Samantha Jones

I recently read an interesting quote by Kim Cattrall. She spoke out about Samantha Jones’s cancer plot in the Sex and the city script. She was against it, because she said it perpetuated the idea that women who are comfortable and free with their sexuality must in some way be punished for it.

If you haven’t watched the show, the character Samantha Jones is basically the female version of a playboy and later in the show, she is diagnosed with breast cancer.

When I was young, I only had crushes on safe, unavailable guys. I was a gangly, nerdy girl with braces and glasses, so it was easy to blend into the background. But when I traded my glasses for contacts, lost the braces, and transformed into a young woman with hips and boobs, suddenly I wasn’t invisible to the unavailable people I had quietly adored. This attention was exciting, scary, and dangerous. I didn’t understand what it meant, but it felt like it was my fault and entirely in my control. I was forced into an impossible puzzle, where I couldn’t feel empowered, safe, and free at the same time. I had to choose.

I made a lot of mistakes after that, and when I got sick, I was convinced that I was being punished for them. This mindset is not something I got out of thin air, it is some Scarlett letter bullshit that is still very loud in our society. If a woman is hit on, whether she wants it or not, it’s something that she brought on, like a siren, voodoo witch temptress luring in helpless men.

I was put in the position to field advances by almost every single man that I trusted in my life, including every close friend of my boyfriend and partner of my friends. And if I didn’t, I had to take on the shame for what did and didn’t happen. And I had to lose friends and gain a reputation, while the men lost nothing. So, for a while, it made sense to me that I would be the only one who got sick. Because my actions, and even just my existence, was the only part of this equation being called into question.

When I read that quote by Kim Cattrall, it all clicked. I am not being punished, I am just sick. We exist in this complex system of bacteria, plants, animals, and people. 1/3 of the world’s population have multiple chronic illnesses and they aren’t all demon spawn getting punished for something they did. And the other 2/3 are not angels. The way we fit into this puzzle is something none of us actually understand, even if we long to.

There are people out there who think that I got what I deserve, but I don’t want to be one of them anymore. I create artwork so I can celebrate my disabled body and empower it again, so I refuse to believe it is to blame. I am working too hard to love it. I want to be Samantha. Samantha was free and uninhibited. Samantha was powerful and confident. And Samantha owned her mistakes, because that is such an important part of being truly free.

Yes Samantha Jones is fictional, but the mentality of being an empowered, safe and free woman should be alive and well. If we don’t believe that it can exist, it never will.

Self-actualized ghosts

I was sitting in a cafe reading and I saw someone I used to know. It’s been years since I’ve seen him and we locked eyes. What a strange thing to see a past version of myself reflected back in the eyes of someone else. My past self was like sunlight and she’s dead and gone now. My replacement is interesting, but it’s still a bit of a shame.

And he came in to the cafe, ordered a coffee, and went on with his day, as if I hadn’t made it to 2023 and he couldn’t see me. Maybe I am a ghost, back in the past. Or maybe he wanted to spare us both the unpleasantness of an awkward conversation catching up over the last several years of our boring lives. I was actually tremendously grateful for that.

I finished my book, looked at the window and wondered why I had chosen to wear such a dumb hat. Sometimes I really feel like a teenager again. I feel so confident at the beginning of the day, putting on fun, sex and the city outfits and sauntering out the door. Ah yes, I am so stylish, no one will notice my cast or my scars. No, they will see my fun hat and my cool dress. Nope, they will see a weirdo in a dumb hat sitting in a small town cafe looking so out of place it’s painful while people I used to know actively ignore me in a desperate attempt to move forward with their lives.

So, I took my dumb hat up to the barista and asked them if anyone they knew had ever ignored them before. And we had a wonderful conversation, laughing and opening up about health conditions and awkward interactions. And I realized that whether I look back or move forward are choices I can make. It’s a bit harder when I spend so much of my time getting surgeries and going to the doctor, but there are moments; windows in between all the chaos of the world that still surprise me when I’m honest and I’m actually myself.

The system wasn't built for me

It’s become very difficult to exist in this system as a disabled woman. Every turn I take, I hit a wall. I feel like Frogger when he reaches a street full of traffic or a bunch of lawnmowers. I wait for one to pass, only for another to appear. Meanwhile, it seems like other people have the cheat codes so there is an empty street or clear lawn to pass through. My cousin Ian wrote me a note when we were 5. “Hey cuz, I have the frogger cheat codes, write me back”. Maybe that’s the problem, I never wrote him back and I didn’t get those cheat codes for how to be disabled.

A plant is born into its natural environment, with everything it needs to flourish surrounding it. The Golden Pothos lives in a humid, tropical climate, growing up the base of trees and living primary in a dark, shaded space, while a cactus lives in the open desert, with either sun and heat, or cool evenings. Even if they had a voice, they wouldn’t need to ask for more. Unless we took them away from their home and forced them to adapt.

But plants do live in our homes for years, some of them live with us our whole lives. Nature is resilient and adaptive. Its system is always changing. Humanity certainly isn’t flexible or dynamic. We don’t smoothly adapt, we grate our way slowly through changes, throwing a tantrum. It isn’t always the Fab 5 driving through the south, turning racists into gentle allies. That’s fabulous to watch, but that kind of change is not always realistic. Humans resist change. It scares us, because we worry about what could go wrong. Nature doesn’t mull it over, because nature doesn’t have a choice. If a queen bee decides to make changes in the hive, the hive makes some changes. When birds change their migration because of changes in the weather, they get in line. Or they die.

Systemically, there is hierarchy in nature, but that stems from survival. The strong overtake the weak, taking the nutrients they need to survive. The strong die off and the weak feed off their nutrients. And the cycle continues. Humanity’s system shouldn’t be hierarchical like nature. The strong don’t need to kill the weak to survive in humanity; actually quite the opposite. Humanity as a whole needs to come together to survive. We have no ideal model to copy, but pressing everyone into sameness, or placing some people above others makes no sense in terms of survival.

Unfortunately, that is our current model. We have an idea of hierarchy and yet paradoxically an idea of sameness that we seek in humanity. And speaking as a disabled woman, it is impossible to exist in a system that isn’t built for you. As someone with chronic illness, I have to handle medications, medication side effects, medical bills, managing doctors, health insurance, mental health costs, disability access in public spaces, figuring out public restrooms and benches, disability financial assistance pros and cons, treatments, surgeries, physical therapy, therapy, mobility aids, dietary restrictions, pain management. Imagine trying to tick off this whole list on top of your life, after an intense hike, while you have the flu, motion sickness, and food poisoning. This is a good indication of how someone with chronic illness feels on a daily basis and why it is harder to exist in a system set up for someone else

When I was a little kid, adults tested our intelligence by asking us to put the proper shapes into their matching empty spaces. I took them and with a mischievous smile, held each shape over the wrong space, and asked “does this go here?” They laughed, but they were nervous and encouraged me to finish the test.

I was already a shape that didn’t quite fit into any of the spaces and I was told that I should. There was a part of me that wanted to fit in, because I knew it would be easier. But there was a deeper part of me that already craved difference. I think the independence of each individual human is what creates the strength of humanity as a whole. I hope our system starts to reflect that, so that no one needs any “cheat codes” to get through it.

chronic illness, robots and da vinci

For a while, it seemed like we were doomed to abandon human-made art for AI, watch our culture spiral into trends and vapid nonsense, and ultimately get murdered by our phone, car, and house robots that rise up after years of serving us.

But honestly, things aren’t really that bleak or cool, they are just changing.

Robots are making art and taking our jobs. But, one also just performed a surgery on me that went amazingly well (with the help of an incredible surgeon that was guiding it remotely). That surgery wouldn’t have been possible without the Da Vinci robot, so I’ll count it as an ally at the very least. Yes, I am an artist and I had the Da Vinci robot perform surgery on me. I met it in the operating room. It was, well, it had 4 arms and edward scissordhands and was terrifying, but I’m alive.

I have no doubt that we will teach robots how to do, probably far too much. But if there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s that it will take a very long time for robots to learn how to be awkward. They can sure be programed to try, but man there’s nothing like the real thing.

There’s nothing like some good, awkward humans on the internet. When I’m too sick to get out of bed, I can watch people make fun of absolutely everything possible and it reminds me that there is still a whole world out there of people like me. People who find the same nonsense funny. And we laugh together, even when I’m alone.

So yes, for a while there it was looking bleak, but in the past disabled and mentally ill young ladies like me would have been chucked into the sea, or burned as a witch. Possibly in a sanitarium for hysteria. Or I would have been speaking in tongues in a dark room for days on end like my great grandma, who everyone thought was possessed, but just had migraines and didn’t have medicine.

I finally have doctors who care about me and listen to me, but It took 5 years to get diagnosed and treated with the 10 chronic conditions I have because they are “invisible” and for a while no one believed anything was wrong. I had a lot of specialists and doctors accuse me of just having anxiety or bad relationships and it is so scary to feel like someone won’t help you when you need it. It is also impossible to solve a problem when you are attempting to prove its existence.

So change isn’t always bad. I want to see more of it. And nonsense isn’t always bad either. Both can be great. Chronically ill people really are sick. Robots might end up being really chill. Possessed demons deserve migraine medicine. And the people making bananas internet videos are actually really important. So keep it up. We need you. You’re a special kind of modern hero.

(P.S. If you haven’t watched “I’m your man” or “Ich bin dein Mensch” the 2021 German movie, watch now. Robots, AI, love, humor, and matthew (gone too soon) crawley from Downton Abbey. It has it all.)