Stop! In the name of love

So. Monday. Another Mayday. I'm sad to report that the carnival weekend in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, ended in tears. Torrential rain, more than twice the monthly average in just 24 hours, led to landslides, mudslides and flooding. Lives lost, homes destroyed, the climate crisis in devastating action.

For the love of whatever you value most, abandon all hope. I'm not joking. Let's stop hoping someone or something saves us from ourselves. Let's hope less and do more. None of us will fix all of this but we can all do something. Considering everything we are (as mammals), everything that surrounds us, everything we eat, wear, live in, work with and build with and otherwise consume comes from nature, every choice we make affects nature.

There is no disconnect, no distinction, although the fossil fuel industry for one would like you to not notice that fact. Well, screw that and screw you; you broke it, you bought it, now clean up after yourselves at your own expense because you damn well should.

Hell yes I'm angry. Aren't you? I love this planet of ours; I love it so very much; it's fascinating and full of beauty; it gave us life and what do we do in return? I am sorry for all the ways in which I may have harmed her, and I am sad for all the ways in which we keep harming her, this system that sustains us.

Love your mother. Make good, smart choices whenever possible. Vote conscientiously. Demand answers and demand action. Brook no bullshit.

It's your world. Honor it.

God rest thee mellow gentleman

Temperature: a sunny 14/57 degrees on Saturday. Which is alarmingly warm for November but nothing out of the new ordinary. A bit colder now, but it has never been this warm this late in the year.

Eating: Veggie cabbage rolls. The stench! The taste!!

Drinking: afternoon coffee. Which I’ve kind of given up. But today calls for afternoon coffee and lots of it.

Listening: to an audiobook, even though I don’t usually do audiobooks. But when you admire someone’s work enough you go the extra mile. Is it any good? Stupendous. You clever, clever thing. Person, I mean.

Watching: If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of either the movie My Sailor, My Love or the World Wide Dance triple bill (Akram Khan, Fei Bo, and Justin Peck; unless that was a one-off, come to think of it) go see them, go!

Reading: Leafing through Nigella Christmas. Oh come on, you know me. Or ought to, sweetie darlings.

Thinking: Imagine if we’d taken the Kyoto Protocol seriously in 1997. Imagine if we’d taken Putin seriously in 2008.

Feeling: for my husband and his late mother’s side of the family; his uncle has died of pancreatic cancer.

So now what?

Temperature: on the rise. #COP26 #WhatGretaSaid #AndSimonKofe

Drinking: Would some Beaujolais nouveau help? What do you mean it’s only Wednesday?

Eating: gingerbread. I made the first batch over the weekend. Lo and behold, Ebenezer and the Grinches had no problem helping themselves to a few and then some.

Watching: catastrophe movies and other artistic endeavors of the same genre come to life. This is an emergency, sweetie darlings, and we are all on call.

Listening: Don’t tell a soul but I’ve been listening to some Christmas-y tunes. Not like a full-blown playlist, just a favorite song here and there to lift spirits and help with the baking and other pre-Xmas chores. Oh, don’t shake your head, I warned you I’m going Stealth Elf. And I have. Sure, my cover is blown at home, but who’s gonna stop me? I would like to see them try. *pulls out a candy cane shaped and colored lightsaber*

Reading: Grand Hotel Europa by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. Read it if you’re European. Read it even if you aren’t. Available in several languages.

Writing: a letter to Santa asking him to bring me a candy cane shaped and colored lightsaber, if there’s a sustainable way to manufacture one, because that would be awesome.

Thinking: After the diluted outcome of COP26, there are reasons to be hopeful and cheerful, and there are reasons to be fearful and doubtful. I wish we had more of the former and less of the latter.

Feeling: like I let my children down, like we all let every single child on the planet down, when my youngest said that he hopes he lives to be a hundred because he wants to see how this ends. Sweet baby Jesus, sweetie darlings! And he didn’t sound as despondent as I feel, he sounded almost curious, as if he knows full well what’s coming in the not-so-distant future, but since he doesn’t know how and when he’ll truly start feeling the effects in earnest there’s no sense in panicking just yet. Oh but they see and hear everything, dearest denizens. And this is how we’ll be remembered. What do you think some future or alien species will make of our dogged self-destruction?

“Were they stupid? Was it an accident?”
“Doesn’t look like one. Looks like a 500-year-old long con they called capitalism got out of hand.”
“Hmm. It had its pros, it seems.”
“But they couldn’t contain the cons, apparently. Or wouldn’t.”
“So, we’re going with stupid with marks of greed and arrogance?”
“Well, no fully developed species does this. The other lifeforms seem to be thriving, though.”
“I’ll make a note of that. Okay, next sector then. Lunch first? I know a superb place near Tau Ceti. Far off, I know, but worth it.”
“Let’s go. Shame though. It looks kind of beautiful.”

Happy Birthday, Tove

"Moomintroll thought about how he loved everything; the forest and the sea, the rain and the wind, the sunshine, the grass and the moss, and how impossible it would be to live without them all, and this made him feel very, very sad."

Tove Jansson, Comet In Moominland, 1946

The abyss stares back

Temperature: 20/68 degrees. It hasn’t been this cool in…well over a month. It’s but a brief respite, the heat promised to return over the weekend and stay put for another X weeks. A subcontinent once preoccupied with keeping warm is now working fast to learn how to keep cool. That means changes to energy use and production, construction of housing and infrastructure, everything under the scorching sun and increasing rains. How to help the natural world adjust is another matter.

Drinking: I made rhubarb juice! Again!!

Eating: And like twelve different pies. It’s quite high-yielding, our patch. Not complaining, mind you. I freeze what we don’t use so we get to taste summer all year long.

Watching: my favorite Austen, Brontë and Gaskell adaptations.

Listening: to the sounds of summer, which my youngest has been recording, both audio and visual. I thought how wise and sweet of him until we chatted about it and I realized he is recording things he expects to lose over time, at least to some extent. I had to excuse myself and go cry in the bathroom. This. This is what we are doing. This is what our dawdling is doing. To our children and their future. They are being so very brave and hopeful, so positive and innovative, because the alternative is this…abyss.

Reading: my favorite Austen, Brontë and Gaskell novels.

Thinking: The Pegasus project revelations, ugh and duh, another Evil Corp at it, and not the only one, everything that can be done will be and is being done, so crying that this is not what it’s meant for is the Zuckerberg defense, and we all know his motives are both obvious and dubious, it’s like arming yourself for personal/national/regional safety and defense, the business end of your arsenal is still meant for threats and offense, and for all your, ahem, good and noble intentions, that is what it is being used for so zip it, or fix it, or have some standards, the bar doesn’t seem all that high so it shouldn’t be all that hard for a security software company, no, that’s like calling KFC a vitamins and supplements supplier, insecurity company then, and what good is end-to-end encryption when the whole device can be hijacked on the hush-hush, come to think of it, and you know what else I’m thinking, my blog so I’ll tell you, not interested then what are you still doing here, life is short, the clock is ticking, yes, so, with all your possible and probable resources, all your data and know-how, all that you could be doing, this is the scope of your ambition, this is what you’d rather do above all else, enable oppression, drive division, for profit, o-kay, but with everything going on in the world, all the problems waiting to be solved, this is your contribution, o-kay, okay okay okay, just wondering, always wondering, about everything, one of my favorite pastimes, truly, just endlessly curious, but, ew, eternal shame on you, if I were a vindictive person I’d wish long covid upon the whole lot of you at it, or maybe a visit from some other virus, something you only dreamt of but couldn’t quite make happen, you know, because this is absolute we-sure-are-being-humongous-dicks-but-do-we-give-a-flying-fuck-hell-no-show-us-the-money assholery, but since I'm not, what I wish is for some form of common agreement that this has gone too far for far too long and has to stop.

Feeling: This calls for more Austen, Brontë and Gaskell.

Smultronställe 🍓

Temperature: a sunny cloudy sunny then cloudy 29.5/85 degrees.

Drinking: is not a good idea in this heat, sweetie darlings, alcohol is a diuretic.

Watching: Black Monday. The cast and the writing, the costumes, hair and makeup...two thumbs way up.

Listening: to plans being made, we’re leaving the city for a bit.

Reading: God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything by Michio Kaku.

Writing: birthday invitations now that it’s okay to gather outside, and we have two birthdays to celebrate this month, including mine. Yes, you’re invited. Bring bubbly! Yes, I know what I just said about alcohol hydrating you. I’ll provide the water, snacks and cake. Chocolate? Strawberry? Mango, lime, some other fruit? RSVP ASAP!

Thinking: The heat, the humidity, the droughts, the rains, the fires, the extremes the flora and fauna, our bodies, homes, infrastructure can’t and should not be forced to adapt to…damnation, dearest denizens! Can we sue the fossil fuel industry for criminal intent of the reckless kind? They knew. And decided not only not to care but actively obfuscate the hell out of it.

Feeling: Pride Month is done but the work is not so let’s keep banging that drum and supporting our fellow humans in their fight for autonomy because equal rights are human rights and WTF Poland and Hungary (et al. mind you) no seriously WTF how dare you marginalize the marginalized even further and conflate queer with pedophilia NO SERIOUSLY self-determination look it up your policies are damaging and your attitude an insult and your values so dated and so regressive Europe gasps in shame and no child no youth no adult should be afraid of being and showing their true self as we only get to ride this roller coaster once and how dare you squeeze yourself into someone else’s car and spoil the fun of living and strip others of the right to live with dignity no se-ri-ous-ly how dare you how could you ever think it's about turning someone into someone they are not it is and has always been about allowing every single soul to be who they are because we are who we are and love is love and love is the higher law.

Man, it’s a hot one 👒

Temperature: Well, it is for us: 32.5/90.5 degrees. I hear it’s 46/115 in Las Vegas, so I’m not complaining. Happy summer solstice, sweetie darlings! ☀️ Or winter solstice, depending. 🌐

Eating: watermelon and brie.

Drinking: water and then some more water.

Watching: the miracle of growth.

Listening: to bumblebees in the flowering raspberry.

Reading: about business anthropology.

Thinking: Dualism, capitalism, neoliberalism, growthism...WTF are we doing?

Feeling: Sit, be still, and listen, for you are drunk and we are on the edge of the roof. (Rumi)

Demolition men

Temperature: just two weeks ago it was warm enough to work out outdoors in a tank top. A strappy one. Practically naked then. In October. Sweet baby Jesus, you’d think how wonderful, but I’m not okay with this.

Eating: chili sin carne

Drinking: kefir

Watching: Belgravia

Listening: to the grating sounds of construction coming from a few blocks away. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Reading: The Irish Princess by Elizabeth Chadwick and Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen. The latter is a coolheaded autopsy of the Trump presidency; a fast read because if you’ve been paying even summary attention you already know these things; and yet it's a striking read, events and effects so clinically laid out and linked, and all the while you’re thinking: how is this man still president? And then this came out. Autocratization surges, yes, but resistance grows. If history were a seesaw, you could argue we’re pivoting. But a question to the autocrats, who are not very good at playing the long game: how do you think this will end, because you can’t win no matter what you do? For a moment you may feel you’re on top; you go about suppressing and oppressing, intimidating and silencing, stripping rights and taking lives. But that only breeds more anger and bitterness, leading to your tighter squeeze and then more resistance, a cycle whose logical end is something like North Korea where everything and everyone exists to serve the leader who is in fact the most vulnerable citizen of all. Your total power is a sad illusion because you have neither earned it nor won it, you have taken it. And it can in turn be taken away because you neither deserve it nor honor it. The whole country and its resources are your hostage, but you are no criminal mastermind or genius of any sort, you are an opportunist, just someone who got lucky as the seesaw moved.

Writing: “Dearest America, the president you elect you deserve.”

Thinking: We can’t drink oil, we can’t eat coal, we can’t shelter in the heat or rising tides. Please stop voting for men trying to convince you that of course you can.

Keeping your head up

I know it's three months away (that'll swoosh by like a comet, mark my words), and all the world doesn't observe it, and some absolutely abhor it, but it's about to get grim up north, so I need some Emilia Clarke & Emma Thompson & London & the music of King George. All the light and luster available to keep afloat. So indulge me. Or scroll off.

So is he a ghost? Or someone she has forgotten because of her health scare? Don't know, don't care, watching it. Even if you spoil it for me. Even if it's as cheesy as baked brie. 👅

"There's no such thing as normal. You're just being a human being. It's hard." 

Hear, hear.

Summer moved on

Temperature: a crispy but sunny 10/50 degrees

Eating: a cheese and onion omelette.

Drinking: less and less of the proofed stuff, actually. Less has become more. Which is just as well.

Watching: Spent two hours in the soothing company of good friends and the good people of Downton Abbey just the other night! Now youngest son wants to go see Ad Astra. Why do I feel it won’t be as gentle on me?

Listening: to new music from Keane.

Reading: Saw the trailer so gobbled up Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple over the weekend. Which most likely ruined the movie. But the trailer kinda ruined the book; I kept seeing Cate Blanchett, you see. But, hello, it’s Cate Blanchett, so why am I complaining? Excellent book for friends of the epistolary form. Or just good clean fun writing.

Writing: Yup. Wondering why? So am I.

Thinking: It’s fall equinox today, isn’t it? How I wish the UN Climate Summit could find a balance, come to an understanding, have the wisdom and wherewithal to do something, anything to accelerate a change for the better.

Fridays with Greta

I’ve been taking walks to say goodbye to a patch of forest and the wildlife that inhabit it. Come spring, we’ll have to find another patch to meet up in because that one will have been razed, covered in concrete and steel, and occupied by humans, their pet animals and the odd house plant.

Speaking of which, hubby the green thumb has been hoarding plants. And we already have house plants. Many, many plants. Not that they don’t make our home more livable now that we’re moving indoors, but if summer is awash with light, the winter is long and dark, and those plants won’t make it without some help from their human helpers. It’s just that…indoor grow lights aren’t the most pretty of lamps, and the best ones will make your home look like a drug den with their violet glow, and I don’t want every room in the house to have that wavelength and vibe, but that’s where we’re headed if Mr. Green Thumb doesn’t calm the hell down.

But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and if this girl wants tropical plants in the Arctic, she has to put up with a certain amount of crack den chic. (The neighbors have spotted those lights. And we have a green house. You bet everyone has asked to take a tour. “So what you got in there?” Meaning: Is this actually a cannabis cultivation facility? Because that’s what one of them joking not joking said he thought it was. Sorry to burst your bubble. Would you have wanted some? And, above all, do we strike you as the kind of people who would?)

[Apparently. Oldest son sat in my car in an empty parking lot chatting with a friend. Too late at night and too long for a police patrol’s liking. They tap the window and ask if all is well. I kid you not, that boy is a cool cat. Too cool for the officer’s liking. They ended up having a staring contest, the officer breaking it to ask, “Are you high, son?” They wouldn’t take his word for it, that too relaxed young man, so they took a saliva test, which my son was happy to give since he was in perfect driving condition. Oh man, I had to laugh when he told me the whole story. I know how irritating and, yeah, probably iffy his unflappable demeanor may seem to those who don’t know him.]

And on the matter of unflappable adults of the future, another big climate strike march is coming up on September 20. (It’s actually a whole week of action.) Have you noticed how (forget the trash-talking loudmouths) numerous people in high places with the megaphone to match applaud Greta Thunberg, how fearless she is speaking truth to power, and how we should all be listening? And then? So you’ve heard her. So you admire and respect what she is doing and trying to achieve. And then? Are you going to…put your money where your golden tongue is? Take action? Do anything she proposes citizens, cities, countries, the globe do?

The Fridays For Future movement, or Extinction Rebellion, they’re not just about the future, the fate of our children and grandchildren, generations we’ll never get to meet. The future is here and it’s already a disaster. It’s a draught in Australia, a hurricane wiping Bahamian communities off the face off the earth, flash floods across Europe, forest fires burning for weeks in Siberia, the destruction of the Amazon. And, dearest denizens, when enough of a primary, old-growth rainforest is gone, there is no going back. The forest enters a cycle of self-destruction humans incited but have no means to stop.

You may have not felt the effects for yourself. Doesn’t mean it’s not happening to someone somewhere. You know that. And believe what you want, deny the climate crisis all you want, but do take time to educate yourself on why scientists believe the crisis is real and coming to you from every corner of the planet. It applies everywhere and affects everyone. Telling genuinely panicky children and young people to sit down, shut up and stop worrying is like saying fuck you, your concerns and your future. Shutting down the adults of tomorrow, stripping them of hope, the current state of things and message we are sending, is a big fat fuck you very much.

We can buy solar panels, electric cars and renewable energy, reuse, refuse, recycle, reduce food waste, take a hundred different steps and measures to help the planet heal. But that will only take us so far. We need to put pressure on the big spenders and polluters. Reject and replace governments and officials that treat the climate emergency as a “niche issue” (as Trump’s did going into the G7 summit). Stir up corners that pretend they live on a different planet altogether and don’t know what we’re talking about. (Yes, Russia, I mean you.) Stop dabbling and get cracking.

At the top of the food chain, the only way is down. Every link we remove reduces our chances of survival. It’s not just a matter of a flood here, a hurricane there, a blazing or razed forest someplace else. This is a matter of eventually running out of food and fresh water, losing a hospitable environment. Tamper with Gaia, pay the price. 

Mother Nature is not cruel by nature, she is just perfunctory. If we act like pests, she’ll treat us accordingly, because in her eyes we’re not the crown jewel of creation, we are but one part of the puzzle she is trying to keep intact. If removing us from the equation will restore balance then that’s the fate that awaits us. Except fate is the wrong word. We will have chosen that road ourselves.

Too defeatist for your taste? But, sweetie darling, this has nothing to do with fate. We're not borrowing from the future. We're stealing as fast as we can with both hands while flipping the bird. In that sense, acting so senselessly, if we keep at it, we are doomed.

This concludes today’s sermon.

I wish you a good weekend, peace of mind, and determination.

Behave.