Octopodes

ultimately, I should love myself 🏳️‍⚧️

I was driving through Vermont with a friend, and we pulled over at a tiny shop offering Maple Items. We were on the state highway, not the interstate, so "pulling over" meant "squeezing my tiny car into a parking bay the size of a broad highway shoulder."

As we got out of the car, an older woman emerged from behind the building where she had been pruning her roses. She introduced herself as Tammy.

Her shop offered the promised variety of Maple, but also a number of small antiques and a plethora of dog figurines, plaques, and clearly-hand-stitched garden flags.

A huge purple ribbon hung on the wall behind the register, along with many pictures of small dogs. This was no county fair ribbon. It was the size of my torso. The material had the soft sheen of actual silk.

As I placed my purchases on the counter, I asked, "Do you... Breed dogs?"

Yes. She does. She has bred Yorkies for the last 40 years. Her mother bred Yorkies before her. The purple ribbon was from her national championship winning Yorkie.

You may be expecting that the infodump was going to be about Yorkies.

It was not.

It was about 40 years of drama in the Yorkie breeding community. Where – you must understand – the judging at shows is often about who you're in with, not about the dogs. This is especially true when Tammy's opponents win anything.

And Tammy's mother! Well. Phyllis has been on the Yorkie scene since Yorkies were invented. Because of this, many women of equally venerable age hold deep grudges against Phyllis. The sort of grudges that result in episodes of Midsommar Murders.

This led to deep injustices against Phyllis on the part of judges and prevented her dogs from winning so often she retired from the scene. Judging is all about who you're friends with, after all.

After 20 years in hiding, Phyllis – the One True Queen of Yorkie Breeding – hatched a plot. She may have been out of the show circuit, but she was still breeding dogs. She entered an absolutely perfect bitch in the national competition, but sent her with a handler rather than go in person.

None of the usurpers knew who this dog belonged to, and in dog-breeding circles this Does Not Happen. This could have resulted in further injustices, but Phyllis was crafty. She knew this tournament was being judged by a man from the UK, who knew naught of the drama in the US Yorkie Empire.

With these advantages – and being the best dog there – Phyllis's bitch won the highest honor at the show.

Incensed by this insult to their ill-gotten supremacy, the other owners descended on the handler after the show, demanding to know for whom he was working.

"Phyllis," said he.

The name of the overthrown queen evoked horror in the usurpers.

"PHYLLIS!? She's still ALIVE!???"

Yes, Phyllis yet lived, and this bitch – the dog, not the woman – went on to mother Tammy's current dogs. One of whom, Lucy-Fur, is the reincarnation of Tammy's sister (also Lucy). This is certain for two reasons.

Firstly, Sister Lucy absolutely went straight to Hell upon her death, and Lucy-Fur the dog is positively as evil as Sister Lucy was.

I swear to god I tried to grab my phone but I couldn’t without ruining the moment

He described a few of the political activism groups he's involved in, mostly around environmentalism. ...And he was sure that, just like every other event he had attended, it would be populated exclusively with white people. He would love to see more people of color at these events, he said, but they were nowhere to be found. "Why," he asked me in conclusion, "don't people of color care more about important political issues?"

Many white men see a political landscape dominated by white men and think it is that way because white men are just more politically minded. They think that the absence of women and people of color from powerful rooms is due to self-selection.

They do not question how unwelcoming the room they have built might be. They do not question whether or not the discussions they are having in that room are inclusive and generate productive discussions for women and people of color. They don't ask if there are other, equally important conversations happening in other rooms. And they don't even bother to ask if anyone unlocked the door.

They look at the room and say that women and people of color aren't in it because women and people of color aren't interested. Then they cite this supposed disinterest as proof that women and people of color are too unqualified to even be invited in."

Chapter 6- Mediocre, Ijeoma Oluo

Regent Parrot or Rock Pebbler (Polytelis anthopeplus), family Psittaculidae, order Psittaciformes, found across southern Australia