Updates!

It’s been another week! I’ve loved people telling me they are reading these. I get embarrassed in a good way, kind of warm because I’m feeling honored that you’re taking the time to be with me. Hi, and thank you. Sun Yung and I are almost done painting our room at Sabathani! Big thank you to Caspian, Erick, Malia, and Roberto who helped and to Gretchen and Ash who donated to help us with our transformation costs. I can’t wait to show the room to you.

OTs Help With Sensory Stuff…Right?

We SURE can and I love offering the Sensory Profile. The gay in me likes this assessment because I feel like I’m helping someone read their astrological chart, and since astrology is something I am woefully bad at, I can make up for it in my ability to conduct this assessment for and with you. I offer this sensory assessments for adults, teenagers, and children. I love doing these! When I assessed myself I found it validating and helpful. These are a great way to get to know yourself better. It’s also a great way to let someone in on the way you experience the world. Sensory assessments feel a little like enneagrams for me in that they usually confirm some things you already intuit and know about yourself, but it’s framed in a new way and there are usually helpful surprises, like “oh that’s true, AND I hadn’t thought about it quite like that.” .

Southside Shtetl Was Amazing

Over 400 folks came through to the Southside Shtetle last weekend. This was my second craft sale and it was so fun to be surrounded by such amazing community and artists. I’m looking forward to this for next year. Chaga was my best seller, I still have chaga, plant hangers, monkey fist keychains, BDS posters, and some fluffy Christmas ornaments for sale.

Healthcare in the News

If you have loved someone who has died because they were poor, if you’ve witnessed it, you probably feel the anger, grief, and energy of these conversations intimately.

Luigi Mangione has been making me think about the collective want for a healthcare system that actually fulfills what they promise — which is to provide care. Luigi’s action illuminated the outrage people feel when forced to receive care in a system that is built to work against us. It’s only profitable if it doesn’t work.

According to a study in the journal of the American Medical Association, a single year of poverty is associated with 183,000 deaths in the U.S. year year. Experiencing 10 or more years of poverty hikes that number up to 295,000 annual deaths. You, me, we know some of these numbers, numbers who are not numbers, but who are actually people. This data shows poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. with heart disease, cancer, and smoking associated with a greater number of deaths. However knowing that heart disease, cancer, and smoking are correlated with lack of financial resources… here we are with wealth disparity front and center over and over again. Y’all already know this, and the numbers are a part of the back and forth about morality and what is right and wrong with the news around Luigi and CEOs, so it’s good to revisit them.

I’m hopeful that people are standing back and looking at the big picture. Our capacities to give and receive care is our birthright. It is not small, that we are denied it daily in our current system. As Paul Farmer said, "The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world".

Final sharing, I do love this queer videos for Luigi by Mr. Grande.