This meme popped up in my Twitter feed recently:

The world was introduced to US National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman on January 20th this year, when she read her Inaugural Poem The Hill We Climb to commemorate the swearing in of the 46th President and the 49th Vice President of the United States of America.

I don’t know Amanda Gorman, but I know one of the organizations that has played a pivotal role in her development as a poet, WriteGirl. …

Last night I had a long catch-up chat with a friend, a single woman in her 40s. She’s been on quite a ride lately: over the past couple of years, she suffered a concussion, her mother suddenly took ill and died, and she herself recently had a skin cancer scare. She told me that she had spent the past few days managing logistics of state-funded healthcare and childcare support in her country, as she has decided to have a baby.

So that’s what we talked about: my friend, as a single mom.

Actually, we talked about her doubts, and her…

I live in Europe, so it was already evening here when Trump was starting his rally that would set off the coup in the US, attempting to disrupt Constitutional procedure and overthrow the United States government. I went to bed early that night, but woke up at 3am to check the news. By that time, most of the insurrectionists had exited the Capitol building and it was all over.

Like most people around the world, I was horrified. And, like so many people in the US, I was not surprised.

I was, however, fed up.

In the hours and days…

The last year was hard on the entire world: devastating for too many, and daunting for us all. I was very lucky: while some people dear to me did contract COVID-19 and are suffering Long Covid symptoms, no one in my circle of family or friends lost their lives to the virus or any of the fallout from the pandemic.

I don’t take this for granted — the likelihood that it still can and probably will affect us in the most terrible way is still very high. …

When I am certifying new self defense trainers in the Pretty Deadly Self Defense program, I walk them through the rules for self defense training that are the mainstay of the program, and that coaches and trainers are required to inform their own clients at the beginning of every course they teach: 1/ training takes place in a safe space; 2/ you cannot make mistakes; 3/ the word “sorry” is forbidden; 4/ so is the word “prey”.

The logic behind most of our training rules are pretty easy to grasp:

1/ Our training always takes place in a safe space…

Over the past week, two separate women that I’m teaching self defense to asked me, “what about the eyes?” They had had previous training where they were taught that a good form of self defense is to try and gauge the attacker’s eyes out, but both of these women were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to make themselves do that, if they needed to. One of the women also mentioned she had been told to splay her keys between her fingers if she’s walking anywhere and feels unsafe.

Two days later, my friend Hannah published a beautiful, intense video…

Suicide, addiction and abuse.

Recently my feet swelled up beyond anything normal from the heat we’ve been having here in Berlin. I was concerned, so made a doctor’s appointment, but of course I had to consult Dr Google as well. One of the causes of sudden feet swelling is a blood clot in the leg, which scared me of course, because that can kill you. So the night I found that out, I was brushing my teeth before bed, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, am I gonna see you tomorrow?

Then I realized how much I look…