Karen

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Posts by Karen Kaminski:

Three Years

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It’s been three years since my mom died. It feels like so much longer, and I don’t know if that’s just how grief works or if throwing in a global pandemic has anything to do with it, too.

Like the image (from this account) says, I don’t want to celebrate a day that brought so much pain, but I can’t ignore it, either. I’m still figuring out how to mark it–the first year I got a tattoo, the second year I got bangs. But this year I’m just going to get through it.

I don’t have much to say this year, except that it doesn’t get easier but it does…change, I guess. I think of her just as much but there’s (usually) less of a stab of remembering. It’s easier to talk about her. And when I find myself saying something she would have said, I don’t worry that I’m turning into my mother–I feel proud, instead, that some part of her is in me and shining through.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Sewing For Money

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It feels weird! But it’s still fun to make these fleece pullovers, so I started offering custom ones on Instagram. Half the fun is shopping for fabric, so instead of setting up a website with fixed options, I’m working with people over direct messages and asking what kind of prints they’d like. Once we find a print and get a size, I sew it up.

I’m pretty much making Livable Minimum Wage ($15/hour) with these, so I don’t think they’re going to replace my day job–but like I said, they’re fun to sew and it’s really fun to see the pullovers on their new owners. (Pretty sure this is a magic pattern, it looks good on everybody.)

Didn’t Learn About This In School

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“I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.”

– letter to Coretta Scott King, 1952

Friday Links

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It’s actually Friday Videos Found On Social Media today, but they’re funny:

1. Guess I’m moving to Finland:


2. I love how tigers are just big cats/house cats are just little tigers:

@zambiwildliferetreat It’s safe to say Mischa does not like the fern 😅 #tiger #bigcat #exotic #catsoftiktok #cat #fyp #foryou #cute #funny #follow #like #love #animals ♬ original sound – Zambi

3. Sound on for this, it just cracks me up:

 

Mood Board: Everything Is Fine!

By in gram time No Comments

The Utah news this morning reported that there aren’t enough covid tests, school bus drivers, teachers/substitutes, or healthcare workers and we’re hitting over 10,000 (reported) cases a day…but everything is fine! Continue to go about your business! God forbid we let anything interrupt the wheels of capitalism:

 

Also this makes sense:

As does this:

 

This was a good moment of perspective, but I might be jealous of everyone in 1870 and not now:

I want this juice. PLEASE.

(Posts from here, here, and here)

Wednesday Essay

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Virginia Sole-Smith sent a newsletter yesterday that hit a lot of pain points for me–I’ve been working on my ableism but it’s still so hard to think that my health is just mainly…out of my control. But in the context of the pandemic, it’s really useful to remember that we can “do everything right” and still get sick [emphasis from the author]:

Healthcare mental load, and Covid mental load especially, means there are always things to research and buy and new therapies or treatments or routines to try. These tasks are important. They might genuinely help. And all of these tasks reinforce the understandable but ableist framing of health as simply a matter of willpower, which we see all the time in the discourse of disease. We talk about “beating cancer” and forget that this classifies anyone who dies as a loser. Kids with cardiac conditions are often called “heart warriors,” a term I hate because I don’t want my child to be a soldier in a war against her own body. We have to let go of the idea that sickness equals failure and remember that being able-bodied is the part that’s temporary.

[…] Because here’s the universal truth about health that we keep having to learn over and over: We don’t have as much control as we think.

[…] If it’s possible to delay or prevent infection, we should try to do it. But we can take on those personal responsibilities in an effort to protect ourselves and others without accepting the blame if they don’t work. If they don’t work, it’s not because we weren’t perfect enough or worthy enough. It’s because we were plunged into this pandemic and led by a tyrant who refused to accept science. And because, even now, with ostensibly pro-science leadership at the helm, we are seeing key public health plays fumbled in the name of economics and political capital.

I don’t know about you, but I needed to read something like this. She’s talking specifically about kids getting sick and internalizing this narrative that they did something “wrong,” but I think a lot of conscientious adults feel the same way–when in reality, it was our systems failing us as we got sick, not our own vigilance or moral goodness.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Let It Fleece

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When I find myself in times of trouble, Joann Fabrics calls to me–
Speaking words of wisdom: “Let it fleece.”
Wear some fleece, wear some fleece, wear some fleece, wear some fleece…
Try a pair of fleece pants, let it fleece.

 

All I want to wear or sew or shop for is fuzzy polyester. It’s warm, it’s bright, it’s easy–everything we need in times of trouble. My latest obsession: fleece pants. You can wear them working from home:


You can wear them headed out of the house to pick up N95 masks:

And you can save about $75 by making them yourself (that farm-print yellow pair was directly inspired by this Patagonia pair for $89)–just use the Greentsyle Brassie Joggers pattern, size up, and boom. Let it fleece.

Nature Rx

By in nature

So far the first week of 2022 has seen my car battery dying, my dad getting eye surgery (planned; he’s doing great), and Doc and I waiting two hours for a covid test (he got exposed at work; we’re both negative). Like I said Thursday, it feels like a lot–but that’s why there’s nature. The winter sun was out in Millcreek and it was really nice to just let my body walk while my brain stopped THINKING so much.

I find that I get outside in the day less now that I’m working from home, so I’m going to try to change that this year. Even if I can’t get out in nature, I can get out in the neighborhood.

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