Happy MD

It’s been a few years since Mother’s Day was a tortured exercise for me, and for that I’m profoundly grateful. I’m not a big fan, in general - I don’t like attention and huge displays of emotion, because a) I’m an uptight New England WASP, and b) the child of a narcissist. So the idea of being fawned over is extremely embarrassing for me. Just to spend a day with the family is enough, so we did that. We went to a Bowie photo exhibit, then had a desultory lunch at this random place in Koreatown that unfortunately only had one thing on the menu without meat in it, then the H went to work (of course) and I went to the weekly protest at the airport, to protest the airline (Avelo) that has a contract to fly deportees to the Salvadoran gulag. 

Because of Mother’s Day, the crowd was about 1/4th of what it was last week. As an event organizer, I feel for the people putting these things together - you really have no control over who and how many people show up, and the experience for everyone rests heavily on who and how many people show up (I may feel this in real time when my event rolls around). The V-E day event I went to was pretty cringe and lame, but really only because such a small crowd was there (probably about 40 people), so it just felt sort of pathetic. But if it had been 500 people, it would have been great. Go figure. 

As usual, we had probably 85% of cars driving by ignore us, 10% honk in support, and 5% flip us off or yell things. One guy was bold enough to roll down his window and yell at us that the deportees (I should really say kidnapping victims) were “rapists”, and I was proud that the crowd didn’t stand for that - we all got in his face and yelled “your president is a rapist!!!” One Latino guy in the front was especially agitated. Good for him. 

I’ll be back next week. Hopefully there will be more people. I always exchange sarcastic outrage with other women over 50 (most of the crowd), and was pleased to connect in person with a nice disabled man I’ve been connected with on Bluesky. 

I hand made this sign for Andry, the gay makeup artist who has been trapped in that hell hole for two months. We don’t even know if he’s alive. The thought that he, and so many others, escaped their home country and came to us for safety, only to be hideously betrayed by our shit government, makes me absolutely sick. Whatever happened to “bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? This is NOT the country I was raised to believe in. I, too, feel betrayed. So I hold this sign to remind people what happened to this young man. If this were my son, I could only hope someone would do this for him. Happy Mother’s Day.