kate, ugh

Today we remember the 49 lives lost and countless others forever changed on June 12, 2016, at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. What was meant to be a night of joy, music, and pride became one of unimaginable tragedy.

We honor the memory of those we lost—most of them young, queer, and Latinx—and we stand with the survivors, the families, and the community still healing.

On the elements of light and their identity with those of matter, radiant and fixed. 1838. Frontispiece. 

René Lalique, Jasmin Corsage ornament, 1899-1901.

"Love and Protect your Neighbors Don't Trust the Feds"

"I had not touched a cat in 15 years when an orange kitten wandered over to sit with me in the grass one day. I was left without adequate words to describe that experience. It reminded me that I am alive. It instilled in me a raw, unbridled happiness that I had never felt before, not even as a child. 

I have spent many hours with those cats, and still I am amazed at how perfectly they reject everything it means to be in prison. They are playful and unselfconscious, curious and silly, soft and cuddly.

Sometimes it is even more interesting to watch my fellow prisoners interact with our cats. All those hard cases doing hard time melt like butter on a summer sidewalk when they visit the felines, feed them, watch them chase the birds and bees, and when they make toys to entice the cats to play with them. 

I don’t think about the past when a cat hops in my lap. I don’t think of what I should or could have done. I don’t think about courts or life sentences or parole boards. What comes to mind is peace, and a sense that everything is going to be OK. What’s in the past needs to stay there if I want to have a future, if I want to be grateful for today and for the fact that I am no longer the person I once was.