On golden retrievers, potential energy, and tired feet

Yesterday, I came across the above picture of the Energy Exodus, a six-day march for renewable energy currently taking place south of Boston–which I’d take part in, if I weren’t so exhausted from my current job situation. My friend Bethany of Granite Bunny posted it along with the comment, “This looks like fun, which means it’s probably the right thing to do.”

I couldn’t agree more. Especially since there’s a prominently featured golden retriever, and I am nothing if not a golden-lover. Any political action endorsed by a sweet, fluffy golden is something I can get behind. (Ok, that’s probably not technically true. But, fluffy!)

Everything about the march sounds amazing–like a cross between an Occupy encampment and an art festival. From the official event description:

This event is family-friendly and fun for all ages! While we have a serious purpose, the march will also include musical performances, art, community potlucks, discussions, faith and spiritual experiences, and lots of opportunities to get to know your fellow marchers and movement members as we walk the transition we want to see. Along the way we will rally, sing, learn, make new plans, and meet new friends.

I so, so wish I could be there.

And I can’t help but think of one of my favorite critiques of the climate movement, Melanie Jae Martin’s “Three Tactics for a Stronger Climate Movement,” and be grateful that the organizers of the Energy Exodus have apparently taken her words to heart:

Imagine if, when blockading a pipeline construction site, radicals invited the whole community to a festival on the site? Instead of a few people locking down, what if the community barricaded the area and held a dance party or a carnival, reclaiming it as a community space for direct democracy, food growing, and celebration? When resilience becomes a key characteristic of the space, joining together to defend it will become less scary and more joyful. People could use the space to construct their own cooperative forms of alternative energy, like community-owned wind power systems. As the movement nourishes the souls of participants more fully, its passion, energy, and numbers will grow, just as the round dance protests of the indigenous rights movement Idle No More have caught on like wildfire throughout the continent and beyond. And in the process, we’ll be forging the alternatives that are absolutely crucial for subverting corporate attacks on the land, air, and water.

Some updates on life and stuff

1.) My birthday party on Sunday was amazing! I’ll put up some pictures from it eventually. We went to the beach, which was beautiful and full of shallows and shifting landscapes; then to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner; and then back to my apartment for general merriment.

One of my friends baked me a pink cake that was intended to look like Kaylee’s dress from the Firefly episode Shindig; another gave me three pins featuring My Little Pony, an angry cupcake, and Hello Kitty.  My friends know and love me, and they are wonderful.

I am so grateful for my friends, for this community that I have.

2.) I am tired. I’m working long hours at my current temp job, which is also physically exhausting, and leaves me with little energy to do anything but crash when I come home. I miss yoga and running errands and generally having a life.

3.) Due to aforementioned exhaustion and long hours, I won’t be able to make it to the Energy Exodus next week.

I barely have the emotional energy to care that Yosemite is burning. I’m mostly just trying to get through the day, put one foot in front of the other.

I hate feeling like I’ve flaked out on all the people I started connecting with in the climate movement.

I hate that there are so many things I want to do, for both myself and the world; so many ways I want to contribute to building a stronger, more equal, more durable society. There are posts I want to write, projects I want to collaborate on, actions I want to attend, art I want to make, places I want to see. Instead, I just have to survive.

4.) This is how unjust systems perpetuate themselves: by making people too tired to act up and change things.

5.) I could write a million posts ranting about the economy, the job market, the insecurity and instability that’s being sold to us as normal. It’s not normal.  It’s not ok. It’s chronic, life-force-sucking, soul-grinding stress.

6.) At the same time, I’m aware that I have a lot of privilege. I’m luckier, economically and otherwise, than a lot of people. I know that what seems like a new, harsh reality for middle-class people like me is nothing new to those who grew up poor and working class.  I know that having shitty options is nothing new to people who never expected anything better. I know that even when the economy was “good,” a lot of people were hurting.

7.) I want that to change. There is so much promising work being done to work toward a better and fairer society (and oh yeah, to ward off planetary destruction).  I wish I had the energy to plug into it.  I wish that there were jobs that addressed all the work that needs doing. Hell, I wish there were jobs.

8.) I’m tired.

Friday links, 7/26/13

Fa(t)shion
–Erin tries out BeauCoo, a body-positive outfit-sharing app, and finds it promising but problematic in many ways.
-I love the kids’ clothing in this Etsy shop! They even have a TARDIS skirt and a tuxedo dress.
-A new Tumblr dedicated to alt-fatshion: Plus Size Goth.
–This dog is so stylish!
-I so wish this sharkini came in plus sizes.
-Somebody, please, buy this size XXL skull lace dress with red trim so I can enjoy it vicariously.
-Canadian readers, check out Lucy Clothing!
-Kriss, a Swedish brand that goes up to size 2XL, now has an online shop that ships worldwide! It’s expensive, but they have some really cute stuff.
-Karyn takes down fashion “rules.”
-Another recent find: the Bargain Catalog Outlet, which has super-cheap clothes from various plus size catalogs.
–Adventures in summer style with Harvey Guillen.

Quote of the day: we can’t agree to disagree

“Well, Mr. President, you are of course entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.  And I will not simply ‘agree to disagree’ on whether or not my generation gets to have a future; on whether my friends in the Philippines have a home; on whether my comrades in Mexico are able to grow food for their families; or whether my friends and family in upstate New York can continue to drink their water or whether those in Manhattan can live in homes free of radon leaking from pipelines in the heart of New York City.”

– Eliza Sherpa, “‘All of the above’ is simply ‘more of the same’: Obama’s failing grade on climate change”

Friday Links, 7/19/13

An awesome display I saw in Forever 21.

Happy Friday! This is going to be a long one, but it’s all really good stuff–take your time reading through it.

Fa(t)shion
-Check out the IndieGoGo campaign for WeighTees, a company that will make funny t-shirts in sizes XL through 6X.
–Black man in a dress: getting fresh with Wilbert.
–The fat chick’s shopping guide for summer style: part II.

Fat Activism
-Fellow Bostonians, I know it’s last-minute, but I just found out about this body-posi beach day at Revere Beach on Sunday! I’ll be there for at least a little while, and I’m going to try to bring some friends–maybe I’ll see you there?
–Why we should fight back against non-profits that “fight obesity.”  Ugh, I am SO SICK of seeing fat people blamed for everything from global warming and hunger. And I’m glad people are speaking up about it.
–I don’t fit in my husband’s shirt. Get over it.
–How to take the weight loss industry down.
–This week in fat stigma: the Boy Scouts of America have forbidden fat kids from attending their 2013 Jamboree. Blehhh.
-Marianne is back at The Rotund–huzzah!–writing about intersectional fat acceptance, building community, and not being part of the mainstream.
–Fat liberation is totally queer. YES!
–Big men can bike: meet cyclist Ernest Gagnon.
–4 women, 4 words: discussing the words that describe our big bodies.
-Jes rounds up the best body-positive books.

Friday links, 7/13/13

Happy Friday! As usual, feel free to link to interesting things you’ve read or written this week in the comments.

Fa(t)shion
-I love this queer vintage photo series.
-Etsy rounds up plus size designers who sell clothing on their site.
-Domino Dollhouse’s totally adorable strawberry dress is now available for pre-order! Also, I’m loving their pearl-covered kitty ears headband.
-The wear-all-white sunset cruise at New York’s Full Figured Fashion week looks like so much fun, and everyone has such creative outfits. I would love to go someday!

Fat Activism
-Check out Ragen’s awesome fat activist history project, In Our Own Words.
-If you’re in Berkeley, check out this amazing-looking bellydance benefit performance.
–For fat patients and their doctors.
-Mary Lambert’s (yes, the singer in Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Same Love”) debut poetry collection, 500 Tips for Fat Girls, looks really interesting.
-Big Libery has a great list of references for debunking fat hate and misconceptions.

Climate and Sustainability
-An important reminder: fossil fuel divestment is about more than reducing emissions.
–Quebec’s Lac-Megantic oil train disaster was not just a tragedy, but a corporate crime.
-If you’re in Massachusetts, tell your legislator to support a ban on fracking in the state.
–500 million reasons to rethink the parking lot.
–Water works: communities reimagine ways of making every drop count.
-A powerful piece about fighting for life: Solidarity is unstoppable.
-I love that there’s a group of mothers and grandmothers fighting climate change right here in Boston.

Climate Summer activists asked people why they care about climate change, and this is one of the answers.

Everything Else
–10 queer rappers you should check out.
–Is 12-year old Willow Smith’s new video totally inappropriate, or are we just reading sexual stuff into it that just isn’t there?
–Criminality, urban living, and race: when my students get locked up, I get angry.
–Dirty Dancing is a subversive masterpiece, and here are four reasons why.
-In a great guest post at Captain Awkward’s blog, A. Raymond Johnson provides support to a transgender man who is sick of dealing with both external and internalized transphobia.
–Gay is not the new black: the Supreme Court and the politics of misrecognition.
–Rachel Jeantel’s language is English–it’s just not your English.
-The upcoming Netflix series Orange is the New Black looks promising for many reasons, including the inclusion of a transwoman of color (played by an actual transwoman).
–The Kreayshawn complex: cultural appropriation as counter-cultural expression.
-A cake that says “YAY” on the inside? Yes, please.

Musical interlude: climate justice inspirations

Last night, I went to a climate justice benefit concert with Melodeego, School for Robots, and the Great Whiskey Rebellion.

The Great Whiskey Rebellion–who played a high-energy, incredibly danceable combination of traditional folk tunes, Klezmer, and rock–was by far the stand-out band. If you’re in the Boston or Worcester areas, I highly recommend checking them out!

One of my favorites moments of the evening was when Melodeego played the “Digging Us a Hole,” the powerful and haunting song that they wrote for an anti-tar-sands action in March:

We all sung along, our arms around each other.

Shea, a local climate activist, also performed this amazing rap that he had written for Bill McKibben’s Do the Math tour:

Before the concert, I did some poking around on the internet to find other climate-action-inspiring music. Here are a few of the best songs I found:

Book review: the Green Boat

I had high hopes for Mary Pipher’s book The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture. I’ve been a fan of Pipher’s writing ever since I read Reviving Ophelia when I was 10, so when I wandered into my local bookstore and found out that she’d written a book on healing  ourselves and the earth in the age of climate change, I was excited. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

But like cheap Chinese food, the book left me hungry an hour later.

It does contain some good ideas; I especially like Pipher’s concept of the “new healthy normal” way of being for which we should strive:

In the context of our global storm, the new healthy normal requires the ability to move from awareness to action on a regular basis, to maintain a sense of balance, and to live intentionally. It also requires a particular kind of optimism, a connection to community, and a world-class set of stress-reduction skills. Implied in the term “new healthy normal” is my assumption that it is not mentally healthy to sit idly by while the human race destroys its mother ship. (Pipher, 117)

I also like her description of the coalition she built with other Nebraskans to fight the Keystone XL pipeline–which, thanks to her and many other people’s activism, is still an ongoing fight rather than a done deal. I like her emphasis on community-building, bringing together people from different walks of life, and combining hard work with good food, art, and music.

But overall, although the book was well-written, it just felt…shallow. It didn’t get into the depths demanded by the scale of the climate crisis. I read a Goodreads review by a woman named Megan that articulated exactly what I found so troublesome:

…I think the book fails at its main goal of breaking through the emotional paralysis to help us adequately address our current ecological, political, and social crisis.

Quote of the day: YES YES YES YES

Do you ever read something that makes you want to jump up and down with excitement because the writer has nailed something you felt but couldn’t articulate SO WELL?

That’s how I feel about this essay on the Science and Environmental Health Network blog, Moral Injuries and the Environment: Healing the Soul Wounds of the Body Politic.

Here’s a quote from it, but I highly recommend going over there to read the whole thing.

The moral injury stemming from our participation in destruction of the planet has two dimensions: knowledge of our role and an inability to act. We know that we are causing irreparable damage. We are both individually and collectively responsible. But we are individually unable to make systemic changes that actually matter. The moral injury isn’t so much a matter of the individual psyche, but a matter of the body politic. Our culture lacks the mechanisms for taking account of collective moral injuries and then finding the vision and creativity to address them.  The difference between a soldier’s moral injury and our environmental moral injuries is that environmental soul wounds aren’t a shattering of moral expectations but a steady, grinding erosion, a slow-motion relentless sorrow.

Yup. Slow-motion relentless sorrow is just about it.

It’s exactly what I’ve been struggling and struggling and struggling with but failed to put in such perfect words.

I am so glad I’m not alone.

Quote of the day: deciding not to die

The word fighting gets thrown around a lot. We’re fighting against the fossil fuel industry. We’re fighting against the corporate takeover of our government. We’re fighting against a predatory economic system. We’re fighting against climate change.

But there are some people who are literally fighting for their lives. And in this era of economic collapse, biosphere annihilation, and rampant oppression, these people are rising up because they have decided not to die.

— Chloe Gleichman, We Are PowerShift