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weekly retro #32: hospitals, trucks, and a little coke

i've been in a perpetual state of being 48 hours behind the rest of the world, and so is nearly the case with this retro. my week started out with me being really stressed about how i was going to do a good job at the 5 events i was responsible for being some sort of host at. but then that all kind of went out the window when my brother called to tell me our dad had a heart attack.

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books i read in january and thoughts on medicine and literacy

i have written previously about getting back into reading again. when covid quarantine went into effect, one of the things i stopped having the attention and appetite for was reading books. but since fall, i have been chipping away at a pile that had been waiting for me since 5 years ago, and i am intentionally trying to read at least 2 books a month. in january i read fuzz by mary roach, and natural causes by barbara ehrenreich. i'll write about fuzz and my thoughts about and journey in divesting from specieism another time. today i want to talk about natural causes and, especially, barbara ehrenreich's impact on my outlook on death, wellness, and how i have navigated those topics before and going into the trump administration.

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that tfw when the world ends again

after the election loss last week, i've spent a lot of time on my screens watching people spiral, activate, argue, plan, fight, grieve, celebrate, move on…all the things. it’s very human yet overwhelming and i don’t want to contribute more to it, but idid need to get some of the thoughts swirling in my head down to make room for what’s next. i am going to tell a very personal story, but it dominates my mind whenever i feel the world is ending so the perspective may be helpful to those who feel alone in their grief right now.

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carousels, cashews, candles and community

when i was little, my grandma and i used to take the car service to coney island to ride the carousel. i loved my time with my grandma so much that i kept to myself the constant anxiety in my tummy as we rode in a stranger's car, encountered sketchy men on the boardwalk, and rode the horses in a circle over and over again in the hot and sticky air. i never told her i was scared or that my tummy hurt, because i didn't want her to stop spending time with me. as far as i was concerned back then, my grandma was all that i had.

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