Before I really dive into my week, I’d like to start this post with a quiet moment of gratitude. Last Friday I wrote my blog, which was exhausting but a productive thing for me to write (at this time the post has a record-breaking 97 reads on Medium!). Usually on Fridays I co-work with a friend and her cats but that didn’t work out. So by about 2 pm I found myself having gone most of the day without talking to anyone.
I reached out to my friend, the Closeted Philosopher and asked if he might be available for a hug. We were able to meet for all of ten minutes but I wanted to give him a shout out, here and now, because those ten minutes meant so much to me. 8/10 minutes were spent under and umbrella, walking to the train station and that brief moment of shelter from both nature and politics was a gift. Thank you.
Fluid Mechanics of Protests
In the past week and a half I have participated in three events that each had more than a thousand people. Two of these were designated as protests, the other was just a really really big group of people riding bikes together.
One of the marches was the National Women’s March, which I participated in the Key Route City. When asked why I marched this weekend, this was my response:
I marched this weekend to simply state that I am entitled to equal human rights as any man. I march to protest the appointment of Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Ben Carson, Mike Pompeo, Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, and Steven Mnuchin as members of an executive cabinet representing my country and myself as a constituent. I march to protest the defunding of the EPA, the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood as many American casualties will ensue from these cuts. I march to protest the lack of appointment for the seat of NNSA chair, limiting the reasonable checks and balances between President Trump and our national nuclear stockpile.
When I was in high school my mom gave me this pin:
I was so honored that she passed to me a symbol of her own resistance to the patriarchy (though we hardly used that word in conversation). To some extent I cannot believe that I am fighting for the same things as my mother in her youth.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about protesting, resisting and organizing effect those with disabilities, especially invisible disabilities. In all of the protests there is the activation energy of going on public transit to arrive at the specified location at the time indicated. I tried to lower that activation energy for my friends by instigating a meeting spot at my house before the march. This backfired in some ways that I hope to learn from but overall was quite successful.
My little pod of people stayed together within the 100,000 other folks on the street. When we finally moved after waiting a while for the route to solidify, there were two flows that developed, parallel to street and curvy-but-ultimately-perpendicular to street. Once the march picked up speed, however, people funneled to all be parallel to the street. The slow-moving nature of Saturday’s march made it easier to not become a pebble but the phenomenon of fluid pressure on a fixed object was definitely felt during the bike group event.
Overall the march was a little confusing to me. I felt like there were a lot of people marching for a lot of reasons. I wore a pussy hat because a friend made it and donated the proceeds to Planned Parenthood. But I was personally challenged about my wearing of such a hat when a 12 year old asked me why it was a cat hat. I (with permission of her parent) explained that pussy is a derogatory term for women’s genitalia. Besides being embarrassed about answering, it also made me look at myself and question whether by supporting this grassroots effort by my friend to make the statement “pussy grabs back” was being sufficiently inclusive within my own definitions of feminism. Still don’t have an answer on that one.
I feel like I didn’t do enough active questioning or put sufficient effort into inclusivity during this march. There’s a picture of a man holding a sign at a march that says “See you nice white ladies at the next #Black Lives Matter March, right?” I had my “Free Hugs” sign (which now includes #blacklivesmatter on the back) and I offered hugs to police officers with 98% acceptance rate. I wore chem safety goggles, and steel toed shoes and a bandana with extra scarves on my person because I was afraid of things getting violent. They didn’t. Which is great! But it’s also a sign of privilege that 100,000 predominantly white protesters can have 0 arrests but if there are even a tenth of that number and those folks are people of color there are dozens of arrests and possibly tear gas. It’s really difficult to articulate when I’m experiencing White Fragility firsthand. If Brene Brown has taught my anything, it’s that sometimes you have to say “pain” out loud before you can recognize that’s what’s going on for you, then you can experience it and then move on.
Quick note on self-censorship
So, it finally happened this weekend: I unfriended someone on Facebook due to their support of Trump and general alignment with the political group of “alt-right”. I had a lengthy conversation about why I made this choice and it came down to this:
The person I unfriended was not just in a different political affiliation to me. He broke consent boundaries when I interacted with him in person and he continued to pursue a close friend of mine after she told him he wasn’t interested. I think a really big challenge of keeping viewpoints different from your own on your curated personal newsfeeds is the possibility of boundaries and standards of interactions one holds close being broken without warning.
By contrast, I have several people within my "friend" group who support Trump. However, they respect my personal boundaries and respect me as a full person. So until that changes, I will not change my relationship with them.
Here out, I am trying to make an effort to check multiple news sources regularly so I can see how information is being described. I am checking the Executive Orders themselves in addition to op-eds about them. I am looking into Satyagraha and active non-cooperation with behaviors I don’t agree with, like limiting personal freedoms.
Yet this week has already seen mass censorship, particularly around climate change information. None of my dystopian totalitarianist novels prepared me for Park Rangers to lead the revolution against censorship, but I’m totally OK that they are.
Becoming a Golden State Scientist
Great news!! After months of unemployment and dead ends I have found a surprising amount of hope applying to work with The Golden State itself. It turns out that I am extremely qualified to become an Engineering Geologist! I was really surprised because I looked through the required areas and immediately thought “Yeah! I have experience in at least 75% of those.” Then I took the test (with a friend sitting next to me for moral support) and I passed it with 80%. Really interesting note on their application process: they offered a box that asked if I would prefer not to take a test on a Saturday due to religious reasons. I checked that box because I actually would prefer not to but have never been given the opportunity to express that. 0__0
So far I have submitted an application to be an Environmental Scientist with the conservation department and next week I will submit the application to be an Engineering Geologist, Professional Geologist track. I am so jazzed that within the year I could be making sure residents have access to safe water and building conditions, even if the larger political climate of the country is not interested in things like potable water and publicly available science.
In the short term, I have been struggling with feeling valued for my time. A company whose mission I admire and support (getting k-5 girls interested in science) has been stringing me along since October. I met the co-founders at a Maker Faire and gave her my resume. I followed through with two interviews, the second of which I made a lesson plan, purchased materials and practiced with my niece The Little Bear. I provided references and they were contacted, despite being difficult to track down and respond. For all of this effort, I was offered 10 hours of employment. Not per week. Total. And this job will pay less than $200 for that time. It makes me feel like my time is not worthwhile if that is the outcome I should expect from such an extensive process.
I told some of my friends how I was feeling strung along and frustrated and they immediately put me in touch with a temp agency. The temp agency has already reached out and lined up jobs for me two weeks out so I can make some income while the state takes their merry time getting back to me on the applications. It will feel really empowering to have an income of my own after a few months without.
Garbage filled sausage exercise
I wanted to talk for a bit about some of the cool self care stuff I’ve been up to. My work with Sparkles helped me solidify a morning routine for myself. My weekly goal has been to bike 25 miles a week (up from 20 when I started) and I have been achieving that by biking to a nearby lake in the mornings. I like seeing the water birds, especially the herons. As of writing this I have biked 30 miles this week. So I’m doing well on setting and achieving my goals!
Since the beginning of the year I’ve been substituting my breakfast with a super green shake. Central ingredients have been kale, chia seeds, cucumber, avocado, coconut water and cooked squash (this week it’s pumpkin). I add protein powder and it’s pretty nifty how filling it all is. And yummy too, since I’m acclimated to it. I know some people who would be pretty grossed out by thinking of eating kale, but I like it.
This past Sunday when I was feeling really un-valued because of the aforementioned non-job the timing worked out that someone invited me salsa dancing! The basic steps are fairly intuitive and there is a lot of interpersonal chemistry and problem solving that I would be really interested in continuing to learn. I really appreciated the friends’ commitment to making me feel included, even though she had been dancing for 15 years she came to the beginner’s class so I wouldn’t have to do it alone. Commitments are so much easier to make when you don’t feel alone in making them.
Finally, PartnerPenguin and I have started a new ritual of doing plank for a minute before we go to bed. This was inspired by Dr. Bow’s blog post about her experiments with doing plank. I don’t think there will ever be a time when I’m as ripped as her, but I am able to hold the pose for the full 60 seconds and I’m getting better each day.
But PartnerPenguin and I lovingly refer to this minute as our “garbage filled sausage” time. Because that’s how doing plank for a minute makes you feel.
Today I’ll sign off with the only song that seems appropriate for the National Womens’ March. Released 22 years ago and the line “Oh, I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite/So don't let me have any rights/Oh, I've had it up to here!” still rings pretty fucking true today.
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