I Predict

 My prediction with a Republican government with no oversight:

1. Trump will hand over Ukraine to Putin. He will withdraw all humanitarian support to Palestine and help Israel wipe out the Palestinian people.

2. Trump will die in his sleep after a year or two. JD Vance will take the presidency. There will never again be another honest election. Possibly never again any election at all.

3. They will gut all healthcare (Medicaid gone, Medicare too expensive with no benefits). Pharmaceutical and insurance companies will make healthcare decisions. 

4. No more Dept. of Education. No EPA. Our preserved lands will be drilled. We'll speed up the process of destroying the planet.

5. Women will go 4B hard in America and and things will get dangerous as fuck. Police will have no oversight and rapists will see no punishment. Women will be jailed for "false reporting" men. 

I feel, in my gut, this election was rigged. It just makes no sense. How did Kamala have such a perfect campaign and so much support? How did she get a billion in donations? How did so many Republicans say they were voting for Kamala and she couldn't hit Biden's margins?

I know Americans hate women and more than that, they hate black women. I mean, they HATE black women. Maybe she never stood a chance and we were too blind to what America really is.

A little advice: get a passport. Make sure you have available cash. Make sure you have your documents available. Don't trust white people. (I mean that, as a white person, just don't.) America is going to get a lot more dangerous and it isn't hyperbole to say that we have to be prepared.

And if you know someone who might face "special treatment" (deportation, loss of rights, unsafe living conditions), be prepared to help. There is no looking away. We didn't do enough to keep our country safe. We need to do all we can to keep our most vulnerable safe.

My Writing Assignment

I could tell you everything in my kitchen cupboards and refrigerator in less than five minutes. From the bags of frozen chicken, the popsicles to the refried beans in the cupboard and 5 cans of Star Kist tuna, I am a savant of food. I know how much mayonnaise is left in the jar and that there are only 2 hot chocolate K cups in the drawer.

There is the plastic container with the expired cottage cheese and single Key Lime Yogurt I never ate. The strawberries still in the container that aren't washed or cut.

The sour cream is watery and the roast chicken is bland.

And I'm starving.

I eat. Chicken and potatoes. A diet Coke. I think about cookies. Popcorn. I'm full but I crave more. I want sweet. I want salty. Maybe juice. Maybe a cookie. Maybe any of the endless cans of fruit or instant puddings or what else there can be.

I'm 66 years old and still standing in the same Seattle kitchen that I stood in at age 15. The summer I could no longer hold in the pain. The summer a part of me died that little bit and I did anything I could to not let it be all of me.

I was she and she stood in that kitchen with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a knife. How many peanut butter sandwiches were made and consumed during that time? How many times did that knife smear peanut butter across bread as a way to keep it from knicking against an artery and ending all the sorrow?

41 years later and still living the same hunger. The same need. I'm an actress trapped in a role where the curtain never goes down.

I'm as bound to this moment as a hostage trapped in a basement wrapped in rope and duct tape and no chance of escape.

This hunger defines me. As happy as I am, as happy as I can be and yet the yawning emptiness always is there.

I'm not alone this time. At 15 there was me and I had to survive with just myself and my strength. I had to be a loving parent, a best friend, a rock in the chaos and pain. Nobody would do it for me.

Carolyn and Lea, Mollie and Lori are here now. My family grows with women who understand how hard it is and who remind me that I am not 15 years old. I am not doing this by myself. I am bound to others with the ties of love and found family.

Survival was peanut butter and wonder bread back when I was unmoored. Right now my belly is full and the dishes are washed. My brain thinks of the strawberries and Icees but I don't move. My cat sits next to me and winds her tail around my arm. She reminds me that I'm tethered to this life, this moment and we will survive.

Cravings bind me to the past. Joy allows me to live in this moment instead. I'm grateful to both because I've survived. Peanut butter sandwiches saved my life a long time ago. Now the women who love me keep me safe.

Peace and Compassion Through Kamala

 Over on Threads (my social media platform of choice) everybody is gearing into the last few days before election and trying to help/encourage people over the finish line. And I asked the witches and spellcasters, what are you doing in these last few crucial days?

So there isn't one definitive answer. But as a baby witch/crone, I believe that everything we do is marked by intention. 

Someone suggested writing Twitler's name on toilet paper and wiping one's ass and chanting "flush away" when flushing. Someone suggested burning sage daily to burn out the patriarchy (which I am doing). 

But I believe for my own practice, I want my intentions to be helpful. I want to send love out, not negativity. And therefore I am also burning lavender and orange and sending my intention thus: Peace and compassion through Kamala. 

If white women don't fuck it up (like they did for Hillary) we might finally have one of the best of us as leader. It's what we've missed. And I have great like for Joe Biden and admiration but another old, white guy was never the answer. We need a country running on feminine energy and fuel. We need a person whose compassion was created by the circumstances of an immigrant, single mother creating opportunities for her daughters. 

Female rage and female love are powerful. Women are powerhouses. The patriarchy needs to be dead and buried. Let women do the job now.

Did You Vote Yet?

 I dropped my ballot off at the Office of Elections last week. This week I have the usual writing class, physical therapy appointments and a probable dinner date with my brother and his wife.

I love my brother but politics has done a huge number on our relationship. It isn't the absolute horror of his supporting racist, misogynist policies but the lack of moral character he's shown himself to have. 

My very, most basic belief is that children should not go hungry and children should not get shot in the schools. That's my bottom of bottom lines. I don't believe anyone should go hungry, be homeless or get get shot. But the most bottom of my beliefs is children should be protected. And to say that to another human being and have that other person argue with you on those two issues: it ended something inside me. If your right to own a gun supersedes a child's right to stay alive during the school day, there's just something fundamentally wrong with you. If you can argue that some kids deserve hunger (no free school lunches, no free assistance) then there's something inhumane in you.

At this point, in this election, people are getting down to basics. It's no longer policies or budgets (although they matter), it's the basic moral fiber of America and how we see ourselves.

I don't want Kamala Harris to win because she's a democrat. I want her to win because she is what America stands for. She is born from immigrants, she was primarily raised by her mother post divorce (when she was 5) and she fought for every step she took. She was never a DEI candidate, she was simply the best candidate. 

Anyway, I have an assignment due for class tomorrow that I haven't finished and I want to take a nap. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Life Changing or Changing Lives?

 I've finished my postcards to Ohio and mailed them out. I've filled in my own ballot and will drop it off at the Office of Elections on Monday. I have donated. I wear my Cat Ladies for Kamala shirt when I'm going out where people will be.

I am, essentially, now done with the election. I have no more to give emotionally or financially. I'll repost from KamalaHQ on TikTok and Threads and of course, I'm speaking out. But it's only 2 weeks basically and I'm just going to plan my Nov 5 election watch party. I have physical therapy in the morning and I think a fruit tray and Cheetos is what I'll need. 

I've been going to a writing class on Mondays. It's at the senior center so it's focused on memoirs and I'm focused on fiction but I'm appreciating the experience. I'm the youngest in the class (huh) and it's all women. Some of these women have amazing life experiences: one was married to a diplomat, one was an AP journalist, one lived in Paris for years. I appreciate just hearing their stories.

I also appreciate the understanding that certain experiences have a lot to give, some a little and some none at all. The class has been a contrast: one day I walked out with my mind blown, the amount of knowledge that had been passed on was life changing. The very next week was dull, nothing to spark my interest, nothing to learn. Yet even realizing that some days you just show up is fine. 

One nugget of wisdom I received from the class: Write from the scar, not from the wound. (I'll let you take what you will from that. It blew my mind.)

Still and all, right now I'm completing obligations so that I can concentrate on what I want my life to feel like. I've spent so long trying to fit into structures where I didn't belong, now I get to rewrite these years to be my most happy, creative self and I'm starting to open the door to the possibilities of what that means.

I'm revisiting things that have worked for me in the past, trying to drop those things that don't fit. Press-on nails, caramel protein shakes and K-Dramas work. Cooking extravagantly, fast food and appointments don't work. Spending money is not good. Planning a vacation with my daughter is very good.

I'm learning my bliss. Life is seriously good.

The Horror of South Korea

 There is a huge problem in South Korea and it isn't the 4B movement. It's the young men. It's the rise of deep fake porn, sexual assault, sexual abuse, misogyny and patriarchy. 

These conversations keep happening and then getting swept under the rug.

Taeil, a K-Pop idol from South Korea, in the popular group of NCT, is part of a police investigation regarding rape, child abuse and assault. He has been released from his label, wiped clean from social media and started what might become a sweeping indictment issue that could span a lot of South Korean entertainment. 

The problem is of course, the society that punishes rape with suspended sentences, that don't care at all for the victims and have told victims that it's just part of a woman's life. And for men they aren't being socialized to see women as autonomous humans but rather as property.

The deep fake problem is out of control. There are chat rooms where boys can post pictures of girls, teachers, family members and within minutes someone has created a deep fake porn video with that woman's face superimposed. (This is AI generated, something the government is fighting against fixing).

However, the problem is beginning to go deeper which isn't being reported on and is coming from South Korean feminists, who have to hide because once a woman is identified as a feminist, they are doxxed, deep faked and in danger.

South Korean feminists are reaching out to feminists all over the world because these aren't just boys doing this to teachers or school mates. They are doing it to their own sisters and mothers. There have been incidents of family member rapes, nude pictures leaked...

Studies have shown that 80% of South Korean men have admitted to physical, sexual or psychological abuse of women. (Got that number from Google, btw)

Anyway, I'm not a sociologist. What I am is a K-Pop fan and a K-drama fan who can't currently enjoy entertainment currently because I'm afraid that someone I'm sighing over might be someone who has hurt a woman. 

Supposedly there will be more names coming out of South Korean entertainers who have been a part of the chat rooms and conversations which Taeil was a part of. A lot of women are sick over this right now. 

We don't know celebrities and who they really are. We don't know what men are capable of when they think they're untouchable.

This is sickening.

Things I've Learned This Week

 1. This first thing I learned yesterday when I finally (5 months after the referral was sent) got into Physical Therapy: my knee pain is very specific and not the cause of my problems. I have a nerve (femoral or sciatic) which got injured in my fall in February and it's the root cause of my worst pain and my decreased movement.

Happily it's entirely fixable through stretching, exercise and massage. My greatest fear recently has been the idea of going to Japan and not being able to walk. My therapist said that will not be a problem. 

2. Nothing makes a home feel dirtier than broken things in it. 

We had two days of severe tropical storms and flooding and my bedroom got a small flood. Pulling everything up and out has kick started me into spring cleaning (I don't care if it isn't spring) and the worst part was recognizing that I have a broken chair, broken vacuum, broken mop all taking up space. They're in the car now to go for a dump run tomorrow. 

3. Sometimes you really do want to eat an entire cucumber. With a home made reduced calorie ranch dressing. 

4. Forgiveness is key to moving on with your life. Not forgiving those who hurt or diminished you but forgiving yourself. Forgive yourself for living for years in survival mode. Forgive yourself for choices and mistakes that you made. 

5. Mainstream media is dying. The New York Times had 2 recent op-eds: Joy is not a strategy (regarding Harris) and Trump could win on character alone.

Irony is also a victim in this crime.

6. Love is sometimes an obligation. Liking someone never is.