(Baba Yaga Novel)
“They say I’m your best friend, but I’m really…”
Walking past the gas station, I saw five figures in hooded HAZMAT suits in the parking lot. As I glanced at them, they waved at me, speaking words I was unable to hear, and pointing at something on the ground. I kept walking quick, not wanting to interact with these men, but still disturbed and curious as to what they were doing. A man who was not wearing a body suit and mask came up to me. He was speaking to me too… what was he saying? He was asking me…
Thoughts on sense of self, OCD, white accompliceship, hazelnut coffee
I think it’s probably a strange time to write this as I have sunk into a mini quarantine depression, but perhaps this is also the best time to write it. For me, 2020 began with overconfidence, hit the middle with a summer full of rebellion, and ended in existential questioning and self doubt.
To write my this I poured over my private journal from the year, and noted 30 of the most choice insights from a year unlike any other I have experienced.
-
- It is a skill to sit with uncomfortable feelings. Step back to see more. …
Week 43 of Social Isolation
11/26/2020
I’m having a hard time remembering that billions of people exist in the world.
It’s the first official week of COVID winter, and I’m having a little trouble getting started today. I decided I would start a traditional blog again… if only to give myself some direction and maybe share a bit of camaraderie with everyone else riding out the pandemic in their apartments.
Today started with me waking up (a bit) hungover for the weekly zoom family call (my partner Carp, my grandparents, parents, brother and his partner. It’s my favorite tradition that has come out of the…
…Continuing NaNoWriMo Story 2020–21
I never finished the pierogies that day.
The day started off to a rough start, with what some would argue was far too much to drink before noon. What can I say, I got caught watching the news and kept pouring myself fingerfulls of whiskey. I also opened a packet of country peppered gravy, and used it as a sauce over frozen ravioli for lunch. Sometimes you just have to make do with what you have, don’t you? I drink and smoke and eat shit with my cats. You don’t understand? Don’t even bother, I’m sorry.
My customers would just…
NaNoWriMo Speculative Fiction
“Living on burned land — the trick is to keep ahead of the burn.”
*
Most days at work at the restaurant I dream of being self sufficient, I dream of being a boulder; never pushed around. Can you imagine why an immortal being from ancient Siberia is unable to stand up for herself at all times? Me neither. I dream of being a cult leader if I’m speaking honestly, but instead I am merely a solitary witch with a cat who suckles her toes. Yes, suckles. She’s a strange cat, that one.
After the dinner rush I wash my…
NanoWriMo 2020 Speculative Fiction
“I was adrift deep in the ocean of life before the fires started. Just as Prometheus taught humans how to make fire, and tortured for eternity for it, the new Americans have been taught how to make revolution, and are lighting the fields and forests up.”
*
There’s nothing like reading a shitty book to inspire you to write a novel. If this bland eggwhite was able to get published, who’s to say my name is not in the hat? I reflected on the inane lines from the book I had recently finished reading with my morning coffee- a pseudo…
Personal Reflections from a 29 year old millennial
2020 is the year that the Left seriously starts talking about getting guns, and the Right is wielding their own weapons openly in the streets in self declared “militias”. 2020 is the year 45 starts declaring liberal hubs like Portland and NYC “anarchist autonomous zones” and the year that the phrase “defund the police” is seriously discussed on NPR. It’s the year the sky is orange with fire on the west coast, and drowning in hurricanes on the east coast while everyone is forced to stay inside due to the global pandemic of COVID-19. …
A way to look at life that doesn’t allow for complacency, but also invites trust into the process
Adrienne maree brown describes herself and her work in many ways, and the beauty of this book is how she weaves the different parts of herself together within it all. Her love for sci-fi, her work as an activist and movement builder for justice, her magic and witchcraft, her love of the world all make appearances throughout the book.
Emergent Strategy is a compilations of lessons from her work in movement building, as well as lessons from others and how biomimicry (mirroring the natural world for solutions) is imperative in these movements:
“Cell may not know civilization is possible. They…
Never use the term “undocumented worker” again
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s new book The Undocumented Americans is not the story publishers have been begging her to write for years. It’s the story that she wants to tell, about her own family’s struggles with documentation in America, and the countless others stories that overlap yet are intricately different and all together human. Cornejo Villavicencio writes:
“I am not a journalist. Journalists are not allowed to get involved the way I have gotten involved. Journalist, to the best of my knowledge, do not try to change the outcome of their stories as crudely as I do. I send water. I…
Book Review
Chicago based abolitionist organizer Charlene A. Carruthers shares her experiences of movement building with BYP100 as well as experiences practicing transformative justice in Unapologetic.
Throughout the book Carruthers reflects on her place in the movement as a Black lesbian leftist:
“There are few places in US politics for people like me. I am a leftist and I am not white or a man… I believe capitalism should be dismantled in favor of an economy that is people- and planet-centered… I believe that Democrat and Republican Party politics impede this.”
Learning from History
Carruthers does not shy away from reality, and…
