I have a thing about calling out celebrities. I figure, I have a platform, I should do it. I don’t necessarily relish in it, but I’m passionate as fuck about using my following to call attention to bullshit. Ariana Grande used to follow me (and actually dm’d me a really sweet message) only to unfollow me after I posted something about her friend Kylie Jenner and capitalism.

So, when I heard the latest sound bite from Gwyneth Paltrow on her podcast saying absurd shit with her full chest, I knew I’d be saying something (both here and on Instagram). Also, after I started writing this essay, she did another third terrible thing: star in a commercial for “luxury” apartment complex in Israel. She’s been busy.

I sometimes wonder why my fellow leftists with large followings choose not to use their platform to eviscerate the bullshit of celebrity. I know that people say, “what you pay attention to grows,” and while I believe in this to an extent, the gruesome cult of celebrity cannot be ignored. Celebrities, themselves, cannot be ignored. With many celebrities on social media, everyday people can interact with them in real time. I don’t see this as a good thing. Too many people have created parasocial relationships with them. The one benefit of celebrities being more available to us is our ability to quickly call attention to their indiscretions and cruelty (and for it to go viral). It is one way the oppressed can take our power back.

I also think some people with large followings don’t want to publicly critique celebs, because what if a celeb patrons them one day? What if a celeb thinks they’re cool and wants to work with them? You burn your chances when you say anything disparaging. I don’t want to think people are moving this way, but I’m sure they do.

Back to Gwynasty: she is a vapid, shitty actress and equally shitty person. In this latest podcast episode of hers, in which she is interviewing Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril Industries, an AI defense contractor and surveillance tech company (wtf), she referred to herself as “pretty centrist” and said her husband thinks she’s a republican (girl, you are). She says, “Like he has such a sweet heart and he wants to, like, make sure everybody's looked after…” So, I guess Gwynicide doesn’t want that. No surprise, I suppose, but still wild to say it publicly without a modicum of tact. She also said she doesn’t “feel anything” about the current moment. Gwynny has no humanity in her.

She’s just a rich white lady who is used to not having any consequences for her actions.

This is a person who has been wealthy and privileged her entire life. This is a person devoid of empathy and compassion for anyone other than herself. I do believe that wealth, while others have nothing, changes your psyche. While many love to point to Dolly Parton as “one of the good rich ones,” we don’t actually know because she just doesn’t spew a bunch of shit. I think it’s partially because her generation were told it’s gauche to talk publicly about what you have. If this type of privilege is all you’ve ever known, like Gwyneth, then your psyche is fixed in a position of greed; of more, more, more. You become Veruca Salt.

When discussions of privilege arise, I always return to Aurora Levins Morales. She writes:

When I say that privilege has a cost, I am often met with outrage. Sometimes the anger of the oppressed has no room to acknowledge this. But if privilege is really the best thing out there, if there are no drawbacks to having it, if no one in their right mind would exchange it for community, privilege and loss then what on Earth do we think we’re doing? To expose the fraudulent promises of privilege also frees us from the part of our anger that is envy. In no way does it deny that it is better to eat than to starve. It simply says that to eat abundantly when others are hungry is toxic.

The cost of privilege is lack of empathy, compassion, understanding, and care.

Author Amy Odell, who wrote a biography of Gwyneth Paltrow, tracked how much Paltrow has made from some of her endorsements. It’s astounding. For appearing at the controversial Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia in 2023, she made $1.6 million, to show up at Skims party she made $250K, she then made that weird ad for Astronomer in 2025 that paid her millions. Who knows how much she was paid for the Israeli commercial that was just put out.

She doesn’t need more money.

I don’t think all rich people (or even all celebs) are bad people. I do think the majority lack self-awareness and have no understanding of how us commoners live (and many don’t care). I also don’t think it’s ethical for people to be millionaires, and certainly not billionaires, when we have an enormous houseless population. Artists should be compensated, but I don’t believe people who make movies/tv should make exponentially more money than anyone else. I certainly don’t believe venture capitalists should be making more than anyone else.

The cult and disease of celebrity suggests that the rest of us just haven’t worked as hard or as long to get what’s deservedly ours. It is the ultimate capitalist mindset. Rich people never seem to have enough, even while they have much more than the rest of us. The cult and disease of celebrity suggests mediocrity earns you wealth and the ability to stay ignorant.

We have to dismantle celebrity. We have to kill it. We have to eat the rich and swallow them whole.

buy my book!

1. What We Call Death Anxiety -

2. Born of an intimate light -

3. Less Pain, More Joy: The gift of mindful meditation -

4. The Department of Homeland Security’s culture of sexual violence - Nicole Froio

5. Higher Education Must Not Become a Research Arm of Militarized Power - Henry A. Giroux

6. ‘Masked Men Burning Families Out of Their Homes’: Belfast Protests Erupt After Knife Attack - Olivia-Anne Cleary

7. Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People - Jason Koebler

8. A content creator tried to trademark “Hot Girls Read.” BookTok clapped back. - Brittany Allen

9. ‘Our Kids Are Not Free’: Laws across the country targeting transgender people are driving families to relocate. - Courtney Blackmer-Raynolds

10. this song:

If you’ve been on Threads in the last few weeks, you’ll know that the “Hot Chef” saga has come to an end. Writer, K.W. Bogen first posted about this sometime last year—she met a “hot chef” while traveling in Europe. The whirlwind romance ended with betrayal from said “hot chef.” I won’t get into all the gritty details (you can find them). Since the breakup, Bogen has been posting on Threads and writing on her Patreon about it. Because of her posts, people are now declaring her “insane,” “dangerous going into the mental health field,” and more. I’ve never seen so many mean girls talk shit about a woman posting about her pain. If she was writing about the death of a loved one, people would not be riding her this hard.

People are mad she has “rape money” (she refers to it as such since she received a settlement from school). People are mad she’s writing publicly about this “poor” man, who very much knew she had a following. People are mad she started monetizing her pain by writing about this on her Patreon. People are mad that she got more patrons because of this.

Look, being cheated on or even any type of betrayal CHANGES you. If I would have had Threads back in 2014 when my ex cheated on me (and gave me herpes), I would have gone absolutely feral on there. Women have the right to write about what shitty men have done to us. And yes, it’s going to be messy, “twee,” and cringe.

I don’t know Bogen. I’ve never read her book or her writing. I have no connection to her whatsoever. But lambasting her for how she is dealing with her breakup is too insane for me to not comment on. The dogpiling is too reminiscent of my own experience of being chewed up and spit out while running Guerrilla Feminism. It all just sounds like her ex-followers are mad that she posted about being super happy only for it to crash and burn. She is being accused of lying about her relationship because she only recently said she felt something was off. I fail to understand how this is “lying,” but whatever. People hated Bogen then and they hate her now. A bitch can’t win.

Whatever you put online is up for ridicule, of course, but what some people choose to hyperfocus on and denigrate doesn’t match the supposed “crime.” You can’t be upset with someone for then monetizing what happened to them. The only issue I have with monetizing one’s trauma is whether the person has thought it through beforehand. I wrote about this in my book under the chapter, “Trauma Storytelling as Currency & Commodity.” We don’t always have a choice. Capitalism has forced our hand at this. I wrote:

We’re all just trying to survive and most of us don’t have nearly enough money to do so. Our stories, the more heinous the better, make our Instagram posts seen more by followers and non-followers. We receive “hearts” for sharing the most painful things that have happened to us. We receive visibility, which can sometimes lead to national, or international, media attention. The proximity to fame and the promise of wealth can be intoxicating. On social media, our words and images are our currency and our morbid marketing tactics. Cue trauma storytelling.

Perhaps Bogen doesn’t need the money urgently like the rest of us, but it’s her right to monetize her shit.

From the same chapter, I wrote:

The issues of sharing “too much” or sharing compulsively, as well as feeling like we have to share trauma to get likes, follows, and perhaps a brand deal are rampant. I am concerned about this. I am concerned with becoming a spectacle. I am concerned with my lived experiences becoming commodified by others or myself. Trauma sells on websites and social media platforms, after all. This is dangerous if the writer has not even begun to process their trauma before deciding to write and sell a piece to a website or post about haphazardly on Instagram. As Dorothy Allison says, “You have to have found a way to live with your own story before you make a story you can give other people.”

I don’t always think it’s in the person’s best interest to share any and everything about a trauma with the internet sludge who are awaiting with bated breath their next victim. However, I will defend anyone who does it, because that is their choice to make. When you suffer any type of trauma, it is common to feel disoriented and without choice. Thus, choosing to write about it can be a way to gain some autonomy back.

Social media loves a “villain,” and this person can be completely innocuous, but hating the same person brings people together in a big way. The amount of times I have been told by complete strangers how terrible of a person I am is too many to count. People who are not in community with me think they know me based on my internet presence; this is what a parasocial relationship looks like. This is what people are doing to Bogen.

What is the end goal? What is the point? A woman has a right to write.

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1. Less Than $20 an Hour, After 23 Years on the Job -

2. The Robots Are Not Your Subs -

3. At Rikers, a Book Club Is Helping Women Imagine Life Beyond Bars - Victoria Law

4. All Eyes on ICE: Court watchers get inside the deportation machine - Tanvi Misra

5. Learning disability history is learning you belong -

6. A death doula’s advice on thinking about mortality - Avishay Artsy and Noel King

7. Bleeding Behind Bars Is Extra Grim When Prisons Fail to Offer Menstrual Products - Victoria Law & Brian Dolinar

8. National Abortion Hotline workers fight against implementing AI - Nicole Froio and Jade Jasmine Hurley

9. We Sued ICE to Get Its Spyware Contract. The Agency Is Redacting Essentially Everything - Joseph Cox

10. this song:

Hi my loves! The month of May is finally closing out. I’m grateful because this month has not been kind to me. I started two new medications (more about that in an upcoming essay for paid subscribers), I had a vasovagal syncope event, and then a nocturnal panic attack. Needless to say, my nervous system is in overdrive and I’m hoping June is better to me (and us all!)

Here are 5 things that I’ve enjoyed in the month of May. Perhaps this will be a new monthly thing (I hope?!).

1. The Wild & Sacred Feminine Oracle Deck

   

   1. This is such a gorgeous deck by Niki Dewart & Elizabeth Marglin, with beautiful illustrations by Jenny Kostecki-Shaw. The deck is divided into the following: Wild Feminine (think animals/insects), Elemental Feminine (moon, ocean, etc), Archetypal Feminine (shapeshifter, traveler, maiden), and Divine Feminine (Brigid, Kali Ma, Kuan Yin).

2. The Keeper by Tana French

   

   1. I have read everything French has written so I was excited to find out she had a new book out. This one is the final book in a trilogy. French has a masterful ability to make you feel like you’re in the fictional town of Arnakelty, Ireland, investigating a young woman’s death. Her books are slow burns, not necessarily page-turners, but I love them.

3. Polaroid Now Instant Camera

   

   1. Ok, so I bought this probably a decade ago, but I only recently started using it again. I forgot how much fun it is to take pictures NOT on your phone! (Also, no, I didn’t take the pics used in this newsletter with it!) I had some really old film, so have been using that up before buying new film. Pics soon!

4. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

   

   1. Really leaning into my nature witch here. This book is from 2016, but I found it recently after seeing a Reel of a woman saying she tells her favorite tree who she’s mad at any given day. Trees are just so fucking rad, man.

5. “Sedate Wood” essential oil

   

   1. This is an oil my acupuncturist used on me once and I was smitten. It’s a mix of blue tansy and chamomile. I smell it and immediately relax my shoulders. I’ll put a few drops on each wrist before bed.

Tell me what you have been enjoying this month in the comments!

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“Every Sagittarius I know is a popular loner. & not popular by choice.”

I saw this thread and immediately related (as a sag sun stellium in the 6H). Me and my 217K followers on Instagram and my four actual friends concur. Because what do you mean I have all these followers but hardly anyone in my actual real life that supports me? It’s lonely for sure, but I’ve tried making new friends. I am only magnetic to those who want something from me.

This happens every so often. I think I’ve found a new friend and they refer to me as their “friend,” only for me to find out that they mean it in the “I call everyone I’ve ever met my ‘friend.’” I die a little inside each time.

I used to pray for friends. As a kid, I preferred one-on-one friend time when everyone else seemed to want group hangs. I also couldn’t understand how people even had a group of friends. Actual friends? Not just acquaintances? Early on, I made a subconscious distinction between friends and acquaintances. For me, friends were people I had a deep connection with; people who I could be completely myself with (and them with me). Acquaintances were people I would see once in a while or hang out with in a group of people. It wasn’t until much later that I realized this isn’t how most people think about friendship. Most people don’t seem to divide people into specific groups.

When I would talk about the difference I felt between friends and acquaintances to my neurotypical friends, it was clear that they didn’t feel the same way. I remember getting upset with friends in the past with how easy friendship seemed to be for them. I still have trouble if friends of mine refer to anyone they ever talked to as a “friend.” It’s hard for me to not roll my eyes. I see this a lot in online spaces, too, where someone will refer to HUNDREDS of people as their “friend,” and it bothers me (even if I’m not in that person’s life). It’s something I frankly don’t understand and I find it demeaning. Friendship is sacred to me, and I can’t envision that sacredness being supported or sustained with more than a five to ten people.

I always prioritize my one-on-one friendship time, however, when I was seventeen I had a group of friends. There were four of us. I’ve written about what happened before, but essentially, they bullied me and I was kicked out of the group. At the time, I thought: “I can only depend on my family. Nobody else.” Granted, I was lucky to have amazing parents and a great older brother to depend on. I still felt isolated and lonely since everyone else my age had friends who seemed to love and care about them. That’s all I ever wanted.

Thankfully, I had areas of socialization outside of school. Primarily, I had dance class. I had class up to four times a week. I began to realize I could get to know the kids there more and hang out with them outside of dance. What a novel idea! This is where I met one of my closest and dearest friends, Anju. We are still friends to this day, and I’m so grateful for the longevity and love.

I’m at a point in my life where I do wish I had more friends—actual friends, not acquaintances—but making new friends in your 40s is tough, especially if you’re neurodivergent. I try to put feelers out there with people I’m interested in for friendship, but I have a very difficult time trusting people, so this is often draining and leads nowhere. People often seem to think I want or expect “too much” from a friendship. People want a person they can weave in and out of—I’m not this person. If people know me from my online following, it’s hard for me to trust that they’re actually interested in me. I have been shown the opposite too often. People will be my friend and ask me to post their stuff (and I do it) and then they slowly disappear. It’s painful every time and I hate myself a little every time.

I have four close friends at the moment (including my partner), but only two live in my city. I text with the other two, but the frequency waxes and wanes. Perhaps this is just friendship in your 40s, but I’ve seen others have consistent friend dates that go far beyond texting.

I am, perhaps, a polarizing person and it takes a very specific person to understand and like me. People will see my Instagram and think I am too ferocious. Maybe I am. But I also know that if you’re my friend, I love you hard and love you forever—and I’m loyal to a fault. I don’t necessarily believe I am difficult to love, but I am not a “happy-go-lucky” person. I am very honest about my pain/trauma and about the collective’s pain/trauma, too. I can’t and won’t do surface-level friendships. Maybe this is why I only have four friends.

I learned early in life that I wasn’t for everyone. This doesn’t mean it’s any less painful as it continues to happen as I age.

Being neurodivergent and unable to have surface-level friends has probably made my life more lonely in some ways, but in others, it has shown me who I really have in my corner. I’m still open for new friends (real, actual friends), but I’m careful and cautious. Please be careful with my heart.

buy my book!

1. The Goal Is Not to Miss You Less - &

2. The Death of Attention -

3. What Cracks Out of You This Week Is Raw, and That Is Why It Is Honest -

4. The Problem With Pema Chodron -

5. Blue Nights and the Sharp Edge of Grief -

6. An Incomplete List of Successful Anti-Data Center Legislation - Matthew Gault

7. Like other ‘drag bans,’ Ohio’s HB 249 is an attack on trans people - Mo Viviane

8. Eid al-Adha in Gaza Isn’t Like It Was Before the Genocide. We Celebrate Anyway. - Shahad Ali

9. Kid Lit is Worth Fighting For - Hal Schrieve

10. this song:

I felt the wave of anxiety first, then came the clammy cold feeling followed by the profuse sweating. “Oh, I know this feeling,” I thought. I got an ice pack from the freeze and dropped to the ground before I could pass out. I stupidly tried to get up too soon and the floaty hot sensation continued. I laid back down. “I can’t believe I’m here again.” It had been six years since I last felt this.

The first time I ever passed out I was in preschool. It was a hot summer day and were inside watching toy trains go around. I just remember slumping against the wall and then being picked up by my teacher and brought to another room. I felt no fear. I came to and got to pick out a stuffed animal to keep. I picked a small goldfish.

Everyone in my family faints—not randomly—typically from overheating, needles, blood, or pain (physical and/or emotional). I was diagnosed with neurocardiogenic syncope (vasovagal syncope) early on. Nothing to do but avoid triggers as much as possible. You can read more about my fainting history here.

For a long time, my biggest fear was fainting in public. Then it happened at work in front of 200 people in 2019. They called an ambulance and asked me which hospital I wanted to be taken to. I groggily asked, “Which is covered by my insurance?” The ambulance ride wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Passing out in public wasn’t scary either, just super uncomfortable. I got through it and people took great care of me, and yet, that experience was still traumatic.

Then, two weeks ago, I found out someone I was best friends with in middle school and part of high school died of brain cancer and it pierced my heart. The following morning, I got up (probably too quickly) and had my latest almost-fainting episode. The following day, I found out another person I know has stage 4 cervical cancer. Ever since my near-fainting incident, I have been stuck in a trauma loop, going backwards to 2019 and forwards to the present. Switching/glitching between the two. Then, I had a nocturnal panic attack this past Tuesday night—another glitch—another trauma. I am afraid to go to sleep and afraid to wake up. I am pinned in a trauma loop. I am pinned in hell.

In moments like these, I have to think there is something I’m supposed to learn. What came to me clearly in one of two nights that I actually slept this week was “triggered is a portal.” Certainly not a new concept, but newer to me.

Being triggered isn’t fun, but it does seem to be a door that opens to somewhere else. I am in the midst of the portal right now. Maybe I’m suspended here for a reason. Maybe I have work to do here before I can get to the other side of it. Maybe the portal is open at this exact time because I’m ready to do more healing around this. I can’t be certain. I can only surrender. I can only continue through the portal until I reach the other side.

This is hard work. It’s work I don’t want to do. It’s ferociously uncomfortable. It’s terrifying. I don’t seem to have a choice, though. I pray to anyone and anything for it to be over soon.

I need a shift that’s sharp like a knife.

Until then, I stay walking through this portal—tired, afraid, anxious, and sad. I hope to get out soon. I hope to see myself laughing and smiling on the other side.

buy my book!

I am really struggling and for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like writing about it publicly.

I’ve heard there is a thing that happens in the first year of your 40s: an initiation of sorts. Things are changing (as they always do) and I am changing, too. I’m second guessing whether I should have tapered down on my Zoloft. I’m anxious about starting, not one, but two new medications. I’ve never been this old before.

Aging is actually hard work.

This past week, I found out one of my best friends in middle school and part of high school died from cancer at age 40. A cancer she had lived with for 15 years. She was also one of the three girls who contributed to bullying me in high school. I always liked her best and faulted her the least for it. For several years, I had thought about reaching out to her, because I missed her and probably wanted some type of closure. Well, now I can’t reach out to her—at least not in this realm. I feel disbelief that she has died. I feel immense sadness.

I then found out that one of my dad’s best friends who recently died from cancer, his 45-year-old daughter now has cancer. Everything about this feels unfair and morbidly funny in its presentation. I mean, are you fucking kidding me right now?

Then I sit here with my own mental and physical health woes, which are not cancer-level, but they are longstanding, and I feel like I should be grateful. And sometimes, I can access that, but this week, I can’t. I just feel immense pain for everyone, including myself. So much of life these days has been about discomfort, dis-ease, grief. I tend to feel more grief in spring, as everything is coming alive versus autumn when everything is dying. Spring is showy, autumn has more substance.

I’ve cried every day this past week. I cried for my old friend. I cried for my dad’s friend’s daughter. I cried because I felt really lightheaded one morning. I cried because my mom wasn’t feeling good. I cried because I was listening to “Thingamajig” by Miya Folick. I cried because I had to get fasting bloodwork done. I cried because I’m scared (but hopeful) to start two new meds. I cried while coloring and watching “Gilmore Girls” because I so badly wanted to live in Stars Hollow and escape myself.

And yes, there are good things in my life. But I am in a moment of immense sadness.

I know most of us are not okay right now—especially those of us living in the U.S. I’m trying to be okay with whatever is here, whatever comes. I dream of a better inner world (for me) and a better outer world for all of us. I wish we’d get there soon.

buy my book!

1. Your illness is not your fault -

2. a disability post: a few words about illness -

3. Histamine is Trying to Get Our Attention -

4. Mothering Is a Verb -

5. ‘The power of organizing’: How Indigenous organizers defeated a mining company at Pe’ Sla - Alexandra Martinez

6. Judge Blocks US Sanctions Against UN Palestine Expert Francesca Albanese - Shireen Akram-Boshar

7. Gen Z but two centuries ago - Emily Herring

8. Mayo Clinic is Using AI to Listen to Emergency Room Visits - Joseph Cox

9. How to Halt a Deportation Flight - Emily Markwiese

10. this will also make you cry:

It has been a week! I’ve really been loving the cooler weather here in southern Wisconsin. It feels like we’re getting an actual spring for once!

I’m slated to start a new medication soon and I’m terrified (more about that maybe at some point). Starting new meds is always extra tough for me with my sensory stuff. I’m crossing my fingers and toes that it goes well and that it’s not traumatizing. Thankfully, Occupational Therapy continues to do wonders for me. In other news, I’m just extra annoyed every time I log into Instagram. I can’t stand the weird gatekeeping I’m seeing around deathwork. I can’t stand seeing people’s greed on full display. I can’t stand a lot of it, so I’m trying to spend less time on there (at least on my main account).

In this week’s newsletter, I’m sharing some media I’ve been consuming (and enjoying) as well as some sensory tools/techniques I’ve been using in Occupational Therapy. Let me know if you enjoy this kind of thing, please!

BOOKS

I was trying to read 55 books this year, but that’s just not going to happen, so now I’m back down to 50. Here are some I’ve read this year so far:

• Patchwork Dolls (2026) - Ysabelle Cheung

  • a debut story collection dealing with identity, technology, and so much more

• My Dreadful Body (translation 2026) - Egana Djabbarova

  • a debut “coming of age” novel about an Azerbaijani woman and her mysterious health issues

• The God of the Woods (2024) - Liz Moore

  • SO GOOD! A teenager vanishes and her younger brother disappeared decades previously, both from the summer camp that their family owns and operates

• Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A ‘90s Rock Memoir (2026) - Melissa Auf der Maur

  • I wrote about some of my issues with this book here, but overall, it was an entertaining read—I think any elder millennial will enjoy it

• Darkrooms (2026) - Rebecca Hannigan

  • another disappearance mystery in a small Irish town—a bit slow to start, but I really liked it

• A Very Cold Winter (translation 2026) - Fausta Cialente

  • set in post-war Milan, a novel about a woman and her family

MUSIC

1. TÄRA - “Mezzaluna” (really been into this rad Palestinian-Italian singer

2. Ecca Vandal - “Bleach” (she’s just so fucking cool and I love her moves)

   3. The Rentals - “It’s Time to Come Home” (not a new song, but a song I cried a lot to in January!

   4. Emma Ruth Rundle - “Real Big Sky” (also not a new song, but one I cried a lot to!)

   5. ROSALÍA - “Divinize” (it’s just so pretty)

   6. Future Islands - “Find Love” (so fun!)

THINGS

• Vibrating Peanut Massage Ball

  • my OT recommended this to me and I love it. I use it for lymphatic draining (just placing it on a specific lymph for a bit) or also I just hold it to my chest and the vibration is calming

• Still Point Inducer™

  • my acupuncturist recommended this. I often have tight/tender occipital lobes, and this can help release that

• Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Ball Pair

  • my OT recommended these to help me feel my breath. I place one on my side (down from my armpit) and breathe and it allows me to feel the side of my diaphragm.

buy my book!

Content Note: mention of sexual assault

I don’t feel my legs. I know they’re there, but I don’t notice them, which is odd, since I’m someone who notices everything within and outside of my body. I only put together this week that this is a trauma response.

In my life’s instances of medical trauma and sexual assault trauma, my legs have stayed still. My body’s way of surviving was to freeze. I didn’t kick my legs, I didn’t thrash. I froze. I laid on my back playing dead like prey.

I got an ocular migraine this week, something I’ve gotten off and since my late 20s. My reaction to these migraines has always been enormous. They feel panic-induing to me. This is also a trauma response. Getting them is also, at least in part, related to C-PTSD. I am easily startled and when the visual cues hit, I feel disoriented and afraid. Then, the next day I tend to feel extremely emotional, tired, and weepy. Both the migraine and the day after are sensations I struggle with, which makes it all that much harder to go through. I’m unable to be as hyper-vigilant when my vision gets skewed and when I’m overtired. I can’t let go. I want to let go, but I also don’t want to let go.

My sensory issues are getting worse as I age—or maybe they’re just becoming more pronounced since I began tapering down on my Zoloft last fall. I don’t want to blunt my feelings, but I’m typically in a state of chronic discomfort and fear. Somatic therapy helps. Acupuncture helps. Occupational therapy helps. Nothing cures it, though. Nothing fixes it. This is just who I am.

I remember being extremely happy twice in my life: the first was between the ages of 0-4 (before my parents divorced) and the second was the first two years of the pandemic—when everything was shut down and I didn’t have the same societal stressors placed on me. I remember being somewhat happy before being bullied at sixteen as well.

I was slated to become someone else, but traumatic things kept happening to me and I lost the former me. I miss her. I grieve for her. I know she is still in there somewhere. I play with this grief: I imagine the person I would have become. I imagine how much easier life could have been. I imagine my sensation signals to my brain as working properly and not feeling overwhelming. I imagine a life not submerged with fear.

Then I chastise myself: “You shouldn’t think about the before you because you can’t go back in time.” But I remember what my dear friend Molly said to me recently in a voice note: “letting ourselves long for that person we were is actually part of our healing or like also part of our grief work, right? It's both.” So I try to hold both. I try to grieve my former, untraumatized self and I try to envision what her life would be like. Then I feel who I am in the present moment—shifting perspectives and lenses—and I try to honor all of it; all of me.

I can’t always feel my legs, but I know they’re strong and they hold me up. They may be still like big tree trunks, but they have gotten me this far. They have held me in the ground of life.

buy my book!

1. Do You Think I’m Being Overdramatic? -

2. What to Do When the Signs Stop - and

3. The Coming Privacy Apocalypse -

4. The elusive body -

5. It’s May – Let’s Plan Our Funerals and Memorial Services -

6. Recenter Yourself, Decenter Men -

7. Protecting your work from AI - Margot Harrington

8. The Banal Horror of Jimmy Fallon - Jon Greenaway

9. The AI Myth of Solomon Fairfax, the “Grim Reaper” of Charleston - Sherronda J. Brown

10. still haunted by this beautiful cover:

Big news in the deathwork world: the infamous Nicole Kidman is training to be a death doula! I think this is great. The more people who have death doula training, the better. I am, however, frustrated and annoyed by how the media is talking about this (and how everyday people continue to misunderstand what a death doula is).

For a refresher: I am a trained death doula (completed my training through Alua Arthur’s fabulous organization, Going With Grace in April 2025). A death doula is a non-medical support person who works with three main categories of people:

1. those who don’t know when they are dying

2. those who have knowledge of when they will die

3. those who have lost a loved one

Services can range from: end of life planning, emotional support for dying person and loved ones, respite for caregivers, legacy & ritual support, and deathwork education and resources

This past week, I saw my death doula colleagues talking about a post on Town & Country Magazine’s Instagram account. The post mentioned Kidman and other famous people who have trained to be death doulas. The comments were pretty obnoxious and ranged from, “THIS IS HOSPICE!” to “the ‘celebrity death doula’ has always felt a bit off, solely for the fact that they’re a celebrity. it reminds me of when celebrities would so ~graciously~ ‘adopt’ kids from africa and have a whole press photo extravaganza about it. something just feels kinda weird.” Reader, I do not see how this comparison works in this person’s head, but oh well.

I read the article, even though I hated the title (“When Did Everyone Suddenly Decide to Become a Death Doula?”). I know writers are not always in control of titling their articles, so I’m trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt. That title sucks though and really makes it sound like people just fall into deathcare training without any forethought. The article cites Tony Award winning actress, Celia Keenan-Bolger, actress Riley Keough, and director Chloé Zhao as other trained “celebrity” death doulas.

Perhaps I’m alone in this, but I don’t think there should be gatekeeping in deathcare. Some of the comments on the Town & Country article definitely pushed a narrative of “celebrities are doing this and it’s ours.” I don’t feel threatened or concerned about Kidman or any other famous person doing death doula training. I personally want more people to do this training and to openly talk about death and dying. We don’t know yet how Kidman will use her training. Maybe I will eat my words if she ends up trying to create some MLM scheme with it. I don’t foresee this, but who knows.

The idea that death doulas are hospice is something I’d like to strike down. Hospice is a great and supportive service, but they are medical professionals and can’t often be with one patient for hours a day. Death doulas hold vigil at a dying person’s bedside for however long it takes. Death doulas run errands for family members or gently nudge family members to take a walk while we sit with the dying person. Death doulas are often "on call” for the duration of a person’s dying process. Death doulas are emotional support entities that customize our care for each person. We do so much and we can absolutely work in tandem with hospice workers.

I’m grateful that a famous person’s journey into deathcare is getting press, because I do think this will help get the word out to the mainstream. It’s unfortunate that so many people still don’t know about death doulas. They know about birth doulas, though (or “full spectrum doulas,” which honestly, should only really be considered “full spectrum” if they are trained in death care, too, but that’s another essay).

In the social media age, many of us see death every day. But are we really looking? Are we really witnessing it or are we just consuming it and becoming desensitized to it? Death doulas struggle with this, too, but we are trained to hold space for the dying. This might be an easier task in person than online. This is why it would behoove everyone to learn more about death and dying. It is a profound honor to sit with dying people. It is a profound honor to watch someone take their last breath. It is a profound honor to see death and dying online, too. We need to act like it.

If you or a loved one are dying or wanting to develop an end of life plan, I URGE you to seek out a death doula. There are so many amazing people out there doing this work!

buy my book!

1. As more universities agree to immigration enforcement on campus, students are fighting back - Julia Luz Betancourt

2. New Flotilla Shows Palestinians in Gaza That the World Has Not Abandoned Us - Eman Abu Zayed

3. Why are men so fucked up? -

4. my “therapy jeff” thoughts (icymi)

5. Have We Entertained Ourselves Into a State of Emergency? - Megan Garber

6. App Stores Push Users Toward Nudify Apps, New Research Shows - Samantha Cole

7. What Trump’s Trade War Is Doing to America’s Farmers - Max Burns

8. Power and Abuse in the United Farm Workers - Nahomi Linda Esquivel

9. Toward Radical Futures: An interview with author M. E. O’Brien - Ly Rosengard

10. new Hunx and His Punx!

Ciao ciao! Happy Friday, dearest readers!

Life has been life-ing (possibly due to all the planets and Chiron in Aries?) and I feel exhausted. I’m used to just trying to survive and not really living, but this feels a bit extra. I’m hanging in there. I hope you are, too.

I am (yet again) thinking of moving off of Substack. With all the nazi platforming and racism, I’m feeling the pull again to get off of this ride. You might remember that I tried moving to Buttondown at one point, but I didn’t like it, so I came back. I’m now leaning towards Patreon and have started setting things up over there. Although, I may cry at the fact that it doesn’t appear they have a way to import posts. I can’t afford the monthly cost of Ghost or Beehiv, hence the lean towards Patreon.

I am tired of Substack being social media lite. I don’t want nor do I need more social media in my life. I like the idea of having a Patreon where I can have a private space for my patrons and myself.

I have contacted Patreon for help in moving my subscriber list (because it’s not a seamless process). I’ve also created some new tiers there:

1. Amethyst: Access to my weekly newsletter/blogletter!

   1. $5/month

2. Emerald: Access to all writing backlog and member chat

   1. $7/month

3. Ruby: Everything from the other tiers plus a seasonal quarterly zine/newsletter

   1. $10/month

Does this pricing feel reasonable to you? Would you continue to be a paid subscriber (or even start becoming one)?

I’m really trying to make my writing “take off” at least as a solid side hustle! I mean, in an ideal world, it would be my “full-time” job, but I don’t think this will happen. I also know times are hard (extremely hard) and money is scarce for many of us. I would be open to folks even paying $1/month if that’s all someone can afford.

If/when I do leave this platform, that also means I will probably stop paying for other Substacks (even though I read a lot of them). I feel a bit sad about this because I want to keep supporting people, but I also don’t want to keep supporting Substack.

I will alert everyone when I make the move, which hopefully will not have to be done manually as there are over 8K of you (!!!)

Anyway, thank you for being with me as I change/grow/evolve and thank you for giving me grace as I navigate all of this!

buy my book!

1. Sex and STIs in Aging Adults -

2. Ghost Deer -

3. Labor rights activists navigate what César Chávez sexual abuse allegations mean for their movement - Michelle Zacarias

4. War Pollutants May Be Poisoning a Generation of Mothers and Their Babies in Gaza - Eman Abu Zayed

5. I Almost Lost My Mind in the Bridal Algorithm - Samantha Cole

6. On the Systematic Annihilation of Gaza’s Educational Future - Taqwa Ahmed Alwawi

7. Women’s Experiences Dominated Book Bans Last Year - Marium Zahra

8. You’ve lived this life before - Mark Higgins

9. Women’s “Fatal Flaw” Has Always Been Their Humanity - Marcie Bianco

10. my sweetie sent me this ❤️

A QUICK POLL! PLEASE ANSWER:

I write about this in my book, but let me contextualize things: I was born in 1985 and became a teenager in the late 90s. When my dad bought the first Dell desktop computer for his house, I used it to frequent message boards of bands I liked at the time: The Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and Weezer, respectively. I regret not being born earlier so I could be a part of the Riot Grrrl music and zine era. I did, eventually, find Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, and Bratmobile.

But alas, initially, I had Billy Corgan, Shirley Manson, and Rivers Cuomo. I found Hole, too, through a friend that I honestly was a bit afraid of. She was someone who didn’t abide by any rules, attempted suicide in middle school, and had sex for the first time when she was 13. She introduced me to Bikini Kill and Hole. I devoured every cd available of both bands.

I have followed Kathleen Hanna (lead singer of Bikini Kill (Le Tigre, The Julie Ruin) and Courtney Love (lead singer of Hole) since I first found out about them. Courtney’s snarl and Kathleen’s high-pitched scream taught me that women could sound however we wanted. Neither woman was obsequious. I dove into the personal lives of these women, read all the rumors about them on internet message boards, and eventually read their books. I have perhaps been a bit more of a fan of Kathleen’s than Courtney’s, but I still love Courtney’s music.

Recently, Courtney Love was on Billy Corgan’s video podcast. How could I not watch?

Courtney is famous for her tangents and she goes on plenty in this conversation, but overall, this is probably the first interview I’ve seen of her where she seems the most clear. Billy is famous for his pretentiousness, and boy, does he not disappoint here. If you love hearing men talk over women, watch this!

Both of them are irritating and the conversation feels more like two people having two separate conversations that sometimes intersect. However, my 15-year-old self could not turn away. Courtney talks about her childhood and her dad giving her LSD between the ages of 3 and 6. Her mother, Linda Carroll, was adopted by a rich Italian family (and her best friend was US coffee heiress Abigail Folger). Courtney grew up somewhat wealthy and had a small trust fund. In this interview she says, “I’m pretty class neutral, because I’ve been all the things.” Courtney’s mother was abandoned by her biological mother, Courtney was abandoned by her mom, and Frances (Courtney’s daughter) was abandoned by Courtney. The “mother wound” in this matrilineal line runs deep.

The personal history between Billy and Courtney is lengthy and chaotic. According to Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, Courtney left Billy for Kurt and Billy was extremely hurt. Others say she continued an affair with Billy while married to Kurt. Both have lashed out at each other in multiple instances. Courtney got mad at him for not attending her daughter’s 16th birthday. In 2010 (though I can’t find where), he apparently said: “I have no interest in supporting [Love] in any way, shape or form. You can't throw enough things down the abyss with a person like that.” When Hole’s album “Nobody’s Daughter” was released, Billy went a Twitter rant aimed at Courtney for including two songs he wrote that he didn’t give her permission to use. Eventually, the two reconciled.

I always liked Hole, but I didn’t always like Courtney. Of course I didn’t like how she was treated by the media (or by a variety of people), and at the same time she seemed more interested in fame and glamor and I couldn’t get behind that. Grunge was about being against those things—she celebrated them and wanted to be (and became) a Hollywood star.

In the above interview, Billy says that he thinks the Riot Grrrls hated Courtney because she was a “class traitor.” Maybe that’s true. My gripe with Courtney and Hole is that she so clearly wanted to be “one of the boys” and fit in within grunge boy bands. Meanwhile, Riot Grrrl bands were more interested in creating their own spaces and not continuing with the status quo of male rockstars. Hole/Courtney wanted equality with men; Riot Grrrl wanted liberation from men.

When I finished reading Melissa Auf der Maur’s memoir, which was interesting and well written, I mostly just came across thinking worse of Auf der Maur. She writes of wanting to be a guidepost for “women in rock” and yet most every band she cites as a favorite is fronted by a man. There was a lot of, what I found to be, “pick-me” behavior from her. She was so young when she joined Hole, so I’m trying to give her grace around this, but it really did irk me. She left Hole to join The Smashing Pumpkins so Billy could “teach” her. So forgive me if I find her lack of respect for Riot Grrrl and Kathleen Hanna anything other than misplaced, internalized sexism and misogyny. She doesn’t say a lot about Riot Grrrl, but she doesn’t discuss the infamous Lollapalooza incident. More on that later.

Courtney has continuously made fun of Riot Grrrl as a movement and the individuals who were a big part of it. She claims she didn’t fit in with Riot Grrrl because she was “ambitious,” which I heavily side-eye here (Riot Grrrl musicians were also ambitious, tf?). She also claims the Riot Grrrl movement was a press invention. Which is odd, considering Riot Grrrl had a complete “media blackout” at one point. Courtney also remarked:

I saw this little riot grrrl in Spin who was holding a little magazine called Princess. She’s 15, but everything in her little riot grrrl world - like Hello Kitty products - is telling her to act like she’s seven. That’s not feminism, it’s cultural anorexia.

This is an interesting thing to say from someone who consistently wore babydoll dresses and Mary Jane shoes with frilly white socks. Seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Courtney is contradictory and she’s allowed to be because it’s a big part of her “brand.”

There is also the whole Courtney Love-punched-Kathleen Hanna-at-Lollapolooza thing. For decades, a rumor surfaced that Courtney punched Kathleen after Kathleen had said, “Where’s Frances? In the closet with all the needles?” or some variation. Melissa Auf der Maur writes in her memoir that Eric Erlandson (Hole’s guitarist) cheekily said to Courtney, “Hey, Courtney, give Kathleen some candy.” Then:

Without missing a beat, Courtney grabs the candy, approaches the group, and raises her arm. She releases a handful of candies with a catlike hiss, letting them cascade down like a sweet waterfall onto one of the women… [Kathleen Hanna’s] response to Courtney’s animal act is a verbal attack, ‘I challenge you to a feminist debate in any college in America!’

Auf der Maur goes on to share her pity and discontent with how Courtney is viewed from this incident.

In Kathleen Hanna’s memoir, she says about this event:

I saw Courtney Love walking toward me throwing candy from a basket. She was flanked by two large dudes and she seemed wasted… My instincts told me not to make eye contact with her. Courtney got in my face and started hissing like a cat and reaching out like she was going to claw me. She began screaming stuff at me like ‘Bye bye! Are you leaving now Kathleen? Go home and feed the poor.’ Then she dropped a sweater in front of me and bent down to grab it. As she stood up, she cold clocked me in the face. I fell down, put my hands up to my cheek, and felt blood. From the ground, I yelled, ‘I will debate you at the college of your choice!’ Courtney yelled back something like, ‘You can’t even read, and I’m way more feminist than you!’

Courtney was charged with battery for the incident.

I don’t want to come across as a Courtney hater, but I will also admit that I’m extremely biased towards Kathleen Hanna—not just with this incident (why would she lie about being punched?), but just generally. I don’t appreciate the perpetual shitting on Riot Grrrl either. There were obviously issues with Riot Grrrl. It was extremely white, probably racist, and transphobic. However, you can’t deny its imprint on feminism.

What was most interesting to me about Auf der Maur’s memoir was:

1. her photography background

2. she didn’t like Hole’s music when she joined (gasp!)

3. at 19/20 she fucked Billy Corgan and he said some totally Billy Corgan shit afterward, “I am you and you are me.”

4. Dave Grohl was the first person to make her orgasm

5. she often refers to Billy and Courtney as her “grunge parents”

6. she had to deal with so much shit joining Hole only a few months after Kurt Cobain killed himself and previous Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff overdosed. pretty much everyone was on heroin and in mourning when she joined and she was the sole grounding presence

Both the podcast interview with Courtney and Melissa’s memoir were a pleasurable and entertaining 90s throwback

At the end of the day, all of these people were quite young in the 90s and just doing what they thought was best or at the very least, trying to survive amongst their own demons.

buy my book!

1. This is No Way to Live - Kelly Hayes

2. XX. On Want -

3. Resisting Zionism’s Erasure: Molly Crabapple and the Jewish Bund - Molly Crabapple

4. Fighting Cancer Has Given Me New Insights on the Anti-Fascist Challenge We Face - Amisha Patel

5. The U.S.-Israeli war on mental health in Iran: What will happen after the shaky ceasefire? - Kourosh Ziabari

6. The Sting of Comrade Hornet: When Korea’s president staged a coup, feminists, queers, and K-pop fans swarmed the barricades to join the labor movement - Youbin Kang

7. Here’s what to say—and not say—to someone who is grieving, according to a death doula - Meghan Cook

8. Chicago Turns All Public School IDs Into Library Cards To Boost Student Access - Michael Liptrot

9. Patterns without desires: The art expert is the fulcrum of all value and significance in the museum and auction world. Could AI supplant them? - Noah Charney

10. this song:

Whenever I’m asked if I’ve had an eating disorder, I’m unsure how to answer. While, yes, I stopped eating for a time at sixteen because of trauma, it wasn’t to get thin—it was because I was afraid of food hurting me. There wasn’t a name for this when I was going through it in the 90s. Nowadays, this would probably be ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder).

I was a ballerina for 13 years and certainly had some unhealthy views from that area of my life, but generally, I didn’t ever think about my body—unless I was ill. I wasn’t even really cognizant of having a body until the events of age sixteen. After getting extremely ill and not being able to eat, I had the thought, “Oh, wow, so this is my body. This fucking sucks.” Ever since then, I can’t stop thinking about my body.

It was only this week in therapy that I realized I’m actually quite triggered by seeing thinness and glp-1 weight loss adds everywhere. Seeing famous women, who were already thin, looking deflated with full lips stuck to their faces is sending me into a tornado of bad thoughts that I never thought I’d come back to. Witnessing some people on social media saying these women look “great” is making me want to spoon out my eyeballs.

“Choice Feminism” tells us that anything is feminist so long as a woman chooses it. This “type” of feminism is not actually feminism, but it’s what a lot of liberal women cling to when they themselves don’t feel good about their own choices. “This was my choice and it makes me feel good” is never to be questioned. We’re never supposed to talk about how a woman looks, but the uncanny valley of it all needs to be discussed. “Mar-a-Lago face” is a thing, after all. But even amongst liberal women, the idea that filler, Botox, and more invasive procedures is just a thing you do to make you feel better is increasing. Cosmetic surgery and weight loss medication is not just for the upper echelon of society anymore. Anyone can get access and they do. Botox has become so normalized that you’re considered unusual if you don’t have it.

As a 40-year-old woman, this all concerns me. It concerns me for what it’s already doing to our brains as we see it cascade down on our social media scrolling. We are witnessing the obliteration of women’s faces in real time. We are watching the shrinking of women in real time to the point where it feels normalized.

They say menopause is a second puberty and I’m wondering if that’s why so much of this is triggering to me now as I enter perimenopause. I was lucky to not have this affect me so acutely during initial puberty, but now? I’m older, my body is changing, I feel weird and scared about it, and seeing women my age (or older) with their bones sticking out and the buccal fat sucked from their faces has wrecked me.

We have to be able to talk about these things without people screaming, “Never talk about a woman’s body!” If we don’t talk about the current body fascism that is happening, it will continue to be normalized and more girls and women will suffer.

I’m tired of seeing thin women everywhere. I’m tired of a body ideal that has already caused so much harm coming back to haunt and instruct in the present moment.

buy my book!

1. I watched this chaotic “interview” that Billy Corgan did with Courtney Love and jfc… it was entertaining, but also Billy is still a pretentious douche and Courtney still hates Riot Grrrl, which I’ve never understood (is it really just because Tobi Vail dated Kurt first?)

2. Selling Survival - Sabrina Hersi Issa

3. Twenty micro unmaskings -

4. Libraries Are Becoming Telehealth Hubs in Rural New Mexico - Margaret O’Hara

5. ‘BLOCKADE’: The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning - Claire Woodcock

6. An Existential Threat to Organized Labor’s Ability to Help People -

7. Unfracking Your Attention -

8. Israel institutes death penalty only for Palestinians - Hassan Abo Qamar

9. Trans People Behind Bars Share How They Are Navigating the Dangers of Visibility - Gabriel Arkles

10. this song:

The Guerrilla Feminist: A Search for Belonging Online & Offline by Lachrista Greco
Cover design: Jenna Blazevich
Publisher: Iskra Books

My memoir is one years old! I can’t believe it! I still can’t believe it’s out in the world. Thank you so much to everyone who has bought a copy or got one from their local library. Your support means everything. If you would like to leave a review on Goodreads, I would be ever so glad!

On this one-year birthday of my book, I’m doing a q&a—responding to questions from folks on Instagram/Threads and in my dms! Let’s go!

1. How did the book come to be?
   I created “Guerrilla Feminism” in 2011 on Facebook [you can read about that here]. By 2015, I had a lit agent, who wanted me to write a very different book than what I ended up writing. She wanted me to write about digital activism, which, for the time, would have made sense. I never wanted to write that book because as a white cis woman I didn’t want to write a prescriptive “how-to” on any type of activism. The lit agent finally acquiesced to my wanting to write a memoir about my life, but also my history of being chronically online in feminist spaces. Then, after I spoke up more about Palestine after the events of Oct. 7, 2023, the lit agent coincidentally dropped me. This was freeing as I had attempted to stop working with her. This memoir took me a full decade to write. By 2024, I was largely finished with it and asked on Threads whether anyone was interested in publishing it. Iskra Books reached out and that was that!

2. How did you choose/narrow down the themes of of your life to include in the book?
   I know that a lot of this book was going to revolve around my life on the internet and social media from 2000 to current. Particularly, the “Guerrilla Feminist” years from 2011-2015. I also knew I wanted to weave this theme of belonging/not belonging throughout, since this has been a major theme of my lived experience. As a Capricorn moon in the 7th House, I also knew I would write a lot about relationships, as they are my biggest teachers in this lifetime. I didn’t really have to narrow down much, if anything. When I looked back through my life, there was a definite pathway. I shared a lot and that was intentional.

   

3. You write a lot about the internet and social media. Are the two synonymous?
   They’re not, but I think many of us use them interchangeably. When I think of the “internet,” I think of 90s message boards, Googling things, and online shopping. Social media is its own messy section of the internet. In the last decade, social media has really overtaken people’s time online.

4. What was the hardest part about writing this book?
   The ✨Trauma✨. Honestly, I clung to this Mary Karr quote while I was writing it: “Writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it's done right.” Because, yes, that was exactly what it felt like. I’m not saying I necessarily did it “right,” but reliving my life, and specifically reliving a lot of traumatic things did feel a bit like punching myself in the face over and over again. Thankfully, I met with my somatic therapist every week while finishing this book. I suppose the content is why it took me ten years to finish. I had to keep taking breaks and coming back to it. Even though the trauma of it all was difficult, it also just felt like it fell out of me. It was cathartic, messy, shitty, empowering, and all the things!

5. The book is about belonging (both online and offline) and you don’t really end the it with any closure (which I liked!). How did you decide this?

   Yes. I hopefully showed that I did find belonging in spaces online (and off), but I still often don’t feel like I belong in many spaces. The book ends with me saying:

   “I am still toying with the idea of deleting my Instagram. I am still trying to figure out what to do or where to go next. I don’t want to be an influencer or a social media creator. Although, I still long for community and belonging in any way I can get it, and there is a lot of it on online spaces. This chaotic internet playground is vastly different from the one I first played on. The rules and people are different. I don’t want us to be lost to each other when social media apps eventually disappear. My desire for belonging has shifted over time, and I’m sure it will shift again. The belonging I’ve spent my entire life searching for has always brought me back to myself. Maybe the internet is bringing us back to ourselves. Perhaps it’s our innate humanness that continues hunting and prowling for each other.”

   For some readers, this kind of ending might feel like a let down, but for me, it’s just more realistic than trying to tidy everything together and say, “Look at me now! I belong!” The book does not end with closure, because my life does not have closure.

Thanks so much to all of you who have supported my work over the years—from the early GF days in 2011 to now! I appreciate you forever!

buy my book!

1. César Chávez’s shadow- Tina Vásquez

2. With Gaza’s Libraries in Ruins, Palestinians Fight to Preserve Historical Memory - Eman Abu Zayed

3. How Black Women Continue to Shape American Democracy - Irene Monroe

4. Abandoning Ourselves: Since living requires choosing, we will always feel regret about the paths not taken. But what matters is the future we forge - Tasha Kleeman

5. The Art of Grieving in Public - &

6. I Escaped Bluebeard’s Castle. Lindy West Didn’t. -

7. The Coming Storm – the economic crisis resulting from the War on Iran -

8. Straight Men Are Now Banned From Polyamory. -

9. The harm caused when therapists don’t tell you what they’re really thinking -

10. this one:

Some things:

• I had my first Occupational Therapy session last week for my Sensory Processing Disorder and omg it was amazing. Found out that I have a motor issue with my eyes (my right eye comes in sooner than my left when looking at things, which I may have had my entire life but is now giving me grief). She taught me a way to feel safe in my body by breathing with a yoga ball under my side on my diaphragm. She also taught me a foot thing with the same yoga ball to “feel my feet” and ground. I’m excited for my next time!

• I have been following a lot of the Lindy West discourse on Threads this week. West published a new collection of essays, but before this came out, an NYT interview did which made her spouse sound extremely shitty, essentially sounding like he coerced her into (non) ethical polyamory. After this and seeing West’s odd and misplaced anger/defensiveness on Instagram towards her readers, I have no desire to read the book. West and her husband seem to think people are upset with the polyamory of it all—but that’s not what I’ve been seeing. I’m seeing readers upset about West’s shitty husband and her vapid denigration of Roya (the gf), saying how great it is to have another person to wash the dishes (literally). Perhaps West is truly happy and that’s great, but again, the way she writes about her husband makes him and the entire relationship sound incredibly heartbreaking. Her husband has been in and out of people’s comments and I’ll just say… as someone who has also written a memoir, one of the worst things you can do once it’s out in the world is get in the trenches with readers who are critiquing it (or have your loved ones do this) when you weren’t invited to do so. I could probably write a whole piece about this entire thing, but I also don’t want fuel the hate West is getting. It’s cool to critique things. It’s not cool to harass people.

• Really resonated with this because wtf are we doing? We’re seriously going to pretend the OBVIOUS is not happening? I am tired of seeing stick-thin women everywhere I look. Absolutely my least favorite thing that happened in the 90s.

Also, I didn’t watch The Oscars, it’s not my speed, but I was overcome with joy for Michael B. Jordan winning “Best Actor.” He deserved it and I’m so glad Timmy didn’t win.

• Last night, I spoke at UW-Madison’s Gender & Women’s Studies Alumni book club since they read excerpts from my book! It was a cozy evening and everyone had such lovely things to say. Great questions were asked and a lively discussion was had! Thanks y’all!

• I’m reading Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan and it’s really good!

• I’m still trying to grow my death doula offering. If you’re interested, check it out here.

• WI finally passed Gail’s Law, which requires insurers to cover supplemental breast screenings. I wish this would have passed before I had to spend $500 to get a diagnostic mammogram after my screening mammogram in January.

• New breakfast hyper fixation:

  • piece of thick wheat sourdough toast

  • half an avocado mashed with 1/2 cup cannellini beans, a tbsp of vinegar, salt & pepper

  • a jammy egg on top

buy my book!

1. Why Libraries Matter in a Fascist Moment - Kelly Hayes

2. Your Moon Is Not Just Your Feelings (It Is Your Nervous System’s Regulation Language) -

3. How to stay sane in the skinny apocalypse -

4. Arab Mother’s Day opens fresh wounds in Gaza amid the genocide - Esraa Abo Qamar

5. Tehran Residents’ Social Media Offer Nightmarish Glimpse of Humanitarian Crisis - Kourosh Ziabari

6. An Antifascist Education: Black women’s radicalism has been fascism’s enemy for 200 years - Jeanelle K. Hope

7. Bitch: a history: The word can morph from noun to verb to adjective, from dog to human, from female to male. What will it do next? - Karen Stollznow

8. Tinder Plans to Let AI Scan Your Camera Roll - Megan Farokhmanesh

9. How a Minneapolis childcare center survived the ICE surge – and is moving forward - Jeffrey R. Young

10. my online pilates class used this song recently and it’s cute:

I feel like a pharmacist—I measure out my Zoloft as precisely as I can. I use my trusty pill cutter that has been with me since I started this medication twenty-three years ago. I have a prescription for 50mg (blue) and 25mg (green). My previous 100mg were yellow. The pastel colors make it feel like a game. Is this the adult version of “Candy Land”? I try to do the math in my head, but my dyscalculia laughs at me. With the help of my psychiatrist, I realize that I should take one of the 50s, one of the 25s, and one half of another 25. I carefully line up the green 25mg pill in the cutter and slice. I throw the two and a half pills in my mouth and guzzle water. I have chosen to taper down on my SSRI during societal collapse.

I notice more than I ever have before. Where do you hide when you’re afraid of your senses? What’s a girl to do when her entire body feels like a bomb that could explode at any second? What happens when that bomb does explode? Will there be people to help with the carnage? Do you know what it’s like to fear moving even the slightest inch, because what if it shakes something loose that you can never get back?

I was put on Zoloft at age sixteen. I say “put on” because I wasn’t necessarily forced, but I didn’t exactly consent either. I had been bullied and ostracized by my three best friends and I wasn’t able to digest the trauma. I started feeling sick every time I ate. I became afraid of food. I had an abdominal ultrasound done which just showed a lot of gas. I was out of school for four months. My pediatrician put me on a liquid diet. I started to reintroduce solids, but was still wary of food causing me pain. My doctor then gave me a prescription for Zoloft. My parents did what they thought was best: had me take the medication and go to cognitive behavioral therapy. I was ready to die, so I acquiesced.

I was never told how difficult it would be to decrease this medication. As someone who had original diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, and Sensory Processing Disorder at sixteen, I’m realizing that what I really have is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and you can’t medicate away C-PTSD (or SPD for that matter). PTSD is a one-time event. C-PTSD is surviving in an ongoing, consistent traumatic environment or having multiple back-to-back traumas. I had compounded and varied trauma from the age of 3 onwards. I learned physical pain early due to recurrent UTIs and ear infections. My parents divorced when I was four, and my mom began a relationship with a butch lesbian cop (ACAB). In third grade, I was diagnosed with two learning disabilities (dyscalculia and language processing disorder). Then, at sixteen, I had the traumatic friend incident which got me put on meds.

As an adult, I have had a multitude of traumatic incidences, primarily sexual assaults, which didn’t help the already existing C-PTSD from my childhood. Everything I do, everything I am is at least partially related to having experienced too much ongoing trauma in my formative years. It’s hard to exist in an already difficult world with a gaping, open wound. It’s hard to exist in a world that sees me and women like me as “crazy” or “mad.” However, I do not apologize for how I show up in this lifetime. Much of it was not really my choice.

At eighteen, my medication care was transferred to a psychiatrist, Dr. Collins. She was nice and mousey. She wore glasses and was probably in her forties when I started seeing her. I wanted to please her. As a child who was diagnosed with two learning disabilities, I learned early that authoritative figures (namely teachers, but also doctors) found me frustrating because I needed more time, different directions, and accommodations. I would contort myself into compliance, but even that wasn’t enough for adults to like me. I wondered what Dr. Collins thought of me. Was I a “good” patient? It didn’t occur to me until my late thirties how much power a psychiatrist actually has.

Historically, women psychiatric patients have been treated poorly (we still are in many ways). Women have been pathologized for any and everything. Initially, there was the diagnosis of “Hysteria.” The word means “uterus” in Greek. The “symptoms” were anything from anxiety to infertility. Later, lobotomies began which were done primarily on women, even though men were institutionalized at higher rates1. All women who spoke up or stood up against, specifically men, though really anyone, were thought to be mentally ill and their “treatment” was anything that would make them more docile, more malleable, more suitable to a white cishetero patriarchal society.

Nobody wants to be “mad” or “crazy” or any other subversion to what is considered mentally well. I was, and still am, a mostly compliant patient. I’ve never hidden pills or not taken them. I’m prescribed Xanax as well and am careful to only take the correct amount; not because it’s a powerful benzo, but rather I don’t want it taken from me. I don’t want Dr. Collins to think I’m being shifty. I don’t want to be found non-compliant or criminal.

In the spring of 2025, I had a meeting with my psychiatrist. She didn’t affirm what I was saying. I mentioned being on a “fairly high dose” of Zoloft and she stopped to correct me: “Your dose is not high.” Ok, well, 100mg for 23 years feels significant. And what’s worse is, it hasn’t felt like it has been working for at least the last six to ten years.

In late summer, I saw a post on Threads from someone who said they did a genetic test called GeneSight. The test shows which psychotropic drugs would work best for a person. It’s not a perfect science, but many patients have had good outcomes with this test. The test sorts medications into three columns: green, yellow, and red. “Red” is the column you don’t want to take anything from, “yellow” is okay, with some caveats, and “green” is supposed to be the best. I asked Dr. Collins if I could do this test. It’s not offered everywhere, but I noticed that someone administered it at her clinic. She told me I could do the test and that the only reason she never brought it up to me was due to cost (insurance of course does not cover it).

The test showed Zoloft in the yellow column for me. I found out that I’m not metabolizing the medication as well as I could or should be. The test also showed that I might feel better on a lower dose. I had felt mostly stable, but still with a shit ton of anxiety. It didn’t feel like the 100mgs of Zoloft was doing anything, especially when I compared it to how I felt the first five years I was on it.

Dr. Collins and I finally talked about lowering my Zoloft dose. I was scared she would say no. She had the authority, after all. As psychiatric patients, we are often treated like criminals. Our words never seem good enough. We are deemed untrustworthy. There is a dance one must do during psychiatry sessions. You want to be honest, but you don’t want to be too honest that you get a 51502 placed on you. Suicide is still referred to as “committing” a crime. We are “bad” or “wrong” if we die by our own hands. We are “bad” or “wrong” if we don’t take our meds. We are “bad” or “wrong” if we deign to question the psychiatrist’s judgment of us.

Dr. Collins agreed that I could start to decrease my Zoloft. She wanted me to go down by 25mg, which is the standard tapering that many doctors abide by. The problem with this is that decreasing by 25mg is actually too much. If you’ve been on an SSRI for several years, a much slower decrease is needed. Still, she had the final say. She asked me, “Why don’t you start with 25mg and see how to goes and and if we have to, we can decrease it to 12.5mg?” I didn’t want to “see how it goes.” Everything I read online from other folks doing this (and from my own instincts), I knew a 25mg decrease would be far too much. I pushed back, knowing full well that she could say “no.” Thankfully, she relented. I have to hold down a job and other responsibilities. I can’t be feeling like shit all of the time. There is no rush anyways so what was the point of trying to make me decrease quickly?

Thus, in August of 2025, I started my initial 12.5mg decrease. It was an already stressful time and I had months of back-to-back ocular migraines. I also cried every day–a weeping that just never seemed to end and came on out of nowhere. As a person who is used to crying (I find it regulating and just happens), this was different. I felt like a leaky faucet that was perpetually on. My second decrease happened in mid-December. I had a much easier time with this one. Interestingly, I currently feel similar to how I felt before I started tapering. Was this medication really not doing anything for the last several years? It hurts to think about that. With everything going on in the world, I have been able to handle it all. I am not floundering. I am not afraid to leave my house (most days). I am doing the things I need to in order to take care of myself.

I feel resentful about being placed on this med in the first place. I know I needed it, and it did save my life, but no one explained to me how hard it would be to decrease the dose or attempt to go completely off of it. I’m also resentful that my psychiatrist, who is actually one of the better ones, didn’t check in with me about decreasing after I had been on it for three or five years. Now, here I am, having been on this medication for 23 years. I have never known an adult version of me without it. I feel an unexplainable grief about this. It’s like the person I was growing into at sixteen was a different person than the one I did grow into once I had the traumatic events and medication. I don’t know who I was supposed to be and I desperately want to know her.

It feels incredibly tender knowing that someone else is in charge of my mental health care–someone who may not have their own lived experience with this; someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to be seen as “crazy,” “non-compliant” or “criminal.” I feel terrified knowing that someone could deem me “unfit” and put me somewhere against my will. There is a slight performance I must do in order to appear “healthy” and “functional” in front of my psychiatrist. I am mostly doing ok, good, even, but everyone who knows this dance, knows the delicacy with which we have to move in these spaces. It’s not fair.

I could wax on and on about the systemic issues in mental health care/non-care in this country. I could talk forever about how we desperately need more community structures in place for us “mad” people. I’m exhausted by it all, though, and I’m just trying to survive right now. I wish we could all have what we need. I wish we all could exist without worrying about how we fit into (or don’t fit into) capitalist society. I wish we all had access to genetic testing and communal care. What if we had the autonomy to decide which medications we wanted to be on? What if people on psychotropic drugs wouldn’t get in trouble for not taking their meds? What if we had a society that had social systems in place to care for us all? That is the world I dream of.

I wish there was help without restraints.

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1. Freedom for Immigrants launches interactive map to track U.S. detention centers and connect families to resources - Alexandra Martinez

2. Afghan Refugees in Iran Fled One War Zone Only to End Up in Another - Emran Feroz

3. The Eyes of the Occupation: Israel drones controlled life in Southern Lebanon. Now they’re bombing fleeing families - Lylla Younes

4. Does culture make emotion?: Franz Boas helps us solve the puzzle of where our emotional lives originate: in our selves or in the cultures around us - Noga Arikha

5. War, Revolt, and Iran’s Unfinished Struggle - Sahasranshu Dash and Siyavash Shahabi

6. What Was Lost: A Queer Accounting of the NY Times Book Review, 2013-2022 - Sandy Ernest Allen

7. On (Not) Making People Puke - Jas M. Morgan

8. ‘AI Is African Intelligence’: The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back - Jason Koebler

9. The Fight for Palestine in Higher Education Continues, Despite Institutional Backlash - Owen Jakel

10. this Aldous Harding song:

I have been feeling things. My interoception is in overdrive and has been nearly my entire life. I was intimately acquainted with physical pain starting at the age of 3 from recurrent UTIs and ear infections. My body has encoded this pain and, in turn, I do not know how to live without noticing and feeling everything intensely.

I have trouble feeling hungry, feeling full, feeling overtired, feeling relaxed, feeling pretty much anything. Currently, I have felt extremely visually overstimulated. I notice my floaters and they annoy me. I notice light/dark changes when I go outside and it’s upsetting. I don’t know how to feel (or notice sensations) without them cascading all over me.

On Instagram this week, I mentioned starting Occupational Therapy for my Sensory Processing Disorder. This feels like a last-ditch effort to find some reprieve. I did Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for 20 years before realizing it was harming me. Then I switched to Somatic Therapy, which I’m still doing and very much enjoy, but I feel like I need something else.

I’m starting OT next week and I’m excited and nervous. I hope it can help me find an easier way to live this already difficult life. My 5-year-old nephew also sees an OT. He is a sensory seeker whereas I am a sensory avoider. Maybe I’ll talk to him about it someday.

After I told my therapist that I’ve been feeling visually overstimulated, she asked me how it feels to notice other sensations: touch, smell, taste, hearing. I had a realization that the sensation of touch for me doesn’t always register. I don’t always notice what I’m touching. I don’t feel into it. For my entire life, I’ve never liked touching myself—in any way. Touching myself means knowing I have a body. Touching myself means tracing where pain has lived. As a survivor of assault and medical trauma, this isn’t surprising, but it has been eye-opening.

I feel underdeveloped in touch (I only notice touch when it’s extreme—like pain or discomfort—which also may be why BDSM has been healing for me), overdeveloped in sight (I see too much and scan my surroundings too often), and unsure about where auditory and taste fall.

I’m trying to slowly notice my senses beyond just my sight. I’m trying to experiment with touch. What happens when I touch something soft? What happens when I touch something jagged? What do these textures make me feel in my body? When I hold hands with my partner, do I feel his hand? When I touch my partner’s cats, do I feel their purring?

How can I live in this body, in this life, without my sensations burying me?

buy my book!

1. Worshipping at the Altar of Robyn: We invited musicians, artists, and tastemakers to ask the elusive pop legend anything—absolutely anything. - Cat Zhang

2. Who is Chinatown for? -

3. There are no psychopaths: Virtually everything you think you know about psychopathy has been thoroughly debunked. Why does this zombie idea live on? - Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen

4. Company Helps Men Scrub Negative Posts About Them from Tea App - Emanuel Maiberg

5. The First Anti-Crossdressing Laws -

6. Menopause, Writer’s Block, and Being a Late Bloomer - Roxane Gay

7. “Paying attention makes me feel alive.” -

8. Some Wisconsin libraries are struggling for funds due to inflation, budget shortfalls - Steph Conquest-Ware

9. How to engage with fucking gross shit. -

10. been crying to this song (and loving it):

This is an old post with some updates! I figured it was timely since the Winter Olympics have been going on!

Growing up, I was obsessed with figure skating. I probably would have taken classes if ballet wasn’t my true love.

I have so many memories going ice skating with my dad and watching figure skating on tv. I had posters of Kristi Yamaguchi Oksana Baiul. These were the celebrities I idolized as a pre-teen girl.

Every winter Olympics I watch figure skating. Part nostalgia, part interest in the sport, and part interest in the individuals skating. I decided I would look up my favorites from the 90s on social media and see what they were up to. Some still seem rad… others, not so much. Such is life, I guess!

Here is my list of faves, links to performances, and a bit about what they’re doing now.

• Kristi Yamaguchi (US): ‘92 Olympics Video

  • Yamaguchi’s IG bio: “Skater, mom, philanthropist, children’s book author, entrepreneur alwaysdream.org”

  • Yamaguchi was my first figure skating love! She won gold in the ‘92 Olympics and was the first Asian American woman to do so. She initially had a Pairs career skating with Rudy Galindo, but went solo in 1990.

  • Since retiring, Yamaguchi married a professional hockey player, had 2 kids, wrote some books, and is mostly doing philanthropic work with her Always Dream Foundation these days. She mostly posts cute skating pics of herself and others. Also, she pretty much looks the same!

• Nancy Kerrigan (US): ‘94 Olympics Video

  • Kerrigan’s IG bio: “Proud mom of 3; 2 time Olympic medalist; spokesperson Fight for Sight; representation: jerry@stargamesinc.com https://www.cameo.com/nancyk”

  • She was such a beautiful skater. As a child in the 90s, I didn’t understand why people hated her so much. Now, I understand more about class dynamics and whiteness. Her skating outfits were designed and donated by Vera Wang. I do remember the media salivating at being able to compare her and Tonya Harding (who I’ll update you on below) due to their differences in class/behavior/etc. Kerrigan won Bronze at the ‘92 Olympics and won silver at the ‘94 Olympics. And of course we all probably remember her from the much publicized assault she faced.

  • In the time since she has retired, Kerrigan has done some acting, singing, got married, had 3 kids, and mostly posts about her partnership with NordicTrack and other fitness endeavors on her IG.

• Oksana Baiul (Ukraine): ‘94 Olympics Video

  • Baiul’s IG bio: “For Business and Media requests and offers ONLY contact Management at https://OksanaBaiul.com/Contact”

  • I loved Baiul so much. Her skating was often compared to ballet, and when you watch her performances, you can see this. Baiul won gold at the ‘94 Olympics, at just 16, becoming the first figure skating champion representing an independent Ukraine.

  • She lost both grandparents one year after the other, and then she lost her mother. Her father had left when she was a child. She lived with the wife of her coach. Baiul later developed a drinking problem and was in the news in the late 90s for a DUI. She then went to rehab for 2 months.

  • Since retiring, Baiul has skated off and on, created a jewelry/clothing line, married her manager, and had a daughter. She has been posting about the invasion of Ukraine on her IG.

• Katarina Witt (Germany): ‘88 Olympics Video

  • Witt’s IG bio: “2 time Olympic Gold-4 time World Champion-6 European Champion- 8 time National Champion-Emmy Award Winner-”

  • Witt was such a fun skater to watch. She won gold in both the ‘88 and ‘84 Olympics. Technically an “80s” skater, BUT I remember watching her skate various competitions in the early 90s, so she’s on this list.

  • Since retiring, she has acted, posed nude in Playboy’s ‘98 issue (which I remember being such a big deal!), won an Emmy for her performance of Carmen on Ice, and appears to be on a German talk show. She posts about this show, her old ice skating moments, and cute pics of herself.

• Surya Bonaly (France): ‘94 Olympics Video

  • Bonaly’s IG bio: “Olympian, World and European Champion, Skating Coach Consultant Motivational Speakers Enjoy gardening, nature National Parks love Traveling worldwide”

  • There is so much to say about Surya Bonaly! She was one of very few Black figure skaters in the 90s, and she experienced a shit-ton of racism because of this. Bonaly was known for her jumps and her backflips. She would often do 8 or 9 jumps during her programs, whereas most skaters did six. Instead of being impressed by all she could do, judges often criticized her for not being “graceful” enough and for “intimidating” other skaters (hi, racism).

  • This particular sentence in her Wikipedia page made me want to cut someone: “During a practice session, she landed a back flip close to Japan’s Midori Ito and was told by officials not to do it again because they believed that other skaters might be intimidated in practice sessions.” Bonaly also cut her long braid because the judges said they didn’t like it! UGH! She is quoted as saying, “I did everything I could, but I didn’t paint myself white, that’s for sure.” Her costumes were custom made by Lacroix. Bonaly is the only Olympic figure skater to land a backflip on only one blade.

  • Since retiring, Bonaly has done speaking engagements, activist work around racism, violence and discrimination in sports, and became engaged to her skating coach. She posts gorgeous selfies, skating photos, and other things on her IG.

• Tonya Harding (US): ‘92 Olympics Video

  • Harding’s IG bio: “2x US Champion, 2x Olympian, World Silver Medal Intl. Figure Skating Champion, Biopic: @itonyamovie, DWTS Finalist, For all requests: LGLPR1@aol.com”

  • Where do I even start? Obviously (and unfortunately), the shit her abusive ex husband did (of which she knew about, but lied) has overshadowed her own career. Harding had a brutal upbringing marked by poverty and abuse. After the attack on Kerrigan, the media consistently portrayed Harding as “white trash” compared to Kerrigan’s middle-class, suburban beauty queen.

  • In ‘91, Harding became the first woman to ever complete a triple axel in competition. She was also the first woman to successfully complete two triple axels in a single competition, and the first ever to complete a triple axel in combination with the double toe loop.

  • Since retiring, Harding has been quite busy doing various things. She and her now ex-husband sold a sex tape to Penthouse. She did some professional boxing. Some acting. And sadly, it would appear she’s an anti-vaxxer (or, at least, anti-Covid vaxxer). Harding is currently married and has 1 kid. She posts about anti-vax stuff, old skating videos/pics, and weird patriotic shit.

• Midori Ito (Japan): ‘92 Olympics Video

  • Ito’s IG bio: (translated from Japanese): “1992 Figure Skating Silver Medalist, 1998 Nagano Olympic finalist”

  • Ito won silver at the ‘92 Olympics. In the late ‘80s, she became the first woman to land a triple axel in international competition. She also became the first woman to execute all six possible triple jumps in world competition: axel, lutz, flip, loop, salchow, and toe loop.

  • Since retiring, Midori seems to be doing some skating and coaching, according to her IG. She’s a fairly private person, so I couldn’t find anything on her personal life. Ito posts a lot of skating pics on her IG.

• Ekaterina Gordeeva (Russia): ‘94 Olympics Video

  • Gordeeva’s IG bio: “✨ Olympic champion✨ World champion✨ Live in the moment”

  • Gordeeva spent the majority of her skating career in pairs with first husband, Sergei Grinkov, who died at the age of 28 from a heart attack. With Grinkov, Gordeeva won the ‘94 Olympics gold medal in pairs skating. They are still the youngest pairs team to ever win an Olympic medal. She started her solo career in ‘96. Gordeeva is known for her gracefulness and ballet aesthetic.

  • Since retiring, Gordeeva married and divorced figure skater, Ilia Kulich (whom she has 1 daughter with—she also has 1 daughter from her previous marriage to Grinkov). She then married Canadian pairs figure skater, David Pelletier.

• Michelle Kwan (US): ‘98 Olympics Video

  • Kwan’s IG bio: “Mom👶🏻, Olympic figure skater⛸, public servant🇺🇸, alumna @thefletcherschool @uofdenver @obamawhitehouse @hillaryclinton 2016 @joebiden 2020”

  • Remember her? You should. The media was saturated with pictures of her! She was (and still is) stunning. Kwan won silver at the ‘98 Olympics and bronze at the 2002 Olympics.

  • I did not know this: “In 1994, Kwan finished second to Tonya Harding at the U.S. Championships, which ordinarily would have placed her on the U.S. team to the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. That place was instead given to 1993 national champion Nancy Kerrigan, who had been sidelined by an assault and battery (eventually connected to Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly) after a practice session at those championships. The 13-year-old Kwan went to Norway as an alternate but did not compete.”

  • Kwan’s signature move became a change of edge spiral. One thing Kwan has been praised for is her ability to make everything look so effortless and “clean” on the ice.

  • Since retiring, Kwan has done many things. She has held diplomatic positions during various presidencies, she has acted, and wrote an autobiography. Kwan has been married and divorced and just this past January had her first child. She posts a variety of things on her IG.

• Chen Lu (China): ‘98 Olympics Video

  • Lu won bronze in both the ‘94 and ‘98 Olympics. She won the first ever Olympic medal in figure skating for China. Lu was only at the top of her game for a short time due to various injuries.

  • Since retiring, she has coached and written books. She married Denis Petrov (Russian pair skater) and they have 2 kids together. Lu currently manages the World Ice Arena Skating Academy based at World Ice Arena, an upscale mall rink in Shenzhen, China. Though, according to her IG, the Chen Lu International Skating Center looked like it opened in 2021. On IG, she posts a lot of cute pics of her kids and various skating images.

• Tara Lipinski (US): ‘98 Olympics Video

  • Lipinkski’s IG bio: “Mom to Georgie. Broadcaster by trade. Skater for life.

    keychain.club/TaraLipinski”

  • Lipinski won gold in the ‘98 Olympics. At the time, she was the youngest to win gold in figure skating history, and only the sixth USian woman to win a gold medal in the sport.

  • Since retiring, Lipinksi has been quite busy! If you watch the Winter Olympics, you know her and Johnny Weir are excellent commentators of the sport.

I hope you enjoyed this “blast from the past.” Do you remember any of these women? Are there others from the 90s that you loved? Please tell me in the comments!

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2. How the Heart Entered Our Visual Vocabulary: The evolution of a simple symbol. -

3. Mayor Mamdani Breaks His Promise to NYC Public Libraries -

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5. Fuel squeeze deepens blackouts and closures across Cuba - Alexandra Martinez

6. Underground Facial Recognition Tool Unmasks Camgirls - Joseph Cox

7. Olympic Ice Dancing Ranked By Kinkiness -

8. Queer Love and Death: My work with the LGBTQ+ community -

9. The Sacred Symbolism of Housework: When the Home Mirrors the Soul - Chanél

10. this song:

Here we are. Six months of Zoloft tapering. I started at 100mg, now I’m at 75mg, which maybe doesn’t seem like a big deal, BUT IT IS since I’ve been on this medication (and roughly 100mg) for 20-some years.

I have intentionally decreased only by 12.5mg each time. Everything online from actual people who have done this have advised a slow taper. My first taper was in August, my second was in December. My next will be in June. My goal right now is to get down to 50mg and stay there for a while. I will hit that goal (if all goes accordingly) by December.

I feel fairly similar to how I felt before I decreased, which is interesting. Was this medication really not doing anything for the last several years? It hurts to think about that, to be honest. With everything going on in the world, plus my health scare in January, and other bullshit happening this month, I have been able to handle it all. I may cry a lot, but I always cried a lot. I am not floundering. I am not afraid to leave my house (most days). I am doing the things I need to in order to take care of myself.

As someone who had original diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, and Sensory Integration Disorder at 16, I think what I really have is C-PTSD, and you can’t medicate away C-PTSD. I saw a Thread this week that said:

The reason CPTSD goes undiagnosed: it doesn’t look like trauma. It looks like personality. PTSD is an event. CPTSD is an environment you couldn’t escape during, most often, your formative years. It’s trauma that gets woven into the fabric you mistake for identity.

This is exactly what it feels like. I had compounded and varied trauma from the age of 3 onwards. By 16, I had another traumatic incident which is what I was eventually medicated for. As an adult, I then had a multitude of traumatic incidences, which didn’t help the already existing C-PTSD. Everything I do, everything I am is at least partially related to having experienced too much ongoing trauma in my formative years.

When I think of it this way, I feel immense grief and sadness, but it’s also a bit freeing (it explains so much!). It’s hard to exist in an already difficult world with a gaping, open wound. I do not apologize for how I show up in this lifetime. Much of it was not really my choice.

If you have any questions specific to the SSRI tapering process, let me know below! I’m happy to try to answer them!

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2. Redlining links Black women and higher rates of breast cancer - Syris Valentine

3. Israel Destroyed Gaza’s Hospitals. Now It’s Banning Doctors Without Borders. - Eman Abu Zayed

4. Letter From Minnesota: Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Frontier, From an Immigrant in Minneapolis - Sun Yung Shin

5. ICE’s Mistreatment of People with Disabilities - Mike Ervin

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9. When Artists Lose Their Archives - Damien Davis

10. Mood:

Death is everywhere in the current moment. Death is everywhere always. End of Life Doulas/Death Doulas/Deathworkers/Death Midwives are here to meet this moment and should be utilized. I urge folks on the ground in Minneapolis to connect with deathworkers in their community (if they haven’t already!) There are a lot of Minnesota-based folks here and here. Really, I urge everyone everywhere to connect with a death doula, whether for yourself or a loved one.

Just as people need help coming into this world, we also need help leaving this world. We also need help with the bureaucracy of dying (notify social security (if you’re in the U.S.), make sure they’re on a Deceased Do Not Contact Registry, notify life insurance companies, call a funeral home (if that’s the route the dying person wanted), and more.

The U.S., much like with living, does not make dying easy either. During these specifically horrific times, death doulas are necessary. How beautiful would it be to see death doulas at every protest, every demonstration, every occupation of a city. Like medics, deathworkers are integral to our movement and our revolution. We are integral to our communities, and thankfully, more and more people are heeding the call of deathwork.

As for me, I’m (hopefully) in the process of creating/collaborating a birth of a regional deathworker network. More will be revealed soon!

1. ‘The Pitt:’ What on Earth Is a Death Doula? - Sammi Burke

2. What Black Families Know About Saying Goodbye And Death Care - Darnell Lamont Walker

3. Her husband wanted to die with dignity. A death cafe helped them prepare. - Rose Lundy

4. The ‘magic’ of walking with grief - Nancy Eve Cohen

5. Hamnet Director Chloé Zhao Reveals She’s Training to Become a Death Doula: ‘Terrified of Death My Whole Life’ - Tommy McArdle

6. Tripping at Death’s Door: Psychedelics in End-of-Life Care - Kristen French

7. Demedicalize dying: Why end-of-life care needs a spiritual reset - Kevin Haselhorst

8. Respecting cultures where death is taboo -

9. OC Deathworkers Alliance: Opening Conversations about the End of Life - Alicia Venter

10. Guides for Letting Go - Leah Lemoine

I’m a 4-time rape survivor. Whenever I say it like that, it sounds like I won a prize, but obviously there is no prize. I guess the prize is that I’m alive, that I survived, but some days, that feels more like a punishment than a prize. I don’t remember the first time I posted about this online, but I do recall a specific time I shared it in an Instagram caption. I was met with comments of solidarity in the form of “me too” and “I’m so sorry.”

Then came the trolls:

“Wait, how were you raped FOUR times?”
“You’re too ugly to be raped.”
“FOUR times? That seems like a YOU problem.”

As a seasoned online feminist, I’m no stranger to trolls, rape threats, or death threats. However, reading these comments on that particular day was excruciating.

It has been a harrowing week to be a survivor of sexual violence. For many of us, old wounds are feeling itchy and urgent. A reopening is occurring. I’ve read things in the Epstein Files that have been posted on social media that I wish I could un-read. Yet, I do know it’s important to witness a survivor’s testimony. It’s important to witness the complete annihilation of another person. I also know humans are not made for taking in this much horrific information at once. I’m trying to find a balance. I’m grateful to every woman who has shared her story. I’m careful to not call this sharing “brave.”

When I name and share that I am a survivor of sexual violence, people call me “brave.” “Brave” for sharing such enormous “shame,” I suppose. It grates at me. Naming it “brave” contributes to the stigma. It also assumes that those who don’t share publicly about these things are somehow not brave.

I’ve received hundreds of private messages from well-meaning people who have said things like, “Wow, you’re so brave to say that publicly. I could never do that!” When people call me “brave,” it feels like what they’re really saying is, “how are you still alive?”

Surviving the things I’ve experienced is not necessarily “brave,” and I am not brave for speaking about them publicly. When we read others’ stories online, we may deal with the onset of shock, discomfort, and awe. Often, our own shame around something is projected onto the person sharing the story. This comes out by way of comments like, “You’re so brave!” My mom says fear and awe feel similarly in the body. Perhaps a person’s awe is actually their fear making room inside them. Perhaps those who aren’t survivors hear these stories and feel a weighted blanket of amazement.

There is a lot of talk of “shock” and whether you should or shouldn’t be “shocked” by the contents of the Esptein Files. For survivors, it is maybe less shocking than to a non-survivor. I know many survivors who are upset about the level of shock from non-survivors. I feel some of this, too, but I try to remember that not everyone has experienced sexual violence. Some people truly do believe we live in a kind and safe world. I would assume that most women and girls have had experiences that showed them differently. However, not all women and girls have been able to accept or name these experiences (yet) and that has to be okay.

I want people to remember there is no right way to survive sexual violence. There is no right way to be a survivor or victim. Also, we are not a monolith. We have to understand how white supremacist cishetero patriarchy has led us to this current moment. The Epstein Files show how insidious rape culture is—that this was all happening without many people’s knowledge with people who have massive power at the helm. I want people to remember that this is always happening, somewhere, without people’s knowledge. Sexual violence thrives in the dark.

I would like people to move from “shock” and “disgust” to just, “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” I would like a world where girls are not sexualized and they don’t have to fear adults. I would like a world where women could speak about being survivors without the label consuming them. I would, ideally, like a world in which sexual violence did not exist. I wonder what that world would look and feel like. Some days, it’s hard to even imagine.

buy my book!

1. On White Girls: and Deconstructing Whiteness -

2. More Things Bringing Me Comfort & Strength -

3. When We Walk Away From the Lying Machines or: a pronouncement of doom and hope, tied into talking trash on AI -

4. Men are the greatest obstacles to women’s freedom and solidarity -

5. The Muscle Memory of Care - Kelly Hayes

6. The Washington Post Is No Longer Useful to Jeff Bezos - Jason Koebler

7. We Can Honor Renee Nicole Good’s Life by Abolishing Death-Making Institutions - Holly Krig

8. ‘This Ramadan, we are missing so many things’: Holy nights still don’t look the same in Gaza - Esraa Abo Qamar

9. Between being and emptiness: In Japanese philosophy, unlike the atomised Western self, we are ‘ningen’ (人間), each enmeshed with other humans and nature - Takeshi Morisato

10. this cover of Elliott Smith is beautiful (and new to me):