Aly Welch's Blog, page 7
July 13, 2021
The Extraordinary World
But your home is not your prison
You forgot that without me, you won’t go far
“Purge the Poison”, Marina
I think we carry home on our backs.
My Diary From the Edge of the World, Jodi Lynn Anderson
While I’m not sure how I feel about its resolution, Jodi Lynn Anderson’s My Diary From the Edge of the World gave me a lot to chew on. The May Bird trilogy was a portal fantasy, but this standalone novel takes place in an alternate dimension similar to our reality with some key differences. Among th...
June 30, 2021
Angry Girl Summer
“When I think of it, my fingers turn to fists.”
Fiona Apple, Limp
Been awhile. I’d like to talk about all my new and ongoing projects, or even just work on them. Instead here’s the latest horrific business I don’t know how to fix because I struggle to even reach those in my limited sphere of influence. All I can do is use my words to add to the collective dismay.
The remains of hundreds of indigenous children forced to attend “residential” schools in Canada have been found, and they’ve onl...
May 10, 2021
Pobody’s Nerfect
“We are not our trauma. We are not our brain chemistry. That’s part of who we are, but we’re so much more than that.”
Sam J. Miller
“Sometimes a flaw can make something even more beautiful. Like with Cindy Crawford and how short she is.”
Tahani, The Good Place
I came across the strangest thing in my Instagram feed the other day: a post by an ADHD coach professing that it’s “most obviously not a disorder” and just a different way of thinking that isn’t supported in the modern world.
This ...
April 20, 2021
The Usual Scapegoats
“Inheriting the ignorance and hate of earlier generations may have been somewhat out of our control, but it is now our responsibility as individuals with agency to educate ourselves and each other, challenge past wrongs and stop the cycle.”
Michelle Yang
“When someone else’s safety and acceptance in society is on the line, your personal discomfort comes in a very distant second.” –
Courtney Milan
...
“History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.”
Jeffrey D. Sachs
March 8, 2021
More Matters of Life and Death
“And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
I recently read Carpe Jugulum. The Discworld witches serve as midwives as a nod to “Roundworld” midwives falsely accused of witchcraft if their influence was perceived as a threat to powerful men. This book opens with Granny Weatherwax attending the delivery of a mother kicked by a horse. She can only save the mother or child. Neither is a ‘thi...
February 27, 2021
Reframing Buffy
“My entire existence was constructed by a sociopath in a sweater vest”.
Amy Acker as Dr. Claire Saunders in Dollhouse
“Imagination, life is your creation.”
“Barbie Girl” by Aqua
When I was making the awkward and painful transition into adulthood, worsened by unidentified ADHD, two of the biggest things in pop culture were Britney Spears and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (with an honorable mention to the deliberate satire of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”).
I didn’t like Britney. At first. When she start...
February 11, 2021
The Real Cancel Culture
“You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
You ever notice how it wasn’t called cancel culture until it started coming for bullies and predators instead of their victims?
In fact, the term came into wide usage around the same time as #MeToo.
...January 20, 2021
A Work in Progress
“Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.” – Amanda Gorman
I don’t watch a lot of the pomp and circumstance that accompanies political events. I’m more interested in what happens behind the scenes, but I had to witness the source of all the great quotes I saw today. All too often people value style over substance or image over reality, as evidenced by the performative brand of patriotism some exhibit while conducting themselves differently behin...
January 11, 2021
Enough
“We cannot unify around injustice and lies in an authentic quest for healing and peace. Healing requires honesty. Peace requires justice.”
– Bernice King
Even after all that has happened, some continue to cling to their disillusions rather than entertain the possibility they’ve been misled. Others have decided everyone shares equally in the blame: charlatans, their followers, and honest people alike. Part of the problem remains people identifying with social constructs, and their self-image b...
January 1, 2021
Looking Back
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.” – Elizabeth Edwards
I’m eagle-eyed, meaning I have better than 20/20 vision, but I may have a visual processing disorder because life is not without irony or a sense of humor. I see well if not quickly. Maybe it’s a natural consequence of seeing more details...
