The swelling emptiness of substitutions

There are a lot of things I can no longer eat. I'm in good company, apparently, and I've heard enough horror stories that I'm not going to complain that I can't eat wheat, dairy, or soy when other people--some in my family--can't eat tree nuts, sesame, sunflowers (!), or oats (!!). These allergies were almost unheard of a generation ago, and as a chemo nurse told me that in her experience cancer was 90+% environmental, I feel pretty good that the same can be said for allergies and food sensitivities. (No, this does not mean that I think Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was a good pick for Health and Human Services.)

It has taken a long time, but for the most part I don't crave the foods I used to be able to eat. A lot of us--A LOT--are used to what my daughter and I jokingly called "delicious regret": you know you're going to feel awful later, but it tastes so good in the moment, you're willing to suffer through it. My dear readers, this isn't the stupidest thing in the world if we're talking about a stomach ache, but not exactly the smartest. Gas and stomach upset are not our friends, but most of us have lived through it. But it is a really, really stupid philosophy to embrace when you experience hives, especially around your mouth, a closed throat, or, in my case, closed sinuses. Please believe me when I tell you that while dim sum rice noodles bathed in sweetened soy sauce used to be my idea of heaven, now the thought of it makes my stomach cramp up. There is no taste in the world that makes not being able to breathe later tolerable. By the same token, when I know that eating wheat is going to give me digestive difficulties for five days afterward, vegetable tempura is not going to be remotely tempting. 

There are many foods that I can now walk away from--Cheese? Yogurt? Bread? No, thank you--but there are still a few that I remember fondly enough that I do still seek out their substitutes. Vegan ice cream is a big one, in large part because it is so readily available, at least near me. I have eaten more than my fair share, but for the last six months I have been left with a profound emptiness when I'm done. I can't explain it, but that is exactly how I feel. I have eaten nothing but chemicals reorganized to resemble frozen dairy, and, perhaps, I'm so aware of it that I feel as empty as what I have eaten. It's not a hole in my gut, but in my chest.

I admit, too, that I feel a great deal of envy when I see my family eating something like pot pie. Oh, how I used to love vegetable pot pie, back in those halcyon days when I was just a vegan but could still eat wheat. It is the marriage of texture and flavor that is difficult to get to with whole grains and stew. (If I may, I think it is texture we miss more than flavor.) Seeing my son get a very large chicken pot pie this weekend (that will linger in the fridge until after Thanksgiving, I'm sure) inspired me to try my hand at a home made version with the stew that my husband made this weekend. 

You will be happy to know that my vegan, gluten-free crust was more than credible. Yes, parts of it broke, but for the most part, it baked well. It also gave me that "bite" that I had been missing for so long...and then I remembered those other things I used to experience when eating pot pie, as well as shepherd's pie. Oh, that combination of vegetables and starch is really quite filling, uncomfortably so, in fact. I looked at my pie and started wondering how bad it would be if I put in soup or stew.

There's an argument that the way I eat now--you can check out the recipes section of nutritionfacts.org to get an idea--is lacking in the glamour and sex appeal that you find in a lot of cookbooks and blogs. It's very uncool, but then again, so am I. It is probably not the worst thing in the world for me if I eat banana or mango nice cream instead of the vegan substitutes, or if I top a stew with some whole grains. Yes, I have missed some things about old favorites, but I've forgotten how relieved my body was not to deal with some of the consequences. 

A lack of regret is perhaps something we don't realize we benefit from, but maybe now is a good time to review all of the things you think you miss and ask yourself what you're really missing.

Deb in the City

You've seen this movie before; make sure you remember all the beats

Getting things off my chest a few days ago was the right call. I've had some realizations (that I don't need to share here, at least not right now...), and I'm now able to think on Things more clearly.

I'm looking for what might be called Comfort Wisdom. I want to find people who have lived through some variation of this reality before. For a couple of reasons, I've found Studs Terkel's archives invaluable, especially this weekend. 

His show ran for decades--amazing to hear the same interview Lorraine Hansberry before her untimely death, as well as Carl Sagan decades later. My heart fluttered when I heard Edward Said this weekend, and I shook my head and sighed when he interviewed someone about Gorbachev. Actual good times.

I haven't listened to even one percent of his archives, but I'm picking up on at least one theme. He talks about the violence in the United States at the time, and you can practically see him pointing at Vietnam and then nuclear weapons. It's the same point Donna Leon made in her latest Commissario Brunetti installment; for all of the complaints about baby gangs, do people really not notice that they're trying to be little militias? Where would they have gotten that idea?

It's a sociological insight that is, of course, pretty obvious, but which I really do need someone to point to. It's so obvious, actually,  that I wonder why I have to go back through archives almost sixty years old to find it. (I had heard some inklings of it before, but it was dismissed as so much handwaving.) But here we are, and find it I did. Now I'll have an extended think on it.

What I don't need any kind of review of is actual known and discussed history, but am I the only one? No, I'm very grateful for the Gaslit Nation community, because they got the memo--excuse me, history book--and actually read it. They seem to be the only ones though. 

I've been horrified for over a decade as I've seen similar scenes from the 1930s play out and people proceed as if they don't know what they need to not do if they want to avoid similar consequences. If Syria wasn't a full-on repeat of Spain, it was a close enough rhyme that we should have known that abandoning the Syrians wasn't going to help anyone. And wow, how difficult was it to predict that if Syrians had to flee their country, other countries gutted by austerity programs were going to lose their minds and lean full-on native? (It wasn't hard at all unless you were Obama and Jake Sullivan, but those were evidently the only ones who mattered.) Almost as difficult as it is to predict how trustworthy Putin would be about ending the war in Ukraine if we, you know, appeased him. Ask Neville Chamberlain how well that worked out.

I feel similarly about the consequences of voting in someone who has made fascist promises, as well as people who are calling for political violence as a counter measure. I see people talking about that, and I feel like I am in an alternate dimension. Just...are you out of your minds? That kind of violence will accomplish nothing. (I can go back to the late 19th century for that lesson.) Somebody, somewhere, might get to vent their anger, but it won't stop the much more organized violence of fascists. I will say that coming in strong numbers when there is a threat is a good strategy, but thinking you can shoot your way out of this is not the right move. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't choose passive resistance out of cowardice, but strategy. He was leading a "minority" movement, and his accomplishments were amazing. Imagine what a majority using the same strategy can accomplish?

Deb in the City

Radical honesty

Sometimes I've worried about what to post here, then I remember that I don't have a big readership, and I'm not important enough for anyone to look up. Someday, maybe, my kids might be interested in things I said, but honestly, I don't think they'll care, either.

So, really, I can say whatever I want.

There's a lot I want to say about everything that's going on, but first I need to talk about what's going on with me.

My mother needed to go into assisted living, and in July she finally did. It was years in the making. There's an extent to which she was a victim of the times she was born into, as well as the generational trauma both of her parents brought with them, but there were also important junctures in which she made the wrong choices. Some of them--maybe, really, just one of them--were so egregious that I could never forgive her, and if I shared it, I sincerely hope I wouldn't have to live through more of the gaslighting I suffered through when I was younger. But it's not my story to tell (and that is part of what makes her so unforgivable).

She was the primary caretaker of my autistic, nonverbal sister, and that was untenable as of last September. Between last November and this past March, it was a slog to have my mother removed as the guardian. Because her mental state was so compromised, she only intermittently realized that was the case. Her compromised state, along with her general disposition, had caused her to alienate her caretaker, and after she quit, I had had enough and finally told her she needed to go into assisted living. Shockingly, for reasons I'll never understand, she didn't fight me or get verbally abusive (this time), and within two weeks, she was in an apartment that one of my sisters would be happy to spend her days in as well (I mean, maybe).

The caretaker came back to be with my sister, but unfortunately, I think it's fair to say my mother had poisoned that well. In spite of my insistence that my sister needed to be fed a whole foods diet, the caretaker would sneak junk food to her. (I know this in part because my sister's day program sent me photos.) To understand why this was such a big deal, my sister had a BMI of 35, in no small part due to the amount of oil and butter my mother would give her. (By that I mean my mother would give her a small bowl of oil, sometimes with some soy sauce.) She would also let her eat all kinds of junk food, and didn't prioritize something like produce. Amazingly, my sister wasn't diabetic, but she does have a fatty liver. 

The caretaker was a hundred times better about my sister's diet than my mother, but I didn't like being lied to (or talked down to). What finally pushed me to dismiss her was when I came to the house to install a television with my husband and found her deeply asleep in the late afternoon while my sister was by herself. It was no longer safe to leave my sister there.

So, effectively, I had to step into the breach, which meant going from being at the house in the suburbs two days a week to being there seven, then, mercifully, five, once my oldest niece was able to do two nights. Which was great, until my niece, who is in college, had plans she wanted to keep. Unfortunately, that period coincided with my son, who is still at home, developing terrible withdrawal symptoms from his medication. 

This has been a rough two years, but one of the good things to come out of it is that when I hear things about pounding headaches and intrusive thoughts, I know to act immediately. What this meant in practice is that my husband stays in our home with our son when I have to be in the suburbs. I think, sadly, this will have to be the case for another few weeks (that's how medication tends to go). Neither of us got married so we could sleep alone, but we also didn't have children so we could leave them to their own devices. It's going to be a long six weeks, but then it will end.

Being in the house with my sister by myself has been very difficult for two reasons: one, my sister is on anti-seizure medication (because she had a frightening seizure five years ago) and two, the house developed a mouse problem in the last two months. There's something so perfect about the fact that my mother, who didn't think she needed to move her dishes from the table to the sink if someone else was in the house, never had a mouse problem in this house, but I do, in spite of the fact that I don't leave food out and clear dirty dishes out of the sink immediately. The exterminator has come three times, and the cleaners now come once a week. I HATE mice--they set my nervous system on edge, and you can sneer at me all you want, but that won't change it--and being around them is agony, especially when they crawl into the couch I used to sit on.

That problem may be solved (though I don't have my hopes up). My sister's anti-seizure meds are another story. One of the side effects is that it makes you agitated, and in her it has manifested as a lot of shouting, yelling, screaming, hollering, and just generally being loud and unpleasant. It's hard to be patient, and it's hard to be around, and because of the mouse and cold weather, it's been hard for me to find a place to retreat. I also kept getting notices from her program that she was agitated, with similar loud behavior, but also being intrusive with her peers. I was worried that she was having trouble adjusting to some of the changes (and felt terrible). But two weeks ago, after I remembered my dentist saying something about caffeine and teeth (my sister's teeth are another story), I removed caffeine from my diet and thought it wouldn't be a terrible thing for my sister not to have any, either. 

Within three days, the results were pretty dramatic. She wasn't shouting nearly as much, she was calmer and less manic in general, and she was sleeping much better. I believe in the power of diet (in large part because that's the only thing I feel like I can safely manipulate), but this was notable. On a hunch, my husband and I looked up the interaction with her medication and caffeine, and I was livid when I found that caffeine can, in effect, inhibit the "anti-convulsant effects" of the medication. When I thought about all of the times my mother would give my sister coffee to control her, I was outraged all over again.

This is one of my longer posts, because it's a lot. I have to handle the vast majority of it on my own, with some significant help from my husband, but as I said, I'm pretty much on my own on the weekends for the next month and a half. It's a lot, and I'm bitter about how much of it I'm being left to handle on my own and, frankly, without a lot of sympathy (and I don't mean from my husband and children, who are upset about how much time I have to spend). I also find myself having to manage bills for the house, even if I'm not paying them. Managing my sister's affairs is not nothing, and then when I had to step into the breach to fix an insurance issue for my mother, that was a lot of time I could ill afford to lose. I get it: people have things to do, but SO DO I. And this year has driven home for me how much more people and their time are valued when someone else is willing to pay for it. I work--HARD--but because I don't get compensated for it, I'm not valued, and in fact I'm seen as an expendable resource. It's really, really disconcerting when people in your family treat you that way, but here we are.

Not only do I not get paid for my work, it costs me money. Between the social security payments my sister gets, the small sum my father sends, and the amount of money available for personal care assistance, I can barely afford five days of care taking. That allows me to replenish my mental health as well as that of my husband and son, but it means there is no cushion for groceries or clothing or anything else. There was money--a significant amount--but one of the last things my mother did before she lost guardianship was spend it on who knows what, and it might as well be in the wind.

Some of this might be easier if we moved into the house in the suburbs, but my son adamantly doesn't want to, and I don't want to give up the home I've been in for almost three decades. It's worth some money to me to keep my sister safe and keep my sanity. So in the meantime I'm sitting on the weekends with what's left of my mother's furniture in a house that's riddled with at least one mouse, by myself. But at least I'm giving my sister the healthy food she needs, and being attentive to her needs. That's worth something, even if only to me.

Alright. I think that's most of what I needed to get off my chest. Now I can move onto the other issues. Those are much easier.

Deb in the City

We have to face what this means

One of the few "mainstream media" podcasts/shows I still pay attention to is On the Media. I love Brooke Gladstone, without whom I wouldn't have found Cory Doctorow, who lead me down a rabbit hole of other Very Good Things. (And I've found some good books from OTM as well, including Fearing the Black Body, which was amazing.) 

On their Wednesday show, Gladstone and her co-host Micah Loewinger dissected their role in not preventing Trump's win. While I applaud them for the self-examination, and I agree that Trump's win is one of the expected consequences of the long-term project of gutting local media, they're mistaken if they think that voters didn't know what they were voting for. Yes, they did. People knew Donald Trump was a fascist and they voted for him anyway.

More than half of the people who turned out this year wanted a fascist for president. They not only heard what he promised to do in this term--chief among them, the deportation of 13 million immigrants--they know what he did in his last term. And even if they just couldn't keep up with all of it--and that was part of the point--they saw the attempted coup in 2021. It doesn't matter that Trump and his people BS'd why he wasn't responsible; anyone with eyes and/or ears knew that he was. Everyone saw, and millions of people didn't care. In fact, some of those people may have welcomed it.

When you infantilize large groups of people for decades, don't be surprised when they're vulnerable to believing someone who wants to play daddy is going to take care of them.

It also cannot be overlooked that sexism played a huge role in this. It's really chicken-and-egg: did toxic misogyny and misogynoir give people the final push into fascism, or has fascism been part of why misogyny has become so murderous? I think Kamala Harris was an excellent candidate, and people who follow these things said she had all the right moves on the campaign. But I had a pit in my stomach as I did in 2016 as soon as Biden stepped down and endorsed her. It's not that America isn't ready for a female president, as if we're in some larval stage on the way to sprouting our beautiful wings of pluralistic acceptance; we're fully formed, and we reject anything that changes the environment we're used to.

(I was worried because Harris was a woman, not because she was Black and South Asian, but maybe I should have been. I should not have forgotten that the intersection of anti-white racism and sexism is one of the ugliest places to inhabit.)

I beg everyone else to stop the nonsensical explanation. (The price of eggs? Are you joking? Trump and his people don't have to make the people who eat eggs happy, the have to make Big Ag happy.) And stop telling yourselves that people didn't understand and they're going to be sorry. No, they're not, not unless they suffer for it. As angry as I am, I'm not wishing that kind of suffering on anyone.

People need to understand what his election means. Assume the worst. Assume that the worst interpretations of Project 2025 will apply. Assume his administration will deport 13 million people. Assume they will try to strip citizenship from naturalized citizens. Assume trans people, and especially the children, will be under concerted attack. Assume they will try to pull back recognition of gay marriage. Assume they will also bring back miscegenation prohibitions, at least in some places. Assume there will be camps. Assume there will be detention centers. Assume people will not be able to avail themselves of due process. Assume there will be politically motivated prosecutions. Assume Taiwan, Ukraine, Gaza, and the West Bank are on their own. (And shame on you for knowing that and voting as if you could indulge purity and not have to choose the best of actual options.)

Assume the worst, because maybe that will drive home how much assistance we who can provide should provide. My time and money are limited for the next year and a half--but that doesn't mean there is nothing I can do. I want to get involved in mutual aid. I want to keep people from being cold on the street (and that was already happening in Massachusetts--don't tell me how Blue we are, please). I want to keep people from starving. I want to keep libraries open. 

I want to preserve everything we have so we can someday reclaim what they are going to try to take away.

Please join me.

Deb in the City

Progress on the saga

What, that's not the most important thing today?

I finished drafting my twelfth installment. 24,368 words, for a total of 316,005 words. 

Twelve down, four to go.

Excuse me while I make some calls to save democracy.

Deb in the City

Please help Get Out The Vote (GOTV) with the Environmental Voter Project (EVP)

My fellow Americans,

If you're planning to vote on Election Day (as I am) or you've already voted, thank you, but unfortunately we need to push a little harder this time around. It truly amazes me that this can be a close race after what happened on January 6, 2021, but (once again) here we are. 

I am very happy to be working on the GOTV effort with EVP. This isn't just to preserve democracy, but also to give us a fighting chance of preserving the livability of the planet. EVP is calling people who already believe climate is the most important voting issue but don't reliably show up to vote. It's difficult to get those people to vote, but it's harder to get existing voters to believe that climate should be their number one issue. As Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder of EVP has said, it's easier to change behavior than belief, especially now.

If you haven't already started phoning, start now. They're phone banking until tomorrow, November 5 (aka Election Day) until 7 PM EST. They've already made some amazing inroads--as of yesterday, almost 11% of their targeted voters had shown up to early vote, which is amazing--but we've got a lot more work to do.

Let's do everything we can to make sure we have a democracy next year.

Deb in the City