Volunteer opps, new word for doodying. Typical Julian.
The Sternal Journal
Very different things
Hiya Sternal Journalists,
Yesterday, I did two things. One was important in a global way. The other one was important just to me (but you're gonna get to it and be like, "Julian... that is not important." But to me and my ability to be me, unimportant things are important! I don't know, you'll see. These are very different things. You'll see.
1) I returned to volunteering at The Shower of Hope. Shower of Hope is an excellent, excellent organization that provides free showers to unhoused people in Los Angeles.
It is pure, unfiltered doodycrapbullshit that unhoused people do not get access to showers in this city (or most cities), let alone housing and myriad other services. And as it relates to what's in the news right now (but has been important for far longer), Black people account for 8% of L.A.'s residents, but 34% of its homeless population.
So it's both a shame that Shower of Hope needs to exist and wonderful that, by the power of its staff and volunteers, it is able to exist.
If you ever want to volunteer, I am happy to set you up with a wonderful woman named Lisa who will tell you where there's need. Yesterday was my first time going post COVID, and I can report that all precautions are taken to make sure everyone is distanced, masked, sanitized, etc. enough to make it COVID friendly.
You can also donate here. In addition to showers, they provide safe parking (programs where people who live in their cars have a safe, guarded place to park for the night) and are piloting a program to provide housing to homeless students.
Not that it should matter, but volunteering is a ton of fun and you meet wonderful people:
See? Masks! Gloves! Distance!
Okay, alright, here's the other thing:
2) I made a new phrase for needing to poop.
(What, Julian?)
It's called "Stank in the tank."
(WHAT? You said this was important)
Now, when I say new phrase for needing to poop, I don't mean new like this is the first time I've ever come up with a new phrase. I mean new like it was time for a new one.
I love coming up with new words for needing to poop, some of my favorites from the past include:
"gotta take a beef." For this one, if it hits quickly, you can say, "Oh! I am positively beefstricken." You may also shorten it to "gotta beef!"
"take a meeting" This is a nice Hollywood one because in Hollywood instead of calling job interview job interviews, they say, "Oh, I'm taking a meeting with soenso." There's no reason for this other than the fact that Hollywood people can, at times, be strong-headed and weak-willed and unable to handle being on the surface rejected from a job (present company included, although I've gotten pretty good at just being outright rejected).
This one's fun because, if it's one of those bathroom visits where you're like "Maybe I will, maybe I won't," you can call it "taking a general" which is Hollywood talk for an actual meeting. It's a little more complicated than that, but you either know that and I don't need to explain it or you don't know it and definitely do not (should not) care.
If you're in D.C. while taking one of those will-they-won't-they dumps, you call it "Putting together an exploratory committee." Just so you know.
And now we've arrived at "stank in the tank." Not much more to know than that! You could use it for farts also, obviously.
Alright, so at this point, you're thinking, "What the hell, Julian? Why is that important?" Well, it's not. But also, it is.
It is important because it's me and it's silly and I am silly, and I love being silly.
I have not been letting myself be, at least publicly, very silly for the past few weeks because Black people are continuously being unjustly murdered by the police. And that's just the current iteration of a centuries-old perpetual crime (or system of crimes) carried out by national, state, and local governments that make it incredibly, unimaginably difficult for people to escape homelessness, poverty, and the possibility of murder by government employees.
But the difference is now people are paying attention! We remain in an all-hands on deck situation, so I don't want to go back to, "la-di-da, we marched for three weeks and everyone learned some more, the world is a better place." It's not. This is not even the beginning of what needs to be done.
But also, as I've said here before, we need to do what we can to not burn out. And relatedly but separately, we (I think?) need to keep being ourselves.
I'm actually not sure about that one. My "myself" includes things like volunteering at Shower of Hope and attempting to be funny or tell stories in a way that brings people joy and/or insight. But it also includes being a white person who benefits greatly from white supremacy and has spent puh-lenty of time not doing a single thing to try to dismantle it.
So, in that regard, no I should absolutely not keep being myself. I should do everything in my power to shed and reverse that self, and I'm trying to do that. But it's impossible to know where one self ends and the other begins, especially when one of your ostensibly good selfs (writing and performing things you hope make people laugh) has some definitive overlap with the self that is part of a white supremacist society (wanting to be elevated to the center of attention, thinking what you say and think should matter to other people).
So as someone who likes to try to write and perform funny, sometimes incredibly light things, I don't know where the line is for how much or how soon I should return to that.
I want to give people the "stanks in the tanks" of my mind (huge presumption on my part to assume anyone wants it), but not at the expense of letting up on doing my part to keep reminding everyone to keep fighting for change.
So, again, I don't know. Doing the work to dismantle racist systems tomorrow, and immediately helping people oppressed by them today are important to the word and every individual in it. Me being able to think about and talk about things like the phrase I will use the next time I need to do a bowel movement (reminder: "stank in the tank") is clearly way, way, way (not enough "ways" in the world to convey the degree accurately) less important. But to me, in some way, it is important. No neat tied-up-with-a-bow point here. Just an acknowledgement that I will try to keep doing both in a way that serves and is respectful of the bigger more important one (dismantling racist systems), and that I will listen for if I need to adjust.
For the week, here are some things you can do if you'd like: If you're in LA!
A great org named SELAH is doing a shoe drive. If you have any of these, drop em off (or maybe I could pick up from you! I plan to drop a couple pairs off).
And if you're in or from Montgomery County, there are efforts from young people in the county to change the fact that de facto segregation is still going on in MoCo. Read up on it here on this instagram post from Whitman's Young DSA chapter (Whitman has a DSA chapter! Wild!).
Okay, that's all for now. Love as always,
Julian