Leaving for Ghost & San Francisco

One is permanent, the other is not.

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obsessed with this art piece by Narumi Takada.

First, some housekeeping: I am on my break from Instagram! For an entire month! I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I have never spent that much time off of the app. Maybe I’ll never go back, who’s to say?!

Second, I am planning a move to the open-source platform, Ghost, since Substack has become a hub for nazis and fascism and is unwilling to do anything about it. Many people I respect have already left Substack or are planning on it, and I can’t in good conscience stay here. I also really dislike the ways in which this platform is becoming another social media site. I’m a writer and artist. I don’t want shit like “notes” or “chat.” I don’t want another app, either. I’m trying to have LESS social media in my life, not more.

Because I’m moving to Ghost and have zero coding/developer skills, I will be paying them to migrate my content and subscribers. Thus, those of you who are on the paid plan of this newsletter will help me offset this cost. I will be paying a yearly cost (dependent on how many subscribers I have at the time) to Ghost. So again, your paid subscriptions will greatly help with this. I will also be using this switch to Ghost as a moment to “rebrand.” I don’t want to be only known as “The Guerrilla Feminist,” and since Instagram won’t let me change my username, I’d like to change it elsewhere. I also feel like using that name for my newsletter gives people an incorrect idea that my writing is always explicitly “feminist” or theoretical. I naturally write from these perspectives to a degree, but I don’t want people to think it’s my main thing—because it’s not. I am just not someone who engages with theory as much as others. I’m not sure when this migration to Ghost will happen or be completed, but you won’t need to do anything. The other nice thing about this change is that no percentage of your money will go to a platform that supports nazis! It will all go to moi! In the meantime, you can still subscribe here for the time being.

Speaking of leaving, I’m also leaving for San Francisco tomorrow for an entire month! I will be taking a mix of vacation time and working fully remotely (thankfully, my 9-5 gig has allowed me to do this). I’m primarily going to help out with family as my sister-in-law will be giving birth in early February. I’m beyond excited to see my nearly 3-year-old nephew, Joaquin, and to meet my new nephew!

In order to get there, though, I need to get on an airplane. I hate airplanes. I used to not mind them, but then I got really ill on one the last time I flew to SF in 2022. I’m still not sure if the sick feeling I had was a panic attack or airsickness. It doesn’t really matter which it was, because it felt horrific. It’s not surprising that when this occurred my relationship was falling apart. Perhaps that’s why it happened. Being sick on a plane is a special kind of hell. I am praying to just feel neutral during my two flights (Madison, sadly, no longer has a direct flight to SF, so it’s first to Minneapolis).

I find myself increasingly jealous of people who can just get on a plane and not think about it. I have to do so much preparation. I have to focus on my breathing. I have to take Dramamine. I have to have all of my sensory tools and somatic resources at the ready. My mom is flying with me, which is a great comfort, but it still doesn’t take away my fear and anxiety. I also struggle with health anxiety and since we are (in the U.S.) in a Covid/RSV/Flu surge, I don’t feel great about traveling right now. I will wear a high-quality mask (KN95 or N95). I will have my little travel air purifier. I will do all the things I can to protect myself and others. It still might not be enough and that is something I have to accept.

There is much grief and stress and anxiety resting in my bones. All of it related to the ongoing pandemic, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, and the ongoing capitalist shithole that is the U.S. No one makes it out of this life alive, but I’m hoping we can all make it to old old old age and find respite there.

1. Chronically Honest: An Autoethnographic Paper on the Experiences of a Disabled Librarian - Nikki Andersen

2. The geometry of other people - David Borkenhagen

3. Go Straight to Jail: The New Geography of Mass Incarceration - Jack Norton, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Judah Schept

4. This is What Makes Us Girls: On the Lana-Del-Rey-to-Red-Scare Pipeline - Jude Doyle

5. Gen Z and millennials have an unlikely love affair with their local libraries - Kathi Inman Berens, Rachel Noorda

6. Prisons, Prose & Protest - #11 -

   Prisonculture’s Newsletter

7. Why Platformer is leaving Substack -

   Casey Newton

8. Sleep, Dreams -

   Cindy Crabb

9. We’re Bringing Blogging Back - Tasha Darcy Grey

10. new Issy Wood!