tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90147126078433303412024-03-13T17:53:47.469-04:00The Serotonin FactoryUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger742125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-42147867062439445882023-06-21T12:05:00.005-04:002023-06-21T12:05:26.632-04:00In Praise of Pride Merch, Part Two<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3x46TiknI5NrcDKCSvlBjpzO6lXPkH6zbmFmJZ68zg8CUwVNcqMLp1imhnzjhcfWuloSEwpYJfPb3npBB4LuXbQ-_kLPL1Gqp1_PmNg5-vyoWZGs1gKStaeL3jSTOEXpxmTlFKCtmEFsCXGD74bh93JIB_tzSFLP7_3h26GDMmutgp1Q7rJ-Np0zo8rc/s3023/Loss%20Is.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2935" data-original-width="3023" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3x46TiknI5NrcDKCSvlBjpzO6lXPkH6zbmFmJZ68zg8CUwVNcqMLp1imhnzjhcfWuloSEwpYJfPb3npBB4LuXbQ-_kLPL1Gqp1_PmNg5-vyoWZGs1gKStaeL3jSTOEXpxmTlFKCtmEFsCXGD74bh93JIB_tzSFLP7_3h26GDMmutgp1Q7rJ-Np0zo8rc/w400-h389/Loss%20Is.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Loss is, but so is LOVE.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This year, for the first time since
burning-things-down summer, Amy and I joined the Philly Pride March. People of
all ages were wrapped in every color of Pride flags, every sequined or tulle (or
both!) permutation of every flavor of rainbow. So many young people with cute
pansexual flags painted on their cheeks. Everyone there (aside from the
requisite small group of surly religious folks) seemed so happy, so free, and
SO STINKIN’ CUTE!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And there, at the end of the march, were the booths.
My favorites were the independent artists. They were selling in-joke t-shirts, pronoun
pins, big, bright PLUS SIZE! dresses. One booth had a flag pin selection so
thorough that they had both the old and new versions of the polyamory flag.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And of course, there were organizations: for
reproductive justice, for gender-affirming care, for getting out the vote. The National
Parks Service was there making a flag out of rainbow “what inclusion means to me”
postcards.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I’m describing this day I kind of took for granted,
it’s really hitting home how much history and effort and sacrifice had to
happen to get us there. Just like those Freedom Rings were a key to a bigger life,
Pride is a rebirth, reaffirmation, and continuous organizing of that bigger
life. It feeds us and connect us and fills our field of vision with bright
adorableness so we can be fortified to keep building a loving world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There were corporations at Philly Pride too, banished
to something called “corporate alley.” I love that for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But about those corporations: I am so, SO happy that
my niece came of age in a time where her bisexuality was so ordinary that she
could shop about it in the Target. I love that she could be like “Oh there’s a
Star Trek themed Pride shirt this year and now I have a Star Trek themed Pride shirt.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I love that I could super casually pick up a bi
bandana to use as an in-case-there’s-teargas-and-also-because-Covid mask in the
summer of 2020! Plus glittery rainbow socks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When I see the Pride sections in regular stores, I
always wonder what it would have felt like to see them as a kid. I was raised
rurally and then sheltered-suburbanly in the Eighties and Nineties. For
queerness, I pretty much had Madonna (whose records my mom let me get) and
Culture Club (whose records she did not.) When I grew into hair bands, I had
pretty, pretty Sebastian Bach on my wall making me feel gender things I didn’t
have words for.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Would a beautiful activist Skittles package or a rack
of multi-flagged tees have given me a language for what I was feeling? Maybe! Who
knows! I didn’t even have a language for talking about “regular” sexuality, let
alone for discussing queerness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Which is why it really, really hurts my heart that
violent, cruel monsters bullied Target into taking their Pride displays down.
It feels like an end (hopefully just a temporary end) of a golden age. It’s not
that I think corporations genuinely cared about us this past decade or so—it doesn’t
make a difference to me how they feel, only that they’re adding more rainbows
(And therefore, I think, more queer visibility) to the world. We really, really
need all the rainbows we can get.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I value Corporate Pride not so much as a part of
activism as a bellweather, as a symbol that we were powerful enough to be a
mainstream thing, marketed to like everybody else. Selling us stuff is not an
act of altruism, but it lets us see our progress nonetheless. It lets us see
ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I know the tyranny of disinformation, violence, and
fucked up “anti-woke” initiatives won’t prevail in the long run, but for now I
just want to stop and feel the pain of losing a little ground. Pride is much
bigger than cruelty, stupidity, white supremacy, much bigger and more powerful
than brute force. It’s love, y’all, and there’s absolutely nothing they can do
to overcome love.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-67994979449778901332023-06-20T13:57:00.008-04:002023-06-21T11:15:11.879-04:00In Praise of Pride Merch, Part One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjecM7ytjZrpkyMiYbD5LKURIIYMHfXL5yBLNPDrUAW0GQ9XDHAB2LAYfNJBsYmR2JHBry5SDoPBxlAqLGyFs5Mu6-3ZyenZSP0Jp4KrehLav9t9Nli544RGdbeph7mLGgKQmj0qLKmOofjT9QtfpW5vKYkZE0ppQROzvQ3BeckaPR32iUvC_uj4cm-ZVU/s1440/Pride%20Forever.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1021" data-original-width="1440" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjecM7ytjZrpkyMiYbD5LKURIIYMHfXL5yBLNPDrUAW0GQ9XDHAB2LAYfNJBsYmR2JHBry5SDoPBxlAqLGyFs5Mu6-3ZyenZSP0Jp4KrehLav9t9Nli544RGdbeph7mLGgKQmj0qLKmOofjT9QtfpW5vKYkZE0ppQROzvQ3BeckaPR32iUvC_uj4cm-ZVU/w400-h284/Pride%20Forever.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">It seems like olden times—in 1993, the summer after I
graduated high school, my that-summer best friend Brett gave me his set of
Freedom Rings. Just the six rainbow colors back then, rings a little less than
an inch big on a cheap hardware-store-like chain. They felt like the most
beautiful thing in the world to me. They were like the key to some grownup gay
world I couldn’t quite picture.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">A few weeks before that, I’d gone to one rock show
(King Missile at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park) with a pink triangle drawn on
my hand in lipstick. I wanted people to know I was bi, I wanted to meet girls
if I could, but I didn’t have any visual language for it. Although, I guess my
goth-punk style maybe was a little bi in retrospect?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Nobody I talked to at the show knew what I meant with
the lipstick triangle, it felt like a clumsy misstep. But with those Freedom
Rings, I felt like an instant ROCK STAR wherever I went, whether they
translated to anyone else or not. I felt like a goddess like I was dialed into
something much bigger than myself, but also dialed INTO myself. They were a swaggery
Dumbo-feather that helped me stomp/tiptoe my way into my adult queer life.
(Even if that summer paired me up with a boyfriend who reminded me of Eddie
Vedder. Shrug emoji? That’s bi, I guess!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Anyway, one piece of jewelry helped me claim something
important about my eighteen-year-old self.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, I have thirty years of pride tchotchkes and as
many decades of rainbow art, queer poetry, and a jillion paragraphs examining all
manner of multi-gender affections, and an ex-wife for a best friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Once, during the pandemic, I typed “bi socks” into the
internet and had them in two days, delivered to the front-neighbor’s door, but still!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Last year, a friend of mine designed one of the pride
Skittles bags, and Amy and I looked for them everywhere we went. In a grocery
store in the middle of red rural Upstate New York, we found them! Then, out in
the parking lot, a stranger noticed the rainbow sticker on Amy’s car and came
over to do some gay bonding. She mentioned that she didn’t have much support
around there. You could tell that running into us meant something to her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">On the way to my nephew's birthday, randomly
stopping for snacks, and there we were: ORGANIZING. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-47567215145397777152022-12-22T06:25:00.005-05:002022-12-22T06:25:47.538-05:00How Did I Do on my 2022 Goals? (7-10)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGo-u_EfK7xe3V5dSIyhixg6nQbPX4uybo-P0DfwFoN94eoMuSV2IciC0cyvpRiN6wVTdpCHUh4ZUwiGK9dy60LlpPDOeNx10g4f9Y4yccht1BpMgHLBtgq4cZs51j2LOMFJp2nw7N4g1-Lt-EQjD4iIaqjhEeroq_ZUd383--RJKuqml6A-UcgcL/s600/2022%20Goals%20Complete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="513" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGo-u_EfK7xe3V5dSIyhixg6nQbPX4uybo-P0DfwFoN94eoMuSV2IciC0cyvpRiN6wVTdpCHUh4ZUwiGK9dy60LlpPDOeNx10g4f9Y4yccht1BpMgHLBtgq4cZs51j2LOMFJp2nw7N4g1-Lt-EQjD4iIaqjhEeroq_ZUd383--RJKuqml6A-UcgcL/w343-h400/2022%20Goals%20Complete.jpg" width="343" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">7. </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Listen to my friends.</b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I feel like I’ve come
a long way! Quickly apologizing helped me keep getting closer to a dear, newish
friend. A longtime friend reached out to ask me to coach him, and I asked if we
could coach each other instead! That was one of the most fun, meaningful, and
productive connections of this year or any year—I’m so glad I thought to make
the coaching reciprocal!</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But, a couple of friendships ran their course. Is that
okay? Probably! It’s sad to let things go, but it’s also refreshing to realize
that just as people get to stopping points with me, I can get to stopping
points with them, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Anyway, I think I’m still a crappy friend sometimes,
but I’ve made progress!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">8. <b>Malcolm Kenyatta for Senate: Volunteer twice per
month. </b>I could’ve done a lot more for Malcolm, but his campaign meant so
much to me! I gave him a painting! I got interviewed for a documentary about
him while stapling flowers to a piece of street art! I love Malcolm, and I’m sure
I’ll have plenty of opportunities to nag people about this fave in the future!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">9. <b>Grow and save money every day. </b>I was SO on
my way to this one until I ran my mouth at that meet and greet—it’s hard not to
think of my Mighty Writers ending as self-sabotage, though I’m not sure how I would
have done it differently! (Except to have NOT GONE TO THE MEET AND GREET—what a
weird and not-cute lesson to have learned!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dear money, I really do love you. Maybe I’ll figure
out in 2023 how to get and keep you.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">10. <b>1-2 hours of accounting weekly. </b>It was more
like an hour a month, I’m sorry to say! See #3 and #9. Accounting needs more
love in 2023 for sure!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-90871539854717716122022-12-12T16:38:00.008-05:002022-12-12T16:41:04.687-05:00How Did I Do on My 2022 Goals?! (4-6)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVzETSFgORkMNME4Al2iJnNO7_pycgTJv-wn8w7c3qTJnD5I7qh5_mjxv_f5vQPioEYb6izvLl-pWaHmC-S4320dvyNyx9PWPyX3jx8Y9AnWhcBb_OLoEI09ybeGVY9Nv9nn5KrvKZwo8O_Y-LiD6-pjFtktqjMu1Y4om5Z7cowVCjU8PeLRupd2s/s600/2022%20Goals%20Complete.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="513" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVzETSFgORkMNME4Al2iJnNO7_pycgTJv-wn8w7c3qTJnD5I7qh5_mjxv_f5vQPioEYb6izvLl-pWaHmC-S4320dvyNyx9PWPyX3jx8Y9AnWhcBb_OLoEI09ybeGVY9Nv9nn5KrvKZwo8O_Y-LiD6-pjFtktqjMu1Y4om5Z7cowVCjU8PeLRupd2s/w343-h400/2022%20Goals%20Complete.jpg" width="343" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">4. Festive self-date weekly, flirt all the
time!<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Heck yeah and heck yeah! Since I’m an Artist’s Way
person, I’m supposed to be taking myself on dates once a week anyway, but I
often will skate by on, like, going half a block down the street to smell the
candles at the co-op annex. Those still count, but this year, I wanted the self-dates
to be special.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">At first, it was hard. I was still brokenhearted from
a romance that ended in mid-November. But I did it. I drove to the OUTER
suburbs to see a matinee of <i>Nightmare Alley</i>. It felt grim and lonely,
not just because I’d chosen a superbleak movie! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">But after a couple of months, I was driving along to
wherever and I just thought “I love you.” In my head! TO MYSELF! I was dreamily
stopping to take a sunset picture in the Movie Tavern parking lot on the way to
see <i>The Black Phone</i>. Equally bleak movie, way-less-bleak heart! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Self-dates make the world feel more open, generous,
and playful. One movie night even led to a second-chance love adventure! Two,
actually, but those are stories for another blog.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I try to make fresh goals every year, but maybe this
one needs to be every year, right underneath “Make stuff whenever I want.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">5. Cultivate my Mighty Writers
relationships. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">This one backfired so badly that “Don’t go
to the meet & greet” is one of my guidelines for 2023. Still a heartbreak I
just can’t find words for.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">6. Two hours Kahn Academy math weekly. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Yep!
I mastered 7<sup>th</sup> grade math and I’m halfway through 8<sup>th</sup> grade
math! I got to change my car magnet tutoring ads from K-6 to K-7! Adding a math
grade is a pretty big deal, actually! I’m pretty excited about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-16577057810548040232022-12-06T12:07:00.001-05:002022-12-06T12:07:48.128-05:00How Did I Do on My 2022 Goals? (1-3)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIm8cxNiefP7UXsQvBLq4FaPfqz7E674G_tZa66lNkGhXQ8b5YEzmKRXseT2ScurLko1F4XFhouc5xpzacDuLBhklthC3y3VrGSQ1BNsgLBmEU_PNElbpgLew1wSwnGiOL88opaUOEs9mMFGnTTk6EcGkt5Zsts0QSjVIh9fi88SQ3yMCf33eyFfF/s600/2022%20Goals%20Complete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="513" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIm8cxNiefP7UXsQvBLq4FaPfqz7E674G_tZa66lNkGhXQ8b5YEzmKRXseT2ScurLko1F4XFhouc5xpzacDuLBhklthC3y3VrGSQ1BNsgLBmEU_PNElbpgLew1wSwnGiOL88opaUOEs9mMFGnTTk6EcGkt5Zsts0QSjVIh9fi88SQ3yMCf33eyFfF/w343-h400/2022%20Goals%20Complete.jpg" width="343" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How Did I Do on My 2022 Goals?! (1-3)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Make
stuff whenever I want!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This should be on the list every year forever! It’s
both the easiest goal and the source of the most uncomplicated joy. I
especially like being petty and low-key at- war with whatever creepy
neighborhood busybody keeps taking my “Protect Trans Kids” watercolors down—sometimes
I even make them into glitter bombs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Note: I’m probably a neighborhood busybody too! But
for GOOD!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Keep
up and ramp up fitness routines.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(If you hate food restriction talk and “wellness” talk
like I often do, go listen to Maintenance Phase <a href="https://www.maintenancephase.com/">https://www.maintenancephase.com/</a> instead
of reading this. It’s the best!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pretty good, I guess! I changed some food habits that
were bugging me but no doubt added some other unhelpful ones. Oh well! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I always want to walk more, but making long Instagram
stories and posts of nature pics has helped me stay motivated, especially since
I have a really inspiring muse these days! See #1—creativity is the ultimate
source of happiness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I would like to go back to semi-regular in-person yoga
classes in 2023! I stopped because of quarantine and forgot to ever start up
again!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">OMG I went dancing!!! Like 3 times! Plus to a couple
of rock shows! One was in a basement! One was in a go-go club I’ve wanted to
visit since I moved here in 2008! I’ve taken good care of friendships with my
dancingest friends this year, so maybe I can go 5 or 6 times next year?! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Be
20% less dependent on Amy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Technically yes. I’ve gotten emotional needs met in
other friendships and bonded with my supercute boyfriend! I’ve moved on from my
nine-years-divorced relationship in some really significant ways, including settling
into a comfortable and celebratory place with our friendship. (Reading <i>Ace</i>
helped me see beyond expected relationship structures! https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780807013922-ace)
I’d almost call us Queer Platonic Partners, but the word “partners” seems a
little strong.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But moneywise, I’m still dependent on my ex-wife/BFF.
I felt SO CLOSE to money independence going into the 22/23 school year, but
when my Mighty Writers gig crashed and burned at the same time my rent went up (A
lot!) I kinda lost my way again.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I really need to add about16 work hours a month, fix
my budget, and build my savings back up. Amy and I will always be there for
each other, but I want to take better care of HER! And myself! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-2840664339399527542022-11-02T22:13:00.001-04:002022-11-02T22:13:10.106-04:00Don’t Worry Darling, Part Three (I Ruin Every Party)<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfWLURbgDAC1QJkomUyddqO0A9tty33uYDHUtiPv5hMuYDTBRVY8oyaKVsx7RY-cBq_2o-L3pNJPpeYNVlLAeLtnlIDQpREtTttTtN13k-eixjCZVnTZsfJFyZ0_UwYAiNOcQ1Evoj5uWz2NwLXKl49N-52aRNN8tLAGgGt0C21aTSE6eMfeuRM6af/s1099/Rory%20Madmen.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1099" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfWLURbgDAC1QJkomUyddqO0A9tty33uYDHUtiPv5hMuYDTBRVY8oyaKVsx7RY-cBq_2o-L3pNJPpeYNVlLAeLtnlIDQpREtTttTtN13k-eixjCZVnTZsfJFyZ0_UwYAiNOcQ1Evoj5uWz2NwLXKl49N-52aRNN8tLAGgGt0C21aTSE6eMfeuRM6af/s320/Rory%20Madmen.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alexis Bledel On Madmen. All the pop culture Prismas!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">In Victory, if you start seeing through your hypnosis,
you have to be removed or electric shocked into submission. (Just like Rory
Gilmore was that time she was on </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Mad Men</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">. Fucking </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Pete</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">.) It’s not
good enough to apologize and try to obey, try to fit in, try to follow the
script you’ve been given. You have to sacrifice either your life or your memories
for the men of Victory to properly feel the confidence, worth, and control they’ve
paid for.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The littlest disturbance in the illusion they’re
creating has to be snuffed out before it can spread.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2008, my then-wife and I were at a family birthday
party for my second-littlest cousin. We were playing the family’s favorite game,
<i>Encore! </i>wherein you pick a card with a word or theme and sing songs back
and forth in teams.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Maybe the word was “kissed” because someone, maybe me,
started singing “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry. (OHBOY the queasy-cute aughts
version of bi visibility! See also the movie <i>Jennifer’s Body</i>, from the
same year.) My first-littlest cousin, maybe six at the time, said “That song is
disgusting.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And, though I hadn’t yet developed my eerily calm
teacher voice, I think I was pretty chill when I said “You never know who might
be around when you say something like that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And my brother, sitting across the gameboard from me,
LOST HIS MIND. He was INCENSED with me for saying something so political. I don’t
remember what his words were, but they were SPAT.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When I asked him to talk outside and told him to
please not treat me with so much contempt, I wasn’t that articulate but I was
still pretty calm. Until he said the following:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“You ruin every party.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(To which Thanksgiving 2016 me could have responded: “Hold
my pie.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Further back, when I was away on the West Coast, my
mom said “We’re so much happier without you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even further back, when I was a little kid and the parents
were fighting and my mom told me “This is your fault. I wouldn’t have had to
marry him if it wasn’t for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For some reason, the mom ones don’t hurt as much as
the brother ones (Though apparently, I do carry them around like rotten
treasures.) I identify with my mom’s ability to say the cruelest, stupidest
thing when angry and flustered.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But my brother’s contempt is so measured, so
purposeful, so sure of its righteousness. It feels like hurting me is a first
aid kit he keeps. Like putting me in my place is the surest way to safety, a
roadmap, a prayer. It doesn’t matter as much if his world is disrupted if he knows
his place in it, above me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-39872743422671278242022-10-25T10:15:00.007-04:002022-10-25T10:15:57.272-04:00Don’t Worry Darling: Being Chaos, Part Two<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCT-Hl4jkL_GL7WT98q3HBMheHDXtH7znD5AO7TQbzt5uY76AWqqgVEVPHudUVJ_hf3u9IyiEmFjVudTiXCqJS6-mh8WKvrKNskUp6S0IK0kKhCvZu4EsazT8kX1mYhRfEye-W6uT2gJJPykleE0BeJMitWGqxtgF-YGFXUR8eJDbWMMbRLdt2_hkK/s720/Do%20Not%20Obey%20in%20Advance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="720" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCT-Hl4jkL_GL7WT98q3HBMheHDXtH7znD5AO7TQbzt5uY76AWqqgVEVPHudUVJ_hf3u9IyiEmFjVudTiXCqJS6-mh8WKvrKNskUp6S0IK0kKhCvZu4EsazT8kX1mYhRfEye-W6uT2gJJPykleE0BeJMitWGqxtgF-YGFXUR8eJDbWMMbRLdt2_hkK/w400-h284/Do%20Not%20Obey%20in%20Advance.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rule number one of On Tyranny!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">***content warnings: sexual assault, family violence,
the Bush Years, 1/6/2021***<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Being admonished/censored on the family facebook page
is not at all like being frozen in a dream cul-de-sac by the evil incel version
of Harry Styles, but the horror it brings up in me is the same. It happened
over the summer, I realized it close to my birthday in September, and it
crushed any hope or illusion that my brother would ever be on my side, or on
the right side of history at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Like lots of queer folks and probably non-queer folks
too, I’ve struggled with the reality of right-wing relatives. I’ve wondered how
some aunts and uncles and cousins could profess to value me and my
then-wife-now-BFF, how they could invite us over and treat us with such
hospitality and also vote against our right to love who we want to, against our
right to own our own bodies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The cognitive dissonance of hearing the aunt who
emotionally rescued me after my teenage sexual assault brought household abuses
to a head saying in recent years that <i>the idea of consent was ruining
relationships, ruining men</i>. The pain of hearing the mom who did her best to
stand by me in that time tell me in 2016 that <i>I create more rape in the
world by thinking about it too much</i>. Even after years of good trauma work
and wonderful therapists and lovely, LOVELY Prozac, it’s hard not to feel like
that lost and bruised teen, lost in a cyclone of random violence, practiced
abuse, and institutionalized hopelessness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That rescuing aunt grew into the most right-wing of us
all, and at least one of my cousins followed suit. He worked in Bush’s NSA. At
his (the cousin’s, not Bush’s) wedding, which I attended with my then-wife, the
priest blamed both Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq on gay marriage having
recently become legal in some states. (I want to say he also blamed us for
9/11, but I think I’m conflating that priest with Pat Robertson.) (Jeez a lot
of things are supposed to be our fault!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But! The same cousin had been at OUR wedding, cordial
as can be albeit in an American flag necktie! (American flags were strictly a
right wing thing in those early war years, it’s weird to remember now that we’ve
devolved to other, more upsetting flags.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I stayed pretty close with the right wing-est aunt,
too, until a couple of things happened:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My
nice liberal cousin-in-law told me that Aunt Connie (the NSA cousin’s mom) and Aunt
Patti were planning to march with the Proud Boys et al on 1/6/21. (The hero
cousins of Aunt Patti’s fam talked her out of it! What a bunch of badasses!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cousin
Jimmy briefly left his wife and kids for another right wing lady and, OH YEAH,
TO WORK FOR GUILIANI.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">NOTE: I got this info secondhand from Nice Liberal
Cousin-in-Law, who got some of it from Aunt Connie, a noted unreliable
narrator. BUT! The day did come where I heard his name on Maddow—he was part of
the scheme to invoke martial law and seize the voting machines.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">HE WAS PART OF THE SCHEME TO INVOKE MARTIAL LAW AND
SEIZE THE VOTING MACHINES. And everyone in the family but me is like, oh, this
is totes normal.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-55694415785724317772022-10-24T09:03:00.003-04:002022-10-24T13:50:42.766-04:00Don’t Worry Darling: Being Chaos, Part One<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIAaauQq6Sve7ox1PUY7eDlg4JS28-c8N4CCxRdP2rXMqIKqs-GxBOInT_27xOq1aByYQ4iY5dpXObokCnjNxAPDggIjCSTHtLCDw5Y0sp6eu6kEmhesMau9lWiTB9zRlTSF1vx97YyRFOHzf-e3h2YP9cHxk6OMz30qT49fzfH7qMejjmJTleoag/s828/Don't%20Worry%20Darling.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="828" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIAaauQq6Sve7ox1PUY7eDlg4JS28-c8N4CCxRdP2rXMqIKqs-GxBOInT_27xOq1aByYQ4iY5dpXObokCnjNxAPDggIjCSTHtLCDw5Y0sp6eu6kEmhesMau9lWiTB9zRlTSF1vx97YyRFOHzf-e3h2YP9cHxk6OMz30qT49fzfH7qMejjmJTleoag/w400-h278/Don't%20Worry%20Darling.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">***Spoilers ahead!***<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">***Content warning—gaslighting, immobilization, all
things patriarchy***<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">When the masterminds of Victory are training their
housewives, they hypnotize and re-hypnotize them with images of women in
synchronized movement, they even, inside the cute prison cul-de-sac of the mind they’ve created, require dance classes to teach them to move together in frictionless
harmony. Instead of overtly espousing red pill/incel grievance, the leader talks
about <b><i>order</i></b>. The<i> Don’t Worry Darling</i> vision of order helps
me understand some things, both political and personal.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The Victory men aim to attain this order by literally
immobilizing and silencing women and by convincing them they are happy in a pretty,
refined, and regressive reality, looking beautiful (My KINGDOM for Florence Pugh’s
floral housedress!) and serving the men. The simulation is classic <i>Stepford
Wives</i>, where men go off to “important jobs” and women stay home and make
perfect roasts. No one really eats or (At least I really hope!) physically
fucks. It’s a (nonconsensual for women) happiness machine for a specific,
shallow kind of happiness, one that gives helpless- and worthless-feeling men a
sense of control and worth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s a scene toward the end. Shortly before
Florence breaks though and wakes up, where we flash back to her alone in her
living room, just kind of singing and dancing around and being herself. She’s
moving her body the way she likes, a moment of privacy and inner joy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">That moment helps me understand what feels so
threatening to the real-life gender-policing white supremacist patriarchy—joy that
THEY don’t specifically provide or oversee makes them feel like some levee has
broken, like some force has overflowed and become a threat.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I still don’t understand why us having our own
thoughts, rhythms, choices feels so threatening to them, but I’ve read <i>On
Tyranny</i> a couple times and I think it’s just that: creeping, defensive
tyranny. It feels us waking up, breaking free, and it wants nothing more than
for us to shut up, be still, settle down into a reality they alone create.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The “they” here is I don’t know who. Tyranny and
patriarchy steal everyone’s freedom, but I guess not everybody believes that. I
guess maybe they (again, I’m only sort of sure who that is) think that if they
can silence us (and who, also, is us?) make us be still and obey, then they’ll
have a thing they’ll call freedom? No one would tell them that they said the
wrong words or bother them with the pesky fact that democracy is in danger.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Oh, I see. Democracy is the opposite of being frozen
in someone else’s reality. It’s agency, however vexingly slight. It’s movement
and progress and disagreement and struggle, the furthest thing from being
still. It’s not a synchronized dance routine, it’s kind of a mosh pit. Or a march.
Or a Philadelphia victory parade.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-8134843574619401522022-05-31T12:14:00.004-04:002022-05-31T12:18:50.601-04:00This Is Creepy, Insight Timer!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfcxmKTcGGtl2jbcZ2RdU9iLsN_5CEVgUieSpUSbpa6EMUg6qV4keAMeZaXP3ChCj1l4E2kbZmtACompmquqarpNS87cCYRlgtmkyOzQ_B6IFDhIGf6ukMm3FE_HNgI0xGKGcpQH776oEvSLpfKGB_LpbwRFhi38k884UXomX4KlSU6tS8q9hMzrK/s3782/Defund.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2648" data-original-width="3782" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfcxmKTcGGtl2jbcZ2RdU9iLsN_5CEVgUieSpUSbpa6EMUg6qV4keAMeZaXP3ChCj1l4E2kbZmtACompmquqarpNS87cCYRlgtmkyOzQ_B6IFDhIGf6ukMm3FE_HNgI0xGKGcpQH776oEvSLpfKGB_LpbwRFhi38k884UXomX4KlSU6tS8q9hMzrK/w400-h280/Defund.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">In June of 2020 and beyond, I changed most of my online
usernames to Defund the Police. I like that little extra way to nag people for
justice. It’s still my Design Home handle and the name of my home Wifi—I never
think about it. At the time that I was making this silly little stand, not only
was the nation rising up against the killings of George Floyd and Brionna Taylor,
but Philadelphia was slashing the budget of city arts programs to give MORE
money to the police. (One of whom, two years ago yesterday, aimed their car at
two of my friends while they were crossing the street during a protest. AIMED A
POLICE CAR AT THEM.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Lots of people, even on the left, are now saying that “defund
the police” is an unhelpful phrase we should distance ourselves from, but I disagree.
What if, when there’s a problem, we called someone who could actually fix it,
instead of someone(s) trained to respond with dominance and force.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">My artsy brain pictures a rainbow of cars, not just
police cars, gently caring for our city and helping those in need. A soothing
light blue car for a therapist, soft pink for social workers, green for
wildlife and parks. To care for LGBTQ citizens’ needs, a progress-flag emblazoned
fleet. Need to safeguard a particularly nasty pothole or a construction site?
No need to bring a gun, just an expert in a cheerful orange car. Purple for
clergy-of-choice. Delicious strawberry red for nutrition care. Inviting peach
for housing. Silver for elder services.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">This is an idealistic picture, but defaulting to
calling the police in every urgent situation isn’t working and it is causing
lots of harm, including <i>to</i> police. Granted, not everybody (Really nobody
besides my BFF and my liberal family members) knows about my rainbow-of-cars
idea, but it really bothers me that the phrase “defund the police” feels so
threatening to people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I was so creeped out when I got this message from
Insight Timer, where I’d named myself Defund Police (With the tagline of Abolish
ICE, plus a bunch of festive emojis) that my tummy did a flip and I started to
think about how to restructure my whole meditation routine.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDY6FwyU7q4JJ47rYpZqafnANlLNKk9t37j0F9nCovGBsM6G1oEqEzgjDb8vLAHZUMq6ogZkfAlizXdc2O0tL28YjqNa-qe-dunwXMZ27Tg1Mg2OqhmQuRkzW0P7HBU66N7ycF-IODNkCYpAgk3qudCp2uay786KQu_tfotRZnA9DMTLpW2rEk0tsi/s863/Viv.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDY6FwyU7q4JJ47rYpZqafnANlLNKk9t37j0F9nCovGBsM6G1oEqEzgjDb8vLAHZUMq6ogZkfAlizXdc2O0tL28YjqNa-qe-dunwXMZ27Tg1Mg2OqhmQuRkzW0P7HBU66N7ycF-IODNkCYpAgk3qudCp2uay786KQu_tfotRZnA9DMTLpW2rEk0tsi/w384-h400/Viv.PNG" width="384" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The idea that redistributing TAXPAYER MONEY to less murdery
organizations would be seen as “offensive or profane” filled me with facing-the-void type dread. Not really conductive to a nice Yoga Nidra at bedtime.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I think this message from Viv means that some fellow
human, in the course of logging on to meditate, was so jarred by the phrase
that they decided to report it to Insight Timer. And the app, or at least this
one particular person, took this petty, small-minded, fragile, repressive
person’s side.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Admittedly, I have plenty of unethical apps. Somehow
all my music ended up living on Joe Rogan-infested Spotify. As long as there
are nieces and nephews, I will have Bannon-collaborating facebook in my life.
But a meditation app somehow seems like it should know better, like it should
have access to the better angels of our nature instead of feeling virtuous
while propping up a violent system.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Meditation is such an intimate act. I love falling asleep
to kind words or a chakra clearing at the end of a long day—it’s one of the
deepest and most intimate parts of my relationship to myself. Just as I wouldn’t
date someone who is apolitical or a Trump supporter, I’m not going to meditate
with “someone” who feels offended and threatened at the tiniest suggestion, the
tiniest little two-word nudge at structural change. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-16628626567997772192021-07-11T16:23:00.002-04:002021-07-11T16:23:53.806-04:00Ridiculous Summer Mix Tape 2021<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I18uWQ3FP7E/YOtOg1lsUfI/AAAAAAAADtU/XA4Tywkdb4Y42swPftMh-O1zMDVBNcGIgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Summer%2BMix%2BTape%2B2021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1938" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I18uWQ3FP7E/YOtOg1lsUfI/AAAAAAAADtU/XA4Tywkdb4Y42swPftMh-O1zMDVBNcGIgCLcBGAsYHQ/w379-h400/Summer%2BMix%2BTape%2B2021.JPG" width="379" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Only two from this album, I promise.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table>1. Get Lucky (Daft Punk feat. Pharell Williams and Nile Rogers</p><p>2. I Know The End (Pheobe Bridgers)</p><p>3. Don't Look Back in Anger (Oasis)</p><p>4. Copacabana (Barry Manilow)</p><p>5. Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang)</p><p>6. Die Young (Ke$ha)</p><p>7. Mortal Kombat (The Immortal(S) (I don't care about the video game, it just reminds me of being a raver in 1993!)</p><p>8. Lay All Your Love on Me (Erasure)</p><p>9.Right Round (Flo Rida feat. Ke$ha)</p><p>10. The Humpty Dance (Digital Underground)</p><p>11. Wild, Wild West (Will Smith,Dru Hill, Kool Moe Dee)</p><p>12. Bubble Pop (HyunA)</p><p>13. Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen)</p><p>14.You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) (Dead or Alive)</p><p>15. She's Electric (Oasis)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-7210269002100872972021-07-10T13:09:00.005-04:002021-07-10T13:09:45.228-04:00Eek A New Poem! Where I'm From<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IC5wSLigCCc/TK3-ZjzWWLI/AAAAAAAAAQg/Q4LVaV3KCS8duuiJX3Lb1p9_TPjyL-pxwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/045.JPG" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IC5wSLigCCc/TK3-ZjzWWLI/AAAAAAAAAQg/Q4LVaV3KCS8duuiJX3Lb1p9_TPjyL-pxwCPcBGAYYCw/s600/045.JPG" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view from behind my childhood home when we visited a few years ago. Not pictured: fracking.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Disclaimer: My family is full of far-left-to-moderate
wonderfuls. Supersorry they’re not in this poem very much!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Where I’m From<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(After a prompt from George Ella Lyon)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from tomato plants<br />
and apple trees<br />
and weeds I’m supposed to be pulling.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from ten acres with horses<br />
but the horses weren’t ours.<br />
The house was harsh,<br />
but not the fields: They smelled like <br />
wildflowers and wild strawberries<br />
and, alternately, cow manure or hay bales.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from five cents for each fly swatted<br />
during the manure times. I’m from hay bales, daylilies<br />
mallow and daisies, from rows of raspberries <br />
and brambles of blackberries—should have remembered to <br />
wear long pants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from the perfect fall view <br />
and the perfect place to fly a kite.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from banging pots and pans at midnight,<br />
visiting Great Grandmom’s South Philly <br />
and marveling half-asleep<br />
at the narrowness of streets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from waving little American flags with my cousins<br />
in the big yard at Aunt Connie’s colonial one Fourth-of July afternoon.<br />
<br />
I’m from visiting Aunt Patti’s house in Bradley Beach, <br />
some summers even with my own badge<br />
until my body made me promise not to go near Uncle Bud’s<br />
“Deplorables for Trump” sticker anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from Walecki and Mellili and Keating and Wiedmann
and McCormick and Penrose and Wojcik and Carter and Lawson.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from meatballs in the crockpot<br />
on Mom’s sideboard and from Grandpa<br />
Wiedmann cooking bacon outside in state parks.<br />
(With plenty of sliced tomatoes of course.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from undiagnosed depression and toxic positivity:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">From Mom telling me I was creating Covid out of my own
fear. <br />
From Mom’s pretty Easter card telling me she was paying <br />
Catholic priests to say masses for my soul. <br />
(It should go without saying that I don’t think I need saving.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from Sicily and Ireland and Poland and Germany. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from wondering what Emily Post’s grandchildren
would have to say<br />
about a PS. in Sharpie on the outsides of red Christmas card envelopes:<br />
“Please don’t march with the Proud Boys” or about checking the FBI’s<br />
pictures from January 6<sup>th</sup> to look for Aunt Connie<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from the (MANY) podcasts about cults I listen to,
to try and understand. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from all the books I can’t assign them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from the both sides of teargas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m from whatever version of family comes next. <br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-51105340033561089502021-05-24T11:20:00.000-04:002021-05-24T11:20:05.082-04:00To Heal, I Need the Victories<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ikd8Q5vrlYo/YKvDwlFNk2I/AAAAAAAADqw/g1aqZyiRgNU2_zJpY-NuXny_65Tf0ZLGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/I%2Blove%2Byour%2Bface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1478" data-original-width="2048" height="289" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ikd8Q5vrlYo/YKvDwlFNk2I/AAAAAAAADqw/g1aqZyiRgNU2_zJpY-NuXny_65Tf0ZLGgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h289/I%2Blove%2Byour%2Bface.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you need science and not just feels (though science
gives me ALL the feels!) go here: </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s been a long year. A long five years. As I move (I
hope) out of survival mode and start to process the multifaceted trove of
traumas these Trump/Bernie/Russia/Covid years have wrought, I think it’s
important to pause here and be in awe at what we (And by WE I mean those of us
who believe in justice, empathy, and science!) have just accomplished.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Thursday before last, I was having a generically
shitty day. After all of the put-aside-in-order-to-live claustrophobia of
quarantine, I was snappish with my neighbors and ready to drive one million
miles away. I was having another round of seemingly insurmountable Zoom issues
at work without the grace of my calm-down-we’re-in-an-emergency
tend-and-befriend vibes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After too-numerous calls to my BFF, I did what I often
do when I’m trying to motivate myself enough to get ready for bed: I put on
Nicole Wallace’s podcast.</span> (<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deadline-white-house/id1367201919"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deadline-white-house/id1367201919</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">)
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(It used to be Joy Reid but she gets too Franken-y
sometimes! Cry emoji!) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">President Biden’s remarks on the newest CDC
regulations lead the show: </span><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?511762-1/president-biden-speaks-rose-garden-cdc-eases-mask-wearing-guidelines"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.c-span.org/video/?511762-1/president-biden-speaks-rose-garden-cdc-eases-mask-wearing-guidelines</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
He was speaking in the rose garden and a purple finch was singing its heart out
in the background. A finch-size ray of sunshine-hope shined in and melted my
crabby heart just a little bit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The president said something like “You’ve earned the
right to smile at each other” and that felt exactly, exactly right. I made
going-to-the-movies plans. I bought (GASP!) concert tickets! (Wilco (ok) with
Sleater Kinney (OMG!) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And then I felt completely overwhelmed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But it’s a good idea to stop for a second and acknowledge
what science (what humanity!) has accomplished. Miracle doesn’t seem like the
right word, but that’s how this new whole-face life hits me. I’m in awe that I
get to elbow-high-five my students! I get to feel the simple joy of handing a
kid a book after more than a year of reading through screens.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yes, the depression-machine that is facebook (and also
the depression-machine that is my brain) will always remind us, there’s so far
to go from here, so much work to do. We vaccinated lucky ducks may not be ready
to let go of masks for any number of reasons. It’ll take stages and steps. It
feels vulnerable for my face to be exposed, and maybe I’ll even be mistaken for
predatory. But smiling at my neighbors and getting the HECK out of the
neighborhood sometimes both feel like such momentous things!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-34436226859512569602020-12-30T21:16:00.009-05:002020-12-30T21:16:40.078-05:002020 In Protest Art! (Most Mine, Some the Neighborhood's) <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kbCBS5C52PU/X-0q4K68EtI/AAAAAAAADe8/M2M75LeWj-Qf7XRNgDj0G0q9l7JpuB-UgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/CRSJ6607%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kbCBS5C52PU/X-0q4K68EtI/AAAAAAAADe8/M2M75LeWj-Qf7XRNgDj0G0q9l7JpuB-UgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/CRSJ6607%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H2vnNc7ythE/X-0q-ULAT-I/AAAAAAAADfA/kyGhuofOgq8WVQmTVnHKZv1CL09ia6LXwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DSAB0641%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="2048" height="289" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H2vnNc7ythE/X-0q-ULAT-I/AAAAAAAADfA/kyGhuofOgq8WVQmTVnHKZv1CL09ia6LXwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h289/DSAB0641%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CGWdj4ZPKe4/X-0yAuY8dvI/AAAAAAAADj4/Chjhk2N-PjUPllrM8ffNG1MUGVxZnKVRgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/CXYG0583.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1638" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CGWdj4ZPKe4/X-0yAuY8dvI/AAAAAAAADj4/Chjhk2N-PjUPllrM8ffNG1MUGVxZnKVRgCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h400/CXYG0583.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTTxTVy6x38/X-0yA_i7cFI/AAAAAAAADj8/GMYOpdn7LJUE1d9I97n03ZKd_wwUJZHzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DBUN3025%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1638" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTTxTVy6x38/X-0yA_i7cFI/AAAAAAAADj8/GMYOpdn7LJUE1d9I97n03ZKd_wwUJZHzgCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h400/DBUN3025%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xMyxSJokzAw/X-0yrV5TqmI/AAAAAAAADkQ/YJWZDS0E3tUIwJ0NwtvN94HnIunzdc6sgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/INTI6671%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1501" data-original-width="2048" height="294" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xMyxSJokzAw/X-0yrV5TqmI/AAAAAAAADkQ/YJWZDS0E3tUIwJ0NwtvN94HnIunzdc6sgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h294/INTI6671%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pc1So9v5A_M/X-0yv7ETLAI/AAAAAAAADkU/akK0lzIjaIMTzk9DrYQqSUyNmMGMKkj6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/BETY4757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1638" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pc1So9v5A_M/X-0yv7ETLAI/AAAAAAAADkU/akK0lzIjaIMTzk9DrYQqSUyNmMGMKkj6wCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h400/BETY4757.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PHpMz_ExIeA/X-0wezNpwyI/AAAAAAAADiw/mAAE8R7vjtAzXy-8nYzwx05xsduMK9fyQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/GIIO8067%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PHpMz_ExIeA/X-0wezNpwyI/AAAAAAAADiw/mAAE8R7vjtAzXy-8nYzwx05xsduMK9fyQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/GIIO8067%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QA75KnVC8Us/X-0ty-L7OhI/AAAAAAAADhM/I15FNbZLUtcxTJnqR4EmuyazoPCAI4SMACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IIIR0331.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1510" data-original-width="2048" height="295" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QA75KnVC8Us/X-0ty-L7OhI/AAAAAAAADhM/I15FNbZLUtcxTJnqR4EmuyazoPCAI4SMACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h295/IIIR0331.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zuWLKGXsoBk/X-0sEsyaECI/AAAAAAAADf0/IC0rCqYcDpg6ARkR7e2V38H7UghkjFIXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_2419%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zuWLKGXsoBk/X-0sEsyaECI/AAAAAAAADf0/IC0rCqYcDpg6ARkR7e2V38H7UghkjFIXQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/IMG_2419%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-24576450964163998742020-09-06T20:26:00.009-04:002020-09-07T18:23:27.476-04:00"Go change your skin color, then." Open Letter to Flourtown Country Club<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G0y5Fqug0W4/X1WAgH0PB3I/AAAAAAAADbM/Xeox9_QUWyw-_lNo_neM65FPzvqzdwcugCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_6017%2B%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G0y5Fqug0W4/X1WAgH0PB3I/AAAAAAAADbM/Xeox9_QUWyw-_lNo_neM65FPzvqzdwcugCLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h500/IMG_6017%2B%25282%2529.JPG" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Dear Flourtown Country Club Management,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I am a pool member and a (white) Black Lives Matter
activist. I want to report an upsetting interaction with the woman who seems to
manage the pool. She is a white woman of medium build, fit, with short
sandy-blond hair. Today when I was entering the pool area I was upset to see
this person standing proudly in front of a “blue lives matter” flag. I hoped
there was a misunderstanding, I know that not everyone knows this flag is often
used as fascist/white supremacist iconography.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Her response to my alarm made it clear that she did,
in fact, hang the flag for violent, racist reasons. When I told her that the
flag might make Black members and guests feel unsafe, she told me to “Get lost.”
When I told her that police had aimed their cars at my friends during the
Uprising, she said “Well, were they in the road?” This implies that protesters
deserve to be killed or injured simply for crossing the street. When I asserted
that everyone who stands for white supremacy is a bad person, she then said “Go
change your skin color, then!” But I don’t need to be Black to be against murderous police, to be against the white supremacy this woman clearly espouses.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I am horrified by both the display of white
supremacist iconography and the rude, aggressive way I was treated. I think
that this woman needs to be fired and that the pool staff needs a serious
structural overhaul to subvert the current near-segregation of the membership
and staff. Black members and anti-racist members should be welcomed, not implicitly
threatened.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As you know, both country clubs and pools have a violent
white supremacist history in America. It’s within your power to change that, to
work towards inclusion and healing. Firing this racist staff member would be a
great start.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Sharon Wiedmann<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Pool Member<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-63125240454674548572020-09-04T11:08:00.004-04:002020-09-04T11:08:21.070-04:00Birthday Heart Inventory for Turning 46<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UGZ1po75Hsc/X1JYN3LYKKI/AAAAAAAADaw/XjigPT4rAdkncE364erjnmu48qIgo1_bwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IHAG8414.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1638" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UGZ1po75Hsc/X1JYN3LYKKI/AAAAAAAADaw/XjigPT4rAdkncE364erjnmu48qIgo1_bwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h500/IHAG8414.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">45 was a good age, but I’m happy to leave that cursed
number behind. As I wrote the first draft of this inventory, I was in a
shocking sense of well-being. A lot of the time, there’s a magic in the resignation
and hardship of 2020 that translates to calm. Other times, I have to go back to
bed and play Merge Dragons until the panic subsides. This morning I’m somewhere
in the middle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Like the world (and so, SO much less than so many
people in the world) my heart is trying to heal from so, so much loss and pain.
Business suffered, but more importantly, there was fear in every breath. There
was grief in every breath too, mourning the very many who had their breath
stolen from them by the violence of police, the violence of white terrorism,
and the violence of national medical neglect. It’s hard to write about my heart
while we’re all in an ongoing, unfathomable trauma.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On May 31<sup>st</sup>, I watched the Philly riots
start, I saw the first police car catch fire in a moment when I didn’t know
where several of my friends were. Two friends were pinging me from where they
were boxed in by the police near the flames, but some I worried were dead for
days. The streets where my friends live were under police and military
occupation for weeks. I saw my regular Target getting looted on the national
news, and for all the people-over-property, it hurt. I still see people whose
bodies and whose ancestors’ bodies have been looted by America for centuries
selling good from those weeks on the sidewalk, and that part makes me glad.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This year my heart learned that you can reject someone
and feel abandoned by them at the same time. Some of my family members seem to have
been swept into the slimy Russian internet sea forever. I’m trying partial estrangement
with my mom and some extended family because I just couldn’t make room in my
psyche for all of the gaslighting. The loss is real, painful, and the
culmination of lifelong political abandonment. Even though I’ll be 46 tomorrow,
I’m still a little kid who wants to scream WHY WON’T YOU JUST TAKE MY SIDE?! I’m
realizing to a deeper and deeper degree that you can’t both fight white
supremacy and keep all of the familial amenities it provides.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The mental and emotional space I gained by blocking
Mom’s facebook made room for so much new community connection. Whether it’s
marching, stopping by the daily 8:46 vigil in my neighborhood, or offering
support to liberal friends stranded in more hostile places, the community of
the Movements feels like true love. It feels like what my life means.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m still mourning the loss of John Lewis. Though he’ll
be a source of advice in my head forever, I miss sharing the planet with him. I
can feel the warmth and generosity of his handshake when I met him in September
of 2016, and that’s a big part of what keeps me going. What keeps me, most
days, hopeful.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To counteract the bitterness, hurt, and self-recrimination
of this hard hard year, I chose MERCY as my word for this new birthday year. Mercy
is more badass even than lovingkindness because it asks me to recognize the
power I have and asks me to wield that power with benevolence and discernment.
That’s a pretty tall order, but I’ve got a year to work on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-53338903881881589202020-08-03T10:57:00.000-04:002020-08-03T10:57:11.009-04:00Poetic License Horoscopes for Aug 3-? (Last Ones for a While, the Stars Have a New Old Project)<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkVBc3PPSzA/XyglnduR2QI/AAAAAAAADZs/DzTxPspG-QMCNM5okAMCYNb9pAhewEmUACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/HFJS7941.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1600" height="276" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkVBc3PPSzA/XyglnduR2QI/AAAAAAAADZs/DzTxPspG-QMCNM5okAMCYNb9pAhewEmUACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/HFJS7941.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The mayor’s office
is negotiating with our homeless settlements, that’s good. Our city has enough,
has MORE than enough (#defundthepolice) to give rooms and doors and beds and
windows and Covid-19 testing and dignity and love. We should be a city (a
nation, a world) that keeps all of our citizens sheltered and loved. Do what
you can to provide shelter and care, both within yourself and without. Stay
inside if you’re able, stay close, and care for everything living within and
around you. Water the plants. Pet the cats. You’re always within our care.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Your word for the
coming birthday year is <i>windfall</i>. You wanted <i>abundance</i> but it’s
been destroyed by every evil“law of attraction” charlatan. Still, please accept
the richness already washing over you, already filling your bookshelves and
paint pots and fridge. Your refrain, which you’ll find in almost any given
moment is true: <i>I have everything I need. </i>Accept every gift: A stack of
graduated-from second-grade games, a smile from the driver next to you at the
light, the sunset over your blessed evening swim. The windfall may not be what
you’ve expected, but it’s already here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are always
houses you’ll want to go back to, more projects to complete, more streets you
might someday park in again. It’s okay to let mourning and gratitude wash over
you like gently disagreeing waves. The stars can feel the cool wash and
magnetism of the paragraphs and paragraphs you’re ready to make, natural and
sympathetic as breath. You’re the gentle clockwork of the tides, the moon that
hides the brief comet. What you’re building is a telescope that will help us
discover, cry, and change. Set a timer for twenty minutes and start your pen
moving—we know it will work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Imagine
November! Better yet, join </span><a href="https://postcardstovoters.org/">https://postcardstovoters.org/</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and practice sharing hope and determination
with strangers. You’ve got a built-in excuse to skip Thanksgiving if you need
it, but hopefully you won’t need it. Your mantra is <i>peaceful transfer of
power</i>. Your mantra is <i>Vice President Harris</i>. Voter suppression is a
monument build on blood and fists and billy clubs and centuries; drag it from
its pedestal and sink it in a lake. May Fannie Lou Hamer visit you in dreams
and teach you how to textbank. May a million righteous angels guard your ballot
and the ballots of all the future children. Also, here’s a really cute podcast:
</span><a href="https://www.vote.org/podcast/">https://www.vote.org/podcast/</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When
the weekly grocery store roses start to wilt or I just get tired of the cats trying
to eat them, the stars like to gently take apart the petals and strew them
outside the front door. It’s good to give a welcome even if only neighborhood
cats are coming to visit. Give bright welcome to essential workers and their gifts,
welcome neighbors with everyday questions, welcome even the landlord, unless
that’s not your thing. Sometimes you can’t even help but to welcome the
unwelcome lanternflies. See who and what else you can beautifully, delicately, and
wholeheartedly welcome this week. Masked and six-feet-apart, of course!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Whatever
projects you’ve started (painting a flowered fence, turning vines into
blank-limbed sculpture, choosing new carpet, somehow surviving the Zoom age
with (mostly) humor and grace, reading a serious book for ten minutes a day,
actually getting up when the alarm goes off, weeding the garden, printing out
your newest batch of Postcards to Voters addresses, filling out tedious and
fruitful forms, reaching the elusive Laundry Zero, writing a poem just for you
or for everyone, etc.) will flourish and grow every day, even when it doesn’t
seem so. What you’re making, what you’re living, is beautiful and lasting,
delicate and precious. Keep going and remember! The stars love you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars are with you in feeling the scramble of September, the seismic
Zoom-shudder of “What even IS school anyway?” We will be jangled-ly delighting
in college bookstore chitchat soon enough, stacking books, remembering the
radio, filling envelopes. It’s tempting to push ourselves for growth, but
please be gentle: This is still survival mode. Let your work just keep you
alive, occasionally giving you faces to see and tasks to complete. But! Until
it’s time for vaccine days and predictable hours, set yourself a timer for 20
minutes. Draw something little, write a verse or two, sing in the car, call Congress,
call a friend. Take good care with sleep, except staying up for meteors. We
promise, you will have your ease.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Holy Jeepers! The
Initial Friend! The stars have thought for all these years that <i>Take Offs
and Landings </i>aas Rilo Kiley’s first album but no! Guess what!!! There’s a
whole other debut! So, like, the stars’ favorite band, long-broken-up, has a
whole record I didn’t know about and it’s coming out later this year?! </span><a href="https://nerdist.com/article/rilo-kiley-rereleasing-rare-1999-first-album/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://nerdist.com/article/rilo-kiley-rereleasing-rare-1999-first-album/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
Whaaaaaaaat?!?! Expect more of these kinds of weird windfall miracles! In the coming
months, you’ll find long-lost diamonds under the couch cushions. Your garden
will overflow with volunteer flowers. And maybe, maybe, MAYBE, our bodies will
welcome the glittering magic of a new vaccine, so Jenny and Blake can tour
again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Miracle of
miracles, the stars returned our library books yesterday afternoon! The drop
box was right there, unlocked! There’s even, in some places, curbside pickup
for reserves! Make your library list long and thorough, everything you’re even
flirted with reading. If you can’t library yet, remember it’s still a public
service to support your local independent bookstores! (Libro.fm for audiobooks,
Bookshop.org for paper books!!!) Now is your time to collect without guilt,
even Marie Kondo will bless and approve your shelves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Turn up the sir
conditioners and pretend it’s spring cleaning! Change the bedding. Vacuum and
mop. Empty the wastebaskets and cross your fingers that the recycling truck
will come. (That we’ll treat our essential workers fairly and safely!) Upend
the bins that have gotten out of control and sort them meticulously, see what
you can reclaim and what you can leave behind. Thank hole-y things for their
help and send them on their way. Mend what you can. Glue gems back onto
necklaces, ship stray beads away to whoever can use them anew. Save all the
glass jars as vases—You’ll never not want to hand out flowers! Make room for
the comfort and safety that is surely coming your way some day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Oh, the<b> </b>PUA
(Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, not Pick-Up Artist) Stimulus, oh, sweet,
sweet Nancy Pelosi money! The stars are grieving it with you. Whether you’ve
used it to hang on by a thread or weave an unlikely and precious cushion, we
praise it with you. The stars can certainly promise you more stimulae, more
soft places, more gently tended paths for what comes next. This isn’t about
resumes, not really. For now, sleep is free, peaches are cheap in some places,
and evening walks are (sometimes sweatily) possible. The moon is in line with
Saturn and Jupiter, and we promise you will always have friends who are just as
astronomical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At a certain
point, the herb garden just became a flower garden. The stars should really
cook something. Look at what you already made that’s free and delicious and not
TOO gnawed by baby caterpillars. Pick and smell the sage-y goodness. Chop it up
into whatever mix. It’s a fantastic time to make Mojitos with all this mint! <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-57998107077156333502020-07-27T11:08:00.001-04:002020-07-27T11:08:54.549-04:00Poetic License Horoscopes for July 27-Aug 3 (How About We Don’t Name Things After Grand Wizards Edition)<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EqJEKMxoB4U/Xx7t07jgIAI/AAAAAAAADZI/udcPB44FxHQ11FLrm9KBo32Y_FJOyXXNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/APYZ1395.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="686" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EqJEKMxoB4U/Xx7t07jgIAI/AAAAAAAADZI/udcPB44FxHQ11FLrm9KBo32Y_FJOyXXNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/APYZ1395.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars really
miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a Civil Rights
leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and other racial
justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a congressman for
thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by authoring the
March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars really
miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a Civil Rights
leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and other racial
justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a congressman for
thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by authoring the
March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars really
miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a Civil Rights
leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and other racial
justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a congressman for
thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by authoring the
March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars really
miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a Civil Rights
leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and other racial
justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a congressman for
thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by authoring the
March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars really miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a
Civil Rights leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and
other racial justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a
congressman for thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by
authoring the March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars really miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a
Civil Rights leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and
other racial justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a
congressman for thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by
authoring the March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars really miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a
Civil Rights leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and
other racial justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a
congressman for thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by
authoring the March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> The
stars really miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a
Civil Rights leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and
other racial justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a
congressman for thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by
authoring the March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars really
miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a Civil Rights
leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and other racial
justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a congressman for
thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by authoring the
March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars really miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a
Civil Rights leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and
other racial justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a
congressman for thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by
authoring the March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus:</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars really miss<b> </b>sharing the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a
Civil Rights leader who sacrificed his safety in service of voting rights and
other racial justice goals, he also cared for us as a nation by serving as a
congressman for thirty-three years! AND he helped keep the Movement alive by
authoring the March Trilogy graphic novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars really miss<b> </b>sharing
the world with John Lewis. Not only was he a Civil Rights leader who sacrificed
his safety in service of voting rights and other racial justice goals, he also
cared for us as a nation by serving as a congressman for thirty-three years!
AND he helped keep the Movement alive by authoring the March Trilogy graphic
novels </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958">https://bookshop.org/books/march-trilogy-slipcase-set/9781603093958</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">which
serve to bring the civil rights struggle vividly to life for the next
generations of activists. For these reasons and so, so many others, the stars
feel that the Edmund Pettus Bridge should be renamed after Representative John
Lewis. Kindly sign the petition if you haven’t already: </span><a href="https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false">https://www.change.org/p/public-renaming-the-edmund-pettus-bridge?use_react=false</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-74579822170937475032020-07-13T11:20:00.001-04:002020-07-13T11:20:44.400-04:00Poetic License Horoscopes for July 13-19 (Made Up and Always Taking Requests)<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-65afkWPex7M/Xwx7od7aVdI/AAAAAAAADYM/7eTBRpgWmjY7SeuBtXinHnO0qGwd-7k6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_E5372.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1210" data-original-width="1600" height="301" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-65afkWPex7M/Xwx7od7aVdI/AAAAAAAADYM/7eTBRpgWmjY7SeuBtXinHnO0qGwd-7k6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/IMG_E5372.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: “</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When
I talk about owning eloquent rage as your superpower, it comes with a clear
caveat that <i>not everyone is worth your time or your rage</i>.” --Brittney
Cooper, <i>Eloquent Rage</i> (</span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/eloquent-rage-a-black-feminist-discovers-her-superpower-9781250112880/9781250112880">https://bookshop.org/books/eloquent-rage-a-black-feminist-discovers-her-superpower-9781250112880/9781250112880</a>)
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If
you’ve already tried and tried, turn away from your sheltered and unwilling
cousins, your lost-to-Russian-interference mom and give your ears to people who
might actually listen. Or even better, turn to yourself, see what you can
learn!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’re already
doing the best first step: See what you can grow. Admire the emphatic voices of
the echinacea and bee balm, who put roots down in every single available sunny
place. They’re reaching up, just like you. Taste the sweet savory of your own
tomatoes and breathe in the spicy scent of the little marigolds whose roots are
standing guard. Cultivate your team, tap deep into the soil, and grow wildly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the time
comes, you’ll remember how to person, I promise. Your fears and resentment
won’t leave, don’t worry, but they will agree to pipe down for a few days.
Then, there’ll be nothing but birdwatching, careful hugs, and precious
confiding. You’ll leave with your inheritance of silk flowers ready for
laundering, honey from your bee siblings, and the spoils of a Thrifty Shopper
splurge. You didn’t forget how to accept love. You’ll never forget.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s there waiting
for you, the farm in the hills. The peacocks stroll the grounds singing disco
jams instead of screams. The strawberries grow as big as your head. The ground
is gently watered by the healing tears of non-problematic Rose Quartzes.
Assemble your plant march. Gather all the loud and loving seeds. Reuse
everything you can and turn the rest into worms and butterflies. You’re already
living according to the weather, so you’re doing just great.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars found an envelope of photos at the bottom of a pile of inherited silk
flowers. There were pictures of two different exes at Grandmom’s house. (The
stars have exes, obvs.) Miss your past characters but savor the connections,
the warmth, the copious food they were fed. It’s amazing the number of friends,
family, and loves who could inhabit one couch in a lifetime. They all came and
went and you’re still here, even though that couch is gone. All the loves are
still in your bloodstream, still with you, and they will never leave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
kids are doing ziplining for their birthdays because it’s possible to social
distance while thrillingly distancing oneself from the ground. Find a similarly
invigorating safe risk and put it on the calendar, just maybe not for today.
You still need some kind of modified leaping, some bright-sky way to raise your
pulse, but please, please, please make sure you land in pillows and safe hugs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Take
a break! Get away with us for the summer, let’s go Upstate!” –from <i>Hamilton</i>.
John Adams may not have a real job anyway, but you do! You’ve been doing so, so
much! Maybe not fifty-one essays (Or maybe! The stars don’t know everything
about your life!) but still, you’re so prolific in love, beauty, and forbearance.
Count up all the ways you’ve sacrificed and then find a way to clock out. Your
heart and sleep will thank you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This
week, the stars bought Aldi-roses that match my niece’s first set of D&D
dice: the color of sunset. You too can build order out of beauty and random
connections. Build serendipitous chimes of love and fate in the wilderness.
Shae will dice with her friends and make stories that didn’t exist before and
the roses will sit quietly on the home altar, telling me the world still sort
of makes some kind of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Writer, teacher,
and certified non-humbug Shannon Maney asks: “<span style="background: white; color: #050505;">Hey! What’s working really well for your survival right now?
Businesses that are crushing contactless service? Humans that are linking you
to great resources for concrete anti-racist work? Favorite mask patterns? I’ve
been bringing the humbug on here lately, but there is so much good! What’s good?</span>”
Leave your answers in the comments here and everywhere. Good is real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="background: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Watch the first season of the anthology series<i>
Cake</i> and think about any of the following things: The varying textures of
cake and frosting, as well as how those would feel if used as a pillow. The place
of a sensitive person in the world. The wistfulness inherent in dating-app
swiping. The motivational nature of dinosaurs. Binge if you can, then maybe write!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus:</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Part of my </span>anger<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> is always </span>libation<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> for my fallen
sisters. </span>Anger<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is
fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.</span>”-- Audre
Lorde. The stars are always telling you, but it bears repeating: Your anger is
sacred and worthy. It is yours to offer up to Sandra Bland and every other
bright spirit we don’t get to share the planet with. Make it loud, make it
bright, and broadcast it in every beautiful way. The stars promise, we’re
practicing our listening.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Until she was murdered by police in her home, Corryn Gaines was a
revolutionary artist-treasure. She rewrote the license plates on her car because
she felt beautifully and rightly entitled to drive and speak. The front plate
said “Free traveler” and the back said “Any government official who compromises
this pursuit of happiness will be held criminally responsible and fined, as
this is a natural right and freedom.” (Read more in <i>Eloquent Rage</i> by
Brittney Cooper: (</span><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/eloquent-rage-a-black-feminist-discovers-her-superpower-9781250112880/9781250112880">https://bookshop.org/books/eloquent-rage-a-black-feminist-discovers-her-superpower-9781250112880/9781250112880</a>)
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Honor
Corryn by doing something 1/10 that courageous. (Paging Lin-Manuel Miranda!
Corryn Gaines musical please!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-62153035299401323012020-07-06T09:05:00.001-04:002020-07-06T11:03:43.850-04:00Poetic License Horoscopes for July 6-12<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTly1PyhsLw/XwMhffQ2fFI/AAAAAAAADXc/62adWSyltTw9TbzKtbemJWfnZ9INlIMVwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/CMTC9403.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="1600" height="295" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTly1PyhsLw/XwMhffQ2fFI/AAAAAAAADXc/62adWSyltTw9TbzKtbemJWfnZ9INlIMVwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/CMTC9403.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Get all of your
advice this week from Carly Rae Jepsen! Cut through the clouds, break the
ceiling! Wake up in tangles, oh! You don’t have to avoid dizzy love or a
hope-comedown, Cancer, just get some pretty craft scissors, the kind with fancy
scalloped edges, and cut to the feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“That strange
feeling of being there and not being there came back. One line led to another
and a story slowly formed under my hands.”—Lynda Barry in the amazing magical
creativity book <i>What It Is. </i>Set a timer for 20 minutes and do the thing.
Let the interruptions of your inner censors fall to the ground like seeds.
Disregard their voices until the vines grow up though your feet, grow up your
arms, and move whatever you make to (your) nature’s own whims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Get you somebody who
looks at you the way Christian Cooper listens to birds. Take everything else
you need, heart, soul, and song, from this best piece of video ever recorded: </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qd2XyGFTzk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qd2XyGFTzk</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’ve dedicated
your art to helping repair the world, good! As you go into new clarity and
purpose, take care of your best resource: you! What new flair can you bring to
sleep? A couch nap for no reason? A dadlike snooze in the chair with the TV on?
You must be able to get the sound of baseball somewhere! Practice hearing the
thrum of the fan, the conversations of the birds, the dispatches from your very
own overflowing heart. (See also: Leo)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Undistracted
by footprints, the waves leave a beautiful, studied, regular pattern on the
sand. With prisms in all the windows, the order of all things becomes clear:
the rainbows swim and dance all around like a cosmic clock. (Because that’s
what they are.) The angle of the sun is dependable. So are the tides! And so
are you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars chose “Truth
Hurts” by Lizzo as our handwashing song and we sincerely regret it—it’s sad
that such a good song just reminds us of soap! But on the other hand, let’s
consider the MIRACLE of soap! What a gift that 20 seconds is! To have warm
running water and a clean towel. Even in this new wave of pandemic, there are
new ways to find the luxury! Unless today’s just not that kind of day for you,
then fuck it!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remember your breath and
praise it! Give it every reward for continuing to keep you alive. Guided
meditations about rainbow chakras! (Trigger warning for pseudoscience though!)
Smell the sweet smells of strawberries, lake water, green grass, and wine.
Breathe the rhythm of the waves, the angle of the sun, the sound of your feet
on the pavement and your fast songs turned all the way up and the sweat pouring
down—your breath deserves every gift and luxury, every pretty, embroidered
mask.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After you’re done helping
the stars throw all of the confederate statues in the river, let’s get the
founding fathers next! One of the reasons the colonies declared independence
was that they felt like England was getting too abolotiony! Be VERY abolitiony this
week, Aquarius, both within and without. What symbols of terrifying old
structures can you dismantle? Who is the real protagonist in the story? Not
George Washington! Not Benjamin Franklin! Not even Alexander Hamilton! But
probably Lin Manuel Miranda.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today is a good
day to arrest the cops who murdered Breonna Taylor. Today’s a good day to say
all the names. Write them on every light post, every dusty window, ever breath
of condensation, ever sparkler trail, on every chalk-decorated sidewalk, across
your own face. It won’t bring them back but it will honor them. Today’s a good
day to honor them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Duolingo,<b> </b>if
you get behind<b> </b>on your language practice, will change all of your Level
Five badges into golden little broken mirrors. It’s very sad. You have to fix
them by practicing, but you don’t have to start all the way over, so that’s
good! Take your time, Aries, but start repairing gently whatever it is you let
fall away. A little green owl in a yellow tracksuit will praise you for your effort,
and so will the stars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> It’s a good week
for mending. If you can’t figure out how to patch a given tear, sew on a little
silk flower. Stitch the petals as much as you need and save a few extra, the
way you might save the extra buttons that came with your favorite clothes. Give
them their own little box marked “Special little things for mending.” Thread
your needle, join an enriching Zoom, and get to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Everyone shall
sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.” sings
George Washington as he gets ready to resign in Hamilton. Give it a listen and
think about saying goodbye, about peaceful transfer of power, and about what
you can do today to teach the current monster-in-chief to say goodbye.</span> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEqnXNsAFL8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEqnXNsAFL8</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-84435684348825666362020-06-29T14:39:00.003-04:002020-06-29T14:39:58.329-04:00Poetic License Horoscope June 29-July 5<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZmjqjhmofo/Xvo1V7_xD9I/AAAAAAAADWw/ka_qG538lWYdx9wFo04HEYHV6HXYOXYzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Angelic%2BTroublemakers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="708" height="305" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZmjqjhmofo/Xvo1V7_xD9I/AAAAAAAADWw/ka_qG538lWYdx9wFo04HEYHV6HXYOXYzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Angelic%2BTroublemakers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As Pete and Frank
sing on <i>30 Rock</i>, “It’s never too late for now.” Still wishing you’d started
a quarantine hobby? Go ahead! Need to re-fall in love with the One that Got
Away and get all <i>Sliding Doors</i>-y? Why not, as long as you have your
unfollow button handy! We all need muses. Even if your Shiny New Thing is extreme
napping, go for it with your entire heart! It’s not like we can go to the
movies. (I mean, we can, but there’s that whole not-wanting-to-die thing.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No matter WHAT
claustrophobia or commentary comes your way, the stars think you’re doing
GREAT! How can a person with an entire apron collection possibly do any wrong?!
Your family is well-loved, if not always well-slept. There’s sunshine coming in
all the windows all the time. I assume your ceiling fans have been installed
against the insidious humidity. If you can, fix up a gentle drink and go read
outside for a while. Or just look at leaves and listen for birdsong. Do yourself
one favor after another. You’ve been doing a WONDERFUL job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars keep
dreaming roadtrips home from California, even though we’ve been gone for
sixteen years. We know what it means. Random visitors keep joining the trip—a problematic
aunt, a student and her family, a dear former massage therapist who once came
with us on a hunt for fairy houses. The dreams are like <i>The Muppet Movie</i>
in reverse—retracing our steps, dropping off friends, forgetting to say
goodbye. It’s okay, other adventures await you. For now, rest and write.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“We need, in every
community, a group of angelic troublemakers. Our power is in our ability to
make things <i>unworkable</i>.”—Bayard Rustin. Listen to the unsung king who
planned the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom! Fly in the way of every
racism you see. Carry every policeman (literal and metaphorical) away into the
clouds. Sing and scream glitter and blessings at every pedestal until all the
bad statues are in the sea where Aquaman can punch them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“You
have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you
have to do it all the time.”—Angela Davis in 2014. You don’t have to steal vibranium
artifacts from museums, but you can if you want to! Whatever is glowing around
the purple edges of possibility, smash the glass and take it. The stars have
been told by therapists that we have to work on our locus of control, but it
really is up to every one of us to reorder the world and make it glowing, make
it just.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’ve
been too sheepish to Google it yet, but the stars are in the market for a beautiful
fly swatter in rose gold. This is because we are tired of taking off a shoe
every time we see a spotted lanterfly nymph getting ready to eat the garden.
What beautiful and absolute solution can you find to an invasive, ravenous
annoyance? How can you decorate unpleasant necessity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There
are lots of different theories about the too-many-fireworks-lately. It’s even
been suggested that they’re provided by the government and meant to deprive
activists of sleep! Maybe! More likely, fireworks are fun and sparkly, a loud
and mostly safe release. Either way, either way, don’t call the police! Find a
way to gaze up in wonder, even now that the the surge and spark is commonplace.
You’re alive, after all, if you’re reading this! I hope you’re reading this!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">THE STARS WANT TO SEE MORE
PICTURES OF YOUR QUARANTINE OUTFITS!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We CANNOT
get enough of fancy-for-no-reason or of pajamas outside! Go for both at once,
why not?! We’re a little freakish and ghoulish for enjoying this magical moment
in fashion history, but nonetheless: You are soft, sweet, ruffled, and comfy,
trimmed with tiny bows. You never, ever have to wear shows that hurt. Sure, get
wistful for eye makeup and showing your whole face, but make up for it in mask
style and Zoom glamour. This is a time, as all times should be, of making
beautiful room for ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Season Two of <i>Homecoming</i>
stars Janelle Monáe! Who would you be if you woke up on a boat having forgotten
your own name? What friends would you make to save you or be saved? What
hotel-key spoilers? What surprising reveals. Check your “Previously ons” and
see what might be next!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Maybe, I hope,
things have calmed down enough in your heart and mind that you might be able to
catch up on Welcome to Night Vale! (Remember how chilling it was in that one episode
when the sirens had stopped?) Listen to Cecil calm and gaslight, spin suspicion
into peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Find out and follow the
proverb of the day. Listen on the way home from the beach where DEFINTELY not
enough people wear masks or just while you’re home folding your mask collection
into neat little Marie Kondo tubes. Sometimes there’s order, even just in a story
that rings in your ears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This week, the
stars returned to Longwood Gardens, wearing a dress that made it look like we should
be hitting on Duckie at the prom. (Though you know we’re a Blaine girl…) There
were so, so many new flowers, new angles, new light—it was like guided
meditation in a dream. In the waterlily garden, a blue dragonfly had alit on
nearly every lily’s metal nameplate. Find something that steady, that
sustaining, and rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> OMG the <i>Hamilton</i>
movie comes out on Friday!!! We’ll be watching with my sister’s family who live
five and a half hours away, linked by a group text and five years of car-singing.
Y’all! We will get to watch David Diggs play Lafayette AND Jefferson, at least
one of whose statues should be taken down and thrown into the sea. Remember “Tomorrow,
there’ll be more of us.” At the March for Our Lives? Remember “Love is love is
love is love’? In a hundred years if there’s still an America, it will be 80 percent
because of Hamilton. It’s better than we deserve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-79666447124591785572020-06-22T13:36:00.000-04:002020-06-22T13:36:24.449-04:00Poetic License Horoscope for June 22-29<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VNmkpdLGJIE/XvDr6CtjCPI/AAAAAAAADWM/yFqNp_rl-GYrHpSf2-abaKin_otlWLNPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Dexter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="747" height="223" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VNmkpdLGJIE/XvDr6CtjCPI/AAAAAAAADWM/yFqNp_rl-GYrHpSf2-abaKin_otlWLNPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Dexter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There were so, so
many options for how to celebrate Juneteenth this year! The stars hope it’ll be
like this every year, but with slightly less Zoom! By next year, it’ll be a
national holiday, and we’ll all be dancing maskless in the park or street or
backyard or museum. Till then, treat yourself or teach yourself, or both, and
rise up all you can. Celebrate all of your freedom and your friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The morning glories
are starting to bloom, just slowly, just the purple ones so far. Tend every
spindly shoot, give them sticks or baskets or chairs to climb on. Trim a few
back so the rest can grow unabashed, unruly, tall and grabby as can be. By fall,
you’ll be surrounded by blue determination, breathing hope into you every time
you walk out the door, petals and vines of your own resilience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">OMG!!! All of the
local fancy gardens have opened, plus the pool and the beach. It feels so
overwhelming, and the stars mostly still need to commune with the flowers of
Instagram. Follow them all and take it slow, scrolling past one petal, one
leaf, one sustaining burst of purple at a time. At home, the streets are full
of rose-scent, even if you venture a block! Wherever and whenever you emerge, there’s
every treasure waiting for you. Even under quarantine, you’re a flower
millionaire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James Baldwin said
“I can’t be a pessimist because I am alive. To be a pessimist means that you
have agreed that life is an academic matter, so I’m forced to be an optimist. I’m
forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive.” You might not
be James Baldwin though, so it’s okay sometimes to quiet your optimism and just
listen to whatever hurt is kind enough to be shared with you. Take it in your hand
like diamonds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s pride, and
the stars are so glad that the rainbows are expanding, keep adding new angles
and intersections! Or, more accurately, those other stripes have always been
there, we’re just getting better at loving them, we hope! Wear all of your
stripes like wizard’s robes and write your own Mirror of Erised. Better yet,
smash the whole mirror and write what’s perfect, now, and real. In June and
always you’re in charge of writing yourself—keep writing!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Spritzers are our Sundays
this summer, and White Claws are our weekday religion. Dedicate entire
labyrinths of brainspace to which seltzer goes with which pink wine, which
flavor would go best with illicit neighborhood fireworks and a <i>Wet Hot
American Summer</i> rewatch. For goodness sake, don’t try the coconut!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Blammo!”
says Liz Lemon after she gets in an argument through a window with a bookstore
clerk, “Another successful interaction with a man!” The thing is, though, maybe
it WAS successful! Don’t be afraid to be a pain in the ass, for maybe better
reasons than Liz had though. High five a million angels, as Liz would also say,
for every snip at a ‘splaining stranger, every strongly worded letter, every
time you go after the mayor in his or her or their own comments section. (Jeez,
just get rid of Columbus already! I want us to be on Rebecca Solnit’s tally!) Bug
them all until the patriarchy is toppled, the police are defunded, the prisons
are abolished, and so on. Never stop not stopping! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars saw you doing your poetry on the steps of the art museum the other day,
vulnerably implacable against the coming and going storms. What you may not
have noticed was the sparkling shaft of rainbow light shining down through the
rare clouds, bundling you up in protection and peace like spiritual bubble wrap,
or better yet, like a million real hugs. You are the steps and sky and universe’s
treasure, and you shall have every single important thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stars are a little upset that people are getting too casual about masks, so we’re
sending caution and bedazzled bandannas to everyone you know and love. We’re
sending blankets, and tea, and pink wine spritzers, and <i>30 Rock</i>
episodes, and romcoms to read. Horror stories only if they need a safe thrill. Sometimes,
our first names are Chicken And, so we know about soup, we know about pillows,
and so do you. Bring everyone you know flowers, especially you. If you run out
of generosity, we will shine you down some more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Study unusual
animal friendships like it’s your job! The pangolin who bonds with the bat over
their unfair vilification. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cat who
befriends a baby duck then wakes up one day with a grown duck on her head.
Listen as the birds of all shapes and kinds weave themselves into an
undistanced flock to sing “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
Follow their advice and let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All hail<b> </b>the
KPop fans and Tik Tok teens who banded together to sabotage Agent Orange’s vile,
slap-in-the-face, murder-by-breath trip to Tulsa. Every context is political,
every platform is a valuable shout, and every person is responsible for
fighting fascism in their own way. There are as many ways to resist as there
are stars in the sky. Get in where you fit in, Aries!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars spend a
good chunk of time wondering if Ventiko, the artist responsible for Dexter the
Emotional Support Peacock, was part of the same artists’ collective that
trained Pizza Rat and Selfie Rat. </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42880690">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42880690</a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Whether
she brought Dexter to the airport sincerely or as performance art, think of
Dexter every day. What wild, extravagant, proud, so-decadent-as-to-be-absurd
care can you give yourself. Do it all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-27428841191051373802020-06-15T11:05:00.000-04:002020-06-15T11:05:07.371-04:00Poetic License Horoscope for June 15-21<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yFP9i4XCUY4/XueN-9rIZ4I/AAAAAAAADVg/VX9lGwE_gS4HDLeK18xBy2BJXdu4PfLfACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_4767.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yFP9i4XCUY4/XueN-9rIZ4I/AAAAAAAADVg/VX9lGwE_gS4HDLeK18xBy2BJXdu4PfLfACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/IMG_4767.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Around here, the
commercials are changing from annoyingly sincere
we-a-company-really-care-abut-you themes (Seriously, fuck ALL the way off,
Amazon) to annoyingly sincere we’re-all-gonna-see-our-friends-again-in-person
stories. It’s okay if you’re not ready for this. Neither is anyone. If you want
to keep peering warily out the door except at protest time or keep perfecting
your listening expression via Zoom, go ahead. You’ve come so far, be safe and
careful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Someday, you’ll be
able to return your library books. You’ll be able to hug your favorite
librarian for real and then stand around a while chatting about politics.
You’ll browse shelves that have been waiting all this time for you, be able to
restart your TBR list with a vengeance. In the meantime, have you written to
your mayor and city council to make sure the libraries are funded? The stars
would like them to have the money previously earmarked for the racist police! </span><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/philadelphia-city-budget-library-cuts-police-reform-20200610.html">https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/philadelphia-city-budget-library-cuts-police-reform-20200610.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, we paint out
our intentions on the streets. Decorate and rename the whole map of you to
honor Black Lives Matter. Use everything from highway yellow to sweet pastels.
Use love, plus everything from chalk to Krylon. In her window, my neighbor made
a miniature justice garden tended by little bears. You and she are spelling out
the future inside and out. Everything is here for you, waiting to be remade.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Consider what you might
call about on the non-emergency line in our safe-as-pillows post-police future.
“Hello, you’d say, can you help me with this bird call? I think it’s an oriole
but I’m not sure.” Ask how many colors in an outfit are too many! The stars run
that line and they’ll tell you there’s no limit. Ask what your cat’s trying to
say when she places a paw on your arm while you’re reading, or when your other
cat misunderstands an open book for a bed. Things are quieter, brighter, and
slower when no one is hunting us, I promise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’re planting a
labyrinth of seeds, I promise. As you walk through the same magic space again
and again, the flowers will grow taller, and more emphatic, and more thorough.
You’ll be more and more aggressively a rainbow. Every bloom, every prism facet
of nature is here for you, to teach you. Look into their bright and petalled
faces. Step lightly among the stalks. The leaves are here to make energy and
feed you. The scent is where you learn to thrive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars do not
know what to tell you. Ache is just sometimes ache. There’s no puzzle-box that
unlocks it, no secret labyrinth door that unlocks with a secret translation, a
sapphire amulet, or a handy code. It’s just ache. Make a spot for it next to
the good window. Drink your coffee, look out at the leaves, and pine for all
you’re missing, for all you’ve lost, not matter the obscene riches you still
have. There’s still plenty of time in the day for walks, marches, and letters
to congress. You’ll be fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Here’s how you
unlock the book that’s already knit itself into your cells: Walk along the
beach in the evening, without worrying about where you’ve left the towels, the
cooler, the striped umbrella, the hibiscus La Croix, the special mermaid-themed
phone case to keep out the sand. Just walk, unencumbered, in the sparkling edge
of the waves. Study shell fragments, look for whole scallop shells or sand
dollars or Cape May diamonds. Think of lighthouses at dusk and let it all sand
you down like beach glass. Then, the words will come easy and constant, like
the tides.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Take
every step away from claustrophobia, even in the smallest ways. Turn left
instead of right at the end of the driveway when the neighborhood is getting to
be a bit much. Switch everything off or do the opposite. Drive with the windows
down and Janelle Monáe blasting: “Don’t try to take my country, I will defend
my land. I’m not crazy, baby, I’m American.” Crazy is a reasonable response
after all of these days and weeks and months and years. Find a way to get it
out on paper or just into the sweet air.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Welcome
any friends who wander in, even other people’s cats who jump in through the
shoddy screen door. As the evil White House fences are transformed by lovely
humans into bare-heart art galleries, what boundaries can you neglect or
transform?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re becoming porous, like
fence wire, like art, like the way leaves breathe, like light through the
forest ceiling. See what sustaining thing filters through. See what small,
dappled light you can hold in your hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’re
crossing the country now for home. You’ll see mountains that seem much closer
than they are because they’re so big. You’ll see light sparking and crackling
from the edges of fire. You’ll see pretty treed slopes and maybe a little weird
June snow. You’ll see streams, rivers, lakes, and fountains teeming with the
discarded statues of imperialists—you know, regular stuff. You’ll see
mysterious new monuments engraved with future instructions. Drink plenty of
water, turn the radio up loud, and get ready for tomorrow to welcome you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Think
about Yayoi Kusama, how meticulously she paints dots and dots and dots, how
deftly she makes all those mirrors repeat, how sad she was when some museum
wouldn’t let her give away parts of her own installation. Think of the devotees
lined up to look at new configurations of light and color, to spend thirty
seconds or a minute with these new refractions of themselves. You can refract
like that, but a million mirrors more! Everyone says so!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ethylene is the chemical
that helps apples ripen and then spoil. It’s a gas that spreads, that’s why one
bad apple spoils the whole barrel. (#defundthepolice) You are ripening, but you
are also the opposite of ethylene, breathing newness and growth into everything.
Dig up the ground of yourself and plant something new, turn decay into fresh
roses, fresh strawberries, fresh sunflowers reaching skyward. Here is a hoe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-77866184928715293812020-06-08T08:42:00.000-04:002020-06-08T08:42:12.320-04:00Poetic License Horoscope for June 8-14<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kuTgnBoUhZ0/Xt4x9kkkj3I/AAAAAAAADU8/Cw_M_jnBaps8B9qOcc14L7phuTgbS7n3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/XMKU6316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1127" data-original-width="1600" height="281" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kuTgnBoUhZ0/Xt4x9kkkj3I/AAAAAAAADU8/Cw_M_jnBaps8B9qOcc14L7phuTgbS7n3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/XMKU6316.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This week, in ways
large and small, be like Mayor Muriel Bowser. With Washington D.C. under
military occupation, she still found a way to make Black Lives Matter Plaza happen
right in front of the White House. Your installations may not be as big or as
resourced, but you can be a monument to justice, peace, beauty, and strength
every day. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not that we
birdwatchers (What? Stars can be birdwatchers!) hate leashless dogs! It’s
message that their owners are sending: “Your bodily autonomy, your freedom,
your safety, the birds’ homes, none of these things matter much as this animal
I live vicariously through, this hapless, jumping thing that poops outside
because I can’t.” Cancer, you’re the opposite of these folks: careful,
deliberate, kind in the right direction, as you face the open wild or just the
neighborhood woods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars support
your quest to curate your feeds, to weed out the racists or those who hate
science or those who would stand on capitol steps with guns to fight for the
right to murder us all with their breath. You know what’s on the other side of
the silo, why wouldn’t you? Start thinking of estrangement as social
divestment—some people just don’t deserve you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: “</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How often have we
heard you say that everything is futile, that nothing comes of all your
labors?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet like amorphous buds, you
endeavors sprout in all directions. You see everything as formless and you
forget that this is a sign of life.” Hilma Af Klint. You’ve planted 1,500 morning
glory seeds, but feel free to plant more. It’s all coming up, we promise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The pieces of the
portrait you’ve been working on so LONG are falling into place. Soon, you’ll
see those kind eyes again, that shining, lucid heart. Spread out your love on
the table like one hundred glitter gel pens and exclaim, exclaim, EXCLAIM about
the sparkles. I can’t wait to see the whole of the angel’s magic face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> There’s a riot in
your belly and that’s perfectly okay. According to alchemists, “vitriol” is an
acronym for “Visita Inerriora Terrae Rectifcando Invenies Occultum Lapidum.”
That means “By visiting the center of earth, you will find the Philosopher’s Stone.”
Get a stick and poke around at the fires inside you, see what shapes appear in
the flames.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My
neighbor buys flowers for herself every Sunday. She says that when she did this
at the beginning of quarantine, back when we were all just hoarding Purell, the
people in line at the co-op got annoyed with her, but it’s not their business
what she finds necessary to her survival. No matter what letters there are to
write, how many marches on your protest dance card, what weeping is forced upon
you, set an alarm to got get yourself something beautiful. The stars are so
glad you exist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars are sorry to both you and Rory
Gilmore that we can’t do a thing about the whole humidity thing. Instead, we
suggest watching the movie <i>Adult World</i>, set in our hometown of Syracuse,
NY. That way, you can cool off watching a whole bunch of snow in our old
neighborhood! Plus, you’ll get to see John Cusack go to Recess Coffee! That’s
something, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Good
work will come soon enough, we promise. For now, take to your bed like John and
Yoko. Hold meetings, Be-Ins, singalongs, or cuddle parties, or all these at
once. Invite the comforter to facilitate. Ask every pillow her opinion, and if
it’s okay that you hug her. Count your audience of sleep masks, scandalous
night-books, fancy lotions. Be very, VERY thorough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Thank the planets
that are leaving your orbit, or just decisively swipe left. You don’t need a
reason, just blow them away like dandelion fluff. You can build altars to them out
of candles and spangles. Glitter bomb the places in your body and heart where
long- or new-lost friends reside. It’s okay if you’re feeling scared and alone.
The stars are with you, no matter what.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This week in the
stars’ neighborhood, a group of six young people planned a protest in 48 hours.
They hoped about fifty people would come, but it turned out to be over a
thousand. Every step and turn of our “Whose streets? Our streets!” route was
decorated with sacred names and cases of water. This was a miracle and also a
privilege: Downtown, my friends were still facing violent police and the
National Guard. Build everything you can, Aries, and don’t take a bit of it for
granted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Taurus: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stars are
profoundly sorry that we forgot you the other week! Here’s what’s in your
Apology Basket: Milk to wash away teargas. Spangles for all of your placards.
Friends with ears that listen. One flower for every emotion in your heart, at
any given minute. Scattered and prolific petals. Bearable heat. Every smell of
candle you love. A reminder to drink enough water. The promise that we still
know you’re a prism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-34281617247037315082020-06-01T09:49:00.001-04:002020-06-01T09:49:31.975-04:00Poetic Licence Horoscope for June 1-7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Hp8TjIVtTc/XtUGbeAxcXI/AAAAAAAADUc/jE7JRIE0SbAYEAjMIN-UtgB00pX8cPlEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_E4377.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1159" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Hp8TjIVtTc/XtUGbeAxcXI/AAAAAAAADUc/jE7JRIE0SbAYEAjMIN-UtgB00pX8cPlEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_E4377.JPG" width="460" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(Maybe next week the stars will feel like
being comforting?)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All of the Signs: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In
honor of and in mourning for Breonna Taylor, who was murdered by police in her
home, please go to the Say Her Name website (</span><a href="https://aapf.org/shn-campaign">https://aapf.org/shn-campaign</a>) <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">and
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Learn
the stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Believe
the stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Speak
up for the stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Say
the names.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9014712607843330341.post-87556992435915018192020-05-25T09:23:00.000-04:002020-05-25T09:24:36.689-04:00Poetic License Horoscopes (May 25-31)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhQzPSizEdM/XsvHBf2TeFI/AAAAAAAADTs/4xYHdZAH7iYIU5Mc10qugV3PSPG-qxTkQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Here%2BBe%2BDragons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="718" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhQzPSizEdM/XsvHBf2TeFI/AAAAAAAADTs/4xYHdZAH7iYIU5Mc10qugV3PSPG-qxTkQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Here%2BBe%2BDragons.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gemini:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> You know who’s
excited about quarantine!? Well, excited is probably the wrong word but BOREDOM
RESEARCHERS! </span><a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-natural-experiment/">https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-natural-experiment/</a>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Join
their experiments. See what’s going on with your old friend Boredom. Doodle
around the edges of it. Build a shrine of pushpins and binder clips. Burn
looseleaf as sage. Sit until you turn into cloudscapes, until your breath and
your voice stop feeling like weapons. It’s a peace you deserve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cancer:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Last Thursday
night while Shamanic Journeying via Zoom, (Like one does.) the stars were
dragged <i>Blair Witch </i>style into a dark wood shining only with fluorescent
blue leaves. Plants are sometimes the only kind of touching, aren’t they? The
only hint of life? The big leaves were both warm and cool to the touch,
shifting colors because they were a dream. Curl up in those dark dream leaves
until some helping creature arrives to lead you to a bright meadow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Leo: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the person who built an Aurora Borealis/
the door from <i>Russian Doll</i> out of tissue paper and LED lights, you can
accomplish most things. Step one: Learn all the names of the flowers before you
graduate to fungus, grasses, butterflies, and birds. String up the prettiest
names like lights, make your gardens like lights, make the petals like lights
too, why not? Delphinium, pulmonaria, kalanchoe, whatever names feel best, say
them like prayers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Virgo: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The sky over the
city has too much light, baby. You can see the stars a little but you gotta
work for them.” N.K. Jemesin, <i>The City We Became</i>. What pulses in the
city of you, now without the thrum and crush of your commute? Now that you’re
not being honked at so often when you hesitate for a nanosecond at green
lights. Now that you’re commercial-free, where are the new gaps? See if you can
hear it, or better yet, hold out your hands to the sky and wait to be touched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Libra: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A long walk in the
woods, if you can. Not on the weekend, that would be nuts. It’s okay if the
walk’s in your mind, or on watercolor paper. If you can’t ride your bike along
the rivers and creeks or dance in a crowd under a big bridge any time soon,
what then? Can you listen to those gentle studying songs until you sleep new
lessons? Can you, very carefully, twist ropes into wings? The stars are sending
new ways for you to sit in the sun and every puzzle you can hold in your two
warm hands for hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Scorpio: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Like
everyone (Well, not everyone.) you are a business rebuilding, a Festival Girl
whose travels have paused. Be even more than usual the stars’ favorite
palindrome: drawn inward. Your imagination will grow forests and populate seas.
Make your Tolkein-maps of undiscovered realms. Your mantra for now is <i>here
be dragons</i>. It’s okay if you don’t yet see the treasure underneath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagittarius</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">:
You’re a library. And the head librarian of that library. Ask the Front Desk
(also you) where the Mystical Experience section is. Turn left at the card
catalog of Conversations Your Barbies had, head past the Disco Songs Your Mom Used
to Sing. The Special Collection is showing the archives from the Museum of Bad
Advice, but don’t sign in there just yet—you just washed your hands. Check out
as many items as you’d like, the City of You has changed its overdue policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Capricorn: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If
there’s one thing that (dear but un-re-watchable)<i> Friends </i>got right
about the Nineties, its how much every day turned on the axis of coffee. Tired
from doing not-very-much until sunrise or from a young, walloping
misunderstanding of the proportions of a gin and tonic, we would migrate to our
(way more rewatchable!) friends in basements, on porches, in
just-barely-bookstores. We can’t do most of that right now, but: A porch, a cup
of good coffee, a Sunday you feel ambivalent about, a dear friend, and peace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aquarius: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As
much as the stars are OBSESSED with Marie Kondo, there really is no one right
way to clean a basement. If you want to go scorched-earth and pitch it all out,
go ahead, the stars won’t tell anyone. If you want to lovingly turn over every
document, write a sonnet to every shred of ephemera, every errant leaflet, go
ahead, why not? It’s your basement, and even if it isn’t, too bad, you’re the
one doing the work. Go down the steps and start.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pisces: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Every classroom
you’ve even been in, teaching or learning, home or away, LOVES you. Each one
keeps like love letters the maps you’ve drawn of them, the spreadsheets, the
procedures, the hand-written signs. Buildings know how to love
all-encompassingly and so do teachers, so do students. The windows are open to
the summer breeze. The sun is giddily shattering concentration and helping the
houseplants to feed themselves. The pencils are all sharpened, the dry-erase
markers are fresh and multicolored. These things remember, and so do you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aries: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Get caught in the
rain without worrying that your phone will catch a raindrop. There will be no
need to sleep overnight in rice. You have a blowdryer and towels if you need
them. Loosen your mask before it starts to feel like drowning. If, once you’re
inside again reading with your coffee, the sun comes out, you don’t even have
to get up and look outside for the rainbow. The rainbow will come to you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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