Observations

         Having lost their parking contract with the City, ICE is looking for new parking, so the first thing today was a protest outside their building on Varick St. A scafffold provided convenient protection from the drizzle as we formed two long lines of chanting people with signs with a corridor for pedestrians in the middle. More than 100 ppl from RAR and Chelsea Neighbors United showed up along with plenty of press. Chanting for an hour can get monotonous so I amused myself by watching the reactions of the people walking by. There were a lot of supportive responses and fist pumps, some chanting along as they passed, and one or two who picked up a sign and joined us. Then there were others who just smiled or nodded.     Others seemed confused by the whole thing, and two men who were visibly startled when the end of Jay’s speech suddenly erupted into chants all around them.     There was no hostility from bystanders and just one of t...

  This weekend has been hectic enough that when I finally got home tonight, opened the microwave, and found some pound cake and a potted delphinium in full bloom, I closed the door quickly and decided not to worry about it. My cats, who are usually set for 8am, have decided to move it up to 7:30am with Marley as the ringleader.  She and Connor are very punctual, sitting on my chest until the weight wakes me up, something scrawny Marley could not accomplish on her own. It was just as well today since I had to leave early to go see Jasmine, the radical foot doc.  She knows me well enough to extrapolate from my swollen ankle to my political activities so she asked me what I have been doing.  I told her about Friday, about  being frustrated at not being able to hop over the gate, the big march, all of it.  She pointed out the odd thickening of the skin at the edge of my feet.  “I guess I’m walking oddly,” I said, and then it d...

         Yesterday was Mark Milano’s actual memorial at The Center, where so many activist milestones take place.     Entering the room, the first person I saw was Andy, who reached to hug me with a glass of red wine in his hand, spilling it on my sweatshirt sleeve and the floor.               Next I encountered a cluster of FUQ lesbians ,all of them mothers now, one with no longer baby daughters about to head to college.     The moment felt awkward, like running into colleagues you once saw daily but haven’t seen in a long time.     There have been times I wondered where these women were as we did action after action, trying to hold on to the things we won a long time ago.         Not Jennifer, but the others, who melted away and left just the two of us. Jenn has seen me in various states, showing up DC with my walker or barely able to ge...

              Activism can be a source of real frustration for me because I come hard up against the limits of what my body can do these days.     Yesterday was May Day, and a coalition of activists decided to take a stand against the billionaires who are greedily monopolizing resources, buying our democracy, and destroying the planet for profit. Sunrise, an organization of mostly young activists, put out the call but in an effort to prevent the info leaks to the police that have plagued several recent actions, in order to get any details other than the date we had to show up at a meeting the evening before. I ducked out of work early not knowing what to expect and made my way down to Judson, where people were gathering in the former gym.  It’s a big, unfurnished space and when I got there, young organizers were kneeling on the floor drawing on big pieces of paper and stacks of pizza boxes covered a table.  I grabbed one o...

  I got to the infusion center yesterday and found it completely deserted – nobody behind the desk and nobody in the waiting area either, like the rapture had hit just one floor of this outpatient building.     Eventually one of the receptionists showed up and issued me the standard bracelet.     I have a couple of favorite nurses, mainly because of their IV starting skills – after so many years of medical crap, some of my veins are just done.  Yesterday it was Kayla, an energetic woman whose slight build and pixie cut remind me of Kess, a character from Star Trek Voyager.  I’m not the only one who had this kind of reaction to her – a few cubicles down an older man getting chemo told her how much she resembled a character from a 1960s movie. Kayla had a trainee with her, a nurse who told me she had previously worked at Presbyterian so told her about Project Stay, the youth clinic we work with at Presbyterian.  Nurses have a lot of t...

       I woke up with a song Kate S used to sing in my head.  I was humming it when I went in to feed Gretchen, the new cat who is still acclimating in her own room.  We don’t know how long she was alone after her owner died, but by the time the super found her she was noticeably underweight. She is understandably food  obsessed and normally goes straight to her bowl and then comes to be patted.           When she heard me humming though, she veered away from her bowl and came right to me, purring. Some cats are drawn to music – several used to come sit on the piano when my mother played.  I can’t tell if she thinks my humming is purring or if she likes the song, so I sing it to her - “How can anyone ever tell you that you’re anything less than beautiful, how can anyone ever tell you that you’re less than whole? How can anyone fail to notice that your loving is a mirac...