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from the bed

state of mind: i feel like ursula, from the little mermaid. that is to say i’m coughing till i am blue, rolling around full of poison. in my dreams i am well. in real life, its been a week since the first sharp pinpricks of flu started poking inside of me. for the past three days its been “just a cough,” which i always underestimate. the cough is not satisfied with rearranging my insides, its really a purging process, against my will.

the ny post called obama a monkey today, in so many words…and to add insult to injury, had a cop shooting him. that’s the part that makes it current for 2009. it was in such poor taste, its such an inexcusably offensive cartoon. not surprising, just disgusting.

whenever i feel sick it slows my roll, and roll is a very hopeful roll speeding along through the world. then when im sick it slows me up and i feel like i see all the dark and demons, the hacking coughs and yellow-green illness of the world, the racist cartoons that expose even more racist actual feelings manifesting in policy and media coverage. i wish i could steam the NY Post out of my reality.

in other news, i am really tempted to write an open letter to foundations and funders right now, as i watch the landscape shift towards desperation all around me. i quell this temptation by rereading excerpts from “the revolution will not be funded” by the women of incite. i quell these thoughts by thinking of time sitting in grace lee bogg’s living room while she wrinkles her nose at the whole 501c3 structure. the energy i want to pour into haranguing funders for not keeping their word would in many ways be better spent learning the life cycle of potatoes, expedient consensus decision making, or how to make rope for climbing gear…that is to say, to believe in the work of my visions, rather than the false stability of the current reality…i know this is a temporary way for movement to exist in this country. i just don’t quite know how the leaders of this moment are supposed to navigate from this tectonic plate to the next one.

i’m seeing stars now, from coughing, feel the muscles through my whole body engaged in the process. the tastes and smells (and sounds and feelings) of my world are: broth, echinacea, lemon cough drops, ginger garlic apple cider vinegar honey cayenne pepper tea, herba tussin tea, theraflu cough strips, wellness formula (the stinkiest biggest pills ever), the strange heat of the nettie pot, peppermint steams, the public process of breathing when your nose is stuffed up and your lungs are triggered by new air, the comfort and then boredom/confinement feeling of the sick bed, the constant advice from every direction, the well wishes from the same places, and letting myself be taken care of for real for once.

now i need a good night’s sleep, tomorrow is the first day of somatics and social justice year-long training, i am excited and nervous!