Anyone else pre-order this one and get it delivered today?!?

Do you swap print books for coloring activity books like this? Any others that you like and won‘t ever miss purchasing?

Book mail is happy mail, no matter how long I had to spend waiting for these!!

"... if you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I admittedly didn‘t connect with this 📖 of Wong‘s as much as I did her memoir & “Disability Visibility”.

That said, there were still some significant moments throughout, all of which I shared, that makes this another one of hers that stretched me, while also quickly becoming what felt like a friendly companion. There to make me feel seen, heard & understood.

Wong will go down as my most read author of 2025, not even mad about it!

There should not be a need to state our lives are worth living, because that implies there is some question about which lives are worth living and that living is a right one has to earn. We need a society that supports and cares for life—all life.

My deep secret is that I love people despite the many reasons that have been handed to me not to.

For the first time in my life, I found others who were just as weird, just as passionate as me. The friends I‘d made in the outside world, the friends I‘d kept there, appreciated my strange quirks, but they didn‘t necessarily understand them. But then I found people who did.

I felt connected. I wasn‘t different because I was ill, I was different because I was a writer and a know it all and stubborn and passionate.

There are people like us, we are not bad or doomed, we are okay, we have reasons to celebrate. We each and all belong. Our mistreatment is injustice.

Vulnerability is the best teacher of adaptation. Disabled people know how to adapt to a world that is ever changing without considering us.

As disability and justice and collective care practices continue to grow and bloom, I want us to be in a practice of curiosity, of continually learning who we and others are, as we change and evolve.

There‘s something so valuable in not only imagining others into a space, but also learning and building toward making that happen.

Vivir con miedo es come vivir a medias. A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

Having someone respond to and witness you in real time is immensely powerful.

Made this a more expensive, but more epic book box delivery this month because I‘m supposed to be pausing my account until I thin out the BOTM books I already have, but then I realized November might have to be my final month because I still don‘t have two of the hats from the BOTM shop!!
Sometimes you just have to treat yourself, and then do it again…..and again…..and again……

📦😏📚😁💙

I have now read 2 of 5 of these books!!

Will you sit down with any or all of them now that you know about them?
What ones have you already read?

It looks like “This Is Body Grief” by Jane Mattingly might FINALLY be ready & waiting for me as soon as I can manage to finish “Disability Intimacy” by Alice Wong & send my book pack back!!

What ones are essential to add to make this a more complete list?!?

🦯📚👩🏻‍🦯 📖👩🏻‍🦽♿️👩🏻‍🦼

“Let us develop respect for all living things.
Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion.
And love.”
⁠

There was something inside me, some hopeful, small faltering voice that said, “There‘s room for you.” I don‘t know why, but I trusted that voice.

God made a world of extraordinary beauty, and sometimes the most important thing we can do is slow ourselves down enough to see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, enter into it.

“We love big stories….but sometimes being courageous means less, quieter, stiller, smaller.”

We were made to be the things that He is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance givers, truth tellers, hope bringers.

The food and table and the laughter help to create sacred space, a place to give someone the gift of words. That‘s what some of the best nights are about—sacred space and words of love.

Meals can be so much more than refueling stops. When we slow down to enjoy the food and the company and think about what we‘re doing, meals can nourish our spirits as well as our bodies.

When we stop to gather around the table and eat a meal made by someone‘s hands, we honor our bodies and the God who created them. And in that moment we acknowledge that even though life is fast and frantic, we‘re not machines and we do require nourishment, physically and otherwise.

Preparing food and feeding people brings nourishment not only to our bodies but to our spirits. Feeding people is a way of loving them, and it is a way of honoring our own createdness and fragility.

“…..it‘s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What‘s hard…is figuring out what you‘re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”

I know that death is real, and I trust that rebirth is real, too.

Sometimes a change in season around us is just what we need to prod us out of our own internal winters, to shake off the dust and darkness we‘ve become accustomed to. I‘ve been wintery for a long time—sick, discouraged, a little isolated. I‘m turning from fear to prayer, trusting that God can create new life and beauty from anything.

Pain is real but so is hope.

H~ Hold
O~ On
P~ Pain
E~ Ends

A poignant passage midway through suicide prevention month.

I refuse to sink.

💙🛟🦅⚓️🤍

Intimacy isn‘t just romantic naked bodies touching each other; it‘s about affirming our value and existence, allowing ourselves to love and to be loved and to take up this space together and to make us feel not alone.

So is bibliophile intimacy a thing?
Like, what‘s the type of intimacy called when an author writes a thing and you feel so deeply and clearly seen and known and understood and you didn‘t think anyone else who had your thoughts existed?
Not in like a scary, vulnerable nerve wrecking way, but in like a beautiful, epic, awesome way?
What‘s THAT called?!?

As a high risk person, I am painfully aware of how profits and productivity matter more to those in charge than my survival does.

“The world asks us to be quieter, to do less, to be less. Be less colorful, more neutral, more predictable, more obedient, less spontaneous; to eschew “excessive” expression in favor of modesty, genuflect to the uniformity of it all unless we‘re in service of profit—the capitalist spectacle of entertainment. In conventional social settings, cultural norms demand that we don a bland façade…”

Together, we weave rows of hope and laughter and joy to balance out those of frustration and despair. We borrow with care, and we share with generosity. We spin and weave and tamp down row after row of love when we build community together.

Being thoughtful, intentional, and generous are acts of intimacy we can give to one another.

Intimacy is more than sex or romantic love. Intimacy is an ever-expanding universe composed of a myriad of heavenly bodies. Intimacy is about relationships within a person‘s self, with others, with communities, with nature, and beyond.