Thursday Thoughts - If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

Season winding down. We've entered August, the storied month where the crowds and our regular rental season wind down. We have two returning guests coming in in September, and a few family and friends coming through also that are not rentals although still have us occupied, but we are in the home stretch of rental season and are really looking forward to that and our great returning guests the next three weeks. Only one unknown to us guest left this summer. And a full list of fall house projects already. 

Happy birthday Evan! Happy to spend time with him, Jenny, and their kids on their vacation week. We made sure all the shades of blue and green were represented the other night.

Back at it. Zumba yesterday with all the 65+ crowd, which is mostly who attends community center classes in this shore town LOL. 

GenX forever. Also Wrestlemania coming to Philly!

Ivana in the grave reel. Have you seen this? It is hilarious in a macabre way, of course. Before anyone is like how is that funny your former grifter cult leader insurrectionist anti-America president buried his ex on a golf course to set himself up for business tax relief. Fuck off out of here. The nickname Don the Con didn't come out of nowhere.

Farmers Market stuff. Plus plums, peaches, cherries, and some amazing pizza from Tony's

My uncle died this week, and I'm still trying to process this. The best way for me to do that is writing, which I did in an IG caption. Continued love and support to my cousins and their families as well as my two aunts who have so much of their lives intertwined with his through shared history and children.

There is.

After work life. 7 pm swims. Coastal grandmother vibes. Soupy, sticky air.

A tale of two hobbies that coexist well. Reading and fishing.

Dog days of summer. 

PACT Act passes to help veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins, no thanks to a bunch of GOP Senators who are allegedly for the troops. Except Rand Paul, who is apparently just outwardly not anymore. He does not support paying for healthcare for vets because they cannot prove where their illnesses come from. It's weird that a man who has the very best healthcare coverage available does not want to pay for healthcare for people that put their lives on the line for this country. He has consistently voted for tax cuts for corporations and the 1%  without care for how much money that would cost us as a nation but draws the line at military veterans possibly gaming the system, just like he voted against sick 9/11 first responders. Hmm. Who is voting for this person and people like him? And why are you doing that?

Abortion. The people of Kansas overwhelmingly voted in favor of keeping abortion rights protected in their state Constitution. Atlanta gets an Abortion Fund. A 19 year old woman raises over $2M in response to disgusting misogynist pedophile underage sex trafficker rep from FL Matt Gaetz's anti-abortion remarks. The vast majority of Americans agree abortion should be legal. Stop electing people that go against majority opinion. That is not democracy when minority rule strangles all of us. Yellow backgrounds collected by DesignMom, periwinkle backgrounds collected by femislay

 
What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Ripple by The Grateful Dead

Thursday Thoughts: We were standing on the edge with the sand under our feet

Feels like summer. Do do do do do do do do

I have seen my BFF Kim and her family nearly every day this week and loved it. A sweaty as F Farmer's Market outing Wednesday. 

Brown's donuts are delightful even if they arrive mangled. The combination of a hot off the press and long walk doesn't make for pretty, but their recipe is always delicious. As is Steve's breakfast. 

Lots of time on the boards this week - storm rolled in on Tuesday.

Libby and I met up with Amanda, Eva, and Donna on Wednesday. Then I had a glass of wine with Kim & Steve on the deck. Solid Wednesday night, they are rarely that good. 

Glimpses of nice evening skies, but no super moon on Wednesday. There was a shelf of clouds just off-shore. 

Nail talk. I got gel polish at the nail salon before we went on our road trip vacation. The last time I got gel polish was before I went to Ireland in 2016. I absolutely hate my nails after and that's what I'm going through now. That shit under the lights absolutely weakens your nails and they are bending and chipping and annoying AF right now. And I say that as someone who has almost superhuman strong nails. 

The first month without Show Us Your Books linkup since October 2014. It would have been Tuesday. It still feels like freedom. I'll be posting a what I've been reading post at the end of July. 

My black and white animals frequently conspire.

My Ben and Bruce are much nicer. Bruce, much lazier.

I watched snippets of the Uvalde school shooting video yesterday. This wrecked me for the day. To see police standing lackadaisically in the hallway, getting hand sanitizer. Looking at the freaking punisher screen saver on the phone in their hand instead of rescuing children who were getting shot. The shots are heard clearly in the video. The screams of the children were edited out. Not for those police standing in the hallway though. They heard the screams. And did nothing. So much for the good guys with the guns counteracting mass shooter theories, huh? Hero worship, near blanket immunity from prosecution, a ruling of the supreme court in 2005 that police do not have a constitutional duty to protect people from harm, and back the blue flags have led to this. It is not fixable within the current system. It is not fixable when governors like Greg Abbott fight to not release the videos. And when the Mayor instead of criticizing the lack of response criticizes the media for releasing them. Is this not clear to people, still? 

Local to me abortion supporters: I hope you have followed abortionfunds and signed up for more info - if you have, and you are near me, you should have gotten an email from Abortion Liberation Fund of PA. Please follow them on IG, access/read/share their Post-Roe Tool Kit, and consider making a one time - and, ideally, monthly donation if you are financially able to, and if not share their organization. They were formerly Women's Medical Fund and have been operating in Philly since 1985, and in a post-Roe world protecting and expanding abortion access through direct service and community organizing. With PA state senate having begun the process through the passage of SB 956 to add an amendment to the state constitution that would criminalize abortion and other critical reproductive healthcare - denying the right to abortion care in Pennsylvania even in cases of rape, incest, or life threatening conditions AND pre-empt any state court from protecting abortion care in the absence of federal protections...which is weird since people have been shrugging their shoulders and saying it's not illegal, it's just back to the states...then GOP state senators are passing bills like this out of committee at 11:45 at night, past curfew, and without input from the citizens they represent; federal GOP going after abortion access everywhere for the last 50 years, and democrats not being aggressive enough, we are responsible at the community level to keep each other safe and rely on the networks established abortion funds have built over years. At this time, that mostly means talking about abortion, sharing resources like these, and donating as much as you can. Sharpen your teeth and protect each other.

In the background of everything, an attempted presidential coup it is quite clear the majority of elected GOP officials knew was happening with a false claim of a stolen election and they did absolutely nothing about it. So the attempted coup, then, is not just presidential, but Republican, and now there is a judicial coup in process while republican legislatures in states attempt to limit voting rights and criminalize abortion so that people convicted lose their voting rights. Fascism isn't coming, it's here. What are you going to do now? Nothing, like the DOJ is doing to people who will not comply with subpoenas? Nothing, like the DOJ is doing with the former White House squatter who is attempting to contact witnesses that have not yet testified against him?

To think about, as collected by We the Urban:

Endlessly becoming. I don't know why anyone ever thinks they are done becoming in this life. We are becoming constantly. Done means dead to me. I love this poem by Lucille Clifton. I mean... a changed changer, I continue to continue. How can you not think about that at pop up points always after first reading it 20+ years ago? It is amazing writing.

I'm off tomorrow. Hallelujah & amen

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Feels Like Summer by Samuel Jacks

Feeling very Friday today

I'm feeling very Friday today. You? Coffee on the porch far too early this morning in my new mug from Lori.

Backyard vistas. I am crazy for solar lights.

Hates couch protectors. Ben is my interior decorator dog - he moves dog beds all over and removes as much of the couch covers as he can immediately.

I didn't make it to Thursday Thoughts yesterday, but I did get all my work work done, finally finish the 230498304 loads of laundry from the shore and home, returned two dresses, packed clothes and house laundry and food  and work stuff up to come back to the shore, picked up some of the shore shit I needed to replace in the house (and a polish, who can resist). Earlier in the week I completed the bloodwork for my physical, which I tend to put off. I'm feeling good about this week personally.

I'm back at the shore to stay for the first time since the beginning of June. I've been down and back three times since then to do turnovers, but I've missed being here. This will be a longer stretch for me and I get to see some of my favorites while here. 

I bought my stamps for holiday cards today because they're going up in two days. Thanks to Cory on Instagram for the tip off. 

Bruce is the laziest dog I have ever had.

Joy is in the smallest things. This week it's been dishtowels, getting back on the good book foot, finding that new lovely polish, not much traffic on the way to the shore. It is not in a clean oven. If you have any care about anything outside of yourself, it is so fucking hard to keep yourself on an even keel right now because you can do all the therapy, wellness work, personal inventory, boundaries, actual self care, etc., but the far reaching social issues that arise from massive structural inequality across every system in this country impact all of us and our mental and emotional health. Fight for yourselves and each other. We all deserve more ease in this life. 

And stickers. Since childhood and forever, always stickers. 

It's guns and...a lot of very American things tied up in toxic masculinity and white nationalism with a side of shitty social safety nets follow Amanda Faun on IG

Reminder: no one owes you a reason or a story for why abortion must be available to all pregnant people. People who are pregnant need abortions for medical reasons but also because they cannot or do not want to care for a child in the circumstance they are in, and before you go on about birth control or abstinence I will ask you what in the fuck you have said about men in regards to birth control and abstinence and the answer will be nothing so you can STFU about women and forcing birth on pregnant people and pivot yourself to responsible ejaculation. This country has zero social safety nets for unwanted children that are operating at the appropriate capacity and zero social safety nets for wanted children that people cannot afford to raise here that are operating at the appropriate capacity. This is about white men staying in control and THAT IS IT. 

How to help within the system we are currently operating in - carrying this over from last week for the resource links We must first take care of each other - fund abortion. Do not try to be a rogue actor because you feel the need to do something - I get the desire to be part of a "camping" crew but we must use the well established and networked organizations to safely help people. The best thing to do if you are able is open your wallet. Every organization below will take donations right now. If you are unable to donate, share these resources in your networks and encourage others to donate. Links:

Donate to abortion funds: National Network of Abortion Funds

Donate to organizations that provide travel to those seeking abortions: The Brigid Alliance

Know your digital security rights: Digital Defense Fund

Know your options: INeedanA.com, Plan C, Hey Jane

Support independent clinics: Keep Our Clinics

Support during or after a miscarriage or abortion: M+A Hotline, 1-833-246-2632 (call or text)

Legal advice: IfwhenHow - lawyering for reproductive justice

Take care of each other out there.

Thursday Thoughts - And custodians of public opinion state fact after vainly discussing her rights lay hands off her body it's not your fuckin' life

I am not required to compromise with anyone on abortion and will not. There is not middle ground between people having the right to control their own body and make their own medical decisions and the right of a majority white, male government to do so. Why in the fuck would I be moderate about ripping rights back? No abortion laws on the books period. Fuck off and die. 

Giving myself permission to sit in absolute rage, and hoping you give yourself permission to as well. We said this was coming and too many people thought they knew better and voted for the president that installed three ultra conservative justices that overturned precedent on abortion AND MORE. Still more to come unless the Court is expanded or abandoned. We fucking told you this would happen, the ultra conservatives have been working on this for 50 fucking years, not like there were no fucking signs. This is mostly about abortion rights up front, and if you are not for them, click out of here and out of me. Forever. Do not care to know you, am not interested in agreeing to disagree on bodily autonomy. If you support bodily autonomy and voted for trump, I hope you are doing whatever the fuck you can now to claw those rights back. And I fucking hope whatever you voted for over the right of bodily autonomy was worth it. Was it worth it? Was it?

My reply to anyone who has said, "Have a good holiday" this week has been: What freedoms are there to celebrate? Fuck the Fourth, we are a nation in distress, a police state under minority rule at the beck and call of billionaire oligarchs with a locked government who isn't doing jack fucking shit. Have a good one, now

It's okay to tell anyone who is gaslighting you into thinking this is not a big deal because "it's just back to the states" to fuck off. 

Frustrated and infuriated that we are limited in what we can do as people right now and strangled by minority rule. We should be in the streets burning it down or at the least on a general strike. Fuck calls for civility - gaining rights has never been a peaceful or bloodless exchange. We are not required to tolerate people who do not believe in bodily autonomy and any calls to are fucking gaslighting. You want to be civil? Leave people's reproductive systems alone and mind your own fucking business. 

Our country is not your church. I don't give a good fuck what you think your God thinks about abortion. I feel sorry for anyone who is rejoicing who thinks they are walking the path of Jesus.

How to help within the system we are currently operating in We must first take care of each other - fund abortion. Do not try to be a rogue actor because you feel the need to do something - I get the desire to be part of a "camping" crew but we must use the well established and networked organizations to safely help people. The best thing to do if you are able is open your wallet. Every organization below will take donations right now. If you are unable to donate, share these resources in your networks and encourage others to donate. Links:

Donate to abortion funds: National Network of Abortion Funds

Donate to organizations that provide travel to those seeking abortions: The Brigid Alliance

Know your digital security rights: Digital Defense Fund

Know your options: INeedanA.com, Plan C, Hey Jane

Support independent clinics: Keep Our Clinics

Support during or after a miscarriage or abortion: M+A Hotline, 1-8-246-2632 (call or text)

Legal advice: IfwhenHow - lawyering for reproductive justice

How to deal with the government while we live in this rigged system - ask them to pass the Judiciary Act. Tell them to expand the fucking court. Ask people running for office what they will do to protect, expand, or reinstate bodily autonomy on a state and/or federal level. Ask them to expel people in any office of government that took part in January 6. 

Elect other pro-choice, anti-filibuster candidates to the Senate - they are usually democrats. Sorry about it if that annoys you. In PA this fall that's John Fetterman, Tim Ryan in Ohio, and in Wisconsin it is Mandela Barnes. KANSAS RESIDENTS - on August 2 vote NO on the ballot amendment that would overturn the right to abortion. MICHIGAN RESIDENTS - Sign the petition to get an amendment on the ballot in November that would affirm that every person has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom. Sign this by JULY 11. 

Perfect timing for the arrival of this gift from Beth. LOL forever that Fox News made people think anti-fascists were the bad people and encouraged people to vote for the actual fascists.

Do what you need to do to make room for joy, rest, peace, and laughter. And peace the fuck out when you need to. If that includes cutting people the fuck out who tell you they love you and vote for people who are intent on harming you, that's okay. If that includes no longer knowing people who told you Roe would never be overturned, that's okay. Our collective doom scrolling isn't solving anything so might as well get some peace if you can

Find beauty in the ordinary. The barrage of bad is designed to wear you down and make you feel hopeless. There are more of us and we are not required to accept this shit.

Summer meals have entered the chat. Summer flowers, flags, wreaths made by Sue for the shore, and sunsets too.

Philly this week.

Dogs, man. Ben puked in the bed Tuesday morning. Sheets washed and reapplied. Mae pooped all over it Wednesday morning, a byproduct of anal gland issues she had addressed at the vet on Tuesday. Sheets washed AGAIN and reapplied. And Bruce has just been sensitive Gooby trying to recover from the horror of his people going on vacation without him.

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Don't Pray on Me by Bad Religion

Thursday Thoughts - I concede that you were right about this place

image via

I have a lot of thoughts this Thursday, and I'll give you one guess what they are swirling around this week. If you don't want to talk about or read about abortion and if you don't think abortion should be legal, this post is not for you. I am almost certainly not for you. The comment section is 100% not for you.

In the past, I would have show up here today with a well prepared/written in advance piece on abortion and why it should be protected. I'm not doing that today for many reasons, number one being you know damn well why it should be protected. I'm showing up at lunch, unprepared and pissed off. 

Links to things to read and action items at the bottom if you want to skip down to there. This is still a draft decision, the actual one should come down in late June. Be armed with knowledge and connected to resources in advance. What are you prepared to do to ensure the future of the little girls you know - and more crucially, the ones you don't, who might look different or have no resources - is different than today? What did we not do over the last 49 years that allowed federal abortion protection to come this close to a roll back, which is almost certain to be complete in June?

The evangelical wing of the Republican party - which encompasses basically the entire party at this point - has been working for many, many years with the goal to overturn Roe vs. Wade. They have recruited the best legal minds out of school, put a ton of money into getting judges placed in the lower courts, chipped away at Roe from all angles until it was basically a tattered flag yet one that is still clinging to the pole, and gaslit everyone and became the biggest hypocrites to sell their fucking souls to get three seats on the highest court in the land. All with the goal to overturn Roe on the federal level and assuage you all with the promise that this does not mean abortion is illegal, it means it's up to the states. 

Also, sorry to say it out loud for those trying to ignore it. After they do abortion, they'll go back to segregation, which is partially what the defunding of public ed that has been happening for over 20 years is about. The other part is to keep the population dull and ignorant, without the critical thinking skills that can piece shit together. 

Like many of you, I fucking said this would happen over and over, to people's face and on every form of social media. For years. And like many of you, I heard that will never happen. You are being dramatic/ridiculous. This is a stretch. You don't know how the law works. You sound crazy/hysterical/angry, are you okay? 

No, motherfuckers. We're not okay. 

Even though I knew this was coming, it has still provoked a visceral reaction and been deeply unsettling. 

I'm never going to be okay again knowing so many people were told this over and over and over and pooh poohed it, saying they supported women all while allowing a war on them to escalate to this level. I'm furious and am not acting like I'm not. I am not entertaining any focus on the leak as the problem vs what was contained in the leak.  And I am not hearing one thing when you try to tell us more bad shit is not going to happen. Republicans said Roe was "settled law" and look at it now. They are lying liars who lie, they've now entered a slippery slope with precedent, and we're all fucked. Shut all the way up. This draft decision is as bad as we think it is, and actually, it's worse. 

Now, if this decision drops as it was leaked, we are ALL about to be in a serious fucking shit position we cannot vote ourselves out of. The decision draft references right to privacy, which impacts so many other SCOTUS decisions over the years, including but not limited to the right for married couples to obtain birth control without government interference, same sex marriage (Alito already wrote he would vote to overturn as soon as the opportunity came along and Alliance Defending Freedom which is decidedly not defending the freedom of anyone outside of mainstream white straight people has been working on this since the Obergefell decision came down), interracial marriage, anti-sodomy laws. Lots of things aren't specifically named in the Constitution that 99% of us appreciate and rely on.

The list will continue, and in regards to Roe alone there will be repercussions for people you didn't think there would be, or people you don't care about? People trying to have a child via IVF, people at danger of dying from ectopic pregnancy or complications from pregnancy, victims of incest, victims of rape. Did you not think of these people or do you not care about them, or both?

I'm not getting into why it is a fucking farce to end federal protection for abortions in a country with the highest maternal mortality rate, no paid maternity leave, no universal subsidized childcare, no continued birth parent care, and frequently inaccessible mental health care (wording from tweet by TocarraElise). Or why it is absolutely absurd for who sits on this court in particular, how they got there, and why one is allowed to remain there to be the ones ending this federal protection of human rights. 

Some one off thoughts I want to put somewhere and today that is here.

-Abortion is healthcare, period. It is a private issue. Your religion does not have a say over someone else's healthcare. Period. PERIOD.

-Removing someone's bodily autonomy is not a Christian value and if you think it is you actually follow American evangelical false gods and oppressors and certainly do not follow the teachings or life of Jesus Christ as he is written. 

-This is a ruling against the working class, the poor, and the marginalized. This is racist, classist, and  misogynistic. 

-I'll be angry about this forever, and if that's where you are too, don't let anyone tell you that is not valid or possible.

-The criminalization of abortion is class warfare, and it is a strategy. It keeps poor women down, especially Black women and women of color. If any woman is arrested for abortion, she becomes part of the prison industrial complex. Her labor is free and she loses her right to vote in future elections. 

-I used to couch my opinion on abortion by attempting to appeal to people and win them over. With age I have stopped making my opinions smaller to give others room to curl around them. Fuck that. Abortion on demand and without apology. It is not my business what another woman does with her body, and it is not yours, and it is not the fucking government's. There are zero laws on American books about what a man might do with his ejaculate, without which THERE ARE ZERO PREGNANCIES. Let's be crystal clear here about what all abortion laws are about: Control of women and population. Remove all abortion laws from everywhere. 

image via

-We spent 20 years and zillions of dollars, fucked with thousands of US military minds and bodies and families, destroyed thousands of civilian lives, and more in Afghanistan to fight violent religious extremists when they were in our own fucking country infiltrating every level of government all along and many of you were and are still voting for them. The American religious right zealots are the same as the Taliban. If that hurts your feelings, reflect. 

-Abortion does not cease to exist because it is deemed illegal or unprotected. Abortion predates America and its evangelicals and it probably predates Jesus too. If that hurts your feelings, reflect.

-This iteration of the Supreme Court has said mandating masks against a global pandemic that has killed 995,000 Americans (almost a million fucking people) in under four years is unconstitutional but is about to make pregnancy mandatory. Are you all fucking serious not seeing how exactly pro-life that is NOT? Stop lying to yourself and each other.

-Fuck everyone who is all "I'm sick of people's opinions on the internet," "we don't need political opinions." No one says a fucking thing when you only share opinions on shoes and food and makeup. Take several seats, you are a major part of the problem 

-Adjacent to that - human rights and civil liberties are not political nor are they opinions. They exist and you either recognize them or you violate them. Bodily autonomy is a human right. You recognize it or you violate it. 

-As stated above I believe we are past voting ourselves out of this. This capitalist dictatorship catering to oligarchs has us all well fucked. Yes, even those of us defending billionaires as if we would ever be one. Yes, even those of us who always voted for pro choice candidates. This is all authoritarian fascist shit and we're too far along in it. Until there is a plan for collective action - which is different than rallies and marches and involves changes to lifestyle etc - I will continue voting but only for people who support abortion (which is how I have always voted) with a preference for progressives (many which would be considered run of the mill democrats before everything on the political spectrum shifted). At the end of the day though, we are all choosing to play by these rules and we don't have to if enough of us decide not to, by using collective power to enact change. Which is how we have always forced change even though some people would like to say that is not the case. We reach a point in which the broken system cannot be changed from the inside and all operations within the bounds of a broken system are futile. We have not secured rights previously through civil discourse and we will not grab them back now without massive change, sacrifice, and some spilled blood. Please think on that and digest it. 

-White women who own any RBG shit, actually do something aside from just owning merch.

-Democrat politicians who stood by and played nice and safe and tried to meet in the middle or cater to extremists for years while doing nothing of action except wringing their hands have blood on those hands. Roe could have been codified into law AT ANY TIME since it was passed.

ABORTION IS STILL FEDERALLY PROTECTED. If you need an appointment, make one. If you have an appointment, keep it.

For your consideration

-Leaked draft opinion - this is not the time to skim shit. Read it

-OpEd Race, not abortion, was the founding issue of the religious right

-The real origins of the religious right: they'll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record's clear: It was segregation.

-Abortion in American history

-OpEd Four collisions to expect if Roe is Repealed

-What Rights could unravel next

-Leaked Roe opinion sparks right-to-privacy concerns

-Twitter thread from historian starting with abortion was legal when constitution was written

-Twitter thread from Mikki Kendall, author of Hood Feminism, about white women as a power bloc. Fellow white ladies, if we're not the fucking wall for all people, choosing liberation over proximity to power/upholding the patriarchy and economic cover from men, we have fucked ourselves and everyone else on purpose

-Twitter thread from A.H. Reaume on what other rights were viewed by SCOTUS under the right to privacy lens

-IG slides about forced labor and not in the having baby sense

-Abortion by Design Mom, a lovely human and great follow, Mormon and mother of six. This is a link to her site, on which she has permanently shared her famous twitter abortion thread. 

Resources. Accounts to follow on instagram, will give you action items or action items are listed, follow clickable links in their bios for further action or how to help or donate. Some action items will probably be outside of your norm. Try not to reject them outright, but sit with them and think about it. 

-SisterSong: the National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

-Liberate Abortion

-Shout Your Abortion - aid and abet abortion

-Apiary for Practical Support - providing technical assistance to those traveling for abortions, the silent backbone for when clinics close 

-Abortion Funds - National Network of Abortion Funds. Donate and/or become an individual member for $30, which will allow you to select your local independent abortion provider. Click through link in their profile

-Keep Our Clinics - support independent community providers. Planned Parenthood is excellent but does not need our $25 contributions right now

-M+A hotline is a confidential, private and secure phone & text hotline for people in need of support for self-managed miscarriage or abortion. 1-833-246-2632

-Abortion on Our Own Terms - info on self-managed abortions i.e. abortion pills

-INeedAnA.com - how to find vetted, personalized info on how to get an abortion, no search or user data saved

-If/when/how Repro Legal Helpline

-Sarasophief - always shares info and actions, most of the above accounts have been shared by her

-As stated above, I don't think we are able to vote our way off of this path. You may disagree with me and that is cool. Regardless until there is another avenue to operate within, make sure you are registered to vote. Vote in your local elections, it is always important as they impact you the most, but right now it is crucial. 

-Be open to collective and community organizing that leads to sustained action. This could look different than what most of us are used to doing in response to things we do not like at a government level.

-Contact your elected officials now. Tell them plainly what you want. Don’t worry about sounding good or feeling awkward. They are normal people who work for us, their constituents. You will get a staffer or voicemail. Pretend you are placing an order at a drive thru. Be courteous, state your opinion plainly, say thank you and have a good day. Hang up and call the next one. 

-If you can afford to acquire abortion pills, do so for future needs of yourself or others.

-If you use a period tracker on your phone, download your info elsewhere and delete it and your data. 

-Always keep passport up to date for you and all of your family members, this is something we should always do regardless of what sort of political or social climate we are in.

I think of Margaret Atwood's books many people thought of as just a boogey man for so many years, and about how what humans actually do to each other is wilder than anything she could have conceived in The Handmaid's Tale or its follow up The Testaments. 

We are not relying on elected officials of any party or unjust laws. We protect each other. I will fight tooth and nail for bodily autonomy for women. You should too. For a million reasons but at the end of the day, because every human deserves it. Bodily autonomy is the human right all others stem from.

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Wrap Your Arms Around Me by Barenaked Ladies