Horses are good company -- The Witcher

I already feel like I'm losing it, and then tonight there is a very loud, low, humming noise coming from the ceiling right over my bed. This is in addition to the very loud air conditioner which the upstairs neighbors are also running constantly. Today Christina had to ask them to move away from our open windows while they smoked.

I am unable to sleep, so I'm just going to plan on staying up all night. It's a lot easier to sleep in the daytime even with noise happening, and I feel bad about it, because I guess I need something to feel bad about. Even though I have literally no where to be and no time commitments. Going to try to lean into the vampire lifestyle. Pain remains high, mostly in my face and mouth, but also tonight in my feet. As always, writing it out helps.

Animals seen today: lots of dogs including a Dalmation; a fish in the creek; a red-wing blackbird; Canada geese. Lilacs are starting to bloom.

Here is a good article about the making of Mad Max: Fury Road (warning for a moving image at the top of the article).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/movies/mad-max-fury-road-oral-history.html

XKCD today is really good:
https://xkcd.com/2307/

Resveratrol Cream
Read or Listen at the link:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/09/28/531743869/breakthrough-pain-treatment-or-snake-oil-you-decide

I'm going to write about seeing Mia Mingus! She is so awesome, has so many great ideas, such great open energy. By culture and personality, I am somewhat conflict averse, and yet also drawn to things that involve cognitive dissonance, which is a problem. Mia has this way of being hungry for the conflict, of digging into with enthusiasm. Like, YES, let's TALK about that uncomfortable thing! And it is just honestly such a relief.

I went to a small group session where we talked about a couple of her essays from her website:
1. Changing the Framework: Disability Justice
https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/changing-the-framework-disability-justice/

2. Access Intimacy: The Missing Link
https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/access-intimacy-the-missing-link/

3. Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability
https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/moving-toward-the-ugly-a-politic-beyond-desirability/

The third one really blew my mind. LOVED it. Here is another way of resisting respectability politics: embrace magnificence instead of prettiness. Be memorable, own the way you look and are.

We talked a bit about being uncomfortable with "body positivity", and the intersection of disability and fat politics. This is an exciting area to me and I'd like to see more people talking about it. These are both highly stigmatized categories and activists from the two groups seem to want to avoid each other due to this stigma, even though the intersection between the two groups is pretty readily apparent. Think of fat activists emphasizing "health at any size" and talking about how they are healthy and active at their weight--centering health, which is not exactly friendly to those of us who are not in good health. Meds can cause weight gain or loss; weight (high or low) itself can be associated with certain illnesses; etc. Anyways, Dave Hingsburger writes about this a bit (mostly the stigma of being a fat wheelchair user). And I always, always rec The Fat Nutritionist, especially this post: You have no obligation to be healthy.

Mia Mingus talked about how when we are so committed to the social model of disability (or any kind of social model), we can run up against the wall of our bodies. And so we need to talk about embodiment. I think part of loving and caring for our bodies is acknowledging that being embodied can totally suck sometimes. It is ok to feel negative.

During her key note, Mia Mingus talked about transformative justice and her work using it to address child sexual abuse (often adult survivors of same). She works with Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. One of the themes of her talk was building alternatives to our state institutions, because how can we depend on the state to address violence when the state uses violence and oppression against us?

This event was part of the Gender and Women's Studies 40th anniversary event on campus. I went to some of the events the next day, but they were... much more academic and kind of not my thing.

Cute local dog up for adoption!

Neko Case and Kelly Hogan sing a feminist SF song!!

p.s. be sure to check out fancake this round for femslash! :D

futuransky: Radical queer agenda panel notes/transcript

Me in access-fandom: Masked vs. Blind

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I have been watching "Call the Midwife", which is a really lovely show. S1 is on Netflix; Season 2 is streaming on pbs.org. However: episode 2x04 is a Very Special Disability episode, about a baby born with spina bifida. I did try to keep an open mind here, but this ep need content notices for: Discussion of euthanasia of disabled babies, forced institutionalization of disabled babies and children, and lots of processing of abled people concerned PWD, including how difficult their lives will be, etc. There is also a character with anxiety, although I liked and related to her arc. The episode does actually end OK.

Some folks in NZ taught some rescued dogs how to drive, basically as a way to prove to people how intelligent dogs are.

http://www.3news.co.nz/SPCA-teaches-dogs-to-drive/tabid/367/articleID/279037/Default.aspx

One of my stories (written for kink bingo) got nominated for an award at The Kinda Gay Awards, a Buffy femslash fic celebration. :D

Annaham writes about having fibromyalgia at xojane.

Perhaps there is something happening in the global (or at least regional) consciousness:

Dated October 11:
Social Justice League / Fauxgress Watch: "Born This Way"

Nov 3:
thingswithwings: Who would choose this?

A couple of excellent posts

haddayr: Walking, disability, walking some more part 1

Haddayr reflects on marked vs. unmarked states of disability. Being as I have facial pain, I often feel as if I am wearing my pain right there on my face. But this is not true at all: no one can see it.

thingswithwings: Mutifandom vid, The Price, and truly excellent meta about manpain. This, folks, is why I don't like Batman or Dr. Horrible and have problems with Pixar. Please read it.

zia_narratora: Rhetorically Constructed, or, We all write like White Men, Part 2 On the "I Write Like" meme, which it turns out has a list of 40 writers, all white, and only 3 of whom are women. And the maker of the software doesn't see race! Oh joy.

littlebutfierce: It is OK to ask for what you need on love memes and how they are awesome. Thank you for all the comments people gave me in petra's love meme, by the way! When I am feeling low I just click over to them. It is very needed this week.

zelempa: Living the dream: reading fic on the bus About putting fanfic onto the Kindle with formatting preserved.