Friday Joy: In-Person Meetings

For real for real. Also: race in the world of fantasy, disability justice in the food movement & WAFFLES.

Photo by Redd F on Unsplash

I never thought I would be excited about going to three separate gatherings of strangers over the course of two weeks. She hated small talk at parties could be my epitaph. But these are desperate times—18 months after moving to a new city and working almost exclusively from home—when desperate measures start to sound really kind of smart, actually.

The social network of local food systems is often surprisingly small, so I've been doing what I can to become a part of that space in the Denver area, the way I was in New Orleans. But it is nearly impossible to make friends in a large Zoom meeting. All the attendees pop up at the designated meeting time, there is no chatting beyond a little breakout room banter, and then everyone blips off when the meeting ends.

I'm not the life of the party or the person who is going to charm a room full of strangers with my well-timed joke. I'm not going to take myself off mute in an unknown situation. I'm introverted and shy, so I need to feel safe before I can be myself. And then it's great! I'm funny and love to chat and I'll tell that joke in the safety of the known. But big virtual meetings feel like an impossible barrier to getting to that place where I feel comfortable being myself with a group of relative strangers.

So I jumped at the chance to attend three in-person meetings over the last couple weeks, all of them related to the local food system. Some attendees I have known for months virtually, but just 30 minutes chatting over a beer bonded us more closely than all those on-screen hours. Most others I had never met before, but our in-person time together built a foundation for something in the future.

Have you seen the documentary We Met in Virtual Reality?¹ I can't hack my need for in-person connection and community, but I'm open to the idea that maybe others can. For me there is something elemental and irreplaceable about being in another person's presence—the million small nuances in facial expressions, in body language—but what I found fascinating about that doc was that the reasons why people chose virtual reality over IRL all made sense to me.

One thing the pandemic revealed to me is how much I need people in my life whose regular presence I appreciate, even if we aren’t BFFs. The person you bump into in the copy room every week, the colleague you talk to about your kids who are the same age. These passing relationships are real relationships that add texture and connection to my life, but they need real life to exist. (At least for me. If you are able to have them in virtual reality, please tell me more because I am very interested.)

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What I'm into this week

Reading

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam. How do you look for transgender history, when "transgender" is a relatively new concept, and one rooted in Western culture and values? Does the term "homosexual" apply to wakashuu—assigned male at birth sex workers and performers in Tokugawa Japan who slept with men, and were considered neither men nor women, but their own gender category? The contemporary Western narrative about transgender people is narrow, and leaves out so much of the full range of experience, as well as the cultures that don't adhere to a strict gender binary. This book, by a white trans historian and activist, is taking a step toward a more inclusive understanding of trans history.

Watching

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. Often around this time of year, I like to watch the extended version of each of the Lord of the Rings movies. I think because I originally saw them in theaters in December and also because it is very cozy to curl up in winter and watch an epic fantasy tale in which good triumphs over evil, they feel like holiday movies to me. My husband is very much on board with this tradition, but this year we decided to instead finally watch the LOTR Amazon series, which is fulfilling my fantasy needs and it is bringing me so much delight to see a Tolkien world populated with people of color. Not only because it makes the (Internet, not cave-dwelling) trolls mad, but also because in having race separate from species, it quietly but persistently undermines the biological primacy of race. (For more on race and colonialism in the world of fantasy, I recommend listening to the Code Switch episode "Gaming out race in Dungeons & Dragons.")

Cooking

Pajeon (Korean green onion & vegetable fritters) WAFFLES! Vegetable fritters are a somewhat new family favorite. My older son made them last summer in the demo kitchen at the Denver Children's Museum and fell in love with them, and they remain the only way he will willingly eat zucchini. I adore any kind of Asian fritter-ish thing (like pajeon or okonomiyaki), but frying fritters is the worst kind of weeknight dinner because cooking enough for four people takes forever and almost all of it is active, oil-splattered time. In the comments of the New York Times pajeon recipe I use, a few people mentioned successfully putting the batter in their waffle maker. Genius! The waffle versions are crisp on one side and soft and chewy on the other, and you can reheat the leftovers in the toaster. I want to put a fried egg on top and try it for breakfast.

civileats

A post shared by Civil Eats (@civileats)

Thinking About

Disabled Activists Are Building a More Inclusive Food Justice Future - Civil Eats. This is such an important article for everyone to read, but especially if you work in a food justice organization. I’m just going to quote it:

“Many food justice organizations implicitly define health as the opposite of disability,” or simply fail to explain what ‘health’ means in the context of their efforts, writes scholar-advocate Natasha Simpson in her 2022 master’s thesis for the University of California, Davis. This approach may unknowingly perpetuate the ableist idea that “healthy” bodies are “normal” bodies, she adds. If the mission of, say, a fresh food mobile market is to prevent diabetes in a community, where does that leave folks already living with diabetes or those who cannot be ‘cured’ by a produce-rich diet?

By applying disability justice—an intersectional framework that recognizes “all bodies [as] unique and essential” and centers the “histories of white supremacy and ableism [as] inextricably entwined”—food justice organizations can avoid vilifying an illness, condition, or certain kinds of bodies, Simpson explains.

I love it when the Friday newsletter ends up with an inadvertent theme. This one, I think, is all about our unique and essential bodies—together in person, escaping them for a bit into virtual reality, expressing our genders in so many different ways, and moving through the world with support and the intentional care of others.

Reminder

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I hope you and your unique and essential body have a wonderful weekend.

1. If you watch the movie with someone else, a fun game is to figure out which virtual reality persona would be yours, if you existed in virtual reality. Mine was a cheerful hot dog wearing a bow tie who just uses VR to hang out with friends.