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Last night's stir-fried mung bean sprouts were a huge hit. The original plan was to thaw some chicken to throw in the wok as well, but the mung beans and rice were that perfect blend of filling but not heavy, and the chicken never actually came out of the freezer. That started out as 1/2 cup of dried large mung beans. I bought 2lbs of dried beans for $2.99. So, that's 75 cents of sprouts that fed my family of five as a main dish along with pennies worth of rice and sauce per plate, with enough left over to incorporate into another meal. It's also vegan, low-cal, and nutritionally complete. Next up by household consensus: black eyed peas. I put them on to soak this morning at 9am, so you could say I got it started... Making this joke was the whole reason for this blog post. I think they're destined for a salad with the chow chow slaw that's been pickling in my refrigerator for the past month. Or maybe in a coconut curry soup, considering I want to eat that chow chow slaw with the barbecue we're ordering for Easter dinner, and those sprouts will be ready long before then. This is way more fun than picking what to eat off a menu or a shelf! If you're reading this and going, "wow, I want to start sprouting beans and grains, too!" I learned how through Pinterest and YouTube: This came from a pin board called "Grandma's Life Hacks." This goated algorithm pull introduced me to the easiest sprouting system, with these mason jar lids that are a full sprouting system in and of themselves, which take up much less space than the sprouting trays, or the systems that require a tilt prop for the airflow. As for the sprouting lids I actually bought, these lids (not sponsored) are the best price I found for that style of sprouting lids.

This is the new TikTok trend, huh? I want in. It'll never be more than friends, including friends with "benefits." I'm asexual and aromantic to the damn core. Having chronic illnesses means that I'm flaky AF. I have better pain management and mobility aids now than I used to, but if the temperature is too dangerous or my pain is too uncontrollable, I will have to cancel last minute. Yeah, that does mean that there are certain things (mostly ticketed events) I can't do anymore, just in general. ADHD gives me some serious time blindness. Not only will I inevitably be late or early (because I'm overcompensating), but months can feel like weeks to me. I may go radio silent for ages and all of a sudden text you with a million questions about a topic we had one conversation about two years before. Or I won't initiate a conversation for weeks and weeks, because I'll think I'm "bothering you" if I do contact you for something frivolous. I also have internal hyperactivity, which means I am perfectly comfortable with long in-person silences. I'm talking literal hours. And while whoever my internal dialogue partner that day is usually gets the brunt of my "talking it out" during those long silences, you may get me thinking out loud at you randomly about whatever I'm hyperfocusing on and need to verbalize to understand. I also have the autistic bluntness, and truthfulness over glossing. I will tell you the truth, good or bad. You will get tactfulness. I can promise it's coming from a place of kindness, but it won't feel like it. You come to me for advice and solutions, not sympathy. It's not that I don't feel sympathy for you, it's just that "making it better" is how I express sympathy. If it can't be made better (I will brainstorm), I'll tell you very frankly about how much it sucks, and how your feelings are valid and should be felt properly and acted on responsibly. I insist on the aux cord. Including in conversation when you say something that sounds like a song lyric, and I'll start singing. It's not that I don't understand the concept of "cringe," I just don't understand why it should apply to me. I don't drive. It's thanks to my ADHD & dyscalculia. If you do drive, I'll be asking for a ride if we make plans together. That dyscalculia also keeps me from playing most games, from video games to board games to card games. I don't drink alcohol. I take 9 prescription medications, and I enjoy living. I am "California sober," and frankly, I can party plenty hard without a hangover the next day, thank you. I live my whole life pretty strictly and simply, actually. It's how I survive, and thrive under adversity. You may find that threatening to be around, if you don't have that kind of discipline yourself. I'm childfree. I'd love to hear about your kids, but if you want to tell those stories to someone who relates 100%, I am not that person. I'll be 44 in June. Some people hate age and experience. Like they won't get there themselves eventually. Inevitably. My bedtime is 9PM. I'm not saying it's non-negotiable, I am saying I get weird and grumpy when I get exhausted. I don't do social media anymore. I do blogs, and I do one-on-one or small group texts. If you want me to know something about you, or see a picture, you have to send it directly to me, or join the blogosphere. If you wrong me in any way, my cut-off game is immaculate. That includes if you prove yourself unsafe to any of my queer or trans friends, or BIPOC friends. Or any of my friends for whatever reason. If you're a creep to them, you're a creep to me.

I was introduced to the concept of decolonization in 2016, when I joined the #noDAPL movement for indigenous water rights. I was already pretty deep into both third wave feminism and early body positivity, so decolonization seemed like the logical next step - intersectional feminism identified the problem as a twisted patriarchal system fed by capitalism and religion as social control, decolonization proposed a perfectly do-able solution of personal accountability in returning to pre-colonial thought systems and therefore lifeways. How does one approach that? Turns out, it's practically the same thing as what the spiritual community calls "shadow work," and the neurodivergent community calls "unmasking." It takes a lot of inner work, particularly identifying the parts of you that you've been hiding, or pretending don't exist because they don't benefit the colonial mindset. Now, keep in mind, I'm no wide expert on this. This hasn't been a journey of research for me, it's been a journey of self discovery, and those are two very different things. This is definitely a personal reflection essay, not an exhaustive study. What is "decolonization," exactly? It's a return to how cultures lived before the colonizing culture came in and imposed their own way of life. As an American, this all happened long before my living relatives were born, so the images that creates basically involves living off-grid in the woods somewhere. Obviously, I am not doing that at all, and that's not what decolonization actually is (though it can be, in radical cases). So, how does one decolonize in a modern setting? Well, first, you have to identify the legacy of colonialism. Most people will point to racism and white supremacy right away, but why was a racist, classist system created in the first place? That's the backbone of capitalism. We love to focus on the pioneers and the westward expansion when we look at the early years of America, but take a look at what was happening on the east coast at that time, where the modern country was already established... the country was founded at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and the North embraced it wholeheartedly... with child labor gleaned from the poor, immigrant communities. Meanwhile, the South was in literal tall cotton, riding the agricultural business on the back of slavery. Human exploitation to profit the wealth hoarders is the backbone of this country. Capitalism relies on two things to function - division in the masses to keep them from organizing and taking control of the system, and for the masses to consume the products they make to line the CEO's wallet. Racism, classism, and overconsumption in all forms for the 99% it is. Knowing that, decolonization means deconstructing those concepts in your own life, and reconstructing your life around the principals of personal sovereignty, community, and spirituality that your ancestors enjoyed. This is a bottom-up movement. It's work that has to be done on a very personal, individual level. You need to fully believe it and live it, and then find community with other people who fully believe and live it. The more the community grows, the more people see how happy and functional we are, the more people do their own work and join... that's how we affect major change. Okay, but how does one do this practically ? Because it still sounds huge and hard and very vague. And yes, it is a large, life-altering project. But, as the old adage goes, you eat the elephant bite by bite, swallowing it whole would be impossible. And you'll naturally encounter and discover the areas where you'll find you need to decolonize. I'll go ahead and share how the process has looked for me so far. It'll look different for everyone, but at least this is a good guide to where to start looking at your lifestyle, and how a capitalistic mindset affects it. My body made me decolonize my diet. When you're allergic to five of the most common food allergens, and when one is subsidized by the government to grow and therefore added to everything pre-made, you have to cook from scratch. And "American food" is not meant to be cooked from scratch... even if it's assembled in a home kitchen, it involves processed food like canned soup. Which means you start eating real American food - rice and grains, beans, lightly processed corn, vegetables and fruits, lean meats, nuts (if you can) and seeds, ferments and pickles, herbs and spices for seasonings, honey and maple syrup for sweeteners. But why should someone without any food allergies eat like this? Two big reasons come to mind: my PCP told me that there's been a rise in deadly colon cancer in millennials in their 30's and 40's, to the point where she expects they'll drop the routine colonoscopy age to 35 fairly soon. And as I write this, the price of food is experiencing the worst inflation in my lifetime. Those foods are the most affordable in the grocery store now. Okay, three. Those are the kind of foods that you need to track your calories when you eat them to make sure you're getting enough calories in to maintain your body's basal needs. You want to lose some fat while eating huge, satisfying portions of luxurious food? Decolonize your diet. As for decolonizing the rest of my self care, that took me to some unexpected places. I was introduced to The Nap Ministry around the same time as I was first learning about decolonization, and let me tell you, the Rest is Resistance philosophy is easy to understand, and incredibly difficult to incorporate when you have to override the millennial professional woman #GirlBoss hustle mentality that was drilled into you by your professional peers and the media for the entirety of the 2010's. Ah, the high-functioning autistic double-edged sword: you internalize how society tells you to behave, and behave it from behind an iron-clad mask to the point of mental breakdown, and then keep performing because you've been taught that your worth is determined by your output, and you can't be "worthless." So, the Universe went ahead and orchestrated a period in my life where I was bed bound until I could grapple with my concepts of self-worth and productivity. That sparked a re-set period where the boundaries between my physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual lives blurred more than ever before. Mostly because separating the care of your body from capitalism takes you back to practices from times and places where caring for your body was a spiritual act. Everyone's been told "your body is a temple," and we're very used to it being used patriarchially as a way to control your appearance or behaviors - "GOD HIM SELF dwells within you, therefore you can't eat pork/get tattooed/have casual sex/etc." But removing that from the framework of modern religion, and considering it alongside traditional body care practices, the old saw takes on a whole new meaning when you realize you're maintaining your physical and energetic hygiene at the same time. I discovered that traditional North African products and techniques work the best for my body, and I by in large take care of myself in ways that Hatshepsut and Nefertiti would recognize. I've already written about how this has led me to take up veiling here and here , something I would have never expected I would ever want to do, but here I am seeing the practicality and fashion of it, thanks to the process of decolonization. And how does one best decolonize their body care in this way? The biggest first step you can make is to stop buying products on vibes, smells, and claims. Do your research - thankfully, here's where the neurodivergences come in handy, I can happily hyperfocus on this subject for hours. Start with knowing what you're working with - what kind of skin do you have, what kind of hair do you have, what are your particular needs? Me? Skin-wise, I have normal skin with the help of hyaluronic acid serum, and Kojic acid soap and HOCL keep my rosaecea well controlled. Meanwhile, I keep my skin tight and wrinkle-free with a vitamin e concentrate and cocoa butter slug. That's all. I have no need to shop Ulta for the latest and greatest product, just for the couple of tried-and-true products that I know work for me. Same for haircare for my 3b-c, fine, highly porous hair. I make my own scalp oil based on trial-and-error and learning what my scalp likes, and my own chebe butter in the same way. I use a commercial leave-in conditioner under the chebe that I'm loyal to, and that whole combination keeps my hair growing quickly and the length preserved. I also grew my virgin hair out, so I'm not putting out any more time or money on dye. Yeah, a lot of this process is about accepting the reality of what you're working with and enhancing your unique, God and ancestry-given beauty instead of making yourself look like everyone else. Not only for your mental health and relationship with your physical form, but also to divorce from the capitalist mindset on the physical body. This becomes reclaiming your body from being a cash cow for capitalists and to being a functional tool for your soul to interface in full purpose with the physical world. And that does mean bringing a lot of things closer to home. I do get pedicures, because with my nerve damage it's too dangerous for me to do my own toenails, I can't tell when I'm slicing into the skin. But my whole foods diet and collagen and liquid mineral supplementation gives me such healthy fingernails, I don't want to cover them. I even trim/style my own hair, and my mom, grandma, and sister's, so no one in the house has to pay for their hair care. Wigs, hair extensions, lash extensions? To be honest, I've never been the type to choose to put my money there, anyway, even when my hair wasn't growing like this. Now, I have 3's, so I'm watching videos about how wig installs have made women with 4c hair straight-up hate their own hair from afar, and with a ton of sympathy and love for these women and girls. I see the colonization they're dealing with, and how much of their time and money and attention and even health that it's sucking up, and I know the personal journey they have to take if they want to wear their own hair and love and care for it the way it is. I've always been the kind of rebellious type that's worn my natural hair as a fuck you to beauty standards in general, I guess that's called "civil rights hair" nowadays, which, okay 🤣🤣 we just called it "natural" back in the day, but call it whatever if it makes you want to wear it more. For the record, there's nothing wrong with wearing wigs or lashes, or with straightening your hair or wearing extensions. It's when you can't wear anything but because you hate what you have naturally is when it becomes a problem. Decolonizing the rest of my appearance was fairly simple, as I've always had limited closet space, and been into thrifting and swapping. I did go through a Shein phase simply because fast fashion in my size was so novel that I had to wear the styles I could never wear before and get it out of my system. I did this as I was building a huge community clothing swap, so I don't feel too terribly about it, heh. I also never did "hauls," bought on clearance, and still have and wear most of what I bought, years later, because I take care of it. So, you could say I saved it from the landfill. The biggest part of this is returning to developing a personal style, not adopting rotating aesthetics you need an entirely new fast-fashion wardrobe for. When you have a solid personal style, and you know your shapes and silhouettes and what you actually enjoy wearing, you'll actually buy or swap for things you'll wear repeatedly. You don't need a giant closet filled with never-touched clothes, just a well-curated selection of pieces you can combine for multiple looks. When that's your style philosophy, going "no-buy" for however long, or only purchasing that one needed item that rounds out six pieces in your wardrobe and nothing else is very easy. Because you always have something to wear for any occasion, since you know how to put your clothes together and style them well. As for the rest of your style: that's all you. Makeup or no makeup? Depends on what you're comfortable with. Just, like your clothing wardrobe, identify what you actually use, and curate your collection to something you can pan before it all expires. Don't buy what you can't use just because you like collecting. Collecting is for non-perishable items. And shopping is not a hobby. Tattoos? It's your skin. Hair? Do what you want with it - I gave up hair dye, but that is not essential to the process. It's just essential to my personal hair health, which I had to prioritize over the society-prescribed youth preservation that was destroying my hair structure. Plastic surgery? That's where you're going to want to really sit with your "why" before signing the surgery paperwork. I firmly believe that the majority of plastic surgery and cosmetic procedure regret is when it's done because capitalism told them they "needed" to do it to meet the beauty standard, not because they truly believed they needed to be "fixed." The next part involves expanding out into the local community - support local art and artists. As much or more than corporate artists. Shop your jewelry and home decor at local Maker's Markets, or boutiques that showcase local artists. Drop a streaming service in favor of a season pass to a local theater company. Follow a local concert series, chances are it's free to attend, unlike a Taylor Swift concert. Take a class, get creative yourself. Check out your local library's offerings, they have so much more going on than just book loans, but while you're there, they also have free physical media loans. Book a professional photoshoot just because, it helps with visualizing your best self. Find a hole in the community that you can fill and volunteer to do just that. How does this benefit you? You look cool AF because you're wearing accessories no one else has. You're getting out of the house, and meeting people you otherwise wouldn't encounter in other circles of your life. Live music and theater hits different than pre-recorded stuff on a screen. Not that film and television isn't valid art, but live art needs support, too. And all humans are creative, and need to express that. Substituting the social media doomscroll with actual social interaction is good for the psyche. I know I keep saying that spirituality is all part of this, and how it's part of this for you is up to you. For me, I got deeper into personal energy work, and that led me deeper into Hinduism, which I wouldn't claim as my religion, but I am working with Hindu deities in the framework of chakra activation. I don't expect everyone or anyone else to do that, but it's hard to not consider your personal flavor of spirituality more as you're considering your place in the universe if you're not here to blindly consume for The Man. I've been a tarot card reader for 25+ years now, and one of the most common life dilemmas I've heard over the years is "I'm miserable in my high-paying position, and I know I would be so much happier in this lower-paid position, but I don't know how to take the hit to my finances." May I suggest decolonization? You're cooking for yourself, which means simple food with ingredients you choose yourself that don't cost your firstborn son. You're using just a few simple, inexpensive body care products that you can't hoard, saving money and space. You're curating a personal style with a mix-and-match wardrobe that encourages re-wearing favorite pieces and incorporating unique art as accessories. You're getting out into the community and enjoying and supporting live art and entertainment, as well as your local library and physical media. The community is benefiting from your volunteer hours, and general human presence. Your health is benefiting from better food and personal care products, less time online, and more time asleep, which means far more energy to do things you actually enjoy and that actually matter to you. You're living authentically, and frugally enough that you can take a step down in pay or hours without hurting your bottom line. Your newly reclaimed time and frugality means you can prioritize experiences, like travel. You are thoroughly sticking it to The Man. This is the most effective way to do so, actually. Congratulations, you're an interesting person with lots to talk about now. And yes, when you further extrapolate this concept out, it takes you to lifestyles outside of the "mainstream," like asexuality, and the role and contributions of the un-partnered and childfree people in society. Or polyamory, and recognition of the complicated ways that feelings manifest in people, regardless of concepts of "monogamy" for clear inheritance lines. Or of transgender people, and how society can sanction and affirm gender changes and gender questioning in safe ways. Or of multi-generational and communal living, to provide combined financial stability and solve problems like child or elder care, or household maintenance, that would otherwise have to be hired out at great cost. If I were to sum this up college essay style, I would say breaking up with capitalism, changing your habits from the most personal to the most public with a focus on bypassing consumerism and overconsumption, and connecting with community is a huge personal undertaking that can not only change you, but the whole world. Does this sound trite as hell? Absolutely. But if you've read this far, I think I've made a convincing argument that you can live a very fulfilling and meaningful life, and on a shoestring budget, by re-thinking and re-routing where your time, energy, and money is going. If nothing else, you are happier and healthier. Best case scenario, we change the world for the better, together.

Behold, my new "easy food" - super soft pita bread made with my white bean protein bread dough, hummus with added lemon zest, roasted garlic, thyme, and sumac, and raw lentil sprouts from my own windowsill. That's a grand total of THREE BEANS in ONE SANDWICH. We're having fun brainstorming other spreads, and veggies to add in. And I have an array of legumes in my pantry to sprout. Notice I cut my pita in half before I even started building the sandwich... I can't eat THAT much! When I was a tween, my favorite quick snack/meal was to toast a commercially made pita pocket, and stuff it with salad mix, shredded cheese, and ranch dressing. This feels like the more elevated, adult version of that. My other childhood go-to snack was "matzah pizza," my family's attempt at fusion cuisine, where we topped a sheet of Manischewitz matzah bread with pre-made pizza sauce and cheese, and placed it in the toaster oven to make a crispy, thin crust pizza. Today's elevated and allergy friendly version would involve my pumpkin sauce and either goat cheese or Daiya shreds, so, again. Adult, and all that. But anyway, as I told my mother today, the sprout wraps are completely plant based, easy to put together with foods that are easy to make from scratch, utilize cheap to obtain ingredients, and provide maximum nutrition for a single meal. My very "this is what my stomach can handle for food first thing, nothing else" autistically repeating daily breakfast is dairy-free plain yogurt with ground flax seed and raw, local honey. My repeating daily lunch may be a sprout wrap starting today. Don't ask me to be culinarily adventurous until at least 4PM from here on out 😅😅 Oh, and for the "it's too expensive to eat healthy food" crowd, I pulled out my calculator. You can get four batches of 16 pita from 5lbs of bread flour, which costs $15. That's 24 cents of flour per pita. One can of cannellini beans is 83 cents. One pack of yeast (sold in a pack of 3) is 63 cents. There's 40 cents of olive oil per 16 pita, so, 2 and a half cents of olive oil per pita. It's $1.92 for 72 tablespoons of brown sugar, and I use 2 tablespoons per 16 pita, so... yeah. About the same for salt. Roughly 38 cents per pita, total. A good 4 cups of sprouted lentils costs 78 cents. Even if you splurge and buy your hummus pre-made, it's $2.85 for a 10oz tub at Aldi. That's a filling, nutritionally balanced, low-cal meal for about 50 cents.

If recent forays into my genealogy have taught me anything, it's that I'm descended from multiple continents worth of ancient royal lines, no matter which branch of the family tree you shake, both sides. Me? I'm a disabled Michigander with no money to my name. I have decided that location, time period, and circumstances be damned, I'm just as much of an ancient queen as my ancestresses, and I'm going to act like it. See, I studied archaeology in college, I know what the quality of life was for ancient queens, and I know I can replicate it within my modern means. I am also obsessed enough with Ancient Greece and Rome that I got a whole degree in Classics about it. It simply means rejecting modern standards, and going back to ancient wisdom. Where applicable! I'm writing this as I've been unusually inconsistent with my prescription medications this week, and I'm rolling into suffering territory because of it. I'm not giving those up for the world. But when it comes to other things about my body... Ancient queens were eating lavish food - that was very minimally processed. I'm eating a lot of cuisine from France, Greece, Slavic regions, Africa, the Levant, India, and SE Asia. And yeah, I'm cooking it myself - I'm not ruling a kingdom at the moment, I have the time to do that. And the "lavish" part is the use of salt and spices, the food itself is very simple and nutritious. Now, I know full well that humans have been genetically modifying the flora and fauna on this planet to their benefit since we made friends with wolves. I am not saying I am against GMO's. I am saying that between industry farming practices, and genetic modification like "Roundup Ready" seeds to benefit industry farming, our food doesn't have the same nutrition as it did 5,000 years ago. Which means strategic daily nutritional supplementation is important to enjoy the same level of health and energy as an ancient queen had to rule her kingdom with. Same with rest. Joseph of the Technicolor Dream Coat fame was so beloved by Egypt because of his prophetic dreaming. He had to have lots of time and allowance to sleep to have those dreams. And Joseph may have been particularly talented as a prophet, but dreaming was considered an important time to commune with the gods for everyone, which meant everyone got plenty of rest. Now you see why modern society wants us all sleep deprived, and stuck in Mall World when we do sleep... A recognition of the spiritual in every aspect of the human experience. Which leads to prioritizing hygiene - both of the physical and spiritual form. Often at the same time - a hot bath with Epsom salt and Dettol does a whole lot all at once. So does a good scalp oiling with a rosemary infused olive oil - "thou anoint my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Psalm 23, if you're somehow unfamiliar). Anyone with the Clair's to be able to visualize the crown chakra knows it looks kinda like a big, white martini glass to catch the Universal Energy and funnel it into your spine, so it's pretty obvious we're talking about scalp oiling aiding in opening the crown chakra here, and strengthening your direct connection to the God source. Plus, it makes your hair grow like a weed, and thicken up like whoa. But if you oil your scalp, you have to cleanse it properly, too, you can't just layer a new layer of oil over an old one, that'll clog your hair follicles. And that takes a more targeted cleanse than a standard shampoo, which I use a combo of African Black Soap and Kojic Acid Soap to maintain. Those are also the soaps I use, along with an African Net Sponge, to maintain the rest of my body hygiene. It's a very inexpensive and low-packaging shower routine. Which is important because a queen can't succumb to the vanity of only considering herself, everything she does should consider the health of the community, and that means her impact on the environment. This is where veiling comes in, too - I have always wanted long princess hair, and have never been able to achieve it, and if keeping my hair wrapped in silk all day will help me achieve my goal, and will also symbolically protect my hair and crown chakra from evil eye energy? How luxurious is that? I'm in. Remember, head wraps can be sprayed with Florida Water and adorned with protective stones and symbols, too. There's your crown, queen. No need for some useless tiara when you have a lovingly maintained and protected direct connection to the Universal God Source. As for veiling the rest of my form, I'm clothing myself in styles and fabrics I feel are both comfortable, and reflect my personal style. I've always given a damn about how I present myself publicly, and made sure that I was dressed appropriately and stylishly for any occasion I was in. Nowadays, I'm doing that with an eye towards natural fabrics. Not that I'm going to give up my Adidas track pants or acrylic sweaters any time soon, but I'm prioritizing silks, linens, hemp, and higher-quality cotton if possible. Wools and real down are unfortunately off the table for me thanks to allergies, but the plant fibers (and worm butt fibers!) are all my friends. As for adornments, instead of "shiny expensive mass-produced metal bit," wearing jewelry designed by talented independent artists, using all kinds of materials, mostly chosen for their spiritual significance and use as well as beauty is a lot closer to what our royal ancient ancestors were doing than what Cartier or Jared are doing today. And you're supporting art in general, and an artist in your community by opting for independent jewelry over a mass-produced house or brand. I've always been a fan of perfumes and personal fragrance, and occasion and company specific, of course, I love wearing a good, strong scent. Definitely a personal preference, but mine is to smell delicious whenever I can. And that cycles back to personal physical care - Egypt deified the man who discovered oils and butters and compounds for skin health. And they're still very much available today - I just melted mangosteen seed butter, raw coconut oil, and olive oil together with Chebe powder to use as a hair sealant. This is not unlike what he was doing all those millennia ago. And I've already written multiple blog posts about how well that's been going for my hair growth, and how oils and butters are improving my wound and scar care, let alone how healthy my skin is layering single, nutritious ingredients over it instead of artificially-sourced ingredients in a drugstore lotion. Just like your internal diet, strive for feeding your skin minimally processed ingredients with optimal nutrition. And the results of all this royal treatment? Sovereignty and dignity. And an appreciation of true abundance over the modern, capitalistic concept of "wealth." This lifestyle doesn't require what we consider "wealth," which means it also doesn't require "hustle," it requires alignment with the God source in very literal ways, as well as an outward focus on community involvement and improvement, because direct alignment with the God source makes you see how that benefits you personally precisely because it benefits everyone. But damn, I figured my life out because of it. Can't complain.

I snapped this pic right before taking it down for my bath, hence the robe. I had tied it some six hours prior. No pins or rubber bands, just a couple of knots and some tucking. And I don't have an occipital ridge, it's hard for me to wear the circle kind of headbands without a hairstyle to hold it in place at the nape of my neck. Veiling in public started today. I took off my sleep bonnet and started to style my hair to go out to the grocery store, and then I was like "no, today is a head wrap day." So, I pulled out a Ukrainian scarf (might as well get as many points of ancestry in there as possible, right?), and copied one of the tutorials I've been watching over my mulberry silk lined, modal cotton outer beanie-style bonnet, which I could have stuffed for a taller wrap, but went just with my hair and the excess beanie material. Pretty impressive for fine hair, huh? I'm saving the tutorials I want to try in a public playlist, if anyone wants to check it out: I used the second wrap from this video for my wrap today: I also got the notification that my jersey hijabs are in the mail, hooray!! You may never see my hair in the wild again! In other hair news, I used up the yellow shea butter based chebe butter tonight, and promptly made a new batch with the kokum butter, so it has time to sit and solidify before my next treatment. This means I get to shake the jar every so often to keep the chebe from sitting at the bottom while it all hardens up again. And as for why I was out grocery shopping in the first place: Lentil sprouts were a rousing success, so I went out to pick up some mung beans and chickpeas to sprout next. Munching on sprouts and sea salt is going to be my new popcorn, I can feel it... And for something completely random, my grandmother announced today that her parents, my great-grandparents, were Freemasons their entire lives. She never thought anything of it, it was a lovely social club for both of them. Good grief. My secret society ancestors right now: Meanwhile, me:

Not only did we just have a whole night of some severe thunderstorms the other night, today the trees and scrub underbrush all have that green aura before it starts to bud out. And we don't tap our sugar maples, but you can tell the sap is flowing considering the big red buds they're sprouting right now. We likely have one more good snow storm coming off of Lake Michigan before it's really spring, but Persephone is definitely back topside. I saw my allergist the other week, and I'm stocked up on my nasal spray, I'm ready for the flowers! You want to kill a whole season? Have major surgery at the very beginning, and spend half of it on Oxy. I'm sitting here like "damn, summer event calendars are about to drop, I need to start getting with people and making plans..." while we're just coming out of the "is it late November or early March?" weather vibe, and I'm still not sure if I'm recipe prepping for Thanksgiving or grill season because that was a blip on the surgery timeline last year. The spring-ness is being emphasized by my main entertainment today being watching a jar of lentils sprout. "Riveting," I'm sure you're thinking, but this is just 78 cents of Aldi green lentils that started sprouting pretty much the minute they were hydrated and saw sunlight. This is fun to watch! And I'm going to have Buddha bowls for dinner once they have lil bb leaves! The birds are starting to come back up north, too, and it's blowing the cats' minds. This is Penelope and Milosh at the end of my bed as I write this post: The bird can and can't be seen in-between the branches of the shrub in the top right window frame. Bird is much clearer here. Milosh is obsessed. In more warm weather news, the bikini I ordered arrived today! Now, any physical stress triggers a migraine for me, and that includes ANY sunburn. 3% of my body? Migraine until the burn heals. So, I wear full-length UPF50 compression leggings, a full-sleeved UPF50 hoodie, and water shoes to swim. I am absolutely appropriate for a public beach in a Muslim country. But, you need to wear "underwear" underneath for support, and ease of switching out of wet bathing clothes to dry, not appropriate for the Dubai mall but totally appropriate for any Michigan coastal area "town clothes." Besides, the extreme UV protection is unneeded in an indoor hot tub, or at midnight. I am so ready for this.

TW: diets and diet culture, including describing extreme dieting techniques of the 80's and 90's. I've been waking up really late recently, daylight savings time is not helping this, and I had an 11:30am appointment yesterday. A normal person would have plenty of time to pull themselves together, but I slept until nearly 10am, and it takes my stomach a couple more hours to wake up than the rest of my body, so I went to that appointment on water, coffee, and collagen powder. And by the time the appointment was over, the McDonalds in the parking lot looked pretty amazing. Do I eat fast food? Depends on how customize-able the app makes the food. Taco Bell is my go-to, Jimmy John's and Popeye's are also favorites, but fast food is a once every other month kind of thing, maybe. That's road food. And I am so rarely on the road anymore. The last time I ate a quarter pounder meal was sometime last summer. And I should state, for the record, that I'm taking Contrave, aka Buproprion and Naltrexone, as a weight loss aid, as well as eliminating my diagnosed food allergies from my diet - dairy, soy, nuts, eggs, and tomatoes - and eating a "Mediterranean Diet" based primarily on beans & lentils, rice, lean meats, seeds, fruits & veg, and olive & avocado oils. Alright, according to the Maccas website, the burger is 520 calories, the fries 320 calories, and the regular Coca-Cola 270 calories, for a grand total of 1,110 calories. I typically eat around 1,600 calories per day. How did my body react? I spent the rest of the day sucking down water and electrolytes. But food? I finished my grandma's fries around 9pm, so maybe 100 more calories, and had two mandarin oranges, total 80 more calories. So, I ended up eating fewer calories than usual, but also got almost no fiber, and WAY more sugar and salt than I'm used to. Why bother blogging about this? As an OG Body Positivity girlie with an Anthropology degree who had Obesity Class 2 on my chart this time last year, I find the current Fat Activism pretty fascinating. Particularly the "What I eat in a day as a fat girl who dgaf about counting calories" videos where these women start their day with a meal like that, subbing in or just plain adding a coffee drink with double the calories of the Coke, and they just... keep eating normal-sized meals in the same vein after that. I used to be able to do that. And I just... can't anymore. Something I've been seeing a lot of these fat activists say lately is "diets don't work," but they just... leave it at that. Diets don't work, so that absolves them of trying. Problem being, since I am an OG, I remember the rest of that saying - "diets don't work, you have to make permanent lifestyle changes." See, I'm even old enough to remember what diets were before social media - I remember "a Slim-Fast shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a sensible dinner," essentially tricking your body into thinking it's consuming nutrition by feeding it two chemically processed 12oz protein shakes and nothing else all day, and then eating the current US administration's recommended budget dinner of a small piece of baked chicken, a couple of broccoli florets, and a single tortilla. I also remember the one where you eat nothing but a cabbage and tomato soup for a whole week, nothing else. Or the "Atkins Craze," where you only consumed protein, to the point where it was causing brain damage from lack of carbohydrates. When people say "diets don't work," they're specifically talking about these "quick fix" starvation techniques that might get you "fast results" if you want to lose 15 pounds for your vacation next month, but you'd never be able to take significant weight off, let alone keep it off, with any of them. You need lifestyle changes - you need to re-shape how you feed yourself every single day for the rest of your life, and you can't set yourself up to fall back into your old food habits. That means learning to cook from scratch for yourself, and having a stocked pantry and go-to recipes. That means meal planning. That means knowing where and how you can eat out while still maintaining your food habits. That's not a "diet" in the "diets don't work" sense like we see above, that's making healthy lifestyle choices. Learning how to independently care for your electrified meat sack, like the Sovereign Being you're supposed to be. And for the record, people with epilepsy have been eating Keto since the 1920's, and the Mediterranean Diet has obviously been eaten for millennia even though the book wasn't written until 2014. As a matter of fact, that's my biggest piece of advice for anyone who wants to make healthy food changes - don't try to eat like an American, but in a calorie deficit. Pick a culture or five that prioritizes whole foods and traditional recipes in their daily food system that you really enjoy eating cuisine from. And find cooking content creators from that country demonstrating what they're actually feeding their families on a daily basis. And learn their recipes, start to incorporate them into your meal rotation, keep the ingredients to make them on hand. WIX is riding the technical struggle bus today, and I just took a pause to reload this post, finally (at 12:45pm! Damn, McDonalds...) eat my usual breakfast of dairy-free yogurt, flax seed meal, and raw honey from my neighbor's hives before taking my meds. I also brewed a pot of masala chai, and discovered my sprouting jar lid just delivered, so I put a cup of lentils on to sprout, which I'm excited to eat in a homemade flatbread wrap with all kinds of sauces and spreads . As I was doing this, I was describing Japanese-style rice in tea broth to my grandma as a way to serve the smoked salmon we picked up yesterday. Lifestyle changes. Learning from cultures that prioritize whole foods. And taking responsibility for yourself. That's the other thing I hear so much, "I tried [diet and/or exercise] and it didn't work." Okay, but did you fight to find out why? Did you get tested for food allergies or try an elimination diet to see if there's a particular food that's at the root of your symptoms? Did you try therapy or any other treatment for any neuro/psychological issues that could be contributing to your failure here? Did you just jump into a full exercise routine right off the bat, injure yourself, and not recalibrate your routine so you could build your strength and endurance slowly? Before you "but..." me here, I learned to strength train at a fibromyalgia pain clinic, where I was also diagnosed with non-EDS joint hypermobility. The method is called " greasing the groove ." It trains your nerves as it trains your muscles, so even a brain with Central Sensitization Syndrome like mine finally realizes what you're doing is a safe move. And it trains your muscles at a reasonable pace, so you'll see fast results without injuring yourself. I lost 29" total and got buff af using this method with multiple physical disabilities. Y'all always talk about how healthy you are... And as for the people who are mad that people who were into "fat activism" are now going on GLP-1s or hitting the gym, because they profited off of being fat as a fat activist influencer on TikTok and now they're going to just cast off that identity... repeat after me, feminists: MY BODY, MY CHOICE. You only get to make decisions about your own physical form, not anyone else's. And I hate to break it to you, but being bitter about someone's personal choice about their own body just comes off as you being mad that they're proving that you can do it, too, no matter how much you claim you can't. OG Body Positivity is about loving yourself, no matter what. Let's just say that Acts of Service is your body's primary Love Language. Feeding yourself nutritionally dense food and moving your body in functional ways is an act of love. And if the result of that self-love is fat loss, that is not a "betrayal of the movement," that's being fully successful in your Acts of Service, you're seeing real world results of loving yourself enough to care for yourself in real ways. And you get the benefit of living in a strong body with all the tools at hand to function correctly, which, trust me here as a person with MANY chronic physical disabilities that have nothing to do with my weight or my general overall "soft bits" health, makes a massive difference in your life experience. I'm 100% for everyone doing whatever they want with their body, but let's at least be real in the discourse about it.

I've obviously had a lot of time to think about all of the things recently, and one thing that's been on my mind is how to keep my hair protected from the environment while I'm outside, especially for long amounts of time like camping trips. I typically used to put my hair into two cornrows, and just not touch it while I was in the woods if possible, and if not to just brush it out and re-braid it. This was also before I started wearing bonnets to bed, so I wasn't really aware of just how harsh this kind of exposure was on my very fine, very porous hair. This was also pre-chebe, so those highly porous hair cuticles gripped each other a lot more than they do now that they're properly sealed. Keeping cornrows intact for a weekend in the woods isn't as easy as it used to be. This issue is easier in winter, satin-lined beanies are a dime a dozen, and I mean that almost literally. But in the summer, when I have the power schvitz combo of post spinal cord injury + perimenopause? I need both breathe-ability, and something to hide my soaking wet hair 😅😅 So, I think to myself, "self, you're using an African hair care regimen, they must have a solution for this." Head wraps, duh. And I happen to have this realization as Sister Minnie's mom is having a big sale on her website , so I ordered some jersey hijabs to start with. And I've spent the weekend watching video tutorials on how to tie them. Holy katoot, I never realized just how versatile a good head wrap can be! Which is just one thing I like about this already. I believe I now know more ways to style a wrap than I do to style my hair. And I'm pretty good at braiding and styling! So, that's even more looks for my wardrobe. Why else? A simple wrap takes less time than a simple style on my hair, and is less damaging than a baseball cap. Which makes it lower in spoons than a hairstyle on 8am doctor appointment days. I'm not one of those people who can wear a brimmed cap just because, I need to be actively out in the sun or the rain where the brim is useful or it's a sensory issue for me. Wraps are one of the few non-brimmed headwear styles that's out there to choose from. It's one of the easiest ways to incorporate the 2026 brooch trend into a light summer wardrobe. This isn't something I'm really formally including in the Hair Growth Challenge, but I do consider my recent post-spinal cord injury kundalini re-awakening as a part of my hair growth, and have been attending to the spiritual aspects of my hair and hair growth as I attend to the physical aspects, hand in hand. I chose black, white, and plum for my first three colors. Black because it's my neutral - I have a very cool olive tone to my skin, those "clean girls" were killing me there with making their cream and beige and yellow gold jewelry trend so hard. But also because it's a protective color. White because it'll reflect the sunlight off the top of my head, which will be amazing after having black hair my whole life. But also because it's the color of the crown chakra. And plum because it made me gasp when I was scrolling through the color options - talk about a royal crown 👑 It's also really close to violet, the other color frequency associated with the crown chakra. And, well, considering all the spiritual gunk out there right now, and considering how used to spiritual attacks I am, putting a barrier between me and the world that combines physical practicality and spiritual hygiene? For the record, this is spiritual, not religious - aka you seeing or not seeing my hair has nothing to do with why I would choose to wear a wrap. This is to keep my hair from UV rays, friction from rubbing on my clothes, and bad vibes. So, yes, I will still be posting monthly length checks. I also took advantage of Second Fool's Spring to shift my closet around from winter to summer, to assess what I have, and what I need. Which is practically a snow summoning ritual, but whatever, I did it anyway. And past me set 2026 me up for success! For instance: The pair of muslin bloomers I sewed for my Pirates of the Caribbean inspired pirate wench costume 20 years ago that I found hanging in the way back of the closet. The pair of Thai "balloon pants" I bought for spine surgery number one, five years ago now, for the wide, comfy waistband. The pair of linen drawstring pants I ordered on off-season clearance last fall, and completely forgot about until today. Same story with the brand new package of tank tops in the perfect size I found in a doom pile. This... might be the first time in awhile that I've been excited about my summer wardrobe! Summer clothes used to be my favorite while I felt frumpy all winter. But my summer wardrobe has been in such a state of flux since 2020 that this is really the first time I've looked forward to enjoying wearing my hot weather wardrobe and feeling good in it since my 30's. It's not my body size, I was a size 20 my entire 30's. It's having light, fashionable clothes again, and places to wear them. And I had my first eye exam since... before the pandemic today. Early 2019, according to Zenni. So, I'm changing up my eyewear look, too. The pink lenses are the FL-41 tint for migraines, the avs are at 25%, and the latte shades are 80%. The round black shades have a 50% grey tint. I have all light situations covered. My life was really dramatically upended when I was 37-38, and since I've always tailored my wardrobe to what I wear my clothes for, e.g. for the office, for meeting tarot clients, for cocktail events or backyard parties, for being outdoors, etc, etc, I was really focused on what I would wear in my 40's as I was working through the identity shifts and shifts in my physical form that I was going through during that time. And here I am three years in still figuring that out 😅😅 But I could not have predicted my body or the crazy fashion shifts of the past six years, either. And we are NOT well enough informed about what peri/menopause does to the 40-something year old body, and how that tends to start informing your clothing choices. The muumuus make sense now. Let's see if I'm up to regular-ish OOTD content as the weather gets warmer, and I get out more so I put on more than cotton shorts and a tee, freeboobin' it and all. Just remind me to somehow overcome the ADHD time blindness and get ready to go out early enough to take pictures before going out, since my spoons are shot to hell afterwards 😅😅 Or have an accountability buddy to take pictures of me an my 'fit during said outing...

After hearing about my surprise overnight scar improvement , my grandma tried my scar combo this morning. Now, I'm not taking care of her wounds, so I'm being told that now that she's started on my daily collagen and electrolytes regimen, her wounds have healed, and she's working on scar management now. Turns out, she was dealing with scabbing that was refusing to come off, and that she thought she'd have to go to wound care to have removed for her. I'm told the minute my moisturizing trio hit the scabs, they started to fall off. They're gone now. One application. Again, no before and after pictures because of the "ew, gross" factor 😅😅 As for my scar, it's doing great. The incision went to the bone, this scar is a part of my body now, I'm not going to heal it like it never happened. But it's way less tight and restrictive on how the skin moves than it was. To recap my method, I layer from thinnest to thickest: Hyaluronic acid serum Full spectrum Vitamin E oil Raw cocoa butter Not my image, it was found on Pinterest. I have one quibble with it - cocoa butter nor any butter doesn't add moisture to the hair, it acts as a humectant and locks existing moisture into the hair when applied over wet hair. Quite a few people got in trouble misunderstanding that while growing their hair. Funny enough, searching images gets a lot about the smell of cocoa butter, which is understandable since it smells amazing, but what's so funny about the raw stuff in particular is that it doesn't have the Palmer's scent that triggers the usual childhood scent memory associations, but it does for some reason trigger the scent memory for me of a particular cocoa scented scratch-and-sniff sticker from the 80's that we'd get in elementary school as rewards for good work. Don't ask.

A few days ago, I saw a YouTube dermatologist say that topical Vitamin E doesn't do anything. Now, I recognize that this is anecdotal evidence and no scientific study, but I have to disagree... To be fair, there's the question of synthetic vs. natural, and percentage in the formula, and etc etc. Now, most naturally sourced Vitamin E is a soy derivative, so I have to be careful which Vitamin E products I use, and I generally stick to CocoJojo's Full Spectrum Vitamin E Oil (not a sponsored or affiliated link). To recap, this is my evening skincare routine: First cleanse with African Black Soap and an African net sponge Second cleanse with Kojic Acid Soap Spray down with HOCL Hyaluronic Acid serum Frankly's "The Closer" pore refining serum CocoJojo's Vitamin E oil Pure cocoa or kokum butter My surgery scar has been giving me a bit of grief, healing very hard and inflexible. Considering it's over a major joint, I decided I needed to do something about that, so my skincare routine is being brought down to my hip now, at least for a few months. All but the pore closer serum, no reason for that on my hip 😅😅 I kept thinking last night that I should take before and after pictures, but it's a gross scar, ew. But damn, I should have taken before and after pictures. Last night, the incision scar itself was purple, and the area around it where the mesh bandage was for the first month was reddish. This morning? The mesh bandage scar is barely perceptible, and the incision scar is red. That's overnight . I expected it to take WEEKS before I'd see any improvement. The FUCK. I had no idea the body could even work that fast. Just in case you were wondering why the skin on my face is so supple despite my advancing age and lack of expensive dermatological procedures. It's like I keep saying, your body actually works the way it's supposed to when you give your body what it needs to function properly.

February was kind of tough, health-wise. I ended the intro post saying that I was transitioning from healing leg to growing hair, but I definitely had more leg to heal 😅😅 Not to mention two weeks of Fool's Spring gave me a preview of migraine season, and I wasn't about to get into scalp massages when I have inflamed dura mater right underneath. Or get into showering in general when I'm in that much pain 😅😅 I think I managed four full wash days and chebe treatments for the month, which isn't bad, but is only about half of what I was aiming for. I did keep up my internal part of the challenge! Daily hydration and nutritional supplementation, as well as very minimal "cheat treats" aka foods I'm allergic to but eat anyway sometimes with the help of Benadryl, damn the torpedoes. Pizza is my biggest weakness, and I didn't have any in February. So, I felt like I was mitigating the stress of the healing leg and the migraines by not adding to it with any undue stress I put up on myself with my food choices. And I basically lived in a silk bonnet, and when I did take it off I immediately pulled my hair up into a ponytail, so yesterday's growth check was news to me! I did give myself a trim the other day, nothing that affected the length. I did default to techniques and shapes I'm used to, I need to check myself on that and explore different styles as my hair grows. So, how did February go? To compare, here's where I started: Not a lot of length overall, but the front really grew in! I did that, and healed a whole hip joint! As a preview of March, I only have about two treatments of chebe butter left with the yellow shea butter. Functionally, it's working great, but the yellow is making my greys look brassy. I purchased ivory kokum (or mangosteen, it's a seed butter) for my next batch, so there'll be a report on how kokum compares to the cocoa butter and shea butter I've used for my chebe butter so far. As well as on my skin, I usually slug with cocoa butter, but kokum is supposed to be good for pore refining, so let's see...