I am in a bigger body. I am anti-diet. I read anti-diet authors and speak about body positivity to friends and family. But I feel guilty all the time because I have this secret—I still really wish I was in a smaller body. I feel so terrible about it all the time, but I lost a lot of weight and kept it off for about a year, and I honestly enjoyed the thin privilege. I wish I could just fully accept my body as it is, but it would be easier to be anti-diet AND smaller. 😔
We have made the very bold and very wonderful decision to opt out of Thanksgiving this year. If 2016 taught me anything it’s that Trump+Thanksgiving+Family=sobbing in a stairwell, so this year we said Fuck it, and booked a trip to Legoland. I’m thrilled.
I just reached the start of my second trimester in this pregnancy, and it seems like my constant nausea and food apathy is finally beginning to recede -- just in time for Thanksgiving, which is what I was hoping would happen. This is my fifth pregnancy. I have a 4.5yo son who was born at 29w5d and I lost three pregnancies a few years before that, two in the second trimester. My current doctor is extremely optimistic about this pregnancy (I had an abdominal cerclage put in before getting pregnant, and the success rates are incredibly high), but I’m still marking my own personal milestones in addition to the typical pregnancy ones. Next week will be my first big one -- one of my second trimester losses was at 15 weeks, which I’ll reach next Thursday, so passing that will feel like a small success. (The big exhales won’t come till I hit viability at 24 weeks and then make it past my son’s final gestational age.)
Right before we found out I was pregnant (around when we started to suspect it/hope), my husband was admitted to the hospital because of unexplained numbness throughout his body. No pain; just numbness. After three days and lots of tests, they sent him home with the recommendation to see a neurologist. We met with one a little over a month ago, and last week we met with her colleague, who specializes in MS. He confirmed what the hospital docs suspected, that my husband is in the early stages of MS. We’re confident about the preventative therapy he’s advised for my husband, and my husband is in the process of beginning the paperwork to get insurance on board with it, but it’s still a lot. Hearing a doctor say that although this is a slow-moving disease, there’s still the chance that an incident could leave my husband wheelchair-bound is slightly terrifying.
In the process of completing some blood work for the neurologist to review, they found some red flags related to his liver and he had to go in for an ultrasound and then a CT scan to see what’s going on. The results he got last week through the portal indicate that further diagnostic testing is needed (his doctor had previously said it’s possible that there’s a pre-cancerous cyst), but at this point we’re still waiting to hear from his doctor with next steps.
Also, last week my father-in-law had a mini mental episode in which he took the car and vanished for an hour and a half (he doesn’t see well enough to drive anymore), so we, along with my husband’s two brothers, have been trying to support my mother-in-law and convince my father-in-law to resume therapy (he stopped during Covid because he doesn’t like Zoom).
I feel like I’m handling all the stressors in my life well, but every morning this week I’ve woken up from dreams that are LADEN with anxiety and my entire body is taut and achy with tension, so I guess I should rethink that stance?
Anyhow, it felt good to get all that out in one place. Thanks, Virginia, for creating space for this today!
I set a hard boundary with my mom in my early twenties to STOP buying clothes for me. I'm 38 now with two kids (four and 15 months) and what has she started to do??? Buy ALL of us clothes. I reminded her again when she brought over her giant sized GAP bag filled with clothes, I do not want her buying me clothes. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Of course she brushed it off and left the clothes here. I ignored them in a giant heap on a chair all day until I had to look through them and put them away. When I reached the bottom of the stack I found the two tops she had gotten me. While standing alone in my daughters room, I knew I was going to have to look at the tag to see what size she got me. Tears formed in my eyes. The pit of dread came up in my stomach and throat. Ugh. When I went to look, for the first time EVER, she had cut out ALL the tags indicating size. While she crossed my boundary, it felt like she FINALLY heard something I said.
The first three months were an emotional roller coaster with me constantly feeling like I was about to say screw this, I’m going to try and shrink my body again. But then things started to smooth out.
I’ve had the realization that fat is like gold to my body- it treasures it and is using it to build itself back up after five decades of weight cycling. It may hold onto it forever. I’ve decided to trust my body and work with it instead of against it.
The best part of it all is that I no longer hate myself.
The hardest part is seeing and feeling all the fat-shaming everywhere.
But it’s getting better all the time. I don’t panic when I see myself in the mirror and I don’t concoct weight loss schemes.
Still feel like I have a long way to go before I feel comfortable and healthy and strong. But I’m patient now.
I am not having the greatest week. Last week I unexpectedly had a breast biopsy for some weird skin changes - the range of outcomes is from eczema to a relatively rare cancer, so yay? - and not unrelatedly I ended a relationship with a guy I'd been seeing for the last couple months. Still haven't gotten the biopsy results, so that is weighing on me... plus I just feel a little sad and lonely, even though ending the relationship was 1000% the right move. On top of which I am having an allergic reaction to SOMEthing inside my house that is make my eyes red and puffy and so itchy that I would like to claw them out. Just feeling whiny and tired and over it all.
Nov 18, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith
This week has been full of yin and yang. I’m leading a HUGE project at work. I’m incredibly passionate about it and it’s exciting but it also means I’m BUSY. We’re talking double booked throughout the day with back to back meetings but also needing to get actual work done…so I worked 40 hours easily in 4 days.
I work at Amazon and layoffs in my org were leaked to the press, they happened Tuesday. My entire team of 28 was not affected. I know people who were affected though.
Through a work slack channel called “Taylor Swift Fans” I was able to get tickets to a concert in LA and the woman who bought them is now totally a friend and we’re excited to go to the concert together. I didn’t even know she existed until Tuesday.
My partner is out of town for work this week. I don’t really mind that, my kiddo is 14 and pretty self sufficient and I like the alone time. I did have to take meetings from the car as I got her to climbing practice.
My birthday is tomorrow and I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY! I took today off and I’m having a day filled with things I love to do. Massage followed by a private stretching session, lunch with close friends, then we’re going to the Wintry Market (local makers all in one place. It’s 2 days every holiday season and it’s like a not tacky craft fair of beautiful things). We’re going right when it opens at 3 to hopefully miss the crowds. Then I’m getting my gel polished removed and redone with a fun design. Tomorrow, on my actual birthday I’m going to the farmers market, getting a tattoo 😍 (of a California poppy since both me and my daughter were born in CA) and then a fancy dinner with my husband and daughter.
Sunday I have zero plans to recover from my birthday extravaganza! Oh but I’ll need to start making sourdough for thanksgiving.
A very busy week. Mostly all wonderful things and I’m incredibly fortunate and grateful. Mixed in with some harder stuff but not that hard. I’ve had many reminders this week of how truly fortunate I am. 💜
Yesterday I went to New York City, which I haven’t been doing much over the past few years, even though I used to work there and spend a huge amount of time there. And I could feel the diet culture tightening its grip around me like some terrible dress made of non-stretch material. It was kind of a lot. Especially since right now I am the fattest I have ever been, and my body at this size hasn’t spent much time in NYC and I didn’t know how it was going to react. And these days I’m rarely wearing makeup and think of “hard pants” as a real concession to the idea of “looking put together.” And there’s a lot of tension between my desire to rebel against those strictures and my desire to conform to them.
I am not doing great. While I'm thrilled that most of the country dodged the so-called "red tsunami" the election results in Iowa, where I live, were abysmal. I'm genuinely scared for what it will be like as a queer trans disabled Jew here, with our awful GOP leaders determined to make it heard to be any one of those things, let alone all of them. Plus, having lost my niece in May (today would have been her birthday), I know this holiday season is going to be brutal.
I'm grateful for a long weekend, and a short week next week, and I just launched my Etsy shop making resin and polymer clay Judaica. Making time for making brings me so much joy.
Nov 18, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith
Reading through everyone's comments, I'm so grateful for Virginia for creating this space for people to share and be validated and not judged.
Everything's kind of a mixed bag here. I had an annual physical on Wednesday, which confirmed that I'm officially prediabetic -- a genetic bear that's been stalking me since my twenties (maybe even my teens). My doctor was a marvel, though, and immediately suggested medication with "lifestyle changes" as an afterthought that felt like it was because he gets a lot of "But I want to fix this naturally" pushback and he agrees that my lifestyle is fine! Great, even! (Not trying to perform "good fatty" here [and I'm a small fat]) I am so grateful to him for not getting weird when I cried, and for telling me very directly that it's not because of anything I did, and not something I could have prevented, then offering to refer me to the clinic's counselor. Good doctors are out there!
BUT I'm now having to think more about food than I want to, and I'm gearing up to go home for Thanksgiving, and am rehearsing conversations with my mom about my weight -- she's been telling me since I was a (size 2) teen that I need to be thin to avoid diabetes, because I "am built like" my dad and his mom. Since my dad was diagnosed about 15 years ago, she began ramping it up, until I melted down to my dad in my dark, gross basement laundry room about her diet culture pressure (she's immobilized due to Parkinson's, and is thrilled that she's the thinnest she's ever been...).
I'm practicing saying, "My doctor and I agree that weight gain is a symptom, not a cause, and I'm not going to talk about this," and hoping not to get in any big fights -- the pressure to make the most of one of maybe 5 or 6 Thanksgivings I have left with her is big. Also, my husband is out of the country right now, and has to stay home for work and can't go with us over the break, so that sucks.
I'm so grateful for my dad, and hate watching him plagued by caregiver stress (take care of yourselves out there, caregivers. I know it's so hard). My kids are awesome and we talk about these things pretty openly (and I loved Thursday's podcast).
Editing this to add: Even if my weight *is* a cause not a symptom, still not her business and doesn't mean I've failed at anything or am a bad person.
Whew, that was long. The good news is, I feel great today -- more energy than I've had in months. I don't know if it's getting more sleep, or the blood sugar stabilization, or solar flares, and I don't care. I'll take it, and wish I could send some to everyone here.
I was at Orangetheory the other day and while waiting for class to start, a woman said “so, how are you feeling?” I thought she was asking because we had done a hard workout the day before and I said “a little sore, how about you?” Then she said “oh, I meant when are you due?” I am not pregnant and had actually been thinking that morning that I was looking super strong. Sigh. When I told her I am not pregnant, she said “oh, really?” and then stared at me for an awkwardly long time. This happens to me frequently and I’m just so over having people discuss my body when I am trying to exercise and do my thing.
I’ve been actively hating my job for awhile now, and with the time change I just cannot muster the energy to do much of anything. I need a sabbatical from everything.
Nov 18, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith
We're...okay? I really do feel like a literal embodiment of the "this is fine" meme. I spent my day yesterday driving from the Toronto area to Buffalo to buy as much infant and children's pain and fever medication as I responsibly could (i.e. making sure there was still tons for local folks, which meant going to 15-20 stores) for 25+ families in our neighbourhood. Shelves are bare across Canada and EVERY kid is sick and parents are freaking out.
Part of the reason I could spend the day doing that is because my kid is not sick, because we're pulled him from school and are now homeschooling him, because COVID is everywhere and all the kids who got COVID earlier in the fall have really bad RSV now and we just can't risk it with our existing disabilities and knowledge of how much long COVID would SUCK. So that's another giant flame in the everything is burning fire.
But human brains are also good (at least mine is!) at plugging along even as the world is burning, so we're still doing things like putting up the Christmas lights and baking cupcakes and making soup to drop off for friends who have new babies. And that stuff is nice and makes the world feel like a place I still want to keep fighting for, so we keep moving forward. It helps that I'm now part of a non-profit that's bringing legal action against our provincial government for refusing to put any pandemic protections in place in schools--feeling like I'm doing something is essential!
Love reading all of these! The interview about Luna brought tears to my eyes and has given me so much to think about about the way I care for children in my family medicine practice. What a lovely family -- so grateful they were willing to share their story. ❣️
My husband (only 48) had a mini stroke in august, and we’re just starting to deal with the weirdness of that, my 17 y.o. son was diagnosed with celiac and broke his foot (possibly related), and I am having a hysterectomy in a couple weeks. And it’s coming up on the 2nd anniversary of my best friends death from Covid.
Other than that I did try out an excellent new coffee shop in my funky neighborhood and make myself pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. And I live in Michigan and am thrilled at the election results!
I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia and there was a shooting at UVA on Sunday night that is rocking our community. I find myself feeling tender and angry (especially as the Republicans get ready to take over the House and do nothing but bogus investigations instead of using their power to SOLVE SOME FUCKING PROBLEMS) and worried as hell about everybody. I did a post on my newsletter about bullying and how important kindness and inclusion is but damNAtion it feels like swimming upstream.
I am in a bigger body. I am anti-diet. I read anti-diet authors and speak about body positivity to friends and family. But I feel guilty all the time because I have this secret—I still really wish I was in a smaller body. I feel so terrible about it all the time, but I lost a lot of weight and kept it off for about a year, and I honestly enjoyed the thin privilege. I wish I could just fully accept my body as it is, but it would be easier to be anti-diet AND smaller. 😔
We have made the very bold and very wonderful decision to opt out of Thanksgiving this year. If 2016 taught me anything it’s that Trump+Thanksgiving+Family=sobbing in a stairwell, so this year we said Fuck it, and booked a trip to Legoland. I’m thrilled.
I just reached the start of my second trimester in this pregnancy, and it seems like my constant nausea and food apathy is finally beginning to recede -- just in time for Thanksgiving, which is what I was hoping would happen. This is my fifth pregnancy. I have a 4.5yo son who was born at 29w5d and I lost three pregnancies a few years before that, two in the second trimester. My current doctor is extremely optimistic about this pregnancy (I had an abdominal cerclage put in before getting pregnant, and the success rates are incredibly high), but I’m still marking my own personal milestones in addition to the typical pregnancy ones. Next week will be my first big one -- one of my second trimester losses was at 15 weeks, which I’ll reach next Thursday, so passing that will feel like a small success. (The big exhales won’t come till I hit viability at 24 weeks and then make it past my son’s final gestational age.)
Right before we found out I was pregnant (around when we started to suspect it/hope), my husband was admitted to the hospital because of unexplained numbness throughout his body. No pain; just numbness. After three days and lots of tests, they sent him home with the recommendation to see a neurologist. We met with one a little over a month ago, and last week we met with her colleague, who specializes in MS. He confirmed what the hospital docs suspected, that my husband is in the early stages of MS. We’re confident about the preventative therapy he’s advised for my husband, and my husband is in the process of beginning the paperwork to get insurance on board with it, but it’s still a lot. Hearing a doctor say that although this is a slow-moving disease, there’s still the chance that an incident could leave my husband wheelchair-bound is slightly terrifying.
In the process of completing some blood work for the neurologist to review, they found some red flags related to his liver and he had to go in for an ultrasound and then a CT scan to see what’s going on. The results he got last week through the portal indicate that further diagnostic testing is needed (his doctor had previously said it’s possible that there’s a pre-cancerous cyst), but at this point we’re still waiting to hear from his doctor with next steps.
Also, last week my father-in-law had a mini mental episode in which he took the car and vanished for an hour and a half (he doesn’t see well enough to drive anymore), so we, along with my husband’s two brothers, have been trying to support my mother-in-law and convince my father-in-law to resume therapy (he stopped during Covid because he doesn’t like Zoom).
I feel like I’m handling all the stressors in my life well, but every morning this week I’ve woken up from dreams that are LADEN with anxiety and my entire body is taut and achy with tension, so I guess I should rethink that stance?
Anyhow, it felt good to get all that out in one place. Thanks, Virginia, for creating space for this today!
I set a hard boundary with my mom in my early twenties to STOP buying clothes for me. I'm 38 now with two kids (four and 15 months) and what has she started to do??? Buy ALL of us clothes. I reminded her again when she brought over her giant sized GAP bag filled with clothes, I do not want her buying me clothes. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Of course she brushed it off and left the clothes here. I ignored them in a giant heap on a chair all day until I had to look through them and put them away. When I reached the bottom of the stack I found the two tops she had gotten me. While standing alone in my daughters room, I knew I was going to have to look at the tag to see what size she got me. Tears formed in my eyes. The pit of dread came up in my stomach and throat. Ugh. When I went to look, for the first time EVER, she had cut out ALL the tags indicating size. While she crossed my boundary, it felt like she FINALLY heard something I said.
Baby steps.
I’m six months into the Non-Diet journey.
The first three months were an emotional roller coaster with me constantly feeling like I was about to say screw this, I’m going to try and shrink my body again. But then things started to smooth out.
I’ve had the realization that fat is like gold to my body- it treasures it and is using it to build itself back up after five decades of weight cycling. It may hold onto it forever. I’ve decided to trust my body and work with it instead of against it.
The best part of it all is that I no longer hate myself.
The hardest part is seeing and feeling all the fat-shaming everywhere.
But it’s getting better all the time. I don’t panic when I see myself in the mirror and I don’t concoct weight loss schemes.
Still feel like I have a long way to go before I feel comfortable and healthy and strong. But I’m patient now.
Peace to all.
I am not having the greatest week. Last week I unexpectedly had a breast biopsy for some weird skin changes - the range of outcomes is from eczema to a relatively rare cancer, so yay? - and not unrelatedly I ended a relationship with a guy I'd been seeing for the last couple months. Still haven't gotten the biopsy results, so that is weighing on me... plus I just feel a little sad and lonely, even though ending the relationship was 1000% the right move. On top of which I am having an allergic reaction to SOMEthing inside my house that is make my eyes red and puffy and so itchy that I would like to claw them out. Just feeling whiny and tired and over it all.
This week has been full of yin and yang. I’m leading a HUGE project at work. I’m incredibly passionate about it and it’s exciting but it also means I’m BUSY. We’re talking double booked throughout the day with back to back meetings but also needing to get actual work done…so I worked 40 hours easily in 4 days.
I work at Amazon and layoffs in my org were leaked to the press, they happened Tuesday. My entire team of 28 was not affected. I know people who were affected though.
Through a work slack channel called “Taylor Swift Fans” I was able to get tickets to a concert in LA and the woman who bought them is now totally a friend and we’re excited to go to the concert together. I didn’t even know she existed until Tuesday.
My partner is out of town for work this week. I don’t really mind that, my kiddo is 14 and pretty self sufficient and I like the alone time. I did have to take meetings from the car as I got her to climbing practice.
My birthday is tomorrow and I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY! I took today off and I’m having a day filled with things I love to do. Massage followed by a private stretching session, lunch with close friends, then we’re going to the Wintry Market (local makers all in one place. It’s 2 days every holiday season and it’s like a not tacky craft fair of beautiful things). We’re going right when it opens at 3 to hopefully miss the crowds. Then I’m getting my gel polished removed and redone with a fun design. Tomorrow, on my actual birthday I’m going to the farmers market, getting a tattoo 😍 (of a California poppy since both me and my daughter were born in CA) and then a fancy dinner with my husband and daughter.
Sunday I have zero plans to recover from my birthday extravaganza! Oh but I’ll need to start making sourdough for thanksgiving.
A very busy week. Mostly all wonderful things and I’m incredibly fortunate and grateful. Mixed in with some harder stuff but not that hard. I’ve had many reminders this week of how truly fortunate I am. 💜
Yesterday I went to New York City, which I haven’t been doing much over the past few years, even though I used to work there and spend a huge amount of time there. And I could feel the diet culture tightening its grip around me like some terrible dress made of non-stretch material. It was kind of a lot. Especially since right now I am the fattest I have ever been, and my body at this size hasn’t spent much time in NYC and I didn’t know how it was going to react. And these days I’m rarely wearing makeup and think of “hard pants” as a real concession to the idea of “looking put together.” And there’s a lot of tension between my desire to rebel against those strictures and my desire to conform to them.
I am not doing great. While I'm thrilled that most of the country dodged the so-called "red tsunami" the election results in Iowa, where I live, were abysmal. I'm genuinely scared for what it will be like as a queer trans disabled Jew here, with our awful GOP leaders determined to make it heard to be any one of those things, let alone all of them. Plus, having lost my niece in May (today would have been her birthday), I know this holiday season is going to be brutal.
I'm grateful for a long weekend, and a short week next week, and I just launched my Etsy shop making resin and polymer clay Judaica. Making time for making brings me so much joy.
Reading through everyone's comments, I'm so grateful for Virginia for creating this space for people to share and be validated and not judged.
Everything's kind of a mixed bag here. I had an annual physical on Wednesday, which confirmed that I'm officially prediabetic -- a genetic bear that's been stalking me since my twenties (maybe even my teens). My doctor was a marvel, though, and immediately suggested medication with "lifestyle changes" as an afterthought that felt like it was because he gets a lot of "But I want to fix this naturally" pushback and he agrees that my lifestyle is fine! Great, even! (Not trying to perform "good fatty" here [and I'm a small fat]) I am so grateful to him for not getting weird when I cried, and for telling me very directly that it's not because of anything I did, and not something I could have prevented, then offering to refer me to the clinic's counselor. Good doctors are out there!
BUT I'm now having to think more about food than I want to, and I'm gearing up to go home for Thanksgiving, and am rehearsing conversations with my mom about my weight -- she's been telling me since I was a (size 2) teen that I need to be thin to avoid diabetes, because I "am built like" my dad and his mom. Since my dad was diagnosed about 15 years ago, she began ramping it up, until I melted down to my dad in my dark, gross basement laundry room about her diet culture pressure (she's immobilized due to Parkinson's, and is thrilled that she's the thinnest she's ever been...).
I'm practicing saying, "My doctor and I agree that weight gain is a symptom, not a cause, and I'm not going to talk about this," and hoping not to get in any big fights -- the pressure to make the most of one of maybe 5 or 6 Thanksgivings I have left with her is big. Also, my husband is out of the country right now, and has to stay home for work and can't go with us over the break, so that sucks.
I'm so grateful for my dad, and hate watching him plagued by caregiver stress (take care of yourselves out there, caregivers. I know it's so hard). My kids are awesome and we talk about these things pretty openly (and I loved Thursday's podcast).
Editing this to add: Even if my weight *is* a cause not a symptom, still not her business and doesn't mean I've failed at anything or am a bad person.
Whew, that was long. The good news is, I feel great today -- more energy than I've had in months. I don't know if it's getting more sleep, or the blood sugar stabilization, or solar flares, and I don't care. I'll take it, and wish I could send some to everyone here.
I was at Orangetheory the other day and while waiting for class to start, a woman said “so, how are you feeling?” I thought she was asking because we had done a hard workout the day before and I said “a little sore, how about you?” Then she said “oh, I meant when are you due?” I am not pregnant and had actually been thinking that morning that I was looking super strong. Sigh. When I told her I am not pregnant, she said “oh, really?” and then stared at me for an awkwardly long time. This happens to me frequently and I’m just so over having people discuss my body when I am trying to exercise and do my thing.
I’ve been actively hating my job for awhile now, and with the time change I just cannot muster the energy to do much of anything. I need a sabbatical from everything.
We're...okay? I really do feel like a literal embodiment of the "this is fine" meme. I spent my day yesterday driving from the Toronto area to Buffalo to buy as much infant and children's pain and fever medication as I responsibly could (i.e. making sure there was still tons for local folks, which meant going to 15-20 stores) for 25+ families in our neighbourhood. Shelves are bare across Canada and EVERY kid is sick and parents are freaking out.
Part of the reason I could spend the day doing that is because my kid is not sick, because we're pulled him from school and are now homeschooling him, because COVID is everywhere and all the kids who got COVID earlier in the fall have really bad RSV now and we just can't risk it with our existing disabilities and knowledge of how much long COVID would SUCK. So that's another giant flame in the everything is burning fire.
But human brains are also good (at least mine is!) at plugging along even as the world is burning, so we're still doing things like putting up the Christmas lights and baking cupcakes and making soup to drop off for friends who have new babies. And that stuff is nice and makes the world feel like a place I still want to keep fighting for, so we keep moving forward. It helps that I'm now part of a non-profit that's bringing legal action against our provincial government for refusing to put any pandemic protections in place in schools--feeling like I'm doing something is essential!
Love reading all of these! The interview about Luna brought tears to my eyes and has given me so much to think about about the way I care for children in my family medicine practice. What a lovely family -- so grateful they were willing to share their story. ❣️
Hello. I’m…okay?
My husband (only 48) had a mini stroke in august, and we’re just starting to deal with the weirdness of that, my 17 y.o. son was diagnosed with celiac and broke his foot (possibly related), and I am having a hysterectomy in a couple weeks. And it’s coming up on the 2nd anniversary of my best friends death from Covid.
Other than that I did try out an excellent new coffee shop in my funky neighborhood and make myself pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. And I live in Michigan and am thrilled at the election results!
So…all things considered? Pretty okay.
I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia and there was a shooting at UVA on Sunday night that is rocking our community. I find myself feeling tender and angry (especially as the Republicans get ready to take over the House and do nothing but bogus investigations instead of using their power to SOLVE SOME FUCKING PROBLEMS) and worried as hell about everybody. I did a post on my newsletter about bullying and how important kindness and inclusion is but damNAtion it feels like swimming upstream.