Pronouns: she/her. Writer, illustrator (Princess Ninja available here: https://t.co/D72al9oElL ), 1/5th of neurodiverse-led theatre co @ActualA_tistic
Sep 25, 2020 • 30 tweets • 6 min read
Neurodivergent folks who want to learn more about hidden meanings - tumblr is not a terribly reliable source, but you know what IS useful? Books by linguists! Linguists are often talking about how implied communication differs across culture and subculture.
To get a sample of this, I think it’s often super interesting to start with the work of Deborah Tannen talking about “the New York Jewish conversational style” (which is not unique to New York Jews” or “high involvement vs high considerateness” styles.
Sep 16, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“I had leave, why am I not back to a normal level of work function?” I ask within 24 hours of running a memorial for a friend who died, finding out about the sterilisation in ICE facilities, & announcement of redundancies that might take my family member’s job.
My heart hurts all the time.
Sep 11, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Memorial reading from the writings of Corey Alexander/Xan West
Anyone who knew or cared about Corey is welcome <3
Details and access info in next tweets.
A couple of Corey’s/Xan’s friends will read aloud a selection of Corey’s short works, to honour & remember their beautiful writing, insightful perspectives, & ethic of care, respect and community.
Sep 10, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It’s interesting how almost every default subreddit on reddit can tend toward being a lowest common denominator cesspool, but a huge proportion of the specific subject expertise/hobbyist subreddits are a joy reminiscent of the golden days of forums.
Sometimes I wonder whether people are just better to each other when we’re sharing specific knowledge from a perspective of presumed shared endeavour.
Sep 1, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is the attitude that would have fucking stolen 14 years of full beautiful life from my grandfather. He died in 2012, but people were telling us to give up on him since his first heart attack in 1998. He was essentially an extra parent to me through those years. FUCK this.
I talk about this often bc though I’m disabled, this - knowing my mum & grandma were repeatedly pressured to give up on him, mum finding out from a former student that some patients were taken off life support against their will - was the real beginning of my disability politics.
Aug 27, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Just seen an academia solidarity strike being planned for a week & a half from now &
a) hell yeah but also
b) why do I suspect it had that level of lead time not just to gather support (hell yeah) but so academics could scramble to do-ahead the work they would have done
This is me as a complete outsider know-nothing to this strike, you gotta defer to the organisers who know their strategy, the date is probably an excellent pick. But I’m worried about what the planned 1-day-only “climate strike” protests have done to our understanding of strikes.
Aug 25, 2020 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Something nice and petty to be annoyed about:
During lockdown I’ve discovered I’m a chocolate snob & comfortable w that fact. Listen, dark baking chocolate isn’t dark baking chocolate if it contains a mere 35-40% cocoa, no wonder my latest batch of brownies sucked.
If you’re wondering, my favourite brownie recipe is the cocoa-only recipe on Smitten Kitchen, but instead of baking for like 20 mins, make sure you’re using brown sugar and bake for 40 at the same temperature (or adjust if you’re baking fan-forced).
Aug 23, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Tonight 8pm AEST we’re reading Chapters 2 & 3 of Beyond Survival, a book about transformative justice. Last week the folks listening and chatting said it was a really accessible text that made abolition & TJ feel like something they could understand & work toward. Join us?
Here are the ways we do read-alouds:
- one reader or a group of readers do the reading aloud; if you want to read something aloud as a one off or at a regular time, you can too
- everyone can listen without talking or typing at all; “lurking” is totally fine & welcome
Aug 22, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
This can be done. We can do this. This world can be ours NOW.
By the way, here are some examples of things we can ask for/things we can offer when brains are stuck:
- more detailed instructions
- having some work taken away to be done by someone else & the rest of the work kept
- having someone work alongside you
(More in next tweet)
Aug 20, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
My favourite theories of trauma suggest that trauma is about the assumptive ground shifting under us, about a loss of a certainty or belief about how the world works or holds us. People talking about the trauma of the pandemic aren't emphasising the belief changes enough.
Many people are only now learning, and many others are learning more fully, about their former loved ones' attitudes to others. But there is also the thing where people are understanding more concretely how the State can fail us completely.
Aug 19, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A bit of "actually, most people truly were doing the right thing in Melbourne" news from The Guardian's liveblog of news of the day:
theguardian.com/australia-news…
"And just to be crystal clear, if you read Josh’s update a few posts down, you’ll see that there have been just 42 fines for breaching self-isolation. >
Aug 16, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Wanna learn more about practical approaches to abolition and transformative justice, but struggle to read full books, or to read alone?
In the Drift Inn Tales discord server, we read books aloud & chat about them. Tonight we're starting a new one - you're welcome to join!
We read fun books, especially sci fi, fantasy and romance, but we also have an anti-racist/abolitionist reading group on Sunday nights, 8pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Tonight we're starting *Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement*.
Aug 15, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
When it becomes safe again to be in a room full of people (I do not know when that will be, but I will wait), what kind of party are you gonna be craving?
Some types of party/gathering I’m going to have when it’s safe:
- cynic’s New Years Eve (in this house we sing This Year by The Mountain Goats and perfectly time the Jerusalem line to the tick-over)
- Pesach Seder
- Costume nonsense
- Karaoke
- Marathon single session ttrpg
Aug 12, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Today our fool dog grabbed my glasses to have a chew, & my first thought was "I wonder when it could be safe for me to go into a glasses shop & try on frames again" followed by "I wonder which useful item I've assumed I could always access will become impossible to get in future"
Had a little cry about the unmasked uncertainty and unreliability of the world.
Aug 10, 2020 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
I wonder if @CareCentrix understands how completely we are willing to go to bat for Cal, or just how loud the disability community can get. It should never have to come to this. #FreeCal
If @CareCentrix understood how important Cal is to us, would that make a difference? Do they rely on the assumption that disabled people won’t be fought for when they make these negligent decisions? We will not let this happen to Cal - but who else have they abandoned? #FreeCal
Aug 6, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Saying this as a Jew: our community needs a serious internal reckoning about this. EVEN IF Israeli gov actions are sometimes disproportionately highlighted relative to human rights abuses elsewhere - that doesn't make the human rights abuses go away! They need addressing!
(Looking forward to my notifications becoming a hellscape because of this.)
Aug 2, 2020 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
A few months ago I read some commentary about acceptance of current realities as a useful precursor for psychological survival through disaster and loss. Not as in “I’m helpless to improve things” but as in “ok, this is the reality in front of me, things this bad can happen”.
I wish I could recall the source so I could check how the author came to their conclusions, but it absolutely has resonated with me and helped a lot.
Jul 31, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
If you can have a pet, they can be an absolute lifesaver. This tweet is about a cat but I’ll put my dog thoughts in the next one.
I’m kind of astonished by how, a mere week into living with Shimon Bark Yochai, a bunch of subtle little things are better. The unconditional, uncomplicated affection part is helpful and I certainly like it a lot, but for me it’s about executive dysfunction.
Jul 30, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Could you help me think through something? I'm thinking about "swords into ploughshares" as an aspiration for what should happen to militaries, & about how the ADF has been deployed all year for disaster response in Aus - but also about military as inherently intimidating.
We don't like it when police are deployed as part of disaster response here because all they seem to know how to do is do punitive response, be racist, fail to wear mask and lie, & because of the military/police histories of the people they are deployed to "protect" (control).
Jul 30, 2020 • 50 tweets • 10 min read
I genuinely do not believe it is possible to offer elderly people a good life in congregate aged care, and I am not sure you can change my mind.
I have a huge bias about this, both because of my awareness of abuse histories in congregate disability care and because of my experience as a young carer for my grandparents. Totally willing to own my bias. But: I do not think we'd do this to our elders if we weren't forced.
Jul 27, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Craving a friendly but undemanding online community w chats, escapism, catharsis? Our read-aloud group’s reading Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic series. Tomorrow night at 8pm Aus EST, we start The Healing in the Vine, a story of epidemic, care & community discord.gg/MeGNTqN
There’s an anti-racist/abolitionist reading group on Sundays. One of our readers is about to start Pride and Prejudice; another is doing Pratchett’s Thief of Time. I read romance novels, particularly by Courtney Milan, after the weekly Pierce reading.
