedar trunk and various green branches and shrubs.

Ah, gaps

The “Persistent Gaps” section of this new 🇨🇦 report on long covid is killing me.

Definitions and clinical guidance, sub-populations (how different groups are impacted), care and treatment, pathogenesis (underlying biological mechanisms and causes), socio-economic impact, and prevention. That’s… the whole thing. Long covid is one big gap. Laugh/cry.

I am happy to see they at least mentioned prevention this time. The previous reports that detailed how long covid was common, disabling, and permanent but somehow inevitable filled me with so much rage.

The new “recommended priority action” to “incentivize investment in improving indoor air quality in buildings where large numbers of people gather” is belated but good!

Department of chainsaws for hands

I made myself a horror movie bingo card for October, and I am trying to think of a name for a trope I love.

What do you call that thing where characters have ridiculous and cool DIY assistive tech? I am thinking about chainsaws as prosthetic hands, homemade motorcycle-wheelchairs, and the other mayhem that shows up mainly in horror movies.

“Fuckin Rad Improvised Accessibility” is my draft so far 😂🤘🏻

Movie still from Planet Terror (2007), showing Rose McGowan standing in a sexy pose wearing sunglasses, a bra top, miniskirt, and a machine gun as a lower-leg prosthetic. Behind her are flames and smoke.

Movie still from Silver Bullet (1985), showing a tween boy played by Corey Haim going down a country road doing a wheelie in a three-wheeled motorcycle wheelchair. A sign on the seat back reads "silver bullet" and white smoke blasts out behind.

Negatives

Oh hello, “Mx” as an honorific. Nice to see that you are out of scope for the LDML Person Name specification, like all the other titles, generation terms, and credentials.

A partial screenshot of text that says, "or validation (Mr, Ms., Mx., Dr., Jr., M.D., etc.).

Makes me think about that time a lawyer for Big Tobacco referred to “No Smoking” signs as great advertising for smoking. The existence of this non-smoking area implies the existence of some other pro-smoking area…

(Jean-Paul Sartre was sitting in a café, and ordered a coffee with no cream. The waitress came back a moment later and said, “I’m so sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream — could I bring you a coffee with no milk?”)

Audio picture books?

I listen to a lot of audiobooks for small children and this is the first one I’ve encountered that includes image descriptions. It’s such a good idea! The small child I was listening with was so excited that I had to pause the story for celebrations. Alt text all the things.

The book is Secret of the Jade Bangle, by Linda Trinh.

I need to be precise in talking about it because infantilization is real, but there can be so much solidarity between children and disabled people.

Last year’s teacher made sure our giant hepa filter got set up properly in this year’s new classroom without me even asking. This should not be necessary but under the circumstances it is such a relief to have an accomplice.