it's the little things
deep freeze and the minutia of fascism
it’s the little things that make up the big things. this is a disabled way of being and knowing.
I made it out of the house in the feels like minus 20 cold Saturday to pick up my broken now fixed computer and hit the trader joes before I had to scamper back into my enclosure for the night. in the middle place between the two errands I thought, the post office on chestnut has saturday hours and a decent blue spot that’s probably shovelled out, or could be- let me try it. I wanted to try and re-mail my oldest best friend’s solstice/ christmas gift package, to toronto. it had already been returned once because I put two perfume samples in there for her and I missed that perfume is on the banned list. this time I had the form all filled out, the form a lot of USPSs in Philly don’t even carry anymore or say doesn’t exist, the one to mail shit to other countries. the first time that happened, that they said, we don’t have that, I thought: the u.s. state doesn’t want us to be connected to other countries. sure it’s Philly infrastructure breaksdowns/ gaps/ reality but it’s also that.
this time I got the form all filled out and signed in advance, I need a next customer who’s ready, I go to the front of the line and…. what spices are these?
Uh. I don’t know. Cardamon?
Yeah, well you can’t send those. The form on the computer says, no herbs and spices allowed.
Are you sure? Is this new? I know I’ve mailed these before no problem.
I don’t know, I just do what the screen tells me.
OK. Have a nice day.
It’s such a small thing on the big iceberg of sad shit and bullshit. But after I pick my way over the uncleared glacier to my car, and later when I talk to my friend, I’m like, you know diaspora, they’re that bougie high quality diasporic desi spice brand? I just wanted to get my best friend the goddamn Padma Lakshmi gunpowder and the good cardamom. and I went home after and looked on the website and spices AREN’T on the list of things you’re not allowed to mail to Ontario. and then I’m chatting with her and she’s like, yeah, we now have to pre-pay customs through a third party site. if we’re mailing to the States.
and my brain explodes and I told her when Tangled shipped my stuff back from the fall show, not only did one shipper say they wouldn’t send it without a scan of my passport photo, but when the stuff did arrive, I got texts the week after saying I needed to pay US customs fees- but if what she was saying was right, it seemed Tangled might have already paid for the customs fees - so it’s just a cash grab both ways, powered by autotexts and a third party app.
it’s the pettyness of the creep of fascism sometimes, mixed in with all the huge big bads and overwhelms. there’s murders and kidnappings and the buyout of the Big Lots warehouse to become a concentration camp. and then there’s the petty everyday mundane heartbreak of, you want to send your sister bougie spices as a treat and a present, and the petty mechanism of fascism tells you: you aren’t allowed to send those dirty south asian spices in the mail. learning, communication, border crossing- all always policed and restricted and patrolled, but now a steady upswing on the fascism barometer to them closing.
you should write about that, says my friend as we’re sitting in my car with the heater blasting close to midnight on her frozen ice corner before she goes inside.
so I did.
autistic Brown oppression and resistance.
this is the video (with transcript in link) of Aliya Rahman, the Autistic and disabled Bengali person brutalized and violently arrested by ICE in Minneapolis, who got out and has gone on to share what she saw inside the Whipple Building, where scores of Black and brown people are locked up and cannot get out. She testifies about the love and solidarity- how she feels she stayed alive because a Black cellmate took a risk to bang on the bars when Aliya was passing out from head injuries.
ALIYA RAHMAN: I did not receive any medical care while I was conscious. When I arrived at the Whipple center, I was already injured. I cannot lift my arms now normally. I don’t know how long that will be with me. You know, my body will heal, or it won’t.
But it’s important to me to fulfill a duty to folks like Mr. Mondragón, who you just mentioned, right? It is completely consistent with my experience to hear that the story of these folks, that he ran into a wall head first, is not true — of course, it can’t be — because these people do not regard human bodies as attached to humans.”
(embedding not working but here are links:)
<iframe width=”640” height=”360” src=”https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2026/2/9/minneapolis_ice” frameborder=”0” allowfullscreen=”true”></iframe>
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/2/9/minneapolis_ice
i keep thinking about the disabled stories Alice would be tweeting. Aliya’s story. Wael Tarabishi’s story, everyone who is disabled now because of getting shot by a gun or a impact device or pepper spray or trauma, the public grieving toolkit put together to mourn together. our thoughts in the middle of the night. she can’t write them. we can and are.
deep freeze
deep freeze and a lot of sudden endings. another friend says, there’s so many things that are suddenly over- in a moment, that journalist is murdered, that family member is snatched, that beloved friend/ community leader dies- and we’re all so cattle prodded in the chute and expected to just keep trampling forward. we’re getting used to fast goodbyes.
another friend and I talking, late sunday night warm inside their place with the electric fireplace and we talk about what happens in movements of the marginalized when there is a high moment of visibility, big changes, big moves and then a lot of people die- “leaders” but also a lot of people more everyday, and then a lot of people drop out, out of grief or burnout. and it’s not simple to just fill the gap all of them left. people aren’t interchangeable, the relationships and skills they bring aren’t immediately plug in the gap replaceable.
what is organizing and community like when we are sitting in that gap, as I believe we are now. and what is organizing and community like within mass normalized, brutal grief perhaps making a lot of us more reactive, in that way that grief upends everything and often makes people not act their “best.”
and I sit with the shock held by my autistic heart, at so much sudden, change, rupture and ending. hand on my stupid heart indeed. I want to believe, in a way that is perhaps cringe, that you mean what you say, in hanging in there, in persisting even with breaks.
in yet another not yet finished project idea, a friend and me want to write about what it really means to sustain community with people you dislike, have disagreement with, just don’t vibe with, under intense conditions of occupation and war where you have to WE KEEP US SAFE. of course this is not new but maybe this iteration is. de escalate all conflict not with the enemy, in real messy time with people who hurt and piss you off and annoy you, how does that work?
tarot year 31. month 2
it’s deep freeze all kinds of ice winter. everyone I know is out of work. there are almost no asks in my inbox for the first time in twenty years. this is true for everyone I know who is an itinerant workshop thrower, talker, organizer, performer, poet, whatever. there is no money and everything is expensive. my friend says, why is cream cheese seven dollars all of a sudden. good question. at least we’re in it together. what happens when we all don’t have rent.
so for the paying the rent reason and the other many reasons, thank you to everyone who has supported my reopened tarot practice. it’s been a good month. glad to be able to offer my skills to people who want/ need them. you can keep booking here. it feels good to offer readings in this moment of so much churn. in the deep freeze, come get a read at the kitchen table. happy to offer 31 years of healing skill as a surviving bytch.
the book is at the printer. the book is out march 24
the book went off to the printer. three rounds of proof review, as tight as I can make it. some of famously abundant long lines wrap around, some I chopped a different way to fit in the boundaries of the paper we have. I’ll probably see things I missed. but it’s done. it’s ready to be in the world. every book is a spell, you watch and see how it unfurls and all the best of what will come of it is the most unexpected and unplanned for.
I’m planning tour and it’s been three years and for this one, I wanted some online but a lot of in person, masked, accessible events. that was what we chatted about in the meeting in november, I was like, I think people need to be together and in october ‘22, there was so much resistance to masked in person events- not that it’s gone but back then it felt like the available options were either online or an unmasked in person free for all. today it feels like there are more venues that will mask require because of three years of beyond complete abandonment into the firey furnace. and I was like, I think we need to be together. my friend said, wow this whole book and tour is one big disabled grief /love spell/ ritual. i said yeah. tour planning is going ok but there’s one or two places including minneapolis that are like, we want you to come but it might not be safe for us to gather. it might not be safe for you to be there.
one more piece of disabled heart/break and life in wartime. and in my head I go, ok, I’ll hold this date for now. ok we know how to pivot and be flexible- we can always do zoom, or jitsi, or whatever piece of tech that doesn’t steal us.
the way disabled people love each other:
the speak/easy tour
I thought about calling it the “Sad sack of shit tour” but tbd ;) maybe this will be the unofficial nickname.
my friend Satchél said, this tour isn’t just a bunch of readings, it’s a queer disabled grief/ love ritual. yup.
dates and details are in progress because booking and event planning is is a one sick sad femme show over here (with a lot of help from my friends) but here’s some confirmed dates and dates in progress, watch this space for more, but 8 confirmed already isn’t too shabby. if you want to make an event happen, hit me up and we’ll get back to you (eventually!)
Friday March 27, Disability Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA, masked in person and hybrid with ASL. Stefani Echeverría-Fenn opening.
Sunday March 29, Left Bank Books at Pipsqueak, 7 PM, masked in person event, openers and other info TBD.
Thursday, April 2, Wooden Shoe books, Philly/ Lenapehoking, masked in person event, M. Téllez opening.
April 8, 7 PM, Red Emma’s, Baltimore MD
April 12, Halifax NS/ Mik’maki, Venus Envy, details tbc, masked in person with hybrid
April 15, Toronto/ T’karonto, Another Story/It’s OK* Studios, masked in person event, hybrid details TBD.
April 17, Not a book gig- but will be presenting at CLAGS Queer Class Relations Conference’s “Featured Roundtable: Amber Hollibaugh: Class, Queerness, and Desire”
weekend of April 18th: hopefully, reading in NYC.
April 29, Chicago, Women and Children First, masked in person with hybrid and ASL by Access Living.
May 4, Moon Palace Books, Minneapolis, MN
May 9, Charis Books and More, Atlanta, GA
in the works: LA, Vancouver, online, and Durham
You can pre-order the book here and here. as always, pre orders super super help my press and me. You can always order it “anywhere but amazon”- your local bookstore, Bookshop.org for online, or direct from Arsenal (or at an event.) Ask your library to uy it and tell your friends.
Many events will include an installation of the Disabled Grief Portal Altar, an installation co-created between me and disabled visual artists to hold and honor the deaths of disabled loved ones.
also this long awaited book is finally out and I have work in it with some true lights:
watch this space for some true good shots and plotting from my cripple crooked left arm, coming up next.
and: happy Black Liberation/ Black Disabled Futures month, all ways. Support and check out the work of some Black Disabled creative political geniuses like Loud’nUnchained, Balm In Gilead, DSM215, Riz’ accessible van fundraiser, Tiezst "Tie" Taylor , Embraced Body, Jen White Johnson, NEVE, to name just a few.
stay warm and true,
L
the monthly stack, with the fixed computer. also I forgot to say and meant to: minneapolis ICE invasion is not over even with a changing of the guard, and oppression and invasion of Gaza is also not over even with an “invasion.” figure out where you can support, standwithminnesota.com is one place, crips for e sims is still rolling and can always use boosts and donations if you got: chuffed.org/project/crips-for-esims-for-gaza
i appreciate that i can hear your voice when i read your words on the page. feels like we’re sitting on a bench somewhere. beautiful.