If life can be absurd, anything can be possible.

I do not regret or am embarrassed about dressing like a tiger or a skunk whatsoever during this time or any time. My life was chaotic and my response to uncontrolled chaos was controlling my own chaos.

In this issue:

What Animal Are You?
Plague News Minis
Recommended Reading

TW: This post includes descriptions of substance abuse.

What Animal Are You?

So, I am interested in the inflatable animal costumes at the protests.

Inflatable animal costumes are absurd. Absurdity is the antidote to fascism and nihilism. These costumes were made popular by the ICE protesters in Portland, Oregon and then during the Oct 18th No Kings protests in hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S.

Between 2015-2017, the last years of my active alcoholism which I have about five collective memories of, I wore a homemade tiger costume (I found at a vintage shop) almost daily. Out in public and to shows. I was deep in late-stage and was for the first time, trying to get serious treatment for PTSD symptoms.

I also wear other animal and animal-adjacent costumes, Pikachu, a Care Bear. I dressed like this especially at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A person in a pikachu onesie and heart glasses and a vaporwave mask taking a selfie in a colorful room — circa 2020 going to the pet store - I've since upgraded my mask to a KN95

I am not prepared to post photos of myself yet. I've decided on a slow burn reveal. And absolutely no shade, but I have too much personal style and class to wear an inflatable costume. I am not a furry mostly due to sensory issues, but have high respect for furries.

I dress like an animal or a Pokémon in public because:

I want to.
It makes people smile and cheers people up. Seeing a stranger in a surprising outfit reminds people of their existence, they are alive; life can be absurd. Dressing amazingly, either with fun fashion or animal costumes is telling people who you are.
If life can be absurd, anything can be possible.

Doing-whatever-the-fuck-you-want can go two ways, good or bad. Progressive and evil. Humanity and death. Right now we are seeing what happens when the the bad do-whatever-the-fuck-you-want people take charge.

Absurdity is the antidote to fascism and nihilism.

Nihilism is lazy anarchy, lazy absurdism. Nihilism is absurdism without desire or purpose. Nihilism is giving up, setting your oars on fire and floating into the doomed current.

It took me almost three years of trying to get sober, to stay sober, putting real bleeding effort in, including two stays in detox, one in Nov. 2016 and another almost exactly a year later. The second stay stuck.

I lost my shit in 2016, around Oct. 2016 when I realized that he was going to win after listening to a podcast about how sickly racist the U.S. is and how his team was taking advantage of that. I warned people. I asked what are we going to do. Everyone told me to calm down, don't worry. And he won.

I went on a three week? bender and ended up in detox the first time. I remember after the election realizing that he would destroy me somehow if I didn't get sober, and I know now I was right. The majority of the 20+ friends I know who died since the start of the pandemic have been addicts and alcoholics.

I fell into full relapse the week of the Women's March in 2017 at the Boston Common. First, I am trans-masc, and was closeted at the time, presenting very femme. I did not like the pink pussy hats trend for several reasons but I was there iykyk. It was stressful and disorienting. This was the largest crowd of people I had ever been in in my life.

On my way downtown, I stopped at a liquor store I knew opened at 8am and bought a pint of vodka, and the woman behind the counter complimented me, "Now that's how you do a protest." I used to always go to protests alone. I used to do everything alone. I used to drink a pint of vodka everyday for years.

I had a mental breakdown, for lack of another term, during and after the Women's March protest. The city felt like we were on the cusp of falling into a churning dystopian void that would last forever, and at the time I couldn't handle the despair.

I've since improved at handling despair and much of that is owed to sobriety.

I don't think I've been to another protest since the Women's March. I was an Iraq War protester, and I stood on the front lines of the marches. I was an Occupy Wall Street protester, and I would go down almost daily to help the people who were camped by South Station, and to attend the larger demonstrations. At the murder of Eric Garner protest I stood against the state house gates staring the c0ps in the face.

I can't do these things anymore. I have too much anxiety in crowds now, and learned that after 2017, and now with COVID-19 and heightened violence from the state, including violence I've experienced first-hand, it is too risky. I had a good run.

When I first got sober almost eight years ago at the end of 2017, I was working at a a public media organization to be brief, working in tech and marketing. Working with the news team and a lot of fantastic journalist people. All the little public radio stations across the country and all the big ass tv shows.

I had to set steel-strong boundaries and permissions-of-self to stay sober during a stressful political era in the U.S. which has apparently only gotten worse. I had quit a Large Internet Company tech job in 2017 to Do Something Better. I wanted to be part of the solution not the cause.

I still had a lot to learn.

A miniature watercolor painting of a mouse taped to a metal pole. The words: There is always a second chance and I love you are written on it.

I had to stay sober despite all odds. My job was to help publish the news on complicated marketing platforms, to again be brief. Content published to social media, newsletters and websites. I trained myself to be a pro at skimming lines of articles, and then being able to blur out the text completely.

There were two elevators that would take me to smoke cigarettes outside the building. One played the news radio station through its round ceiling speakers, the other elevator played the classical music station. I would either wait for the classical music elevator or take the stairs (a big deal if you smoke cigarettes (which I also quit)).

I wouldn't call my skimming entirely "sticking my head in the sand", because at least to my knowledge at the time, I was part of a great, good machine that was helping solve the problem of fascism.

Today, entering my eighth year of sobriety, I have regained my resistance to reading the news. This Time, this Second Term, I find it incredibly interesting and horrifying to be witnessing "history" in real time, I cannot look away. I can tell people and friends are acting how I had before when I was freshly sober with all my nerves exposed. Avoiding reading the news is a survival tactic. And there is a lot of doom.

But you can't do nothing at all, that's the bad team by default. Wear a mask, wear an animal costume, wear both. Be fucking different. Stand out, who gives a fuck. We are going to die anyways, might as well make life better while we have time.

I can no longer protest in large crowds, even without COVID-19, but I support you. (And also encourage you to mask up.)

Practicing good absurdism, is how to say fuck you to a fascist and authoritative system; taking control of oneself in chaos and moving away from the status quo especially with purpose to help others and to make the world better.

This is one of the reasons I mask everywhere in public, even in outdoor places that are probably "safer". I wear fabulous mask chains and wink and wave at anyone who looks at me with a raised eyebrow at this point. I am doing the opposite of the majority despite "disfavor" because I can and because I believe it is the right thing to do. This makes me happy and gives me confidence in myself. Most importantly it protects me from illness; the main reason.

I also don't fucking care what other people think of me. I care how other people treat each other, yes.

Have we finally reached the point of return where wearing a mask and an animal costume in public will be greeted by celebration? I think we possibly have.

I have to share this interview. The last thing is he says is the point. You have to become more absurd to counter the absurdity. I know Rob, he has a tattoo of Windwaker Link, he is a good person.

Pushing against great tides can be painful, but we can do it. We have to do it. We have done it before. Little effort is needed to sail with the current, the wind, even if it's leading straight to hell. Fascism is sloppy and lazy (like "A.I."), and is conquered with creativity, love and purpose.

In These Times it is necessary to forge your own path or your path will be forged for you.

One can choose to deviate to bad or good, one can be a Nazi or one can wear an animal costume and an N95 mask. I believe everyone has the capacity to understand humanity, and the human right to exist and thrive. I believe humanity and compassion are innate but unfortunately so is violence.

We have the power to choose. What animal are you?

A pencil? and ink drawing of a person with freckles wearing a mouse hat — Self portrait with mouse hat

I accept donations!

Plague News Minis

The United States is on a fast track to lose its measles elimination status. Time to tap the 1624 John Dunne poem again.

The now global surge measles is the epitome of how the U.S. treats the rest of the world, our ignorance and privilege affects everyone on Earth. The U.S. cannot handle measles, the rest of the world certainly cannot. Americans are responsible for much death and destruction.

I believe that the lack of mitigation and control around COVID-19 is also responsible for these outbreaks of formerly eliminated diseases, making people's immune systems weaker and more susceptible to infection. When you have an immune system that's taken some serious hits, it will not fare well against other infections especially shit like measles.

If you want to purchase high-quality masks and PPE, I recommend Bona Fide Masks.

What Animal Are You?

Plague News Minis

Recommended Reading