Hi, In 2015 I was on a flight home from a work trip that had lasted almost 3 weeks.  I sat next to an older man who ran a fitness supplement company (my dream).  He was friendly, fun to talk to, and asked me “so what do you do”?  That question got us talking about gems, the supply chain, the disturbing things people were saying about immigration and the 2015 election.   It was a good conversation, by far one of the best I’ve ever had on an airplane.   The only thing was that he kept calling me “girl” in a friendly way, punctuating our conversation with it in a thoughtful and enthusiastic way when he disagreed with something I said or vehemently agreed. I didn’t correct him.   I’ve always been embarrassed by my response to people misgendering me or calling me a girl. In 2015 I’d been out as trans for almost 4 years, and worked with a trans organizing group. But I was still too embarrassed to correct strangers, or even my family, when they got them wrong.   So I didn’t say anything.  --  We eventually trailed off, him turning to his crossword and me turning to the book I borrowed from a friend for the plane ride, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.   For a book that’s as important as this one is to speculative science fiction and social justice, it’s disturbing how close it is to our present (adrienne maree brown’s podcast abt this series basically drops the ‘speculative’ part at this point + uses it as a guide for living right now).   The main character, Oleanna, lives in a secluded compound as the world gets worse, eventually going on the run and working towards her vision of a society on the moon, driven by her religious beliefs — the idea that “god is change.”  In the background, a protofascist runs for president, with the slogan “make America great again,” and as he gains in power, eventually winning the presidential election, his supporters grow more powerful and more violent.  Even in 2015 I was uncomfortably aware of this book’s prescience. I kept tapping my foot against the back of the seat.   And even if I was reading, I was also thinking about my conversation.   Why hadn’t I corrected that guy? He was a nice man, I told him I worked on trans issues, what was my deal? Why wasn’t I doing the work?   --  Finally the man cleared his throat.  “Ma’am, would you mind not tapping your foot against the seat anymore?”  I looked at him. “Actually, I’m trans, I’m not a girl. I use he/him pronouns.”  He looked at me, smiled politely.  “That’s fine son. Sorry about that. But could you stop tapping?”  I noticed that I was tapping my foot against the seat, and stopped.   There’s never been a single monumental change for me in how I spent my day to day, or how I felt about it. But when I started reading science fiction again, after that day on the plane, I started noticing what I did all day, and noticing how I felt about it.   And what I noticed, slowly but surely, made me change.  Noticing got me to realize that I am not the only person, especially now, in the middle of an international pandemic and massive uprising, thinking about what the hell work actually is, or what creates real change in our messed up present on the brink of extinction.  --  Noticing how we feel about what we do all day is our best hope for changing the future.  Any hopeful future starts with change.   But as anyone alive during this time of pandemic could tell you — change can really, really, suck.  So: what gets you to change? What does it take to sustain that change for you?    Stay safe, h