MdT

there’s chronic depression and then there’s the deterioration of the soul. i’m currently experiencing deterioration of the soul.

a new baby! congratulations! i just read your book and this is extra sweet news. ❤️ you and lisa and your whole community deserve the best of all things.

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In 5 min, I'm on CBC Radio with @cbcstephenquinn.bsky.social talking about my new book about the drug war. Listen on 88.1FM 📻or www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

34th birthday came and went. uneventful as i predicted. i’m glad it’s over; im glad im in the after.

Czechoslovakia
- ruzzia came
- media shut down
- all political parties except 1
- people disappearing
- you against the regime, education picked for those
- apply for vacations 6 months ahead
- vacations without my brother or my brother without me or me without my brother
- books music controlled

Rising Canadian patriotism is a chance to rethink who gets to belong here Canadian patriotism has risen since Trump threatened to annex the country. However, the rhetoric and symbols of Canadian nationalism may be leaving out modern understandings of the country.

Rising Canadian patriotism is a chance to rethink who gets to belong here

if you don’t know if i’m serious, thanks to my birthday gift from my daughter, we are playoff ready

it seems like only “important” things are discussed here (politics, existential crises, cats)
and not the stanley cup playoffs
but i’m v excited for them and i intend to break this unspoken rule of uptightness. GO JETS GO!

It seems that any time the UCP has an opportunity to harm the most vulnerable, they go for it - kids, seniors, addicts, homeless, disabled, poor. New Fed Gov't needs to seriously consider how they disburse funds to Alberta (for any purpose). @mark-carney.bsky.social @naheednenshi.bsky.social

With 77,000 people on AISH, the UCP stands to take 15,400,000 a month with money that is supposed to be helping lift disabled Albertans a little more out of poverty.

They’re taking $15 million a month away from some of Alberta’s most vulnerable.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

in other words: i’m uniquely equipped to be her mother, in this time, at this time in my life. mb that’s why it doesn’t feel like i need to “get it right” the same way other stressors in my life have been. the pressure isn’t external, it’s a whole other human being

yet fully within my control, in that all these choices are encompassed within my realm of responsibility, and i don’t at all feel guided in any sense. i feel completely alone in it yet uniquely competent thx to every one of my pre-parenthood experiences: trauma, achievement, family history, dreams.

parenting feels different though, maybe because it’s exhausting and it demands all of my resources and more. impulsivity isn’t effective as a caregiver; the nature & outcomes of my parenting choices are not congruent w/ satisfying my monkey brain or even my heart. it’s a motivation beyond myself

irl my brain is wired to see/categorize everything hierarchically and i execute decisions using my own bias
i don’t want to pathologize myself too much bc this is v much a generational trait. i’m recognizing that you can have pure intentions and still be mentally self-serving in your pursuits

i know my perfectionism is a survival strategy which no longer serves me, and hasn’t for a long time. on the surface i often present as publicly vulnerable and i encourage vulnerability/imperfection among my peers and loved ones

leaning into my motivations for being the cycle-breaking mom i am + my parenting choices

am i motivated from the (anxious) place of perfectionism? or the (secure) place of unconditional love?

this time next week i’ll be 34, a mother in the flesh almost 9 months, still terribly lonely, still with chronic pain and stress. no thread here, just pointing out how the older i get the smaller the jump is from before a birthday to after. its no longer monumental. it’s the same shit until i die.

photo taken indoors looking through a south-facing window at night. the full moon glowing in the distance surrounded by a break in clouds. a crystal window decoration shaped like a crescent moon with three dangling pendants hangs in the forefront, blurry. the silhouette of an in-fill balcony and mature coniferous trees fill in the rest of the photo.

i’ve been taking sips of Monster Rehab tea-lemonade since 5pm which has led me to the couch at 2am while my family, humans and felines, are asleep. i saw the full moon thru the window for the first time in ages while i did our dishes.

Pierre Poilievre’s proposals on intimate partner violence will do little to stop it There is scant evidence to suggest more punitive measures will discourage violence against women. Policy-makers should instead use a balanced approach that prevents violence before it occurs.

Pierre Poilievre’s proposals on intimate partner violence will do little to stop it

Email your MP - #NoArmedDrones! Send an email to your MP calling for Canada to cancel the planned purchase of its first armed drones. #NoArmedDrones

The Canadian military is trying to purchase its first fleet of armed drones. Their disturbing proposal shows they plan to use armed drones for surveillance of protest in Canada as well as US-style drone strikes overseas. Join me to say #NoArmedDrones! nwmd.social/s/email/5AuG...

noarmeddrones.ca

it’s 10 to 9, i hear birds outside chirping, cats are humping on the couch, baby is asleep, tv is off, i’m alone and it’s quiet and i feel relief to just be here

if we can hold objective, compassionate space for survivors, abusers, politicians and their money problems and fucking billionaires and their political views 🙄🙄… we can do a better job at holding space for the people who literally break to bring us here. we can do better by moms.

i have a great kid whom i love exponentially and birthing her LITERALLY broke me, and my physical experience on this earth has been hell ever since.
both these things are true. one does not negate the other.

i literally would’ve just prayed because that’s the only thing that i could do. the illusion of influence in any direction was cruel.
and don’t even get me started on the double whammy of my postpartum complications, the surgery that almost killed me, and how i went home to “recover” w/o support.

that’s fucked right? bc “good vibes only” is privileged violence and that’s something i never advocate for culturally or socially
but if i knew birth was a battleground where i was going to lose, a war zone bent on my destruction and complicity,

i repeat: i EASILY could’ve done without the trauma dumping from other moms
just as well as i could’ve done without being lied to about having the birth i wanted. investing time and resources into skills i couldn’t use. i would’ve rather known nothing at all and went in with straight good vibes. (!)

and i definitely could’ve done without being told everyone else’s shitty birth stories while i was pregnant
and having a pregnancy that it felt like no one supported, a baby shower no one attended, and literally no memories of that time because it was spent at home, broke and stressed and sad

as if your kid, who never chose to be here, somehow makes up for your life and body being changed forever —
can we grow tf up and learn to hold space amongst ourselves without projecting the hopes we might’ve had for a better outcome?
or in my case, the outcome we were repeatedly told we’d have?

and there’s no guarantee a second birth won’t be traumatic also
(that’s the thing about medical trauma—it makes everything after it scary)
so rather than shaming birthing parents into hiding their shitty stories “because now they have a beautiful baby” —

because realistically
that “second birth that fixes everything” isn’t happening, and it wouldn’t be fair to that child to be brought into the world just to heal the part of me that broke