Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 2
May 14, 2020
Adrift
I just feel adrift without the dog. It’s so quiet in the house. Walking without a dog sucks and is stupid.
I don’t know. I feel like I should have more to say, but I just don’t. It’s ludicrous that he’s dead. It’s just an affront to me.
May 12, 2020
The King is Gone
Right up until the end, he was happy, leaning his head out the car window on the way up to the vet. Barking at the baby goats in the parking lot. He even jumped when he heard we were going for a car ride.
At the vet, he managed to snag himself some cat treats and then they fed him a chocolate cupcake. It was as wonderful as he had suspected.
And then we killed him. He went very peacefully.
I went and sat on a friend’s couch and got drunk and cried and then he brought me home because he was afraid if he went to bed, I would get up in the middle of the night and try to drive home. Sounds like something dumb I would do.
The house is so empty it’s hard to bear.
He was a wonderful dog.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Betsy Phillips (@betsytphillips) on May 11, 2020 at 7:43pm PDT
May 8, 2020
I Guess We’re Going to See How Much a Heart Can Take
The dog is dying. I want to say more than that, but I also don’t have it in me.
The vet cried when she told me. I have all this medicine he’s supposed to take, but he doesn’t want to eat. I’m getting as much down him as I can and hoping the steroids will increase his appetite.
They think it’s lymphoma. We’ll know when we get the tests back.
I guess they think he has at least a month, because they gave me a month’s worth of pills.
But it’s been so sudden and so devastating. The difference between him this Friday and last Friday is… it’s just so much. All of a sudden, like overnight, he’s frail and old.
May 4, 2020
Scattered Thoughts About Things
My Looby talk went great. Even over Zoom. I felt super interesting and like I had things people wanted to hear to say. It’s really gratifying and I’m maybe feeling a little hope that the book might make a difference.
Ha ha ha. We’ll see how long my optimism can be sustained.
I’m reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo for work. It’s not great. I was telling the Professor that 75% of it is fine, if sometimes a little too simple, 20% of it reads as if the author didn’t read the book–like claiming that white people don’t think about whiteness and then saying that she knew from the time she was very little that it was better to be white.
The last 5% is just wrong. Like, deeply, wrong. Even in the wake of us electing a white supremacist to the Presidency, she still downplays the importance of white nationalism in understanding white people’s racism.
It’s really something to be reading a book about how the biggest racial problem we face is white people’s inability to acknowledge their whiteness when white people are showing up with guns at statehouses. Like, maybe rethink your thesis?
But also, it super annoys me how many of her anecdotes are about her shitty friends and their racist ways or her shitty colleagues and their racist ways and yet, unless it’s in some part of the book I haven’t gotten to yet, there’s nothing about how she confronts her asshole colleagues or how she drops her shitty racist friends.
She’s a diversity trainer–that’s her job–and an anti-racist activist and she wrote this book that’s being used by workplaces around the nation to foster discussions of racism–including mine. AND SHE CAN’T DO THE NECESSARY WORK.
And if she can’t do it, and this is her job and passion, isn’t that a problem for the teaching of her book?
Also, she takes white people’s thoughts about racism at face value and I just don’t understand how anyone in this culture who pays attention doesn’t realize white people lie about race all the time–even if only to ourselves.
I’m just irritated. So many people of color have written so many books about whiteness and its problems. We couldn’t throw a little book money their way instead?
April 28, 2020
Back?
I said I was back, but now I realize I don’t really have anything to say. The dog is so slow and the pain medication I got for him that worked great I’m out of and the online pharmacy is backed up.
I fought with everyone yesterday and mostly felt like I lost.
Tomorrow morning I’m giving a Zoom presentation about the Looby bombing. I feel both super prepared and not prepared at all.
April 27, 2020
I’m Back
I know we’ll all miss me writing in some strange accent, but my new computer is here and the caps lock appears to work like normal.
April 20, 2020
tHE iDEA eXECUTED
I THINK my game has bEEN chanGED. wOW. sO, i SOAKED IT IN abOUT A QUart of vinEGAR TOPPED OFF WITH WATER, Becuase I knEW IT WOULDN’t get very hot. Then i TOOK IT OUTSIDE ANd painTED ANd squirted anD SPRINkled dye on IT. tHEN I covered it with anOTHER Black garbAGE Bag anD LET IT SIT IN the suN all afternOON.
I love it. I can’T Believe how good it turnED OUT. eVEN the bACK IS AMAZINg.
i wonDER IF i COULD USE GUAR GUM TO THIcken THE DYE JUST A LITTLE TO GET SHARPER LINes or discernABle drops?
I also wonDER WHERE i can PICK UP A cheap stock pot, a deep onE, Because i WOULD LOVE TO TRY DIP-dyeinG AN afghan.
April 16, 2020
A First Peek at the BOOK
tHE nashville ScenE IS RUNNInG an EXceRPT FRoM The BOOk! Please check it out anD TELL ME i DON’t sound TOO MUCH LIKE A DOOFUS.
April 15, 2020
Idea TestinG
i WANted to see if a bLACK GARBage bAG WOULD BE ENOUgH HEAT TO SET DYE. aNd it is! I mean, thERE’S ALSO A TON of acid in THAT SQUARE. iT HAD A LONg bATH IN vinEGAR. but MY IDEA WORKS. now I just nEEd to GET the afghan CROCHETED ANd ready for a good warm day.
Also, my nEW COMPUTER IS ORDEReD. tHIS WILL ENd.
April 13, 2020
The idea
My poet frienD, C (OKAY, LISTEN, my computer is dyinG ANd the death spasm it’s IN right noW IS TO RANdomly capitalize words like I’m writinG SOME WEIRD RANsom noTE, LIKE THE CAPS LOCK IS possessed. Please just roll with it.).
Where were we?
Right. My poet frienD, C, HAS AN artist sister in tEXAS ANd she takes her canVASSES OUTSIDE ANd painTS THEM OUT THERE. i GUess SHe Stretches anD MOUnTS THEM LaTER? i DON’t knoW. but watchinG HER WORK MADE ME WANt to try somethinG LIKE THAT WITH AN afghan.
lIKE, MAKE THE AFGHAN as the canVAS ANd take it ouTSIDE ANd dye it in SOME ABstract way onCE IT WAS A WHOLE THINg.
So, i’m makinG SOME YARN to serve as an INterestinG Backdrop for this abSTRACT DyeinG PROJECT.
i’M ALSO ORDERINg a nEW COMPUter today. I hate to spenD THE MONey, bUT LOOK AT THIS.
