That was supposed to say “Hello, friend” but I fucked it up and I’m leaving it because it feels equally fitting. Maybe you, like me, are in the darkness right now and are just trying to get by until the light comes back. It will. I promise. Between the weather, tricksy brains and (motions wildly to everything) all of the traumatic bullshit going on in the world right now, your body is just acting the way it probably should and you need to take care of it and be gentle to yourself.
This week I was planning on getting organized but then a depression hit me and I found myself staring at the blank gridded planner I’d bought because SURELY THIS ONE WILL FIX ME but then it didn’t fix me and so instead of outlining all of the stuff I’m behind on I instead screamed into the internet for bit, donated to several important causes, amplified what I could and then I turned off my phone and found myself doodling on the planner because my brain was just not going to be able to work the way I needed it to.
Each line counted off a moment. A sort of meditation.
I didn’t even have the bandwidth to find my sketch book so I just kept drawing, using the strange grids to find my way, and knowing each mindless pattern would get me closer to the other side, when I’d have the energy to be human again.
Dorothy Barker helped.
I’m using the word “helped” lightly.
And each doodle got me through a bad hour.
The terrible messy ones I drew when my hands shook from anger or anxiety.
And the calmer ones I drew in the quiet, small hours of the night when I needed to remember that there is peace and light out there even if we can’t always see it.
I drew and drew and dropped each picture onto the floor where the cats could lay on them and contemplate why I still wasn’t in bed yet.
And as of today I have not gotten anything organized at all and my planner is a mess of pointless drawings. Except (I remind myself) they’re not pointless at all, if you look at them with the right eyes.
“I am not good at planning. Or organizing. Or calculations. Or any of the things this ledger is supposed to be for. But I am quite good at silly little doodles. And that is worthwhile too.”
So this is just my little reminder to you…find joy…create…don’t be afraid to use a ledger as an easel or a dog as a paperweight or this letter as a hug. It’s okay if all you are doing right now is surviving. That is sometimes one of the hardest things you will do.
So far, it’s not illegal for us to acknowledge that February is Black History Month, so here we are, doing just that. Ha! There is even some Black History for this very date in Peace and Justice History:
February 1, 1960 Greensboro first day: Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960. Four black college students sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and were refused service because of their race. To protest the segregation of the eating facilities, they remained and sat-in at the lunch counter until the store closed. Four students returned the next day, and the same thing happened. Similar protests subsequently took place all over the South and in some northern communities. By September 1961, more than 70,000 students, both white and black, had participated, with many arrested, during sit-ins. On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
February 1, 1961 On the first anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in, there were demonstrations all across the south, including a Nashville movie theater desegregation campaign (which sparked similar tactics in 10 other cities). Nine students were arrested at a lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and chose to take 30 days hard labor on a road gang. The next week, four other students repeated the sit-in, also chose jail.
In light of current events, I thought it’d be good to review how Black History Month came to be. Below is a bit on its beginnings.
Black History Month was first observed as Negro History Week in February 1926, but the inspiration for the commemoration began over a decade earlier through a steady stream of electrifying events, discoveries, and other celebrations of Black excellence. In 1915, American historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson attended the national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation in Washington D.C. This event was widely attended and proved to be profoundly inspiring for Dr. Woodson who, later that year, joined forces with A. L. Jackson, William B. Hartgrove, George Cleveland Hall, and James E. Stamps to establish the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH 2024). ASALH had the ambitious goal of educating the public about the achievements, inventions, and progress made by Black Americans, and though the Association’s intellectual efforts were remarkable – they began to publish The Journal of Negro History in 1916 and founded Negro History and Literature Week in 1924 – Dr. Woodson had a wider vision of his mission. Wishing to continue to discover and celebrate the history of the Black past, Dr. Woodson announced the celebration of Negro History Week through a press release.
Accounts of the contributions of Black Americans were notably absent from history books, credited to white men, or omitted altogether. Progressive communities and schools were ripe for the rich history that Negro History Week offered. Matching the popularity of the week, Woodson and the Association established an annual theme for the celebration to guide and inspire educators. Weary of those simply wishing to capitalize on a popular event, “Woodson warned teachers not to invite speakers who had less knowledge than the students themselves” (ASALH 2024). Additionally, ASALH expanded their offerings to provide study materials: pictures, lessons for teachers, plays for historical performances, and posters of important dates and people. This cemented the celebration of Black history in schools and communities, and Negro History Week grew in popularity throughout the following decades, with mayors across the United States endorsing it as a holiday.
Negro History Week grew into Black History Month in 1970 under the leadership of Black educators and students at Kent State University and would become a federally recognized event six years later. President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month in 1976 during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial. He urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history” (Franklin 2022). Today, nearly one hundred years after that initial celebration, it is prudent to reflect on the designed purpose of Black History Month and discover that after all this time, these lessons are still relevant, inspiring, and necessary. As Dr. Woodson said, “Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better” (Woodson 1933).
Pictured: Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The “father of Black history”
Photo Credit: Addison Norton Scurlock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
ASALH. 2024. Carter G. Woodson Timeline: ASALH – the Founders of Black History Month. December 19. Accessed January 16, 2025. asalh.org/carter-g-woodson-timeline/.
Woodson, Carter G. 1933. The Mis-Education of the Negro. Trenton: Africa World Press.
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All right! So, we see that Black History Week then Month has been around for at least 20 years longer than our current POTUS, who seems to be ignoring the month’s existence. But, there’s no reason any of the rest of we the people have to! Including all history makes the US so much richer in knowledge. Most local historical and cultural organizations are going to have commemorations this month. What fun it will be, and how community-unifying for each of us to find an activity near us, and join in!
A bag of tiny chocolate chip cookies from the company who was here a few weeks ago working in my bathroom. I’m off cookies until my jeans are looser again like they were in November, so these will go into the freezer, but anyway, they still brightened the day!
Next, a cool Substack post from Worriedman. I’ve shared his posts here before. Today’s is extra cool.
February
by Margaret Atwood
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.
Presented complete for educational purposes. And because no page celebrating the work of the great Margret Catwood is complete without the phrase "Cat, enough of your greedy whining and your small pink bumhole."
It's the last Saturday before February. It's wicked cold - 2 degrees with a breeze.
It's Caturday, though Hello Barncat!
Sam, in repose
Amos , paying attention!
Cold assed….ass.
One more !
Soon ...
That's all I got room for - Thanks for dropping by !
Just a quick one to let readers know, and to thank Panagah Amn-Pet Safe Shelter in Kabul, Afghanistan, for visiting Scottie’s Playtime! Give them a look whenever you have a minute. I looked around and did not find anything disturbing, though of course the stories are sad; yet the writing is poetic. (Most of the Humane Society ads in the US are more disturbing than what I saw here, as a comparison point.)
I haven’t shared this guy’s work in some time, either.
I am a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and I also sit on its board of directors. Today, our president, Marc Murphy, wrote a statement for the organization in defense of journalist Don Lemon, who was arrested by the Trump regime for doing his job.
My favorite part of Raiders of the Lost Ark is when they remove the lid, and Greg Bovino’s face melts off. Of course, that would be impossible. He’s not tall enough to reach the top of the ark. By the way, I love this woman.
You know Donald Trump only cares about the optics because he has been perfectly happy with Greg Bovino’s job performance. Trump doesn’t have a problem with American citizens protesting ICE being murdered in the streets. It’s just too bad the optics aren’t good about that, as even Republicans are starting to cringe. Notice that Trump didn’t have any empathy for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar being attacked? And it’s probably his fault.
Hours later, the calf, fed and fluffed, took a spot on the couch with the Sorrell family’s two children. Their mom, Macey Sorrell, snapped some photos and later posted them to social media, and the cuteness did not go unnoticed.
The calf was born outdoors in single digit temperatures on Saturday. Macey Sorrell said her husband, Tanner, went outside to check on the pregnant mother and found the calf, suffering in the cold.
“She was just frozen. Her umbilical cord looked like a popsicle,” Macey Sorrell said Thursday from her home in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. “It was just frozen.”
After losing a calf last winter to frostbite, the family moved quickly to bring the baby inside to clean her off and warm her up.
Scottie's Playtime 