Seeking Asylum in Faerun

11/7 Update: I formally welcome Pennsylvania back into New JersMaPennsRicutaware. Thank you. That is all! (For now!) My husband's first cousin - one of the ones we just don't speak to - got covid recently. He's younger than us, and he worked in a physically demanding job and was proud of the physical condition he …

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Where’s Whoopsie #26: If Everything isn’t On Fire, I Must Be Missing Something…

I haven't posted a Where's Whoopsie in awhile. Apparently without live improv to afford me extensive time on public transit and in coffee shops, I don't draw much. My Partner noticed this and suggested I should prioritize doing something "creative" to ward off seasonal - and election and "in the house too often without other …

Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Write

Many things have been said about last night's U.S. presidential debate. The Times in the UK said of it: "The clearest loser from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was America." The Guardian described it as a "national humiliation." Dan Rather at News and Guts wrote: "Who won and lost tonight …

Compassion is Not a Zero-Sum Game

CW: Descriptions of multiple types of systemic abuse and personal crises. Be safe while reading! The Poor People's Mass Assembly and Moral March on Washington is happening today. It has been planned for two years to draw attention to the plight of the poor and of systemic racism in the U.S. I wish I had …

We Should All Be Tired

"I’m so very, very tired" I first heard this spoken by a colleague of color this week trying to explain the toll that seeing yet one more blatant murder of a black man in America had taken on him. Then I saw it posted by others of color on Facebook. Then, once I'd seen it …

Our New Normal

This month is always a weird time for me. Too many negative memories all clustered in one frustrating birth month. So, it's no surprise in hindsight, I suppose, why I've been feeling more dissociated, weird and generally "floaty" than normal recently. I always feel more dissociated, weird and generally "floaty" on Hallmark holidays, during my …

Putting a (telephone) ring on it?

CW: Discussions of evangelical religious beliefs and horrible beliefs about the causes of, and appropriate responses to, covid-19. Discussions of managing challenging relationships with Partner's high-risk older evangelical grandparents as his birth state re-opens. Reminders that - while we have been fortunate (so far) not to have anyone we personally know have had covid-19 severely …

Brevity is the Soul of Apathetically #4: American Covidiot

CW: covid-19 and politics in song form The first line of this got stuck in my head earlier this week. I ended up writing out a whole political rant in the hopes my infection with the dreaded "earworm" would cease. Spoiler alert: it didn't. But, maybe someone else will get a kick out of this. …

It Can’t Happen Here?

CW: American eugenics in the time of corona. States announcing they will deny life-saving treatment to corona patients if they have disabilities such as "Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other such conditions." For anyone who has ever said, "it can't happen here..." Yes, it can. And it has already (as you will well know …

Where's Whoopsie #26: Could Trump's Words like *Silent* Raindrops Fall?!

CW: American politics and corona. Seriously. WTF, America?! So, uh, I'll totally be back to my usual semi-humorous self later this week. But, I need to go scream somewhere for a minute, and here is the "safest" place I can think. I have said repeatedly that people are the scariest part of any pandemic to …