This new community area will be used for large events scheduled once a month. Our members will socialize in a non-sexual, non-violent atmosphere at the Event Hall.
All activities will fall within the guidelines of a PG-13 rating. We are not concerned about foul language during the events, only keeping the physical aspects of interactions safe for all in attendance.
You will decide the theme of each event. You can suggest anything from a sock hop to a card tournament to a board game night.
If you have an idea, you can [email protected] propose it to the council. We’ll select one theme a month. The person with the selected activity will host, and we will announce the event in time for everyone to plan. Hosts and event guests can also blog about it prior to the event using event hashtags.
The council hopes this space will host many fabulous activities that will make everyone feel at home in our town.
The Resistance Town Hall
Since we plan to continue monthly town meetings, we are constructing a Town Hall to meet on neutral ground. We will discuss everything from events to birthday months to issues within our town.
Deli’s family will continue to cater, and Lily will continue to hold the gavel, but we believe having a place we can all gather to express ourselves will assist in the work we’ve started.
Construction will take about a month, so we will take ideas for the event hall for August.
The Town Hall will be completed in time for the July meeting. It will push the meeting to the end of the month, but since we had two meetings in June, it seems reasonable to allow time to pass before checking on progress.
Thank you for your input, and we will see you soon!
Lily, Deli, and Dona
Town Council
The Cat Is So Done With Everything
DELILAH
Every day, it gets a little harder to keep up the facade.
There’s this incremental constriction of the space between my own thoughts, as though the walls of the house and the problems in the community are closing in one by one. I do my ordinary routines—working, answering emails, adjusting things to prepare for the new stuff—with the robotic precision of someone on the verge of forgetting why it matters. It helps to make lists, to check off the little boxes of duty and affection, but beneath the surface, the baseline hum of anxiety, fear, responsibility, and the ache of persistent uncertainty keeps growing louder. I get up in the morning and the walls shrink more every single hour.
These fucking people are killing my joy slowly.
I love my family, and I love my job—which I repeat to myself like a mantra. Those are my anchors, the thick twined ropes that keep me moored against the constant undertow. I hang onto that knowledge when everything else feels like it’s going to pull me under. The lies I tell myself are that if I say these things enough, they will grow layers of defense against the rot. It alwaysstarts with little things like passive-aggressive comments, petty arguments, and memories of former failures that replay with mortifying edits.
Survival is an accomplishment, and I know that keeping my family afloat and my professional reputation intact is important. But there are troubles at home and community issues, and it just goes on and on, like a tap leaking into a bottomless sink.
It’s making it harder and harder to put on the smiley face everyone wants from me.
The community, for all its promises, is a roiling mess of old wounds and new hostilities. There’s always a cause that needs urgent attention, and always a dozen voices in the room who want to tell me how I’m failing it. Some days, I barely scrape together the energy to fight back or argue my case with dignity. More often, I just nod, swallowing my actual opinions until they gag me on the way down. It’s not the leader I want to be, nor a good one, but it feels like I have no options sometimes.
To their credit, Talia and Taurus have been attempting to gather allies. Taurus has wormed his way in with Tamara and Michaela almost overnight. He spends hours with them doing things I never quite understand—listening to their shit, looking at dumb cars, or whatever else they’re fixated on. He’s started calling Michaela his ‘little sis’ in a way that makes my heart trip with both pride and a pang of jealousy.
I’ve watched her cozy up to people before, and I just don’t trust it.
Talia has been socializing with lots of people, even though she claims the effort leaves her feeling like she’s been submerged in cold water for hours. She’ll come home and collapse onthe couch, arms flung over her face, and groan about the performative garbage of community events. But then, a few days later, I’ll catch her texting someone or begrudgingly heading for a meet-up. She tells me that she hates every minute of forced interaction, but it’s worth it to make sure the people she loves are happy. I get the sense that neither of them will ever fully understand the panic I feel when I see them going to do one of those things, or the deep primal fear that some unseeable calamity will take them from me.
Sari fucked me up when it comes to being okay with my loved ones hanging out with anyone here, and I know it.
I’ve been doing what I can, despite the occasional bullshit from Sari. She finds something to nitpick in every action I take, and she’s always around to make me a convenient scapegoat for the collective failures of our efforts. I play nice, but every interaction with her costs me dearly. I don’t have to deal with Wilde because he’s been after Rafe and Talia in small, aggravating ways. Luckily, neither of them is even remotely interested, so I can stew in my fury, but I don’t get worried about it.
Honestly, ignoring him is the easiest part of this shit at the moment.
The people who beat me to death in the meeting make for an especially thorny challenge. I see them around, and they always give me a smile that doesn’t reach their eyes. I know I should confront them, but the truth is I’m afraid of what might come pouring out. So I take the high road and let the insults accumulate in my chest like sediment. There are days when the weight of it makes my hands shake, and I have to hide in my closet for a while, breathing through my nose until the feeling passes.
Those little indignities add up, and my family sees it, and I know it angers them, but we keep pretending it’s fine. Rafe is painting more, and Taurus throws himself into his work. Still, I find myself lying awake at night, replaying every minor confrontation, every slight, every failure to stand up for myself.
