what the heck

here we go again.

Author

Kirsten Han
22 Jan

Managernim, the new work buddy.

There are a bunch of things that I wanted to do today. I made a plan and everything, overseen by my new Managernim orange cat doll, logging all the to-dos in my calendar app and lining them up in the schedule. But I woke up this morning and, despite actually remembering to take my ADHD meds, knew that I’m not going to get very much done after all. A year or two ago I might have forced myself to push through the sludge, but I think I’ve learnt enough about what I need now to get the message my mind and body are sending me.

There’s too much shit in the world at the moment—I know, this has been an ongoing refrain for years—and today is just one of those days when I need to let myself feel and process that.

Trump has been inaugurated as the President of the United States again. He’s immediately kicked things off with a pile of shit, from rolling back protections for trans people to doubling down on the use of capital punishment. It’s horrific and clear for all to see, but the US establishment media can’t even seem to bring themselves to point out that Elon Musk did a Nazi salute twice during his speech. It’s actually fucking ludicrous how in denial and self-absorbed the media can be—this is a big part of my current crisis of confidence in my chosen career—and this is exactly when we don’t need this shit.

Give me a break, NYT.

Vivian Jenna Wilson (@vivllainous) on Threads

I'm just gonna say let's call a spade a fucking spade. Especially if there were two spades done in succession based on the reaction of the first spade.

www.threads.net/@vivllainous/post/DFGruExTu9p?xmt=AQGzcN6DOSV3SlufYlER1A9lSChq2Anp0DXD3nwCLikC9w

Things are going to so much harder, even dangerous, for so many people around the world, with little to no consequences for the perpetrators, their accomplices and foot soldiers. I shudder to imagine the repercussions that will reverberate not just across the next four years but generations to come. We are going to be hurting from this for a long time.

And at home… there will be an execution tomorrow. Syed was a big part of how the Transformative Justice Collective came together, and for the past five years we have tried to journey with him, to the best of our ability, through all his struggles against the death penalty. But now the legal avenues have been totally exhausted, and even though he still wants to speak out for the well-being of fellow prisoners, Syed’s sister tells me that he’s no longer fighting for a stay of execution for himself. “He’s doing better than the last times we went through this. He’s ready,” she said over the phone a couple of nights ago.

Other prisoners have said this before their executions too. Everyone wants to live, but the cost—not just financial but also psychological and emotional—of fighting the state and its death penalty regime is immense. What I experience as an anti-death penalty activist is only a fraction of what death row prisoners have to grapple with. It’s entirely understandable when they, exhausted, choose to stop fighting, to make the most of the time they have left with the people they love and prepare their hearts to, as they say on death row, “go back”. There are times when the decision to stop fighting is the only agency they have left to exercise. It’s gut-wrenchingly painful and unfair, but how I feel about it is less important than what they want to do with the last little bit of time they have left.

The days around an execution are Wrong Days, like there’s a heavy, dark oil slick covering everything. It’s a weight that can’t be relieved, only borne.

When I started writing this little blog/newsletter, I was pissed off. Everything I was reading in the news was outrageous and maddening. But as I wrote I realised that this “pissed off” anger was hiding a deeper, more desperate fury—a fury that I feel in every part of my body, so much so that I know it can only have been born from grief.

~ vibes ~

Damn.