Thank you for making my birthday so nice yesterday! I picked Fury Road for my birthday movie (the NON-cut-for-Delta Airlines-version, SAUCY!) and ate an A+++ frozen mac & cheese I had shipped from Murray’s in NYC for breakfast, then fasted and drank tons of water all day to create the MAXIMUM amount of space in my stomach for Indian takeout for dinner. So, all in all, I would say I crushed it.
OH! OH! ANNNNDDD my friend is having a baby next month, and I texted her and her husband and offered very graciously to babysit their massive golden retriever and long-haired weimaraner (that’s a real thing!) while she’s in the hospital, and they were all “OH WOULD YOU? That’s so nice! What a relief!” and I’m just:
gonna let them sleep in our bedddd gonna rub their belliesss
This single mom dealing with mental health stuff is a friend of the luminous Stacia L. Brown, and I would encourage all of you to toss a little money her way, if you have it.
Why the Canadian election (and Canada in general) needs to pay more attention to aboriginal issues:
Education, poverty, housing, safe drinking water, youth suicides, jobs, natural resources, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, property rights, specific and comprehensive land claims, the Idle No More movement, substance abuse, food security, high incarceration rates, financial accountability, missing and murdered women and girls, culture, language, family violence, treaty rights, residential schools, the environment, infrastructure, children in care, floods . . . .
The challenges can be so immediate and overwhelming that National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations mentions it as one of the reasons — along with the idea of sovereignty and nationhood — behind low voter turnout among Aboriginal peoples.
Make sure you don’t miss Nikki’s great conversation with Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You:
Not long ago, you compiled a list of Asian American fiction writers in response to someone remarking, “There aren’t a lot of you out there.” (I love that that was your response to that comment!) Do you feel a responsibility to speak and write about issues surrounding race and diversity?
I’m starting to. I used to feel reluctant to talk about race, as I think many people of color sometimes do — there’s an exhaustion that sets in after a while because you’re constantly forced to confront your race in a way that Caucasians aren’t. Like, “Just because I’m Asian it doesn’t mean I have to talk about Asian issues, I think (and write!) about more than that!” All of that is true, but these are issues that have always been important to me, and now that the book is out in the world and found an audience, it feels like I have a responsibility to speak up while anyone is listening.
And I’ve seen firsthand how these issues affect me personally — we might like to think of ourselves outside of racial terms, but the fact is that your race is a big part of how the world sees you.
This piece on a covered-up rape (of a woman by a woman) at MichFest AND the mistreatment of a trans kid who tried to attend broke my heart about nine times:
What does it say about the ethic animating the WBW narrative that around the same time MichFest escorted a rapist off the land after actually raping a MichFest women, a trans kid was also escorted off the land after being mobbed, constructed and castigated as a “rapist” and then publicly threatened with a knife? Over 100 MichFesters gathered to confront a 16 year old trans kid and when a MichFest rape victim disclosed her story, nobody cared to acknowledge it.
This is a Guardian story about the Syrian refugee tragedy, and it has a picture of a drowned little precious boy in it (Aylan Kurdi, age 3), so that may not be something you can handle (although that image is hard to avoid at this point, honestly, and that may be a good thing ultimately for Europe.) This is a good and legit place that you can send money to to help, but this is something that really needs political change from a variety of nations, and if you are in a position to lobby for that, please do.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy has a red leash:
Also, Logan Sachon made me this birthday card:
*
Deleted comment of the day:
