One of those damn squirrels just went through the garden and Wally is not happy about this incursion.

Had my 6-weekly occupational therapy session for my chronic fatigue today which went well and was pretty useful. But otherwise quite tired after yesterday. No proper crash though, which is very pleasing. Might have paced it right. Will see.

Was going to write more but spent hours trying to find a very specific photo of my mum in 1980 to accompany the below. I’m sure it’ll turn up soon after I publish.

Gloria Steinem helped transform the world for everyone — Rebecca Solnit looks back on what Steinem and the other 70s feminists achieved, and what that legacy means to us today.

Talk of Ms Magazine has revived one of the vivid memories I have of my mother from around 1980. Freshly divorced, albeit embarking upon a long drawn out custody battle with my now Texas-based father, we have moved near Bristol and she took us to register at the big central library. Back then you were issued with a number of little cardboard envelopes into which the librarian would place a card from the book you were taking out and file it away until you returned it, then they’d give you your envelope back and put the card back in the book.

(Sidebar: describing how things worked before computers is bonkers.)

Each envelope had the name and address of the borrower written on it in pen, and because my sister and I were 5 and 8 ours were her name. I think we were able to borrow six books each, so let’s say she was issued with a stack of 18 envelopes.

The envelopes started with a Mr / Miss / Mrs choice. As I said, she was freshly divorced and did not see herself as a Miss or a Mrs. She was a Ms. So she sat there and furiously crossed out all three options and wrote Ms on every card.

I think I remember this so vividly because of how angry she was, which probably means she got into it with the librarian who was presumably not willing to make the alteration. This really mattered to her on an existential level. She was neither unmarried or married. Marriage did not define her. She was just a woman.

I think this was when I became a feminist.

• George Lucas unveils new LA Museum of Narrative Art — This whole thing is fascinating. The notion of a museum on this scale devoted to narrative art, that puts ‘low’ art-forms like comics on the same pedestal as the Sistine Chapel would have been unthinkable to me back in the day. Lucas has his problems, and doubtless there will be issues with the curation, but this looks like an astonishing achievement and a worthy legacy.
• Primitive Technology: Iron prill welding experiment — Always fascinated by his extracting iron ore from bacteria.
• 🎶🫠 Weezer’s Buddy Holly but pronouns speed it up & hoo hoo pitches it down & The Lick uhhh…