The memes are for Mary

(and other stuff)

Hi love bugs!

Baby Nephew is running a sale a sale for Valentine’s Day in the Etsy shop on some of the intimacy and sexitimes related books if you’ve been eyeballing those. And he and his little brother Tiniest Nephew (who is 6’6 in case you are wondering) are planning to make some more fun videos and the like about the books and how we pack the orders with stickers and other goodies. Those will show up on the Instagram page he runs to share all the book related updates.

(Also? He found a fake-me Bluesky account this week. We’ve already had it taken down. He also opened a Bluesky account for the Etsy store and that’s currently the only Bluesky account that is authentically connected to me. It’s not the first fake me and won’t be the last, I imagine. And you can alwaysalwaysalways email me and send me anything you are worried about the authenticity of.)

Also! My publisher, Microcosm, is Kickstarting my newest deck, Unfuck Your Kink. If you back the Kickstarter, you get your items before anyone else, even stores. It also helps us gauge interest and determine if we need to up our print runs and stuff so we are far less likely to run out of everyone’s faves. So if you know you’re gonna get the deck, and you have the monies, please pledge away!

Ok, all housekeeping done and we all know how much I hate to clean.

I wanted to talk a little bit about impact, and how important our presence can be in ways we never even think about. Because it is becoming so incredibly important in a time where community care and mutual aid is what will save us. I have had so many stories relayed to me over the years of how something small and innocuous to me, was life-affirming and even life-saving to someone else. Individuals who were suicidal but were noticed and cared for by someone unaware of the suicidality but the care saved them.

Anyone working in mental health has those stories, because they are often relayed back to us. But we all have that capability no matter our roles in society. So the story I want to share isn’t about individual conversations and what they led to but a story about my Instagram page.

Which, if you follow me, is just…fun. It’s whatever memes I find funny or thought provoking or whatever. I haven’t monetized it. I don’t hardly ever hashtag. I’m horrible at promoting myself (seriously…how uncomfortable was it for me to post links to the Etsy store and Kickstarter? So uncomfortable, and I don’t know if I will ever feel secure in self-promotion). My instgram makes me happy and I’m happy to have anyone else come hang out with me there, and you never have to read anything I’ve ever produced. Pinky swear.

But, also it’s for Mary.

Mary fought her ASS off when she was diagnosed with cancer. She was diagnosed too late for much to be done. Something else she had been fighting about because she KNEW something was wrong and no one listened.

But fight she did. An exhausting battle to be with her family as long as possible. And she told me one day, that every evening after chemo, she would go home and get into bed, and her daughter would snuggle up with her and they would go through and laugh at the memes and videos and other silliness I had posted. That was their palate cleanser for every day that sucked.

And they all sucked.

My silly, joyful connection with others through social media was something that helped her and her daughter through. Mary has been gone a few years now, but I still make sure to post something several times a day. For my memory of Mary and for anyone else who is in a similar situation who uses social media to find connection and community and hope.

Which is me saying we all have that capacity in our dumb daily lives to be kind and considerate and see others (not just look at them). You don’t have to be a therapist who said just the right thing at the right time to a struggling client. You can be a person at the grocery store who compliments someone’s great shoes. We can sing and dance and include others in our joy. We can create instead of destroy.

And I don’t know a better way to go about life. So I’m going to keep it up. It might just be one of the more important parts of the resistance.

And if you catch me singing and dancing down the cat food aisle at HEB? Feel free to join me.