Tag Archives: non-fiction

#2348

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Since I work in emergency management, my supervisor has been urging our team to document our experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s good advice; nothing of this magnitude has happened in the recent past and it’s obviously fucking up a lot of our established paradigms. When experts say we won’t be able to return to the way things were Before and we need to embrace a “new normal”, they aren’t exaggerating. COVID-19 has shaken human society in a way even our recent megaquakes, which have literally shaken the entire globe, could do. So it’s good advice, yes. The problem is just that everything I have to share is so gods-damned bleak and I don’t want to seem like I’m whining when others have it much worse. I guess there’s wisdom in the telling, though, and I’m sure I’ll value these words years down the road, so here goes. I’ll go easy on you and start with…

The Good:
In July 2019 I made a much-needed career pivot into my dream field of emergency management. I was hired by the Washington State Emergency Management Division (WA EMD) as a Tsunami Program Coordinator, and thus my day job consists of preparing locals for The Big One. For the last 3+ months, however, WA EMD has been activated for the COVID-19 response. This is unlike anything WA EMD has faced before and so it’s all hands on deck 24/7. That means instead of worrying about being laid off or furloughed, I’m actually working more hours than ever. My team is currently on a three-week rotation, meaning for two weeks I work my normal job and then the next week I’m activated Sunday through Saturday for 7 12-hour shifts in the state’s Emergency Operations Center. Not only is the extra pay providing a much needed financial buffer (you’ll see why), I’m receiving some great hands-on experience. No amount of online or classroom training can really prepare you the way an actual disaster can, so even though I’m way outside of my comfort zone I’m very conscious of how good this work is for me. I’m also relatively healthy, at least immune-system-wise, and glad I can help the effort to keep others safe. It’s pretty surreal to be even a tiny cog in this great machine. That being said, here’s…

The Bad:
I AM SO STRESSED. Between work stress, personal life stress, and all these concurrent global crises, I am absolutely filled to the brim with stress. And lucky me, my stress always manifests as flare ups of my various chronic illnesses. These days I’m just constant IBS stomach aches, migraines, carpal tunnel pain, angular cheilitis, exhaustion that’s apparently at least partly narcolepsy, and some weird uterus stuff that I’m super hoping isn’t fibroids. It’s a lot. I’m honestly surprised my shingles hasn’t come back yet, but I’m sure it’s just biding its time. On top of that, my mental health wasn’t particularly stable going into this pandemic and weirdly enough witnessing preventable death on a mass scale because those in power care more about propping up the corpse of late-stage capitalism than saving lives isn’t exactly helping. So enter the panic attacks, severe depression, and uncontrollable dermatillomania. My wife has been wonderful, though, and is basically the reason I haven’t had an actual breakdown yet. Which brings me to…

The Ugly:
I might be more willing to find the bright side of this whole mess if it wasn’t for everything that’s happened with my wife. Just thinking about it makes me so angry I’m having trouble getting the words out so I’ll give you the tl;dr version. My wife is a truly amazing person and the world enjoys crushing her for having the audacity to be queer, Asian, and chronically ill, among other things. When COVID-19 went down she was working for a company that pretends to be progressive but is really just out for the money (what a surprise). On top of that, her position required her to be stationed in a major retail space which is considered essential and therefore never closed, nor has ever really bothered to put any employee protection measures in place. Since she has severe asthma and catches pneumonia on practically a yearly basis, my wife and I were understandably very concerned about her being in such a public-facing position. COVID-19 could quite frankly be a death sentence for her (which I think about constantly because Anxiety).

Anyway, flash forward like 2 miserable months and her employer has not only refused every accommodation she’s requested, they are actively punishing her for asking. Last week they used a note from her doctor as an excuse to cut her hours enough that she’ll lose her health insurance at the end of the month. IN A PANDEMIC. This was the final straw (she’s been taking their shit for years) and I’m proud to say she walked right the fuck out of there. Problem solved, right? Except just to twist the knife a little more, they’re refusing to give her a letter stating when her benefits will end so I can add her to my insurance plan – a technically legal but absolutely unnecessary delay that will probably force her to go without health insurance for at least all of May. Again, IN A PANDEMIC. I really can’t express how cruel they’re being without sounding like I’m a conspiracy theorist, but it’s true, and it’s happening to countless other people right now because Capitalism™. This instance just especially hurts me in particular because she’s MY people.

But wait, there’s more! Yeah, we’re not done. So on top of dealing with aaaallll this shit, my wife is also being regularly harassed in public because of her race. Yes, even in western Washington, bastion of progress (that was sarcasm) and home to a pretty sizeable Asian population. It happens every single time she goes somewhere and if it wasn’t for her refusal to let me come with her I might be in jail right now with several murder charges to my name. It’s the fucking worst. If the various feel-good COVID-19 stories ever had a chance to renew my hope in humanity, that chance has been thoroughly crushed. We really are in the Darkest Timeline.

So that’s a brief glimpse into how my pandemic is going. Which is great. Everything is great and totally fine.

…Oh right, I was supposed to record some of my observations, not just wordvomit about my life in particular. Uh, here are some non-me-centric observations for history or whatever in no particular order:

– Traffic is so light that someone has been doing donuts on the Narrows Bridge, which is fairly impressive.
– Traffic has also been so light that I can see the Olympic Mountains every night as I drive home, something usually only possible on the clearest summer days. So that’s cool, but also horribly depressing because that means the reason I don’t see them as often is air pollution.
– You ever think about how there are probably a lot of kids who are only alive right now because schools closed so early in the year that their would-be school shootings never happened?
– You can’t find wheat tortillas anywhere right now. Who’s hoarding all the wheat tortillas?- I hate to be all “I was right” but when Trump got elected I totally predicted a wide scale disaster would hit the west coast and he’d deny us aid because we’re blue states. I just thought it would be a megaquake, not a pandemic. So close.

Anyway. Have a good apocalypse everyone!

#2316 – 2019 Book List

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Another year, another book list! Some of this year’s gems included Dread Nation, The Rise of Kyoshi, An Unkindness of Ghosts, and the Jacob’s Ladder trilogy. On the other hand, The Abominable was frankly quite abominable. Only 23 books with queer characters, though, so I gotta do better next year!

  1. The Illustrated Man – Ray Bradbury
  2. The Machineries of Joy – Ray Bradbury
  3. The Spoon River Anthology – Edgar Lee Masters
  4. The Terror: A Novel – Dan Simmons
  5. S Is For Space – Ray Bradbury
  6. Long After Midnight – Ray Bradbury
  7. The October Country – Ray Bradbury
  8. The Ruins – Scott Smith
  9. The Cat’s Pajamas Stories – Ray Bradbury
  10. Death In The Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition – Karen Ryan
  11. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth By Day – Dr. Ogden Goelet
  12. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
  13. The Troop – Nick Cutter
  14. The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R Tolkien
  15. The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
  16. Dust (Jacob’s Ladder Book 1) – Elizabeth Bear
  17. The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien
  18. Mutiny on the Bounty – Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
  19. Men Against the Sea – Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
  20. Pitcairn’s Island – Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
  21. Chill (Jacob’s Ladder Book 2) – Elizabeth Bear
  22. The Archer’s Heart Book 1 – Astrid Amara
  23. The Archer’s Heart Book 2 – Astrid Amara
  24. The Archer’s Heart Book 3 – Astrid Amara
  25. Dread Nation – Justina Ireland
  26. An Unkindness of Ghosts – Rivers Solomon
  27. The House of Dust: A Symphony – Conrad Aiken
  28. The Fur Person – May Sarton
  29. Grail (Jacob’s Ladder Book 3) – Elizabeth Bear
  30. The Oathbound (Vows and Honor Book 1) – Mercedes Lackey
  31. Oathbreakers (Vows and Honor Book 2) – Mercedes Lackey
  32. The Ancient Egyptian Prayer Book – Tamara Siuda
  33. The Buying of Lot 37 (Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 3) – Joseph Fink
  34. Oathblood (Vows and Honor Book 3) – Mercedes Lackey
  35. Magic in Ancient Egypt – Geraldine Pinch
  36. Dreamdark Book 1: Blackbringer – Laini Taylor
  37. Revered and Reviled: A Complete History of the Domestic Cat – L.A. Vocelle
  38. Hathor: A Reintroduction to an Ancient Egyptian Goddess – Lesley Jackson
  39. The Wicker King – K. Ancrum
  40. Who’s A Good Boy? (Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 4) – Joseph Fink
  41. My Name Is Inanna – Tamara Albanna
  42. My Name Is The Morrigan – Tamara Albanna
  43. From a Cat’s View: An Anthology of Stories Told By Cats – Robin Praytor, et. al.
  44. Avatar the Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi (The Kyoshi Novels) – F. C. Yee
  45. The Abominable: A Novel – Dan Simmons
  46. Sekhmet and Bast: The Feline Powers of Egypt – Lesley Jackson
  47. Mesopotamian Goddesses: Unveiling Your Feminine Power – Weam Namou
  48. Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel – Michelle Moran
  49. Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns Book 4) – Kendare Blake
  50. The Heretic Queen: A Novel – Michelle Moran
  51. Nefertiti: A Novel – Michelle Moran
  52. Remember Me – Christopher Pike
  53. The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt – Kara Cooney
  54. The Wicked and the Divine Vol. 9: Okay – Gillen McKelvie
  55. Tremontaine: Season 1 – Ellen Kushner, et. al.
  56. The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons From the Natural World – Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
  57. Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World – Vicki Myron
  58. Tremontaine: Season 2 – Ellen Kushner, et. al.
  59. Tremontaine: Season 3 – Ellen Kushner, et. al.
  60. Tremontaine: Season 4 – Ellen Kushner, et. al.
  61. Swordspoint – Ellen Kushner
  62. Heathen, Volume 1 – Natasha Alterici
  63. Heathen, Volume 2 – Natasha Alterici
  64. The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part 1 – Brian Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino
  65. The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part 2 – Brian Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino
  66. 100 Cats Who Changed History: History’s Most Influential Felines – Sam Stall
  67. Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl – Mary Mycio

#2190 – 2018 Book List

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Another year, another read list! And a great year it was with a mix of historical fiction, nonfiction, and a lot of revisiting books (mostly of the comic or fantasy persuasion) from my shelves that haven’t gotten any love in a long while. I didn’t read as much queer fiction as I usually do, but I made up for that with a good haul of queer comics. The highlight of the year was obviously Patrick O’Brian’s age of sail series lovingly dubbed by fans as the “Aubreyad” or the “Aubrey/Maturin novels”, which I already gushed about here.

  1. The Mauritius Command – Patrick O’Brian
  2. Desolation Island – Patrick O’Brian
  3. One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns Series #2) – Kendare Blake
  4. The Fortune of War – Patrick O’Brian
  5. The Surgeon’s Mate – Patrick O’Brian
  6. It Devours! A Welcome to Night Vale novel – Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
  7. The Young Queens (Three Dark Crowns Novella) – Kendare Blake
  8. The Wicked and the Divine Vol. 6: Imperial Phase Part 2 – Gillen McKelvie
  9. The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 2 – Bryan Konietzko
  10. The Ionian Mission – Patrick O’Brian
  11. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli
  12. Treason’s Harbour – Patrick O’Brian
  13. The Far Side of the World – Patrick O’Brian
  14. They Both Die at the End – Adam Silvera
  15. Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness, & Relaxation – Stephanie Clement
  16. Tarot Spreads and Layouts- Jeanne Fiorini
  17. The Reverse of the Medal – Patrick O’Brian
  18. Bingo Love – Tee Franklin and Jenn St-onge
  19. The Letter of Marque – Patrick O’Brian
  20. Heathen: Volume One – Natasha Alterici and Rachel Deering
  21. Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan – Zack Davisson
  22. I Was the Cat – Paul Tobin and Benjamin Dewey
  23. Love is Love – IDW Publishing
  24. Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction – ed. Steve Burman
  25. My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness – Nagata Kabi
  26. The Biography of Goddess Inanna; Indomitable Queen of Heaven, Earth, and Almost Everything – Sandra Bart Heimann
  27. All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages – Saundra Mitchell et. al.
  28. Nagasaki: The Massacre of the Innocent and Unknowing – Craig Collie
  29. The Thirteen Gun Salute – Patrick O’Brian
  30. Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident – Donnie Eichar
  31. The Oracle Queen: A Three Dark Crowns Novella – Kendare Blake
  32. Circe: A Novel – Madeline Miller
  33. The Nutmeg of Consolation – Patrick O’Brian
  34. The Truelove – Patrick O’Brian
  35. The Wine-Dark Sea – Patrick O’Brian
  36. The Commodore – Patrick O’Brian
  37. Titanic: A Very Deceiving Night – Tim Maltin
  38. The Yellow Admiral – Patrick O’Brian
  39. The Hundred Days – Patrick O’Brian
  40. Yurei: The Japanese Ghost – Zack Davisson
  41. Band vs Band: Volume 1 – Kathleen Jacques
  42. Band vs Band: Volume 2 – Kathleen Jacques
  43. The Morrigan: Meeting the Great Queens – Morgan Daimler
  44. The Runes – Horik Svensson
  45. I Am a Cat – Soseki Natsume
  46. Blue at the Mizzen – Patrick O’Brian
  47. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 1: The Faust Act – Kieron Gillen
  48. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 2: Fandemonium – Kieron Gillen
  49. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 3: Commercial Suicide – Kieron Gillen
  50. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 4: Rising Action – Kieron Gillen
  51. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 5: Imperial Phase Part 1 – Kieron Gillen
  52. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 6: Imperial Phase Part 2 – Kieron Gillen
  53. Fairies: A Guide to the Celtic Fair Folk – Morgan Daimler
  54. Black Sun Rising – C.S. Friedman
  55. Locke and Key Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
  56. Locke and Key Vol. 2: Head Games – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
  57. Locke and Key Vol. 3: Crown of Shadows – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
  58. Locke and Key Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
  59. Locke and Key Vol. 5: Clockworks – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
  60. Locke and Key Vol. 6: Alpha and Omega – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
  61. Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt – Yekaterina Barbash
  62. When True Night Falls – C.S. Friedman
  63. Crown of Shadows – C.S Friedman
  64. Becoming Dangerous: Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers, and Magical Rebels on Summoning the Power to Resist – Katie West
  65. Flesh and Spirit – Carol Berg
  66. Breath and Bone – Carol Berg
  67. The Poisoner’s Pocket Guide Vol 1: Book of Saturn – Coby Michael Ward
  68. Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns Series #3) – Kendare Blake
  69. Nine Princes in Amber (The Chronicles of Amber Book 1) – Roger Zelazny
  70. The Poisoner’s Pocket Guide Vol 2: Book of Mercury – Coby Michael Ward
  71. The Guns of Avalon (The Chronicles of Amber Book 2) – Roger Zelazny
  72. Sign of the Unicorn (The Chronicles of Amber Book 3) – Roger Zelazny
  73. The Hand of Oberon (The Chronicles of Amber Book 4) – Roger Zelazny
  74. The Wicked and the Divine Vol 7: Mothering Invention – Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie 
  75. The Courts of Chaos (The Chronicles of Amber Book 5) – Roger Zelazny
  76. Sister Light, Sister Dark (Book 1 of the Great Alta Saga) – Jane Yolen
  77. Transformation (Rai Kirah Book 1) – Carol Berg
  78. Revelation (Rai Kirah Book 2) – Carol Berg
  79. White Jenna (Book 2 of the Great Alta Saga) – Jane Yolen
  80. Restoration (Rai Kirah Book 3) – Carol Berg
  81. Creatures of Light and Darkness – Roger Zelazny
  82. Eye of Cat – Roger Zelazny
  83. The Dream Master – Roger Zelazny
  84. The One-Armed Queen (Book 3 of the Great Alta Saga) – Jane Yolen
  85. Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
  86. Unicorn Variations – Roger Zelazny
  87. A Night in the Lonesome October – Roger Zelazny
  88. The Ritual – Adam Nevill
  89. A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories – Ray Bradbury

#2132

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My mother and I share a lot of private memories, things for which only we were present – the time we got locked in a dark sauna and I was thoroughly convinced we were going to die; the time we accidentally ordered so much food at a Chinese restaurant that it was like the chocolate factory conveyor belt scene from I Love Lucy; the time our car was nearly hit by lightning during a tornado warning and we rode out the storm in a little diner in the middle of nowhere; all the times we sat talking over dinner or laughing at stupid reality TV. We share countless private memories between us, both mundane and magical, silly and serious, yet there is a specific shared memory which binds us beyond mother and daughter – a memory I have barely touched in the last eleven years.

I was fresh out of my first year of college, just eighteen years old, and my parents and I were on vacation in northern California. We had driven to the ranger station at the top of Mt. Lassen, a ride during which my mother had kept her eyes squeezed shut for fear of the steep cliff-side just feet from the car. She hated heights, hated seeing the tops of trees passing by below as the car wove its way up the steep, winding path, and probably didn’t trust her own driving skills enough to risk the attempt anyway. On the way down, though, she had to take the wheel and remain calm for us both while my father sat stunned in the front seat by an inexplicably painful and disorienting headache. We didn’t know why the headache struck so suddenly or with such force, only that he needed medical assistance – and so my mother faced her lifelong fear to get us all to safety. I knew she was on the edge of panic that whole drive down and yet she reined in her fear to keep her teenage daughter, who had never seen her beloved father so vulnerable, from panicking too. Thanks to her we made it safely back to the tiny town at the base of the mountain and hurried to the local hospital. If my father was cogent enough to commend my mother for her bravery at the time, I don’t remember… and at this point it’s only she and I who remain to tell the tale.

My mother is made of steel and I could provide a hundred examples of her strength just off the top of my head; anyone who knows her could. She fights for her family, for her friends, and for her community and has always set a positive example for everyone around her. However, I’m the only one who can offer up this particular memory as proof of her unyielding bravery. A check for a million dollars couldn’t have convinced my mother to make that stressful drive back to civilization on her own and yet she did. For my father, mysteriously sick, she did. For me, young and terrified, she did. Maybe if we had known what the upcoming days would ask of us she would have quailed at this first test, but all I remember is her determination in the face of the frightening unknown.

I talk a lot about the ways in which I’m like my father because I’m proud to carry them on in his name and make him present in every moment with me. However, what I should say more often is how much I hope I am like my mother. How I hope I have inherited her courage, strength, and conviction. How I hope I may act quickly and calmly to protect my little family when emergencies strike. How I hope I may so bravely face down any and all of my fears to do what is right for those I love. Anyone can tell you my mother is a little blond spitfire who doesn’t back down from a challenge, yet only I can tell you about the time I saw her at her bravest. It’s not a happy memory to share between us, nor are any of the other memories from the week that followed, but it remains preserved and clarified in my mind as testament to the strength for which I want always to strive.

#2121

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I’ve been thinking about inevitability. About how chance and circumstance could lead Igor Dyatlov’s hiking group to set up their tent in the exact center of an extremely rare and unknown wind vortex, the resulting infrasound of which sent them running into the subzero Siberian winter. Those students did everything right, everything, given what science knew at the time, and yet nine people froze to death in darkness. In 1958 no amount of investigation could answer the why of the disaster. Now we know. They couldn’t have.

I’ve been thinking about preparedness. About how chance and circumstance could lead the RMS Titanic to sail through an unknown thermal inversion, an ocular mirage that hid the iceberg, so confused the nearby Californian that it never went to assist, and ruined any chance those floating in freezing cold water had to survive the night. Both ships’ crews did everything right, everything, given what science knew at the time, and yet fifteen hundred people froze to death in darkness. In 1912 no amount of investigation could answer the why of the disaster. Now we know. They couldn’t have.

How can things go so extremely wrong when those involved are as educated, trained, and prepared as it is possible to be? When they do everything exactly right and still meet with helplessness and death? What does that mean for the rest of us who know so little? We can only prepare for what we know is coming. We can only imagine scenarios within the reality we conceptualize. Beyond that we are babes.

I do not fear the unknown. I do not fear aliens or curses or conspiracies, Sasquatch or Mothman or Bloody Mary. I fear what we already know. I fear the sleeping calderas and the pressurized fault lines; I fear the solar flares and the sixth great extinction. And I fear the as-yet-unknown. The to-be-known. The dangers already existing all around us, hidden only by the limits of human knowledge. What awaits us that we will never see coming?

#2092

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there are some things i can only write about at very specific times, like when the moon is just a sliver in a sky the color of my freshmen year of college or the afternoon sun is slanting just like it did that day in eighth grade, when i’m driving the old back roads home from a theater that hasn’t changed at all in twenty-five years or listening to a song i wrung all the emotion from while i walked endless circles around campus late at night, but even then i must hurry to capture the fleeting, fickle moment before it passes and i am left too weary to write another word, too empty to perform another grand resurrection of my old ghosts and demons and long beloved spirits, and in the morning or the next day when i go back to reread those scribbles i’ll just be disappointed anyway by how impossible it is to capture such ephemeral experiences, so i’ll think why do i even try, why do i bother robbing graveyards, and then i’ll ctrl+alt+delete my way out of all memory but today’s

#2046 – 2017 Book List

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2017 wasn’t my best reading year ever; I blame that whole planning-a-wedding thing. Still, I managed to read a total of 65 books (okay, books AND comics), including 31 with queer characters or content and 42 by non-male authors. Also, I read Atlas Shrugged, which I think should be counted as a feat unto itself (it’s good! but also hella looooong).

  1. Wilde Stories 2016: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction – ed. Steve Berman
  2. Bedtime Stories for Cats – Leigh Anne Jasheway
  3. Catfantastic Vol. 2 – Andre Norton and Martin Harry Greenburg
  4. Catfantastic Vol. 3 – Andre Norton and Martin Harry Greenburg
  5. Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics – Jason Porath
  6. Your Magickal Cat: Feline Magic, Lore, and Worship – Gerina Dunwich
  7. Great Speeches on Gay Rights – Ed. James Daley
  8. Catfantastic Vol. 4 – Andre Norton and Martin Harry Greenburg
  9. Catfantastic Vol. 5 – Andre Norton and Martin Harry Greenburg
  10. Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
  11. Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction – Ed. A M Dellamonica and Steve Berman
  12. The King of the Cats and Other Feline Fairy Tales – ed. John Richard Stephens
  13. The Tribe of Tiger – Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
  14. Summer in Orcus – T. Kingfisher
  15. Mystery Cats – ed. Lilian Jackson Braun & Patricia Highsmith
  16. Toad Words and Other Stories – T. Kingfisher
  17. The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry – ed. Rose Lemberg
  18. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
  19. A Song of War: A Novel of Troy – Stephanie Thornton et. al.
  20. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories – Susanna Clarke
  21. Keeper of the Dawn – Dianna Gunn
  22. Arcane Perfection – ed. Pat Mosley, et. al.
  23. An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassifiables – ed. Rose Lemberg
  24. Tailchaser’s Song – Tad Williams
  25. A Year of Ravens: A Novel of Boudica’s Rebellion – E. Knight et. al.
  26. Watership Down – Richard Adams
  27. Jackalope Wives and Other Stories – T. Kingfisher
  28. Paradise Lost – John Milton
  29. The Wicked and the Divine, Book 5: Imperial Phase I – Kieron Gillen
  30. Summerwode (The Wode Book 4)  – J Tullos Hennig
  31. The Miseducation of Cameron Post – Emily M Danforth
  32. The First Time She Drowned – Kerry Kletter
  33. Iron Peter: A Year in the Mythopoetic Life of New York City – Charles Ortleb
  34. Lumberjanes Vol 1: Beware the Kitten Holy – Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis
  35. Dreadnought: Nemesis Book 1 – April Daniels
  36. The Price of Salt – Patricia Highsmith
  37. Two Boys Kissing – David Levithan
  38. Scourge of the Righteous Haddock – Ashley Schwellenbach
  39. The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1 – Irene Koh et. al.
  40. The Wheel Diver – Ashley Schwellenbach
  41. Through the Woods – Emily Carroll
  42. Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel – Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
  43. Lumberjanes Vol 2: Friendship to the Max! – Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis
  44. Lumberjanes Vol 3: A Terrible Plan – Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis
  45. Lumberjanes Vol 4: Out of Time – Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis
  46. Mystery of the White Lions: Children of the Sun God – Linda Tucker
  47. Lumberjanes Vol 5: Band Together – Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis
  48. Lumberjanes Vol 6: Sink or Swim – Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis
  49. The Steel Remains (A Land Fit for Heroes) – Richard K. Morgan
  50. A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
  51. Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat – Gwen Cooper
  52. Journey from Yesterday – Roma Niles Burke
  53. Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami – Gretel Erhlich
  54. The Cold Commands (A Land Fit for Heroes) – Richard K. Morgan
  55. The Dark Defiles (A Land Fit for Heroes) – Richard K. Morgan
  56. Psychic Abilities for Beginners: Awaken Your Intuitive Senses – Melanie Barnum
  57. How To Meet & Work with Spirit Guides – Ted Andrews
  58. Mostly Void, Partially Stars: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 1 – Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
  59. Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
  60. The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 2 – Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
  61. Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic – Osho
  62. Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
  63. H.M.S Surprise – Patrick O’Brian
  64. Yeshua’s Loom: A Tapestry of Cats (Yeshua’s Cats Book 5) – C L Francisco
  65. The Essential Rumi – trans. Coleman Barks

#2042

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There’s a War on Christmas – In My Heart


Oh Christmas, what a strange holiday you have become. Some say you have your source in paganism, others in Christianity, and still others curse you as a capitalist conspiracy. Regardless, you have centered yourself in the American mindset as the most important holiday of the year, so important in fact that you overshadow your competitors – Hanukkah usually gets a polite nod, Kwanzaa the occasional tossed crumbs, and as for the rest, well, they have to be content with “happy holidays”.  But I don’t hate you, Christmas. In fact, up until the last few years Christmas was one of my favorite holidays. I love how cheerful everything looks covered in evergreen boughs and twinkle lights; I love holiday foods like stuffing and pumpkin pie; I even love the old Christmas hymns like We Three Kings and O Come Emmanuel. This time of the year hearkens back to all those happy Christmases of my childhood, filled with choir performances, homemade decorations, and the nervous excitement of trying to fall asleep on Christmas eve. And yes, I’ll admit, I am certainly a fan of getting lots of gifts.

That being said, I’m just… not feeling it this year.

Actually, it’s more than not feeling – I’m downright bah humbug. I know my lack of enthusiasm is from a mixture of the usual reasons so many people hate the holidays: family drama; monetary stress; no two weeks of freedom like when you were in school. It can be hard to recapture the magic you felt as a kid when you’re unwrapping a tofu press instead of a new toy, or giving a gift to someone you are obligated to interact with but don’t actually like. It’s even harder when you’re in a committed relationship and either have to slight one family in favor of another or spend the holiday apart. So yeah, partly I’m being a grinch because Christmas as an adult isn’t nearly as easy and fun as when I was a kid. There’s more to it than that, though. I think. My feelings are very tangled right now, but when I try to work out the knots and get to the problem in the center I get the feeling it’s not just about family drama. It’s not just because I miss kid-Christmas. It’s because Christmas… isn’t my holiday.

Uh, DUH, you’re probably thinking if you know me. You’re pagan, of course Christmas isn’t your holiday. And yeah, there’s the rub. Up until 2015, I was a pseudo-agnostic content with celebrating a Christian holiday which has forced itself into the secular world. After all, almost everyone I know celebrates Christmas regardless of their spiritual beliefs, and in America it is very much assumed that you celebrate Christmas too. Sure, some folks go to church on Christmas eve, but many others just stay home and have cocoa. No one questions why you would celebrate this particular Christian holiday if you’re not Christian, and so you grow up not questioning it either. After all, most of us got baskets of candy on Easter, too.

But this year I find myself tripping over that “Christ” in Christmas. Despite how secular Christmas has become in our society, this year its religious connections seem to chafe me. Don’t get me wrong, I think Jesus was a great guy – but he’s not my savior. Why am I celebrating a Christian holy day? I’m proudly Kemetic, so isn’t that a little insulting to both Jesus and Bast? Somehow, celebrating Christmas as a pagan feels less okay than celebrating it as a maybe-agnostic, even though in both situations I’m still celebrating the secular version of the holiday. I feel like the guest no one invited to Baby Jesus’ birthday party, you know? Some friends dragged me along and now I’m standing awkwardly in the corner while Mary’s asking Joseph who the fuck I am.

To clarify, I don’t think I’m getting these vibes from either Jesus or the Netjeru. I don’t think anyone is angry or feels ignored, or is trying to push me into a decision I’m not ready to make. I think this is just the next logical stop on my spiritual journey; where I go from here is up to me. That’s kinda scary, though. What if I decide I don’t want to celebrate Christmas anymore? Does that mean I have to start explaining my religious beliefs to everyone who asks? Does it mean our family traditions have to change, or that I have to forgo seeing them on the holidays? What would my wife tell her staunchly Catholic family? What would I tell my fairly atheist family?

I know I have a lot of options no matter what decision I finally make, and Christmas 2018 is quite far away. Still, I think these feelings mark a turning point, and I’m both excited and scared to see where they take me. I’m pretty unapologetic about who I am – I’m fiercely queer, fiercely feminist, and fiercely geeky – but pagans don’t get a lot of respect in American society. People who embrace my queerness might mock my belief in Bast behind my back; people who support my rejection of Christian morals might draw the line at worshiping actual pagan deities. You just never know, and that unknown makes me anxious. Right now I fly below most people’s radar, even with my ankh ring and tattoos. Am I ready to be seen as pagan by everyone and to possibly defend my faith to family and strangers alike?

#2029

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It’s “the holidays”, so let’s talk about… eating disorders! (Wah wah.)

I’m about to throw a big ball of crazy at you, so fair warning. Possible triggers: eating disorders, anxiety, OCD, and chronic illness.

I don’t want to bore you with my whole life story, so I’ll try to give you the relevant highlights. I have always had stomach problems: cholic as a baby, a lactose intolerance diagnosis in elementary school, and an IBS diagnosis in high school. Add to this an anxiety disorder that makes my stomach rock and roll whenever I’m nervous, excited, angry, or upset and you have a bad, bad combination. Basically, my stomach hurt all the time when I was a kid and I rarely knew why. Food became dangerous and untrustworthy; something that was fine the day before might upset my stomach the next day. I was miserable (and frequently still am).

In college, I added to all this a healthy dose of body issues. I was a chubby child but it never bothered me, as I eschewed most of society’s expectations for the female body. Sometime in college the bad body vibes hit me, though, despite my best efforts, and I’ve never been able to shake them. My food anxiety and OCD combined with the shiny new body issues and morphed into a stronger, faster, meaner obsession. I counted calories, carbs, portions, and anything else that was trackable. About a year out of college, I had managed to get my body, which likes to be between 132-135 pounds, down to 111. I had even managed to cease my menstrual cycle completely, which was awesome but not super healthy.

Nowadays I’m back to a proper weight, but still in a weird limbo where my anxiety-ocd-body-issues monster is constantly at war with my queer, feminist side that strives to cast off all the gross social conditioning and love my body exactly how it is. Every single day I expend so much energy worrying about my weight, my IBS, what I should eat to be healthy, what I should eat to be skinny, what I should eat to be comfortable and happy and not-crazy that I exhaust myself. If I have one cookie on the weekend, I mentally berate myself for it. If I take a day off from exercising because my stomach hurts, I swear I’m already a pound heavier. Even this very moment, while I write this, I’m craving Chex Mix but no, it’s so many calories, what if it makes my stomach hurt, I shouldn’t! Rinse and repeat forever.

All of this is to explain why Thanksgiving and Christmas have gone from being my favorite holidays to ones I dread through all of September, October, and November. See, I love eating and the winter holidays have the best food – pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, candied yams, mashed potatoes, honey rolls, hot chocolate, donuts and cheese danish on Christmas morning… mmm! More than anything, though, I love eating my mom’s stuffing. It’s soaked with butter and chock full of dried and fresh fruit, and I would eat it every day of my life if I could. But stuffing isn’t a good food according to my OCD brain. It’s bad for my stomach; it’s high in calories; it has no nutritional value. How dare I have even one bite?! So for the last ten or eleven years, the holidays have involved far more anxiety and internal panicking than enjoyment of the dishes I love. I drink water to fill myself up to the point of pain, and I eat a big, healthy breakfast so I’m not tempted by the Christmas donuts. When I have one anyway, I then spend the day wondering how I can sneak away from the festivities to work out. It’s pathetic, honestly, and majorly depressing.

I am going to change that this year. Or at least, I’m really going to try. I want to eat a nice dinner without worrying about my stomach beforehand and hating myself afterward. Wouldn’t that be nice? It really would. And I deserve that. I deserve to enjoy the holidays with my friends and family. I deserve to nourish my body with food that is healthy and good, and to not feel guilty for giving it the fuel it needs (or the treat I want!). I deserve to live free of anxiety and obsession. I deserve to live my life, to be present in every moment, and so does everyone else in similar situations. There are so many of us hurting out there, starving our bodies and souls to meet impossible ideals, and there’s just no reason. We weren’t put on this earth to make ourselves suffer.

I think this will be my goal for 2018 – to be kinder to myself and to love myself, not despite my various burdens but because of them. Maybe 2018 will be the year that I get to know my body again. We’ve been at war for too long.

#2020

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Mother, if I stop to think how many of Your children are suffering or dying right now, right this very moment, I nearly drown. The grief is an unseen tsunami and the hopeless part of me wants to get it over with, let the wave wash me out to sea. How can I have any faith in this world when Your children are tortured, hunted, abandoned, experimented on, killed by a thousand different heartless methods every day simply because their lives are not valued? When they are born in cages and die in cages, having never once felt the sun? I want to reach out, to find and be with them in their dark places, their last moments, but their reality’s terror cripples me. I ignore the truth like an open wound I cannot tend – the only option is to keep going until it heals or hurts too much to move. All across the world Your children do the same and I am their sibling, after all, though unbelievably lucky to have been born in a body and place that ensure me basic rights. Your children have no rights anywhere. No right to live and breed freely in the wild; no right to be the masters of their own bodies; no right to be seen as a living creature at all, let alone an individual with wants and needs and a soul as valuable as every other.

People will say I’m exaggerating. I’m not. You know I’m not. Help me, Mother. Teach me how to shield my heart so I don’t have to harden it. Show me how to embrace the pain without making it part of myself. I refuse to be ignorant; I refuse to be uncaring; I refuse to be hopeless. But it’s so hard to face a future that feels inevitable and a truth that seems too heavy to bear. I have feared all my life that it would be my fate to watch Your children perish by the species, and thus far I have been given no reason to think it might be otherwise. So what do I do? How do I move forward? Help me, Mother.

#2015

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Kitten Fostering as Service to Bast


My wife and I have been fostering kittens for over two years now. It all started one night when she called me during her shift at the local humane society and said hesitantly, “So… I’m bringing a kitten home,” as if I might refuse. Right – me, refuse a kitten! The little ball of black fluff she brought home was only a few weeks old and had been dropped off at the humane society after hours. With no one else to care for her over the weekend, Chriselle had no choice but to take the kitten back to our apartment. We named her Phedre, and she lived with us until she grew into a two pound monster who loved chewing on her foster moms – at which point we sent her off to her forever home and took in the next kitten. And the next. And the next. In the last two years we have fostered over forty kittens and that number will only keep growing. For Chriselle, it’s just who she is; she works to save animal lives all day, and it’s only natural to her to come home and keep doing that. For me, it’s about service to Bast; I know the cats She brings into our lives need us, and I could no more refuse Her than I could refuse Chriselle that very first time.

This service isn’t always easy, though – nor does it always end in a kitten finding their forever home. Sometimes it ends with us losing the kitten. Thanks to Chriselle’s veterinary skills and a little extra luck from Bast we’ve only lost three kittens so far, but each time hurts like they’re one of our own children. It’s so, so difficult to lose a foster. You blame yourself no matter the circumstance, because at the end of the day you took charge of that tiny life and ultimately let it down. It doesn’t matter that the three we lost all died of unknown and untreatable diseases – I will always carry the guilt of that failure. It’s just who I am, and who Chriselle is too. Animals are our world and we’d willingly lay down our own lives for any of them. We carry the memory of our lost ones close, and I know we remember them each time a foster has a close call.

After the loss of a foster, I have to remind myself that Bast brings each kitten into our lives for a reason. With the fosters we end up losing, I believe that reason is two-fold. One, I believe it’s because She knows we will properly mourn every little life and will never forget a single one of our fosters, even those who were only on this earth for a matter of days. They deserve remembrance, and they will remain in our hearts forever. Second, I believe it’s because She knows the loss won’t break us. We’ll cry together, yes, and deal with our anger and guilt in separate, probably not totally healthy ways, but we won’t stop fostering. We’re prepared for the hard parts of fostering kittens – the loss of sleep and free time, the fleas and vomit and diarrhea, the potential at any moment for a life to gutter out no matter our efforts – but not everyone is. A lot of folks who foster only want older, healthy kittens who will provide the most amount of cuteness for the least amount of effort. And during “kitten season”, when the shelters are all overrun, that’s okay! Thousands of healthy, happy kittens need foster homes until they can be adopted. But we know, and Bast knows, that we’ll always opt to take the risky little runts over the sure-bets any day. It’s who we are, to both our blessing and our detriment.

I absolutely couldn’t do this work without my faith in Bast, and I absolutely couldn’t do it without Chriselle. I’m so lucky to have a partner who is strong, patient, and an endless well of love and caring. Her veterinary knowledge and dedication make it possible for us to foster day-old kittens who need hourly bottle feeding or sick kittens who need constant care and vigilance. She provides the medical support – I just provide the love and prayers. Together, we seem to make a pretty good team. It’s a tough road, no lie, yet I still kneel at Bast’s altar once a week and tell Her, let me do Your will in this world. And this is how She responds.

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Twix (left) and Candycorn (right) who we lost within days of each other.

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Thomas, the first foster we lost. 

#2014

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Odd Woman Out, or: Sex-Repulsion and Queer Media

If you spend any time around me, either online or offline, you know I am out and proud. I wear a rainbow bracelet every day; my purse has a button that says “crystal queer” on it; I wear flannel as much as humanly possible; I have a sidecut; and you can bet I’m going to mention my wife at every possible chance. Online, I’m an avid Creampuff, Fannibal, and Amedot shipper, and I run my own asexuality blog. Hell, even my Twitter name is “Queer as Hannibal”. What I’m saying is, you can sense my queerness from a mile away no matter how you encounter me. And that’s on purpose. I don’t want you to have to see me holding my wife’s hand to know I’m queer – I want my very self to radiate so much queerness you can see it from space. It’s an important part of my identity and I spend a lot of time keeping up on trends, issues, and news in the community. I try to spread positivity and inclusiveness, and to learn how to be a better ally to my fellow community members. In short, I am all about queer pride.

I say this so you have some understanding of why I feel conflicted about queer media. See, I’m asexual and definitely vary between sex-indifferent and sex-repulsed. I’m sex-positive in the sense that I think two or more consenting adults can do whatever they want with each other, but I don’t really want to see or hear about it. However, I’m also part of the wlw (women who love women) community, and I feel incredibly invested in positive representation of queer relationships. I’ve been reading the webcomic Band vs Band as long as it’s been running and was dying for the two main characters to get together. Likewise, I watched The Legend of Korra with a hungry eye for anything Korrasami, and always swoon a little when Laura and Carmilla waltz or flirt. As for Steven Universe, well… Amedot is the hill I will die on.

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I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP

In short, I absolutely put my attention, money, and support into queer relationships in the media and will always defend narratives that help broaden our understanding of relationship diversity. And yet, when my wife warned me there’s a sex scene in the Carmilla movie, I sighed a little in my head. See, being asexual/sex-indifferent and also a part of the wlw community can put me in an uncomfortable position because I tend to lose interest in a fictional relationship when it becomes sexual. It’s not that I think sex is immoral – it’s just not something I can totally connect with, and so it feels like I’m being alienated by something that becomes the focus of the relationship. I love Laura and Carmilla, but there are times in Carmilla season 2 when I get a little uncomfortable with how often they make out. Same with Band vs Band, even though the interactions are chaste and, for heck’s sake, just drawings. Yet while I know that response isn’t logical, fair, or healthy, I still feel this weird twinge of… something. Jealousy? Disappointment? Resentment? It’s hard to pin down, and I usually feel too guilty to examine my emotions.

Therein lies the problem. See, the closer to a sexual relationship two characters get, the less comfortable I am. However, I also know how important representation is, and so at the same time I’m cheering for this couple and what they represent in our changing culture. It leaves me in a weird gray area where I feel like I’m the bad guy for wanting a relationship to remain chaste, but not because I hate queer people being sensual or sexual; I think I just want to see more people like me, and it’s hard each time to lose a connection with a character once they become canonically allosexual. I know a lot of my own issues are wrapped up in this conflicting feeling – my longing to be a “normal” allosexual queer woman versus my simultaneous desire to stand up for people like me – but that doesn’t make the burden easier to bear.

Being sex-repulsed or sex-indifferent in the queer community can be a very fine line to walk. We want, and deserve, more representation and yet we have to be so careful that we don’t come off as sex-shaming or heteronormative. But with so little representation currently, it’s no wonder those misconceptions are rife in our community and so easily cause little sparks to rage into huge fires. Queer people have always been shamed for acting on their sexuality, and that will never change unless we normalize all forms of consensual intimacy. We just need to also remember that for many in our community, sex isn’t what makes them queer – and that’s just as valid. The more we vary what “real” relationships look like, the more everyone in the community will feel comfortable with who they are and what they want.

#2003

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Open Relationships, Or: That Time I Told My Girlfriend to “Go Pro”

[ If you’re a family member or friend and don’t want to know anything about our sexual activities, I suggest not reading this post. ]

Have you ever interacted with something – a song, a painting, any piece of media really – and recognized that you can’t fully appreciate it because you’re not familiar enough with the skill and effort necessary for its creation? Meaning, have you ever looked at something and thought, “That’s really cool, but it’s probably way more amazing to someone who actually knows how hard it was to create”?

I experience this frequently with my girlfriend. Chriselle plays the guitar and writes her own music; I gave up the flute after a week in elementary school. She has a blackbelt in kung fu; I’m as graceless as a t-rex. She speaks multiple languages; I remember about 1% of my German and bailed on French after one class. She is an attentive, generous, and extremely talented lover; I’m sex-indifferent most of the time, and sometimes sex-repulsed. My point is, a lot of her skills are somewhat lost on me, as I can only appreciate them from an outsider’s perspective. And that seems like such a shame! If you master a complicated painting technique, you want someone to say, “Wow, that technique is really hard; you did a great job!” instead of, “This painting is cool :)” with no understanding of how hard you worked.

Case in point: about a year ago, after my lady had made me feel really, really good in certain physical ways, I realized her particular skills in the realm of lovemaking are basically wasted on me. Don’t get me wrong, I know she’s good – I just can’t appreciate how good the way someone else with more varied and refined tastes might. I’m just an amateur, and she deserves to do stuff with a connoisseur. So once we were done and cuddling, I looked over at her and exclaimed, “You should go pro!” with probably a little too much enthusiasm. No, I didn’t mean she should become a prostitute. But I did mean she deserved to have other sexual partners. I meant I thought we should open up our relationship.

If you’re in an asexual/allosexual relationship, just about everyone who knows will give you their uninvited opinion on whether those kinds of relationships can work or not. People who know nothing about either of you will tell you all sorts of bullshit: that romantic relationships need sex to work; that asexuals have a duty to let their allosexual partners sleep with others; that allosexual partners are selfish for wanting to have sex with other people; that monogamy will kill your relationship; that polyamory will kill your relationship; etc, etc, etc. And none of it is true, at least not for every single relationship every single moment. People change. Relationships change. Desires, turn-ons, and turn-offs change. In the beginning of our relationship, for example, we both wanted to be monogamous for personal reasons. We started dating with the understanding that sex wasn’t an option – then it became something we explored together – and then something that we had differing and sometimes conflicting feelings about. Change happens. We’re not the same people we were a year ago, and we won’t be the same people in a year that we are today.

My point is, we started out monogamous but then at some point I got to a place in our relationship where the thought of Chriselle sleeping with someone else felt… totally okay and cool. Like I would for any of my friends, I just wanted her to be happy and have experiences I couldn’t personally give her. As long as we remained loving, committed partners on the road to marriage, I didn’t see any issue with her having other folks with whom she could explore her sexuality. I wouldn’t stop her from training for a marathon just because I hate running, would I? No, I’d support her and be happy if she found other people to have that experience with. Sex honestly felt the same way – she’s good at it and wants to have it more often than I do, so why not find some other people who can fulfill that desire? I know she loves me and will always return to me. She knows I love her and encourage her to do this because I care so much, not so little.

Cut to the present. Our lives have been unbelievably hectic and in the rush of fostering kittens, planning a wedding, and dealing with work stress, our open relationship has yet to move past the theoretical phase. Chriselle has been chatting with some people on the OKCupid and Her apps, but except for one or two possible leads she’s really only making platonic connections. I think this delay is for the best, though, because it’s given both of us a chance to really get used to the idea. While a year ago I wasn’t sure how I would actually react when my suggestion became reality, now I know that I’m really very okay with it. Last night we lay in bed and I watched her swipe through matches, asking questions about what attracted, or did not attract, her to certain people. I was partly asking because it’s always hard as an asexual to grasp the concept of “sexual attraction” and how allosexual people experience it. However, I was also asking because it made me truly happy to see Chriselle putting herself out there. Even if none of those people work out as a “swim buddy”, let’s say, she’s still incredibly brave to hang out in the pool. I remember trolling dating sites for months and years for that one real, often fleeting connection, and it suuucks.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I lay in bed last night watching my soulmate and best friend look for possible sexual partners and all I felt was excitement for her. Not jealousy. Not fear. Not anger or guilt. Just the excitement you feel when you care about someone and want them to be happy. It was a weird feeling, to be honest, because society teaches us to be jealous and possessive of our romantic partners – to feel otherwise must mean our relationship is broken or weak or messed up, right? No. If you love someone, you trust them. If you love someone, you want them to be happy. If you love someone, you share their life, not own it. Polyamory isn’t for everyone, but neither is monogamy. If we learned in high school health class that relationships can come in all shapes and sizes (and that those shapes and sizes change over time), maybe we wouldn’t have to do all this unlearning and relearning as adults.

#1949

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It’s been ten years. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-two days. In that time, three years of college; three of Americorps; three with a ‘real’ job. Two degrees and one diploma. Four years with the woman I love, who you will never meet. Forty-two foster kittens. Some hundred thousand miles on my car. One car accident, zero broken bones. Two trips to Washington DC, one to Yosemite, one to Switzerland. One new Jurassic Park movie, which you’ll never watch with me, and too many Tremors sequels. Three tattoos, going on four. One wedding to plan and one to attend. Three times a bridesmaid and once a bride. Zero fathers to walk me down the aisle. Zero dads to dance with. Zero you but countless dreams and too many things I’ll never get to share with you.

#1927

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I’m a member of the Dead Dads Club. It’s a shitty club and you don’t get to choose to become a member; one day it just happens, congratulations, you’re a member for life now. At first I didn’t dream about him at all, or if I did he was always in the periphery, silent, watchful. Then it was dreams where I didn’t know I was dreaming and he was back – he had never died, he had been resurrected, he just walked through the door one day and didn’t know years had passed. Then it was dreams where I didn’t know I was dreaming and we were just hanging out together – riding in his truck, baking chocolate chip cookies, me telling him about Assassin’s Creed. Then it was dreams where I knew it was a dream and he didn’t understand why I’d hold him hard and sob into his chest. Now it’s dreams where I know it’s a dream but I still tell him over and over and over again how much I want him to come to my wedding. I cry, hard and ugly, and the dream never lasts long enough. In the dream it feels unbearable, the thought that he’ll miss this, too, just like he missed so much else. When you’re in the Dead Dads Club, the list of things they miss just gets longer and longer, and yet you’re continually blindsided when something new comes up.

#1912

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I don’t try to get published. I know it would be useless – we aren’t publishable. No one would pay for the scripture of dead gods, or the hymns of phantoms, or the gospel of the insane. No one would read the poetry of a madwoman, would it cost them even a nickel. You have too few beginnings for biography and too many endings for non-fiction. I dedicate too many words to the sound of blood in your lungs for either horror or erotica; they will say it makes readers uncomfortable. We’re just not presentable and I can’t make us so, not when it’s blasphemy to edit or omit. I could not tell lies for money. I could not cut chunks of flesh from my side to earn their weight in coin. If they never believed Cassandra, why should they believe me? Publishers aren’t interested in crazy unless it’s marketable.

#1904

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I feel like I’m going crazy. Literally.

Over the last two years, I’ve frequently felt like my own brain is gaslighting me. At work, I miss red flags that I specifically looked for; I calculate budget numbers but then can’t figure out how I came to those totals the next day; I forget tasks or duties I’ve never had trouble remembering before; I swear I started a project but then find no evidence in my files; my completed documents are riddled with obvious mistakes I thought I checked or corrected; emails I have a vivid memory of reading were never sent to me. I’ve even run two red lights – not because I wasn’t paying attention, but because I could have sworn that the light was green. Every day, I feel tripped up by false or missing memories, by basic math that makes no sense, by this frustrating “Past Elyssa” who keeps fucking everything up for the present me. Sometimes I find her mistakes the next day, when I can fix them before my boss notices, but other times I don’t find her mistakes until months later, when a tiny issue becomes a monster. I find myself apologizing over and over and over again, promising I’m a hard worker, dedicated, detail-oriented, that I’m not who Past Elyssa makes me out to be. But what if I am?

For two years now, I’ve felt like I can’t trust my own mind. This paranoia leads me to second-guessing everything I do. I double and triple-check information I’ve long had memorized; I have shadow systems for everything I might possibly need to track or remember; I leave myself sticky notes for the most obvious of tasks. I read and reread emails and documents before I send them, and I check my math however I can. But it’s not enough. Things still slip through at an alarming rate. And it scares me. It scares me because this isn’t who I am. I am detail-oriented. I am good at remembering deadlines and tasks. I am able to complete complex tasks. Yes, I’m bad at math, but I’m not usually this bad. I’m not usually inept.

When the brain weirdness first started, it had a definite cause. I had just gone on Topamax, a medication well known for reducing the user’s cognitive functions. And boy, did it slow down my brain. I was like a different person at work: forgetful, prone to missing obvious mistakes, and overall just slower at grasping even simple tasks. When I forgot to take another important medication for an entire week, I finally went off the Topamax. I assumed the side-effects would linger for a while, which they did… and did… and did… and do. I still feel like I’m on the Topamax, though I was only on it for a couple months and I’ve now been off it for over a year. At this point, whatever I’m experiencing simply can’t be caused by the medication. My doctor has suggested my migraines (for which I was taking the Topamax, ironically) might be causing my forgetfulness and decreased cognitive function. This is a good theory, but I don’t buy it 100%. This stuff just seems to happen too often to be the result of a migraine.

So what is it, then? None of my other medications cause such side-effects, and they’re all meds I’ve taken for years without issue. My diet and general health are good, so it’s not my body trying to run at half-capacity. The issues happen no matter what my mood, so it’s not anxiety or depression related. I don’t fit any of the other symptoms of adult onset ADD. I don’t love my job, but I’m dedicated and focused, so it’s not just that my brain is checked out. Plus, that doesn’t explain the times I’ve run red lights.

I feel crazy. That isn’t me co-opting an often misused word – I truly feel like I can’t always fully trust my mind or my perception of reality. These things have happened too often for me to just laugh off. Now every time I find a weird mistake or have a memory that apparently didn’t happen, I feel myself unravel a little more. It’s a creepy, frustrating, scary feeling. I don’t like being a bad employee. I don’t like being unreliable. I don’t like putting myself in danger by accident, or questioning even bland, innocuous memories. I already deal with anxiety, depression, and invasive thoughts; I really need my brain to otherwise work okay. If something’s wrong, I want to know so I can treat it with therapy or medication or whatever will work. It’s the not knowing, the not being able to act on a problem, that’s eating away at me.
[ I feel like this sounds really dramatic, and maybe I’m overreacting, but I’m going to make myself post it. Blurhg, brain bad. ]

#1892

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February 2017 Carnival of Aces: Resistance, Activism, & Self-Care

When I started my Tumblr blog Still-a-Valid-Ace, I did so on a whim with no thought to where it might go in the future; to be honest, I assumed I’d grow bored and delete it after a week. I just wanted a place to post my own experiences regarding asexuality and gatekeeping, maybe rant a little, and generally shout into the void of the internet. Surprisingly, though, traffic picked up pretty quickly and I suddenly had people submitting questions, problems, and pleas for advice. Without knowing a single thing about me, users seemed to expect trustworthy, valid responses that might make or break their identity or relationships. It was a lot of pressure for someone who, as I said, thought she would just be yelling into the void. I felt honored, though, and took this new responsibility very seriously. Thus, I waded into the online waters of asexual activism–

–and into a river full of rapids, waterfalls, and hidden rocks. YIKES. Asexuals have come under some serious fire recently as the the cool new minority to hate on within the queer community. Not that the other popular targets, like bisexual and transgender folks, don’t still get their share of hate; it’s just that asexuals seem to be the hot topic right now. You can’t even skim the asexual tag on Tumblr without running into rabidly acephobic posts by people who dedicate entire blogs to hating us. I receive hateful messages and reblogs from these accounts on a frequent basis, especially when I say anything about cisgender+heteroromantic aces or the right for aces to use the word “queer”. I’ve been called homophobic for supporting religious asexuals; I’ve been called a cishet oppressor for supporting all asexuals, regardless of their other identities; I am routinely accused of being a “straight” who wants to kill LGBT people. I agree that cishet isn’t a slur in and of itself, but I have seen it used dozens of times to deny and negate my actual identity. And it hurts. I am actively hurt by the very same people who claim to be protecting queer asexuals like me.

Do I daydream about all the ways I’d love to respond to these people? Of course. Do I type up pithy answers and attach sarcastic gifs, only to delete the entire thing? Of course. Do I get so filled with rage and sorrow that all I want to do is vomit curse words onto the screen or send my own hateful, hurtful messages back? Oh yes. Always. I want so badly to fight on my enemies’ level, to make the “discourse” personal so I can verbally eviscerate the trolls. But I don’t. I don’t, even when the alternative is to remain silent, or to reply with a diplomacy that feels like surrender. I don’t, because that won’t win me anything but grief, and my fellow aces nothing but fuel for the trolls. You see, one of the most difficult aspects of any activism is this: you become a spokesperson for your cause and a target for the haters. It doesn’t matter if you post five hundred thoughtful, balanced, in-depth discussions about a topic; if in just one post you act too angry, too forceful, or too callous, that’s the one you’ll get called out for. Any emotion you portray will be blown out of proportion and used against not only yourself, but your community as well. Look how angry asexuals are, they’ll say. They’re so whiny, so entitled, so ignorant! They hate gay people! They’re just special snowflakes! Your every word becomes a landmine just waiting to smear you across the internet. People assume that if you take on the role of activist, you also take on the role of subject matter expert, public information officer, and referee. Despite being passionate about the subject, you’re expected to be completely unbiased and lacking any agenda. When the topic is something that affects you personally, this is impossible. Impossible, but expected. If you can’t be objective, you’re vilified.

Despite all of this, though, I maintain my blog. I delete hate messages, ignore reblogs from anti-ace accounts, and try patiently and kindly to explain my views to those who seem genuinely confused or curious. I do this because I love my followers, my fellow aces, and my whole queer family. I truly do, with a ferocity I never imagined. If I get down in the muck with the trolls, I can’t be a safe person anymore. If I let hate leak onto my blog, it can’t be a safe space anymore. Because I actively choose to remain a source of comfort, support, advice, and protection, I can’t fight fire with fire. My activism has to be professional, no matter how much I’d love to make things personal. At the end of the day, the safety of every one of my followers means infinitely more to me than my own wishes to take an eye for an eye. If I can bring any bit of hope or understanding to even one asexual out there, no matter who or what else they are, then all the hate spam is worth it.

#1887

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Why I’m An “Apologetic Vegetarian”

This month marks the one year anniversary of my decision to become a vegetarian. Neat! Instead of reflecting on that choice and my journey over the last year, though, I instead want to talk about why I call myself an apologetic vegetarian. To understand where I’m coming from, you need a little backstory. First, I have had chronic stomach issues since I was a baby. Lactose intolerance, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety induced stomach aches… my stomach basically hurts at least once a day. If I’m not painfully constipated, then I have what I fondly refer to as the “fire poops”. I can’t safely ingest fatty food, greasy food, fried food, highly processed food, red meat, coffee, milk,  artificial sweeteners, black tea, chocolate, soda, or anything else good tasting. Half the time even my safe foods make my stomach upset. It sucks major lollipops.

Second, I have chronic anxiety and OCD. Many of my issues in this department revolve, understandably, around food. I am constantly paranoid about eating or drinking something that will make my stomach hurt, make me constipated, or otherwise isn’t “healthy” enough – based on my own neurotic standards. I can send myself into a panic attack at a restaurant if nothing on the menu seems safe enough to me. It’s bad. On top of this, I also obsess over my weight. Several years ago I was restricting my caloric intake to such a degree that I had dropped from my normal weight of 135 to 111. My period stopped for nearly a year (which was pretty sweet but also apparently not good). My doctor put a stop to that, and a couple years of therapy helped, but it’s still very easy for me to start fixating on my health and weight to a dangerous degree. 

Okay, so now you know. Dietary restrictions and obsessive compulsive personality. Awesome mix. I am such a functioning adult.

When I decided to become a vegetarian, I did so because I could no longer take part in an industry that causes pain to billions of animals every year. Therefore, it made sense to become a vegan – the production of milk and eggs in factory farms is just as horrendous and destructive as the actual meat industry, after all. To say you won’t eat a cow but you’re fine with letting one be traumatized its entire life so you can eat cheese is somewhat hypocritical. However, I knew from the beginning that I couldn’t convert to full veganism. Taking any meat-containing meals off the menu would already limit me more than my stomach issues already do. To further limit myself to IBS-safe vegan meals would most likely cause me issues everywhere I went. If I could give myself a panic attack because the only salad a restaurant offered was made with iceberg lettuce, I’d be totally doomed if on top of everything else, I had to question whether the bread housing my veggie sandwich had eggs or milk in it. It just wasn’t going to happen.

When I became a vegetarian, I promised myself one thing: if I was on the verge of a panic attack or wobbly with hunger and a ham sandwich, for example, was my only IBS-safe option, I had to choose my immediate mental or physical health over my morals. Knowing how obsessive and anxious I can become when faced with a dietary lose-lose situation, I had to give myself an out. I felt like a hypocrite and a coward for even doing something like that in a theoretical future situation, but I didn’t have much choice. I’m glad to say this issue hasn’t come up yet, and my first year as a vegetarian went by pretty smoothly. However, I still feel supremely guilty when I consume something I know (or suspect) has eggs or milk in it. I try to avoid such things when I can, but without an ingredients list you can never know for sure. And, unfortunately, OCD thrives on the things you can “never know for sure.”

So that’s why I call myself an apologetic vegetarian. I wish, truly, that I was at a place in my life where I could take on a challenging and rewarding lifestyle like veganism – but I’m not. I hope I will be one day, and I’m definitely trying to move in that direction. Until then, all I can do is minimize the harm I cause to my fellow animals, and help as many of them as I can.

#1883

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I find myself suddenly very bothered by the phrase “special snowflake”. I never liked it, nor the sentiment behind it, but I have recently been gnashing my metaphorical teeth over it. What bothers me is how illogical it is. In essence, a “special snowflake” is supposed to be someone who has many identities, aspects, and labels. This is bad, apparently. What is illogical about this is that we all have a long list of labels – the only difference is that we aren’t always vocal about as many of them. If I say I’m just a girl from Washington state, well, then I’m not a special snowflake. I’m “normal”. Yet if I make a list of even just a tenth of the labels that apply to me, then suddenly that’s too many and I’m just trying to be special. But it’s just a list. All of those things are true about me whether I say them or not. What difference does it make if I state them or leave them unsaid?

I decided to make a list of whatever personal labels I could think of off the top of my head. Let’s see how special snowflake I can be:

I am female, a daughter, and a sister. I am an Italian by descent, an American by birth, and a Washingtonian by choice. I am queer, asexual, sapphic, and engaged. I am a lazy femme, anti-makeup (for myself), and pro-leg hair. I am a feminist and a vegetarian; I am pro-choice and anti-Trump. I am lactose-intolerant, nearsighted, and a supertaster. I am allergic to salmon, kiwis, and oats. I am chronically ill. I am pagan, Kemetic, and a follower of Bast. I am anxious, obsessive-compulsive, and depressed. I am seismophobic and trypophobic. I am a Research Administrator. I am a writer and a reader. I am a nerd and a geek. I am a Fannibal, an Assassin, and a Ravenclaw.

That’s pretty impressive, but does it make me a special snowflake? I don’t think so. Anyone alive long enough to have formed a conscious understanding of who they are could make a list that long, or longer. We all have hundreds of identities, some we are born with and some we choose willingly. We’re all special snowflakes, whether we like it or not. Calling someone a special snowflake just makes you sound like you oppose having a full understanding of yourself, or using descriptors to define concepts that apply to you – in essence, “I hate that you’re using words to describe things”. Well buddy, I have some bad news for you: that’s literally what language is. Words for stuff. If you can’t get over the fact that people like to describe who they are, then you’re going to have one miserable life. Anyway. All this was to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a special snowflake, because all that means is that you’re different from other people, which is literally true for everyone on earth, even identical twins. The end.

#1882

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Skeletons in My Closet

Trichotillomania, according to the internet, is an “impulse control disorder” wherein the person suffers from the (oftentimes uncontrollable) urge to pull out their hair. Dermatillomania is its sister disorder, only dermatillomania causes the urge to pick at ones skin. The two often go hand-in-hand and frequently occur in people who suffer from OCD, anxiety, and/or body dysmorphia.

Thanks to my anxiety and OCD, I have them both! Lucky me.

I can’t remember when the picking started; my earliest memory is of lying about the scabs on my scalp sometime during late middle school or early high school. At some point I just started… picking. At anything. At everything. Blackheads, scabs, ingrown hairs, skin tags, cuticles, random bumps, really anything 3D that could be detected on my skin. In addition, I started pulling at my eyelashes and eyebrows. At this point, I have scars from scabs and pimples that weren’t allowed to heal on their own, as well as a receding hairline at my temples from picking and rubbing at my scalp too much. I routinely over-pluck my eyebrows and then have to fight myself not to keep plucking them as they grow back. I also suspect the carpal tunnel in both my hands is a product of so many years spent repetitiously running my hands over my skin and picking or pulling at whatever I found. I’m luckier than many, especially those who have trichotillomania and pull their hair out in chunks, but if you know what to look for, you’ll see the signs on me as well.

Like any compulsion, trich and derm provide an emotional release for the sufferer. Some people pick when nervous or upset, and the sensation or pain offer a kind of comfort. For me, it’s more that picking is satisfying. I can’t properly describe what I feel when I pick off a particularly nice scab, but it’s a weird mixture of victory, physical pleasure, and productivity. When I have nothing to pick or I can’t see what I’ve picked at, I feel frustrated and disappointed. It’s fucked up, I know. I don’t enjoy the pain associated with picking, but it’s not enough to stop my fingers from digging at unhealed scabs or things that aren’t really pickable at all. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that if you pick at anything long enough, you’ll eventually tear into the skin and voila! New scab.

It’s a disgusting habit, I know, and one I can’t really hide. I pick, especially at my scalp, in a totally thoughtless, automatic way throughout my waking hours – I have to be very mindful and constantly vigilant when somewhere where I can’t pick, such as a meeting or other professional setting. Even then, I still find myself attacking my scalp while I sit at my desk, and I’m sure my coworkers know something is seriously weird with me. Honestly, I’m surprised my picking hasn’t chased my girlfriend off, as she’s definitely talked about how gross it is to run her hands through my hair and feel a bunch of scabs. Even while I write this, I’m picking at my skin. I’ll probably continue to do it for the rest of the day, and for at least 20 minutes in the bathroom mirror while I’m getting ready for bed.

The problem is that, unlike people addicted to substances, I can never get away from my temptation. My hands are always with me, and there’s always something to pick at somewhere on my body. Wearing gloves 24/7 is obviously impractical, and cutting my nails just makes the job harder but the victory more rewarding. I have methods of decreasing my picking, like pulling my hair back and wearing a spinner ring I can fiddle with, but those only work for so long. The maximum number of days I’ve gone without picking is four  – but I’ve only managed that once. My average is one, and that’s if I’m doing really well. Most of the time I can’t bring myself to even try. This issue seems insurmountable and I feel exhausted just thinking about thinking about trying to fix it.

I don’t have any advice for others in this situation, as I clearly haven’t even begun to get a hold of my compulsion. Therefore, I can only speak to others, to those who might have someone in their life who struggles with something similar. To those people I say, have patience and be kind. Compulsions aren’t just “bad habits” and your loved one isn’t doing it to annoy you. Chances are they hate the compulsion even more than you do, and they’re actively toning it down whenever you’re around. Yelling at someone, demanding they stop picking, or asking them why they pick isn’t helpful at all – all you’re doing is reminding this person that you don’t understand the issue and aren’t trying to. Instead, show your support by giving them gentle reminders to stop picking, to use their redirection methods, or to find something that puts both their mind and hands to action. Be supportive of your loved one and try to remember that this is most likely a life-long battle, not something that can be cured overnight.

To my fellow pickers and pullers, I can only say, you’re not alone and you’re not gross. I know it’s an embarrassing compulsion, but you aren’t your disorder. You aren’t your trichotillomania, your dermatillomania, your OCD, or your anxiety. These things affect you, but they aren’t YOU. Take one day at a time. You’ll get through this.

#1879

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This is a love letter to my sidecut.

When I was a kid, I had a mane of wavy hair that reached my butt. I never brushed the dark mass unless my mother held me down and did it for me, resulting in many tears on my part and frustration on hers, so it was always a rats’ nest. When it came time to wrap it all up in a bun for ballet, or trap it with a bow for choir, so many bobby pins were enlisted that some would never be found again. Despite how much I hated tending my wild hair, though, I never considered cutting it. I just had long hair, the way I had two arms and two legs, and therefore had to deal with the tangles and tearing (and two really unfortunate cases of lice) that came along with it.

When I was in high school, I chopped the whole thing off and adopted a classic bob that I thought made me look mature and edgy. It really didn’t, but a bob was much easier to care for than four feet of snarls. Still, I spent as little time as possible caring for my hair – which over time caused me to resent even the bob style for its reliance on a brush and straightener. My wavy hair just didn’t conform perfectly and immediately into the sharp, straight bob I imagined, so mostly I thought fuck it and did nothing.

When I was in my sophomore year of college, I had my friends shave off my bob in our dormitory kitchen. My father had died only a few months past and I was grieving through minor bursts of much-delayed rebellion. Over the next few years I wavered between a shaggy pixie cut, poorly styled faux-hawk, and a close shave that left me sunburned on my scalp for the first time in my life. I loved having hair that couldn’t tangle, dried fast, and required very little thought. While I knew, deep down, that my hair never looked great (okay, it often looked BAD), I didn’t care; I only cared that I didn’t have to fuss over it.

By the end of college, though, I grew tired of not knowing how to rock a pixie cut and looking more like an awkward baby-dyke than the stylish warrior woman I wanted to emulate. I grew out my bob and kept it around for a couple years because… uh. I don’t know. Somewhere along the line a bob just became my default hair, the way “super long” had been my default style as a kid. I thought I liked it well enough, but it didn’t make me feel anything. I had a bob because it was a socially acceptable haircut that didn’t look too bad on me. I washed it, dried it, brushed it before work, and never thought about it otherwise…and in between, I mooned over pictures of girls with sidecuts. They looked so cool, so fierce, so edgy and dangerous, and I wanted desperately to look like them. I knew that wasn’t how it worked, though. I hadn’t looked like a badass with a pixie cut or a faux-hawk or an asymmetrical bob. I wouldn’t look like a badass with a sidecut either.

Finally, though, after agonizing over the decision for months, I took the leap. I shaved half my head and walked out of the salon feeling like the whole world had turned a different color. Everything felt ridiculously, unaccountably different, and I was sure I turned heads everywhere I went – not because I was attractive, but because I was bursting with Me-ness. I felt like I stood out in a way I never had before, simply because every part of me was in total, perfect alignment. It sounds silly to talk like this about a haircut, but it’s the truth. Somehow that minor alteration made me click into my whole body like I never had before. I didn’t think a haircut could feel so right.


I’m going on two years with this look, one side shaved and the other growing longer by the day, and that initial feeling hasn’t lessened. This is me, I think every time I look in a mirror. I am fucking rocking this. I still have my usual body image issues – nothing can make those go away 100% – but somehow the sidecut overshadows them so much that they don’t have the same power they used to. This thing feels magical, almost spiritual. It feels like armor and defiance and comfort and truth and holy-shit-it’s-me all at the same time.

If I’ve learned one thing in my life, it’s that hair grows back. To that same point, clothes can be donated, tattoos can be removed, and piercings can heal closed. Life’s too short not to experiment with trying to make who you feel like match who you look like. I’ve gone through some truly atrocious fashion phases in my life, but they’re all worth it because they got me to this place where I feel so very me. That sounds simple, but it’s a long, hard journey for most of us. So if you’re looking for a sign to get something cut, pierced, tattooed, or dyed, this is it. Go for it, friend.

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Basically the only selfie I’ll ever show anyone ever. Pretend I look like this all the time.

 

#1870 – 2016 Book List

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[ I read a lot of fantastic books this year, especially in the realms of non-fiction (29 books), queer fiction (15 books – rather low for me), and just about anything featuring cats (19 books). I challenged myself with Guns, Germs, and Steel near the end of the year, and will be picking up Atlas Shrugged on January 1st. Then maybe I’ll just read comic books for the rest of the year… (joking!)]

  1. The Outlaw Varjak Paw – S.F Said
  2. Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo – Lawrence Anthony
  3. Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia – Jean Sasson
  4. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban – Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb
  5. The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe – John E. Woods
  6. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War – Karen Abbott
  7. Ten Days in a Mad-House – Nellie Bly
  8. The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story – Richard Preston
  9. The Wicked and the Divine Vol. One: The Faust Act – Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie
  10. Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women – Sylvia Brinton Perera
  11. The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony – Will Tuttle
  12. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth – Tikva Frymer-Kensky
  13. Unit 731 Testimony – Hal Gold
  14. Outsider in the White House – Bernie Sanders and John Nichols
  15. Survivor – Chuck Palahniuk
  16. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach
  17. Ashes and Snow – Gregory Colbert
  18. The Wicked and the Divine Vol. Two: Fandemonium – Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie
  19. My Sister’s Keeper – Jodie Picoult
  20. In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom – Yeonmi Park
  21. Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America – Jon Mooallem
  22. Prisoner of Tehran: One Woman’s Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison – Marina Nemat
  23. The Art of Forgetting: Rider – Joanne Hall
  24. The Wicked and the Divine Vol. Three: Commercial Suicide – Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie
  25. Geisha: A Life – Mineko Iwasaki
  26. The Art of Forgetting: Nomad – Joanne Hall
  27. The Wild Road – Gabriel King
  28. Vestal – Ashley Schwellenbach
  29. Nimona – Noelle Stevenson
  30. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – JK Rowling
  31. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – JK Rowling
  32. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
  33. The Raven and the Reindeer – T. Kingfisher
  34. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling
  35. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – JK Rowling
  36. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
  37. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling
  38. You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir – Felicia Day
  39. Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of the First Law – Joe Abercrombie
  40. Catfantastic: Nine Lives and Fifteen Tales – ed. Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg
  41. Beast of Never, Cat of God: The Search for the Eastern Puma – Bob Butz
  42. The Golden Cat – Gabriel King
  43. Shadow Cat: Encountering the American Mountain Lion – ed. Susan Ewing and Elizabeth Grossman
  44. North of Hope: A Daughter’s Arctic Journey – Shannon Huffman Polson
  45. Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess – Betty De Shong Meador and Judy Grahn
  46. The Scourge of the Righteous Haddock – Ashley Schwellenbach
  47. Swallow You Whole – Jasper Black
  48. The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
  49. Delphi Complete Works of Sappho – Sappho of Lesbos
  50. The Sign of the Cat – Lynne Jonell
  51. Suicide Watch – Kelley York
  52. Sinful Cinderella (Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series Book 1) – Anita Valle
  53. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa – Kevin Richardson and Tony Park
  54. Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper – JL Bryan
  55. Tarot: Plain and Simple – Anthony Louis
  56. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – JK Rowling
  57. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books – Azar Nafisi
  58. The Ghatti’s Tale, Book One: Finders-Seekers – Gayle Greeno
  59. Heiresses of Russ 2015: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction – ed. Steve Berman and Jean Roberta
  60. The Ghatti’s Tale, Book Two: Mindspeaker’s Call – Gayle Greeno
  61. The Tygrine Cat – Inbali Iserles
  62. The Ghatti’s Tale, Book Three: Exile’s Return – Gayle Greeno
  63. The Wicked and the Divine Vol. Four: Rising Action – Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie
  64. Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories – ed. D. Alexander Ward and Doug Murano
  65. Egyptian Paganism for Beginners: Bring the Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt Into Daily Life – Jocelyn Almond
  66. The Gayer-Anderson Cat (British Museum Objects in Focus) – Neal Spencer
  67. Cat Born to the Purple: A Sequel to Yeshua’s Cat (Yeshua’s Cats Book 4) – C. L. Francisco
  68. This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death – ed. Ryan North, et. al.
  69. The Girls of No Return – Erin Saldin
  70. BaneWreaker: Volume 1 of The Sundering – Jacqueline Carey
  71. Godslayer: Volume 2 of The Sundering – Jacqueline Carey
  72. The Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell
  73. Moth – S.E. Diemer
  74. Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George
  75. The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly
  76. To Reign in Hell: A Novel – Steven Brust
  77. The Call of the Wild – Jack London
  78. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies – Jared Diamond
  79. White Fang – Jack London
  80. Three Dark Crowns – Kendare Blake

#1843

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Sometimes history’s repetitions are comforting, the knowledge that others have come before to fight this fight, to suffer this suffering, to stand with arms linked until the tanks or the tear gas or the water cannons mow them down. Sometimes it is enough to know this moment’s horrors aren’t unique, that we will never be the first to want these things and can never be the last to die before they are won. Sometimes being able to stand back and watch the great wheel turn, turn, turn through all of humanity’s existence offers the necessary perspective, the needed distance to see the wisdom of the larger picture.

And sometimes the wheel’s inevitable turning crushes us beneath its rim, presses us into the mud to join the bodies of those who came before. Sometimes knowing the wheel spins in place, ever turning and yet going nowhere, is a cruelty we cannot bear. Sometimes fighting the same old fights, suffering the same old sufferings, facing the same old tanks and bigots and bullets is just too much, and we wonder if there’s any point when those who come after us will face these things as well. Maybe we haven’t figured out how to learn from history yet – or maybe as long as the wheel spins in place, we can’t help but repeat the past.

#1794

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You humans make everything so complicated, She laughed gently over my shoulder.  You know what is right and what is wrong, yet you tangle everything up. You don’t listen.

And Bast was right, of course. We agonize over morality, weighing current realities against future hypotheticals, questioning manifest destiny yet clinging to divine right. Instead of listening to the voice inside us for the answer, we pour all our energy and resources into digging the truth out of the sky and the earth, out of each other, out of DNA and atoms and numbers. We demand proof beyond what we deserve and evidence beyond what we are freely offered. We commit crimes and only in retrospect do we bother wondering if we acted wrongly, because instead of admitting what we know deep in our blood – that all life is sacred, all life is precious, all life is equal and deserving of its existence – we pretend concrete confirmation is necessary to make our choices. While we review the past with the perfect righteousness of the present, so do we look to the future with the present’s self-serving morality. It’s who we are as a species, anxious creatures that must pick apart and analyze until we’re frozen by indecision. Are we inherently better than our fellow animals, and therefore justified in their killing? Do we have the right to close our hearts the homeless and the hopeless? Can we value our own prejudices over the basic needs of others, and make laws to keep them down? We know the answers without intense analysis; we just don’t want to hear them.

#1788

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8

Hi, friends. Let’s talk about body hair.

I find it both fascinating and infuriating that my genitalia somehow dictate where and to what lengths I may let my body hair grow. If I have a vagina, I am expected to grow out the hair on my head yet shave my legs and armpits (and possibly my arms), pluck my eyebrows, and wax my upper lip. However, if I have a penis instead, I can grow my body hair as much as I want as long as I keep the hair on my head short. Why body parts I keep covered 95% of the time have any control over my outer appearance I do not know, besides the usual arbitrary rules of “polite” society.

I’m going to be blunt here – I am one hairy, hairy lady. My father’s genes blessed me with the thick, dark hair of a proper Italian girl, and this hair is in no way confined to socially appropriate body parts. My eyebrows connect in a solid line if I don’t pluck them; I have a moustache pre-teen boys would die for; my leg hair is as healthy and hearty as an old-growth forest. My mother even took me as a baby to the doctor to ask about the fine carpet of hair I was growing on my back, wondering if something was seriously wrong with her little girl. But no, nothing wrong, per say… her daughter just happened to be almost as furry as the cats she’d soon pretend to be. I plant these somewhat unpleasant images in your mind to establish the soapbox on which I stand. I am covered in hair. Healthy hair. Hair that grows thick, grows fast, grows constantly.

I’m also lazy. Very, very lazy. What to others looks like a stubborn feminist stance against makeup, leg shaving, and bra wearing is really just me not wanting to bother with such frippery. I have shaved my legs a handful of times over the course of my almost 28 years, and each time has been like the first time. If I don’t shave my legs on at least a bi-weekly basis, the hair returns like the thorns surrounding Sleeping Beauty’s castle – and is just as hard to hack through. My hair can dull a razor blade in a matter of moments and no matter how many times I shave, some hairs will always escape beheading to pop up mockingly.

If I sound bitter, it’s because I am – but not about my hair. I have nothing against my hairy legs or fuzzy arms, my downy lip or weirdly long eyebrow lashes. They’re just doing what hair does best, which is grow. No, I’m bitter because society has boxed me into a corner from which I can’t quite figure out how to escape. See, as a confident, stubborn queer girl living in a liberal state, I can get away with a certain amount of rule-breaking; I have a sidecut, after all, and let my eyebrows do their wacky thing. I’m quite open about not shaving my legs, too. But when it comes to showing off those legs in public? That’s where I falter. I wonder, what will my coworkers think? Will they talk about me behind my back? Will HR tell me I’m not being hygienic? Will I become “that girl”?

And then my inner feminist jumps in. You like being “that girl!” she says. You’re unashamedly “that girl!” all the time! And yes, that’s true. I do. I am. So why is this one rule so hard for me to break? Why can’t I walk into work in a knee-length skirt with the same swagger I felt when I walked in with my shaved head or new tattoos? Why, when I firmly believe that the only reason we vilify female body hair is because of societally constructed beauty standards, am I still so hesitant? I’m fiercely independent by nature, yet I allow myself to be cowed into covering a completely natural, harmless, inoffensive part of my body even in the hottest month of the year. My inner Luna Lovegood shakes her head in disappointment – but Luna was blonde, and I bet she wasn’t carrying a carpet around on her legs.

I’m not saying anything new and groundbreaking here, I know. Sometimes you just need to rant about the bizarre rules human society has constructed, rules with no basis in logic but which most people, even those who are highly logical, never question. I know we’ll get there one day – I just hope I’ll have been one tiny cog in that roll towards progress, and not one of the many wrenches.

#1784

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1

There is nothing more beautiful, nor more humbling, than an animal’s trust. You are such a fragile little thing, and yet your clear green eyes gaze up at me without fear. Despite the language barrier between us, despite the fact that your young life is just a candle flicker in my hands, you trust me without reservation. There is no concern in your gaze for how easily I could break you, but surely your instincts warn you of my size, my weight, my ability to become the predator. Your innocence, instead of being foolish, is astoundingly wise; your trust, instead of making you vulnerable, makes you a powerful player in not only your own destiny, but mine as well. We cannot communicate in our native tongues, yet so much understanding seems to pass between us. You see me, Little One, more fully than any of my own species. To be recognized so clearly, to be blessed with your whole and absolute trust as I cradle your tiny form in my hands, is a gift like nothing else. If anyone ever questioned your sacredness, they need only experience this moment of understanding which needs no words to awe and humble. Surely only the divine can grant such an honor.

#1778

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2

I remember taking refuge in a hotel bathroom in Switzerland because hearing on TV about a man who dressed up as a cop to murder children in Norway made me want to sob.

I remember feeling sick to my stomach in a Red Cross office as I learned about a man who had shot up an elementary school in Connecticut, killing adults and children alike.

And now I’ll remember laying in bed on a quiet Sunday morning, reading about a man who killed fifty people in a queer nightclub in Florida and wishing it was all a dream. I’ll remember rolling over to place my head on my girlfriend’s chest, wondering if there will come a time when I no longer hear her beautiful heartbeat; wondering if someone will shatter my family the way so many others have been shattered in the blink of an eye.