What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

A poem about connecting with my Ashkenazi heritage.

Today I am a woman.
Today I am a Jew.
Today I have an ailment
my ancestors all knew.

For many generations,
my Fathers’ guts have hurt.
My Mother can’t eat chocolate:
a most unjust dessert.

I gather all my chocolate;
I give it all away.
No more can I digest it,
And I have Crohn’s today.

I feel myself much older
than I have ever known.
Today I have a Crohn’s disease;
Today I am a crone.

The post Bat Mitzvah appeared first on Nina Paley.

Diagnosis: Crohn’s.
The Autoimmune Empire
has colon-ized me.

The post Crohn’s Haiku appeared first on Nina Paley.

Today I was supposed to speak to an animation class via video. College I’d never heard of, teacher I’d never heard of, small thing, figured they knew who I was. Made plans, blocked space in my calendar. Barely an hour before I’m supposed to log onto their zoom link, I get this:

Full email thread pasted below, because it’s so typical. I will never accept another speaking invitation unless they promise not to do this.

Lately I am informed that nuclear energy is safe, clean, and the only sensible solution to our climate and energy woes. Opposition is ignorant and parochial, because “the technology is better now.” This is usually said by earnest and reasonable people who are at least a decade younger than me.

When I was a young’un, the idea was that we would reduce our energy consumption. “Technology” would help us do that, by becoming ever-more energy efficient. 

Hahaha. Oh, the naiveté of youth. 

Today, I live not far from a “solar farm,” acres covered with solar panels. The panels are ...

Any bets on whether my local bike club will survive beyond this season? Emails lightly edited for brevity, all names anonymized except my own.

Sat, Mar 19, 2022
MEMBER A:
I was able to renew my membership with the link to the Website.  I noticed that the application requires a “gender” designation that only includes male or female.  This is now very out of date.  I identify as Female, but there are many who find this restrictive.  We need to replace the gender with more options for our gender-queer or LGBT or other gender options friends.  I can recommend a ...

I just drew this for myself but it could be a Hundred Dollar Drawing.

I’m one of those self-unemployed introverts who is adjusting quite well to our pandemic lockdown. I feel especially peaceful because forced quarantine has temporarily quieted many of the garden-variety “alpha” humans, the ones who thrive on dominating others. They have to stay at home too, and haven’t been able to conduct their usual bullying and stirring up trouble. Under “normal” circumstances, they have power over other people, and the other people just aren’t available to lord it over right now.

But that will end. I don’t dread getting sick as much as I dread what the ...

A year or two ago my friend Brewster Kahle told me he had been asking people, “when is the last time you read a book? Cover to cover?” Predictably, the answers were discouraging. In the age of the Internet, people still talk about books, praise books, and condemn books; but actually reading books is rare.

When I first heard of feminist author Andrea Dworkin, in the early 1990’s, I was told she said all heterosexual sex is rape. In popular discourse, “het sex is rape” was considered the gist of her work.

Well, I could easily form an opinion ...

The Internet is broken,
The Freedom Train has stalled.
The Netizens are woken,
The gardens all are walled.
If anyone’s outspoken,
They soon will be recalled.
The Internet is broken
and I’m sitting here, appalled.

The Internet is busted;
its people are at war.
The principles I trusted
I don’t trust any more.
Our minds are maladjusted,
but we cannot restore
the Internet we busted
to the one we had before.

This song actually has a cheerful melody, but since I can’t write musical notation you’ll just have to trust me on that, until I ...