Don’t think I can record this one as audio because I’m not sure I could get through talking about it, so a written post is all I got.
I haven’t talked about it at all, but last year I had a couple of very frightening health episodes involving being masked that made me unable to wear them.
Since then, I have never in my life seen such a constant and visceral demonstration of the cruelty of human beings, and the eagerness with which they default to dehumanizing other people. Never. I had been told all my life by other people, by literature, and by common wisdom that the veneer of civilization is thin and it doesn’t take much scratching to find a monster underneath, but I never knew it in my bones, until I observed how people treat me now.
I don’t go out if I feel even the slightest bit off. I stay away from people—more than six feet. I keep my head lowered. I accept temperature checks and COVID questionnaires without fuss. In short, I do everything short of wearing a mask to respect other people’s needs. I also live in a county where the mask mandate specifically states that medical exemptions must be respected, no one is allowed to ask specifics, and no one is allowed to deny service to anyone based on their inability to wear a mask. I carry a copy of that with me everywhere.
It never matters.
There are times, when someone is yelling at me, that I start to disassociate. The person Othering me comes apart in my vision and the pieces start floating, and all those pieces are yelling at me. The world fragments with them, and I feel l’m in a nightmare where nothing makes sense. It happened to me again, in the eye doctor’s office today, where someone was yelling at me and I was staring at her and trying to understand her, and she was saying that the office had no masks and I would have to go across the street to buy one, and her mouth was moving and I was not present and couldn’t make sense of it. They had taken my temperature when I walked in. They had seemed all right. And now it wasn't all right.
A very nice man in the office took me aside and said he could give me a mask if it would help. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been vaccinated for over a month and they still make me wear this. It makes no sense. But I need this job so I do what they say.”
And I looked at him and that didn’t make sense either. And then I went outside and sat on the concrete step and waited until the disassociation faded, and then made a mental note to find a new eye doctor.
I will never forget how quickly I became a non-entity because of something I couldn’t control. I will never forget the vituperation, and the aggression, and the lack of reason or compassion. I am mindful of the fact that even writing this has made my heart accelerate because I have come to expect that people will think I’m lying about not being able to wear a mask… and I am mentally preparing for that to happen. My health doesn’t matter to other people. Only their ideas about my health matter, and I don't get a say. I get that now.
What a long way we’ve come from the courage of Jesus healing lepers. Now it is considered virtuous to abuse people—sick or not—for their human needs. To shame them without understanding their circumstances. And to drive them from public spaces, declare them anathema, and then feel pride at one’s self-righteousness.
I have learned a lot this past year. I don’t think most people will like the lessons I’ve learned. I certainly don’t.
Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes
Materials:
In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.
Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.💖
Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.
Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!
Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461
Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.
After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...
A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.
Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ‘but we’re all different, aren’t we’ which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.
It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myself… Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural “you.”)
I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also ...
https://mcahogarth.org/gallery/image/123-2019-42-ElementalJahir
Today's Wednesday Share is a little different... in this case, it's the first of a series, and you can see the other 6 pieces (plus a false start) linked from the annotation in the gallery. (Bonus: there's a link to another, similar series of Peltedverse Tarot images in the artist notes section).
I was inspired to do this one by the song Elemental from the Tears for Fears album. I was thinking of what the elemental symbols of each of the major Eldritch saga characters was, so I decided to chase them down. For instance, Jahir's has the unicorn, the amulet, the sword of state, the caduceus, and the net/spacetime of the seer!
If you're interested in seeing the rest of them, go check them out! Share your favorites if you feel like leaving a comment!
How wild is that? This one is fun because it's a "choose your champion" style competition between tea and coffee! And my daughter is participating to raise money for her college food budget with a design of her own! AND it will run through my birthday!
This might be more excitement than I can handle, honestly, lol. Anyway, come check it out!
Yes! Because tomorrow I am launching the kickstarter, so I don't want to clutter up your feed. So for your pleasure today, here is a color pencil piece from 26 years ago. Look at the water! And goodness, how hard I worked on those dark and forbidding cliffs. But I think my favorite thing is her hair, caught up in the jeweled caul.
I hope this one brings some beauty to the start of your week!
You can see it here on the gallery: https://mcahogarth.org/gallery/image/56-2000-055-NorthPoint
Today's short returns to the Le'enle for a comical urban fantasy published originally in Raconteur Press's Brim to the Dregs anthology. This was a potion-and-brew-themed call, and that made it a perfect fit for the Le'enle who have a special relationship with...
Well, just read on. XD
Returning to the freebies, here's the fantasy short I wrote for Raconteur Press's Goblin Market anthology. One of the things I love most about the Le'enle is that they're a meta-genre species: because they are immortal superbeings who choose to live among mortals, they are as at home in a scifi dystopia as they are in an urban fantasy as they are in a fairy tale. For this story, I chose to return to their medieval-fantasy-esque roots to tell a gentle story about magical inventory.
Okay, it's not about magical inventory. But I did have a lot of fun designing Prissa's potions, and I hope you enjoy reading about them.🧡
This one was originally published in Raconteur Press's anthology All Will Burn 3, the theme of which was "parents will do anything for their children." Most people went super-serious with that theme. I decided to go slapstick, and set this one in the Peltedverse. It's about the Guardkin, and eventually it will go in the Forecourt collection I'm planning. But for my locals supporters, here's your dose of fun for Friday!
