Nightmare

So, the SCOTUS overruling of Roe V Wade is unsurprising (the GOP long ago became a fascist party devoted to white supremacy and misogyny, the criminalization of pregnancy has been a longstanding openly-stated policy goal, and they will absolutely come for birth control, same-sex relationships, and anything else that isn't nailed down next) but it's enraging and horrifying nonetheless. We all have an obligation - including the conservatives out there who have some sense of "what if other people were also human beings," and certainly Christians whose faith binds them to service to others - to fight them at all costs and in as many ways as possible.

Please donate to Planned Parenthood, whose work has saved the lives of millions of women and whose work remains essential as states criminalize medical care and install surveillance regimes designed to police and punish women in as many ways as possible. I'd also urge you to donate to this collection of abortion funds, to support the women whose states have already enacted draconian laws that negate their personhood.  Press your local government to pass legislation prohibiting cooperation with investigations into pregnancies that did not lead to a healthy birth. If you have Republican representatives at any level in government, please organize and volunteer to get them removed. If you have Democratic representatives, let them know you are not accepting their passivity in the face of the GOP's total disregard for democratic norms, and insist that they do everything in their power to limit the slide this country is currently facing toward an absolute collapse of democracy. (This has already functionally taken place in places like Wisconsin and North Carolina, and the Supreme Court has already indicated they're perfectly happy to attack democracy anywhere it threatens GOP power elsewhere.) The hour is very late, and while a lot of people in this country were already suffering, a lot more are in the crosshairs now.

There's [ceramics? I guess?] in them thar hills!

After the jump: Ragusa! And a little bit of Noto! It's hill town time, cats and kittens!

Catania: I can take to dreaming like a fish in the sea

I've finally arrived in Bologna, my monthlong home as I try to get all my prep work for the coming year of teaching (and directing, and who knows what-all else) done ... so maybe it's time this blog at least caught up to what country I'm in, if not my actual current geography. To that end, after the jump... Catania! Sicily! Trying to remember things that happened three weeks ago in an era of brain mush and heat stroke!

Athenia

Ah, Athens! The cradle of western thought! The very birthplace of theatre and its Dionysian revels! A sort of too-hot under-vegetated rocky mass surrounded by dense clusters of touristic activity! O how mixed my feelings were on this spot, and o what a contrast it was to the idyll and joy of Lesvos! After the jump: my bad attitude and also some extremely lovely corners amidst the general "weh!"

Grab Bag

Pals! I write this on a sleepy and mandatory-no-running-off-into-the-world-or-doing-schoolwork morning, as I near the end of a few weeks moving faster than I'd like. I'm writing the last of a few scheduled updates to keep the posts coming in their lackadaisical pace while I - and I hope this is Actually True - unplug and abandon my laptop until I arrive in Bologna for my month of remote-work semester prep. It felt like a good time to drop a post with a lot of fragments that didn't feel substantial enough to merit their own post and may not in fact merit this one but guess what, idiots, it's my blog and I will tank my own traffic if I want to! OK! To the jump! To the things!

Lesvos! A whole post!

OKAY! Wow! I left Greece altogether over a week ago, and Lesvos over TWO weeks ago, but that's how it goes in this miserable slog we call Blog Business (we all call it that, but the other bloggers are too cowardly to admit it, which is why most of them quit blogging and started substacks instead). Maybe that means it's time to.... CLICK THROUGH FOR A LOT OF DISORGANIZED THOUGHTS ABOUT LESVOS AND ALSO A VIDEO? Gosh! Boy howdy!

The beauty of Lesvos, as viewed from the Women's Cooperative in Petra! (You, the reader, are the Teen about to fall into the Aegean sea of nonsense that I am about to type at you, if we choose to interpret this photograph as a metaphor.)

Read All About It

People sometimes ask me about trip logistics and planning when I get back on one of these travel sprees, and while I've addressed that in general before, lately I've had folks ask how I plan for trips in a non-budgetary sense, and so I figured I'd blab here a second about That Process. After the jump: what I said I would do!

A Bit of Banter

After the jump: fragmentary conversations from Lesvos, and a reminder that social bravery is worth faking prior to, as the fellow says, making.

I don't generally photograph people (unless they are PALS or have expressly suggested it) so pretend these cats are various Lesvian folk and visiting Brits for the sake of this post. (Pretend also that I took it with my camera and not my dang PHONE already.)

Method of organization

Presented without comment, two recent calendar alerts that give a pretty good window into how functional my brain is these days (it's very functional, how dare you, go back to bed)

Landing

Sometimes you breathe in the air of a place - you step off a bus or a plane, inhale - and you suddenly feel everything has been put right. I tumbled out of my Alibus from the Catania airport, pulled over under the arch of a bridge a short walk from my lodgings, and some packet of neurons in the back of my head started screaming a fanfare of "WE'RE HOME!" 

I am, obviously, way behind on my updates here, and have a bunch of stuff about Greece that should be showing up in the coming week or so, as I have the time for it. But first: last night's arrival in Sicily, my home for the next few weeks before I move on to Bologna.