Art Mail 13

Remember these guys from Easter? No? Well that's probably because I've been too busy 

to keep up and catch up with this, as usual!

Back in May a valiant effort was made, not only to post about what I was up to in a way timely enough that it still made sense, but also to catch up with 2017, and finish a few of the stragglers from 2016 (did Hiroshima and the Setouchi Triennale even happen if I haven't written about them or backed up the photos more than twice why am I like this plz help). 

I powered through Easter, our third and last cherry blossom season in Tokyo, and the big giant stressful German visit to Japan the spring before that - phew, nice! - and then..

Well, I never did make it to Golden Week 2017, which involved photographing the weddings of about half a dozen strange couples just because they kept happening where I was already standing, walking around Meiji Jingu and Harajuku, the obligatory stupidly cute cafes, and going to Nikko and Mashiko. 

After that, in pretty rapid succession, were Seoul and Taiwan again, a bunch of shows, moving out / leaving Tokyo and our goodbye party, and then two massively stressful months spent far apart working our asses off before we finally moved into our apartment here in Hamburg last December 1st. Hard to believe that was already over a year ago. But hey, I managed to share the posts and photos about last fall in Arizona, so I've got that going for me I guess.

This year has been similar: things started coming together and getting a lot better for us once we were married and my residency/visa status was no longer up in the air and I knew that I finally had health insurance and work permission, but things also sped up and have never slowed down. When you have a massive group of friends and acquaintances there's always an event, holiday, weekend trip, international vacation, birthday, marriage, pregnancy, baby, little kid stuff going on, old dog, new dog, etc. etc. etc. 

It's awesome, but I spent most of my childhood in quiet solitude, so it's also a pace to get used to for sure. So here I am now, deciding to post the rest of the year's art mail minus the Christmas stuff - which is next - just before New Year's Eve. 

The lack of surprise is audible, tangible, and even thick.

Anyway: What other art mail has there been post-Ostara? Well, you wouldn't be here if you didn't plan on finding out. It's definitely been less elaborate than what I was doing when I wasn't getting anywhere near enough hours in Japan and was also trying to use up as much squirreled-away paper stuff as possible, that's for sure. No elaborate colourful collages this year, no time. It's more straight-up gifted, received, and purchased objets d'art, and a continual exchanging of postcards.

Let's rewind back to my mom's birthday / Mother's Day, which I talked about in Dancing Into May, which became '*Dancing Into July' and then '**Dancing Into Christmas' and then '***Please help'. We bought this tiny painting for her from a friendly street vendor while on our mini-honeymoon in Heidelberg. It's decidedly Parisian post-impressionist but depicts recogniseable parts of this historic city instead, so I knew the combo was perfect for her.

Pleasant packaging design, that is all

And of course, the sheet music angel and seaside ornaments, which were not handmade by me, so.. Moving right along!

While searching for jobs and gradually losing my mind I got together my "stamp collection" and organised it like the OCD micromanaging anxiety dumpster fire I am.

Mostly these have come from my mom. I was never serious about this as a hobby (just like literally everything else I've ever done) and simply enjoy pretty stamps when I see them, so she would put interesting or special commemorative ones she saw aside for me when I was a kid. I've kept several from Japan, too. The Pathfinder one above I remember pretty vividly, as it's just massive for a single image, and it came on a box from my mom's artist friend in Oregon, in 1997. We have a space-themed wall in our living room now so eventually I'll find a little frame that fits it and hang it up.

I think this Alice's Adventures in Wonderland one is pretty amazing. 

And will I ever use these for art mail? 

Fuck no. What a stupid question.

These postcards I got while out boating with the in-laws and another couple 

they do that and also go skiing with. 

The Müritz is the largest lake in Germany, and it's not far from Rostock. It's quite a lot of complex, connected bodies of water with small thoroughfares built in, and you can even take the tributaries, or whatever you call the small winding extensions of it and the small lakes they form here and there, all the way down to Berlin. If anyone else has ever read a particularly sad, short little non-chronological novel called Visitation, these are the waterways the author is describing when she introduces the house at the center of the story and its idyllic plot of land a good ways outside the city.

Anyway, the boating thing was impromptu, and I only ended up being invited because I had to go to Rostock for an appointment that my mom-in-law needed to help me out with in case I couldn't communicate adequately enough (spoiler alert, it was fine), and well, the boating was already planned for the entire day before, which was when I needed to take the train into town, so..

At first I felt like kind of a fifth wheel who couldn't communicate and had nothing in common with these two almost retirement-aged couples, but it ended up being one of the single nicest day outings I've ever been on. It was a picture-perfect day, sunny and clear with a bright blue sky. We had fresh and similarly perfect strawberries with us because it was that season and they grow so well here that the best-known strawberry farm outside Rostock is something of an entertainment destination, and franchise. These northern German strawberries are easily the best ones I've ever eaten, and seriously, everyone should try them. 

We stopped in Waren or Waren-Müritz, as you can see on the postcards there, which is a beautiful town complete with an impressive brick gothic church just like the many other minor resort towns in this region, though this just happens to be the main one situated on the lake. We swam too, and it was hilarious. 

This is just one of the many other things I'll get around to posting about eventually, and hopefully pretty soon.

In the meantime, Nico and Andrea took their daughter on a massive ridiculous road trip through Germany, France, Disneyland, Italy, and Monaco for her birthday, and she loved the unicorn Pillow Pet I gave her :D

Speaking of 'cute packaging design, that is all': it took fucking forever to get my Yetee order, but that's almost certainly because the German post is shit, and their mailers and the 3D glasses they come with are heckin' cute.

This illustration, called "Off Duty", is by Chris Gerringer.

Next up, something I went way overboard with even though I had almost literally no money: a surprise birthday box for Sara's second daughter's 1st birthday, since she was born right after I arrived home to sell my stuff last year and I didn't have anything to give at the time. Sara was nice enough to try to plan to meet me the day before they induced labour, but naturally that didn't happen, and I met squishy sleepy baby Romy before leaving for Germany instead.

I decided on a unicorn theme and got pretty fixated on making it cute and nice considering how limited my resources were at the time lol. For the record, I also didn't make this ._.;

... Or this adorable crocheted keepsake rattle.

But hey, someone in Germany did!

A perfect match, and all very light and inexpensive!

This colouring and sticker book was for the older daughter, because I mean like, it's more about her than the baby, who doesn't really know what's going on.

Look at that fucking whale rug right there. Massively girly and glittery and way too cute to resist.

But not everything was girly! I made sure of that. I'd totally recommend this cool book for children of all ages, and for adults too. I flipped through a few of the pages with Hannes and we both enjoyed it. It's such a neat concept. No reading or more than a look necessary, big for keeping the attention of and/or showing to a group of little ones; but if you want, the small amount of info accompanying each illustration can also get fairly detailed. (Oh - and some Christmas sweets for mom and dad.)

That's right, this was a multi-purpose box, and as a result, it was one of only three? total anythings that actually arrived on time for Christmas. -slow exasperated face palm-

But at any rate - check this book out! It's even better than Actual Size.

It's the true story of Mary Anning, told in simple language and in a graphic novel format, with beautiful illustrations. Do you know how long I spent trying to find an interesting and attractive science book with a female protagonist and/or historical figure appropriate for a 4 - 5 year-old? 

Way too, that's how. 

Take advantage of my researching and browsing, and take my word for it: you also want to get this for the wee lass in your life to offset all that adorable pink glittery shit to which society relegates us as females (but that you also just kind of have to admit that you still like and make high-pitched sounds over even as a grown-ass adult).

Bam, motherfuckin' educational and awesome

This older sister Julie's birthday is in January, so at the time I was like, well, if I'm sending something for the little one's birthday.. And a couple of Christmas sweets.. Might as well get all three of these ducks in a row and sink them in a glass house. Or fucking whatever. I found this box and painted her name on it.

I also found matching hair bow clippies, chocolates that are probably too rich for a five year-old in a festive box, and mini books from Flying Tiger that contain no words at all, so the baby can look at them too, and you can make up your own dialogue. Good enough!

#aesthetic, right? hrrnnggg

Oh right, there were also vegetarian unicorn gummi candies, Austrian wafer biscuits, hair accessories, Japanese flake stickers, and Kinder Chocolate. I'm pretty sure everything was a big hit.

Their mom, my friend Sara, sent some lovely belated congratulations and birthday art mail more or less in reply, because of the timing. One for each of us, for the marriage and the birthdays, so that's why there are four.

These colourful colouring pages and letters that she and Julie make together are always super charming.

Who didn't grow up in the 90's being obsessed with Lisa Frank, right?

And actually, this is the only art mail I've gotten this year! There have been quite a lot of wedding cards of course, and a few other creative paper-based ways to present us with money for that (which will be included in yet another post still to come), as well as several postcards from several different people in the U.S. and Japan, and a few really wonderful gift/goodie/care boxes. Maybe 2019 will have more actual art mail. We'll see!

There are various free postcard stands in places like bars and cafes throughout Germany called Edgar Free Cards, and I always scope them out in case something artsy or otherwise worthwhile comes up. Then, one day, at the gym, this happened. I basically grabbed a chunk of them. All are mine, none have been sent yet. Yas.

Here's another purchase of mine, a gift for a friend: stickers of a few of the illustrations of Apollonia Saintclair.

Yet another art-related purchase I'm super happy about: friends of ours and members of kaala started their own line of T-shirts and the occasional sweatpants called Jubokko Productions. Mostly it's grindcore, demons, cult horror, and wrestling-related.

And I hate that I look like such a gross frumpy mess in this pic after a long train ride and I should have really tried harder to pose but look! One of Meika's illustrations on a Self Deconstruction shirt! Eee! I had to own it.

The main reason the mail has been less artsy is this task, which has basically eaten my life and that I'm still working on now (Jesus take the wheel): the wedding and reception thank you cards.

Actually, the ones such as those above all went to the States, as money had been trickling in to my mom all spring and summer once she sent out announcements on that end, and I finished them quickly. This here is what's been killing me: the German ones.

I decorated the envelopes with paint splatters turned into lanterns like we had at the garden party, stamped, and eventually addressed them all.

The thing is, though, that I wanted to include more than the group photo with a little personalised thank you memo written on the back for everyone, since they've already waited quite a long time and haven't seen the photos from the party yet.

But I have literally thousands of photos from this year. 

Literally. Thousands.

Just the idea of trying to get through them all, choose, and lightly edit the best few of each person or couple to print, left me completely overwhelmed, especially once I started working about a month later.

There just weren't any hours left in the day by November. And then the end of the year predictably crept right up on me and us now about to pass. Urrrggghhh.

Our living room table has looked like this for months. The good news is, though, that I've finally been through everyone's photos, including the 900 or so from the amateur photographer that we had waited on for quite a long time. They're going out soon, Happy New Year \(;___;\)

The final artsy purchase of the year (because actually I don't know if the signed photo print I bought ever made it to my mom's address safely or what), which I had sent to Phoenix because it arrived just in time to be brought back to Germany by my in-laws who were visiting in October. A painting inspired by the Stephen King novel Sleeping Beauties, which Hannes is now reading because he loves those story bricks but missed one, by an L.A. artist called Jessen.

Pretty sure my mom chose to send our small birthday packet this way just because it's cute. 

And obviously I've saved the stamps :3

The pop-up cards she chose were really cool! I'm tempted to add the X-wing one to that aforementioned space wall but.. that'd be taking it a little too far. She also sent me her Betsey Johnson sunglasses, because the matching pair she'd gotten me several years ago finally, irreparably broke, while she was here in fact. This was very touching.

She also sent maple sugar candy, because I said it was pretty much the only edible thing from North America that I might be interested in for the holiday season.

And finally, the amazing autumnal goodie package from Angelique! 

I asked her to please send some pumpkin spice, but also got: two adorable cans of herbal winter tea for when you're sick, local honey sticks in various different flavours, an obscene gluten-free chocolate cookie from a local bakery, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (I had forgotten that I used to snack on these pretty often and missed them!), a handmade pot holder, and a seasoning salt blend that's apparently a signature Montana thing. She remembered that Hannes has a romantic concept of that wide open country and really wants to go! ;○; (And yes, it's also very tasty.)

Plus the maple candy for #aesthetic, of course. I got these at the same time because postal service is so bad and unreliable in Hamburg that we're asking people to just send things to Hannes' parents.

More adorable packaging design.. These will of course come in very handy when we inevitably get sick at some point during the long, dark 4-month winter.

And finally, these are 800-ish year-old Anasazi pottery shards from one of my mom's friends. He gave a small package of them as a gift to Hannes' parents when they were in Arizona, and once they were back, they saw how much I liked them and gave me half. He also sent with them, as a belated wedding gift, one of the signature brass wind bells from Arcosanti. These, too, will show up again in another post when I photo dump and brag about all the cool fancy shit people gave us when we tied the knot.

Most of this stuff doesn't count as art mail, but well, most of it is handmade and/or art and it was all transported by mail except for the mini birthday card, the pottery shards, and those stamps and Jeff Goldblum postcards I'll probably hoard forever, so..¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What Is the Deal with Kyrsten Sinema Even?

Here I am with 40 or 50 backed-up posts, including at least half of last year because the multiple Korea and Taiwan trip posts are included in that stack, along with the rest of my eventful unemployed summer, but there's aaalways something else to do. 
In a good way. Not just keeping the place clean and dinner cooked and that kind of stuff. We're extremely busy, but it's great. 

Wednesday was Hannes' birthday, Sunday was mine, and we spent the weekend being entertained and fed in Rostock. The weekend before that we were in Copenhagen, which was a wonderful wedding gift from friends who remembered that I had really wanted to go when I was first in Germany 4 years ago. 
The weekend before that was Solvig's birthday, and together we baked a much-publicised vegan rainbow unicorn cake for it. And as for this weekend, we're leaving super early in the morning for a one-day post-black metal festival in the Netherlands called Soulcrusher, which is my amazing 30th birthday gift from Hannes.

(Of course, there's all the much-less-fun stuff keeping me occupied as well, like trying to find a damn job; going to doctors' appointments for the first time since I lived in Korea, except that they're actually getting stuff done here instead of just treating symptoms as they come up, and it's free; trying to convert my driver's license into a German one; finally finishing all the wedding thank you cards; and so on, virtually ad infinitum.)

The posts about our wedding reception and the two full weeks of entertainment with my mom, NiQui, Rejon, and Angelique associated with it are next in line, as are the posts about the Czech Republic. Where has this year even gone? It's blown right by. I feel like the last time I looked up it was still July.

Now the much-anticipated midterm elections are upon us. 

I've decided to make a post about the one weird choice I have to make, that I just explained to friends at length - probably too at-length, really - in a group chat. 
I might have to vote for a flippy-floppy DINO centrist named Kyrsten Sinema to replace Jeff Flake in congress. Unsurprisingly, it's kind of a long story. 

Fucking Flake™, as I have un-affectionately branded that spineless and unqualified piece of absolute shit with a melty and thoroughly-punchable face very much like that of John Kerry, is thankfully not running for re-election. I was mighty upset when he ran in the first place, knowing that with that big stupid "R" next to his name he would win in my back-assward, gun-toting hick state despite the fact that as a person he is comprised exclusively of shortcomings. He replaced Jon Kyl, whose office couldn't even be bothered to reply to my e-mails with autoresponses when I was in high school, and who I despised (and continue to despise) similarly. Who even has two first names that are each missing a letter? 

The worst part, though, is that I remember this particular election well, because it happened right before I left the States forever, when I was genuinely ready to rip out my hair and mindlessly smash everything around me because of exactly this kind of bullshit, even though I was confident that Obama was about to be re-elected. It was fall of 2012.

Flake ran against Richard Carmona, the 17th Surgeon General of the United States. Carmona is so very many things that are appealing to both progressives and conservatives: a physician, paramedic, Special Forces combat medic, decorated Vietnam veteran and cop, tactical expert, former deputy sheriff, professor, and vocal critic of the Bush Administration and its various anti-science stances, among other things. Am I a fan of cops or people who went to Vietnam and napalmed villages for.. whatever the hell reason that was supposed to be for? Fuck no. But the man is thoroughly educated and dedicated to public health and safety, with not one but several successful careers under his belt.

Flake has an MA in political science from BYU (until now I really thought he only had a BA, I'm very surprised), and spent two years in South Africa on a Mormon mission. 
His Mormon ancestors set up one of their creepy crazy people temples in Snowflake, Arizona, which is named after them. My mom once lived there and worked for members of the Flake family. She says there's not a good apple in the whole bunch. Anecdotal and personal, sure. But they're wealthy, white, melty-faced, small-town Arizona LDS members. Carmona is into some super shady business stuff too, including but not limited to Herbalife, but come on.

No contest. It should have been no contest.

Carmona was winning, until Flake started running attack ads. 

Actually, this one is news to me, but this bullshit is standard on TV, too, not an occasional low blow wedged in once or twice but repeating incessantly between commercials about sketchy payday loan places and fast food. God I hate my former state.

But this is the one that did run on TV, that I was referring to:

This bitch recorded and ran it in Spanish, too, because they're both Hispanic. 

If you read the New Times 'attack ads' link above, you'll learn that this woman has a history of exaggeration and dishonesty, and that as a supporter and beneficiary of the Bush Administration, it's pretty clear why she would want to help Flake burn Carmona down. For The Party. Whatever, Beato. As a Latina woman you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. You're lucky you're rich and don't have to deal with the damage these soulless psychopaths do to those of us who aren't.

Anyway, this was one of the last straws for me. I felt physically pained on a daily basis by the vile discourse, dark money, corruption, hopelessness, ignorance, lobbying power, corporate domination, and bleak future when this was going on 6 years ago. I cannot imagine physically existing in the United States and intending to continue living there now, especially with children.

Now Flake is finally stepping down, having been temporarily bumped up a seat in the wake of John McCain's long-overdue forced retirement and dramatic voting anomaly on the ACA, which was surely prompted by the infinite emptiness of the void and his sudden proximity to it. Gosh, it's funny how assholes suddenly care about things like cancer treatment and accessible basic healthcare in general once these things suddenly affect them directly, right?! Like they literally never thought about it before because it was outside their direct personal experience, like the assumed they would literally never need help themselves. 

Unfortunately, Kyl has been brought back to fill that empty senior senate seat, and up for election is only one representative, for the junior one. The only thing I've seen about Kyl since all of this has been going on was that Kavanaugh confirmation protesters managed to corner him in an elevator or basement or bathroom or something like that at the capitol that they're increasingly overrunning at the moment, and he whimpered at them to leave him alone. Lol. Good. 
Don't leave him alone.

But well, now that you have all the backstory, here's where my weird choice comes in. 

At first, a relatively young white woman who graduated high school at 16 as valedictorian and later went on to become a social worker and eventually earn a Ph.D., who formerly represented Arizona's 9th congressional district and who would not only be the first woman to represent Arizona in the U.S. Congress but who would also be its first-ever openly LGBT(QIA) member and who is currently its only openly non-theist/atheist member sounds like a no-brainer, shoe-in, dream choice. Well, I mean, it would be a little dreamier if she represented our largest ethnic minorities too. 

But. Hold up.

Kyrsten Sinema is weird. She is a weird, contradictory, inconsistent person to the extent that I don't just wonder if she's doing whatever it takes to advance her own career, because that's obvious, but that I even wonder if she might have two distinct personalities or something. 
She summited Kilimanjaro a few years ago and seems mildly obsessed with marathon times, which reminds me a lot of the characters depicted in House of Cards. In January a man was arrested for stalking her. With everything this lady has going on, it doesn't sound entirely unlike a TV show. I'm just getting these weird bits out of the way because they have nothing to do with any of my grievances, but that resemblance and the disingenuousness I'm about to describe concern me, since we're being governed to death by a literal reality show that has no idea what it's doing. And so, I keep saying that I'm going to make this weird choice that I don't really like now that it's midterm time, so let me explain why the idea of voting for her makes me cringe and why I really want to know: what is the deal with her even?

Again, I think of Sinema as an unappealing, moderate, centrist, DINO, but I admittedly had to google to remember exactly what it was that she did a few years ago, specifically, that pissed everyone off so much: 
Three years ago, along with only 46 other democrats, she voted for the Security Against Foreign Enemies (or "SAFE", eyeroll) Act, which prevented the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the U.S. until the vetting process for them was somehow made even stricter than it already was, which was very very. Very. 
It felt like virtually every woman in Arizona under 40 capable of reading and discerning what is a fact and what is not voiced their incredulity and disapproval over this on social media and to her office directly. I mean, really? Xenophobia and/or Islamophobia from the openly-bisexual female democrat? Indirectly referring to people seeking asylum - which, contrary to popular racist idiot belief these days, is not a crime - as "enemies"? 

She wrote her damn dissertation on the Rwandan Genocide. 
...

People accused her then and have accused her previously of sacrificing her principles and original platform to further her political career, and wouldn't you know it, that career has correspondingly advanced. Let's talk about some of those stances and her background, and what's changed. And is still changing as we speak. It's kind of hard to keep up with.

She actively protested the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while studying law at ASU but supported the Gulf War, though she was very young while it was happening. She also supports military intervention in cases of genocide, so at least that makes sense, but still. A lot of the lead-up to the Gulf War was Iraq supporting Palestine while the U.S. supported Israel. Is.. that not related to genocide? I guess not, if there's enough oil money involved. 
What about the various and horrific human rights violations, and the destruction of vital infrastructure and the environment? She began her political career as a spokesperson for the Green Party, I might add. 
Oh well. I'm sure she has her reasons. Or not. 

She opposed waging war as a response to the 9/11 attacks. She also said in '02 that silent vigils being held as a form of protest against war and violence against women would continue "'til there's no more war", and in '06 that she was against war "in all its forms" [Source]. Another anti-war rally in '03 is where she wore the infamous all-pink toddler-esque outfit, including a tutu, that her Republican opponent in this current race has been using as a side-by-side comparison photo in her attack ads. Amusingly, that same year, she also told The Arizona Republic that "the real Saddam and Osama lovers were Reagan and George H.W. Bush" [Source]. She even called Bush a fascist, a psycho, and an oligarch [Source]. Lohl. 
Here's one of the flyers from one of those anti-war protest groups she led:

"Hah," I thought, "that's good stuff".

"You should never take military intervention off the table," Sinema said in an interview in 2012, once her views on the subject had apparently 'matured'. "When you do so, you give an out to a rogue nation or rogue actors". [Source]

She also supported Trump's decision to use military strikes in Syria, and voted against the Iran nuclear deal.

Err, okay.. Opposing war always, sometimes, one yes one no, in a tutu, on a boat, with a goat, not here or now or anymore or on a case-by-case basis.. I don't know. I really don't know what she thinks or if she thinks anything for more than a few years at a time. Maybe when we check back in on her in 2025 she'll be living in a newfound Christian hippie commune and seeking forgiveness for her flippy-floppy war-stance sins. Your guess is as good as mine. 

This is from one month ago:

??? "Whatever it takes" to be the first democrat elected to the Senate 

in that deep red state since 1988, I guess???

War can be a complex thing, and we can debate military intervention during genocide some other time, but this is troubling to say the least. Suddenly her stepbrother is super useful to her; he used to be a Marine and is now a cop. He's in one of the other ads. I wonder what he thinks about this, what their conversations about how she's a different person now were like. I wonder if he believes her.

Speaking of bizarre Christian bullshit, though, next let's talk about how she was born and raised in the Mormon church (just like Fucking Flake™)! 

We've got a lot of this in Arizona. The southeastern suburban and rural sprawl cities of Mesa and Chandler are a hotbed of it. It's not pretty. That dead shark-eyed child rapist son of a bitch Warren Jeffs, who was the leader of the FLDS - which is the disturbingly large branch of the LDS that still practices polygamy, often involving not only plenty of rape but also plenty of incest and child brides - was eventually found and arrested in Arizona, after a nationwide manhunt. Probably thought he'd be safe there. Not surprised. 

You might be a little confused, because I did mention that Kyrsten Sinema is the only openly atheist/anti-theist (I'm honestly not really sure why they insist on making the distinction, that's what the term "agnostic atheism" is for) member of Congress, state or federal. That's impressive: no American politician dares to be un-Christian on a national level these days, the Evangelical capitalism is too strong. 

So I'm not judging Sinema for being born into a family of religious fundamentalist nutters, because no one can control that (and I personally know at least one person who successfully escaped from and moved past exactly such a situation), but I am casting a very suspicious eye on this weird - that's the operative word here, in case you've missed it - upbringing, because she's used it and the poverty that accompanied it to distinguish herself from other, privileged, upper middle-class or wealthy white bread politicians like Flake and Kyl and to advance her career. 

Here's the kicker: How much of it even happened?

... Sigh. 
I know, right? I'm already tired, too.

This NYT article is the most recent and comprehensive piece of journalism I came upon while looking for more instances of her constantly-shifting stances and opinions, and it focuses mostly on this topic.
The story, basically, is that for three years her family lived in an abandoned service station in her stepdad's hometown in Florida with no electricity or toilet. She's described this, specifically and repeatedly, as "homelessness". According to her Wiki page and the campaign video she produced, shared in a Politico article from a year ago when she announced her candidacy, her friends, family, and church helped her climb out of poverty:

“There’s really no other country in the world where a little girl who grew up homeless living in a gas station could ever dream of serving in the United States Congress and run for the United States Senate,” Sinema said while campaigning in Phoenix in July.

"I realise this tugs at peoples' heartstrings and that was what she was going for, but, you know, it's not the truth," Sinema's stepdad's sister, who still lives in that Florida town, said in a Washington Post article/interview. 
She and one of her other brothers say it was a remodeled building that had utilities. According to her, the family went through a hard time and didn't have enough money, but the kids were being taken care of, and were certainly not "homeless" or living in an "abandoned gas station", as Sinema is so fond of recounting in her classic, clicheed rags-to-riches, American Dream story. There are also records of her parents indeed paying the utility bills at that time. When asked to explain this contradiction, she simply says, ohh, I don't know why that would be, I was only a little girl at the time.

Okay. Sounds like an exaggeration at best, and a complete lie at worst.

Her parents don't comment, just say that they were strapped for money and that they're proud of what she's achieved. 
Sinema herself is apparently really fond of that "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" phrase, which is laughable and complete bullshit, because it makes no sense in the first place. Originally it referred to an inherently impossible task - because just think about it for one second - making it that much more of a slap in the face by the rich, detached assholes who routinely vote against and to dismantle social safety nets and vital programs every time they have the audacity to use it. Personally, I think that only people who haven't experienced seriously struggling would ever even consider using that phrase.
And besides: she has an M.A. in social work and a doctorate. There's no way she's dense enough to use it seriously or believe it wholeheartedly like that. She's saying practiced things she knows conservatives like to hear and avoiding mentioning anything that could be labelled a "handout", though those are apparently fine when they're coming from some kind of church. Eyeroll.

That NYT article from before cites a number of people who flat-out say she's an ambitious opportunist willing not only to work with the other side of the aisle but make major compromises, take positions that people don't like, and do whatever it takes to keep her career steaming along. In it Tomas Robles (who clearly full-on hates her imo) said she refuses to meet with his immigration activism group and that she's not actually a centrist, much less a progressive: just an opportunist who knows what to say and when, to benefit herself. She's good at reading rooms and the mood associated with the bigger picture. Unsurprisingly, Sinema's voting record on immigration is not progressive at all, though she does say that she supports the DREAM Act.
At least two or three of these sources I've shared point out that, in 2017, she voted right along with Trump's positions a solid 50% of the time. Cool.

You can see her voting record for yourself, both on her own Arizona House of Representatives website and on this website as well, for example.

And it gets even cooler, because I checked FiveThirtyEight: when this Phoenix New Times article was published a little over a year ago Sinema's score was 48.8% (of the time voting in line with Trump), and now it's 62.2%! Yaaaay, it's increased substantially since she announced her candidacy, yaaaay. I would roll my eyes again but I'm getting a little dizzy.

Go ahead and read the immigration points that article outlines, too, including but not limited to: voting in favour of an act that included $1.6 billion in funding for the fucking border wall, voting in favour of the Verify First Act, which makes the process of verifying someone's citizenship before they are able to receive the special tax credits that would allow them to afford healthcare via the Affordable Care Act, something that Beto O'Rourke has decried specifically and which I can assure you no other developed country would ever have; and voting for the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act, decried by the ACLU as classic racist, nativist lawmaking that would give cops and border enforcement flunkie cops more leeway and authority to target and harass immigrants and immigrant neighbourhoods.

I'm sure Tomas Robles has his reasons.

Kyrsten Sinema, not so much.

But the momentum and positive reactions are palpable: astoundingly, she's been consistently ahead of Republican opponent Martha McSally in almost every poll for most of the year, I think since April. 
Arizona is actually, seriously a battleground state in a national election this time, and everyone is calling it a toss-up. The last time a democratic senator was elected was the year I was born. The last time one was present at the Capitol was 1995. 

Arizona has only been a state since 1912, and seeing as how these puckered old bastards end up staying in their seats for way too long or even right up until they die, like McCain, there have only been a total of eleven, ever. The only thing about the knowledge of this history that gives me a modicum of satisfaction is knowing that my calling Flake unqualified and pathetic is somewhat verified or at least validated by the fact that he's the shortest-serving one in history and will probably stay that way. Four years? Mm, yikies. Looks bad on your report. Because it is. Because you suck. 
His exceedingly minor claim to fame will be agreeing that Kavanaugh should be confirmed only to change his mind a few hours later and call for a completely fake, briefest-of-the-brief FBI investigation, after a sobbing protester and sexual assault survivor cornered him in an elevator and forced him to listen to her. Good for you, you spineless little prick. Limply raise a finger in protest and go, "Err, well, no, waaiiit.." only after abandoning basic human decency and good governance, and with nothing to lose because you're on your way out. Try not to let the door hit you. Or let it. No one cares.

Anyway, here's my weird choice: is it my responsibility to vote for someone who's no better than all of the people currently running the country, who we all hate and who are deeply dishonest, disingenuous, and ineffective career politicians with no interest in serving anyone but themselves, who has the same qualities as Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in House of Cards, because there's actually a chance it might tip the balance of the Senate? For the greater good, is it my responsibility? To continue exactly everything that's wrong, because it's a shitty choice but it's the only one available? I want to say "yes", ...but.

This is part of what happened when people could only choose between Trump and Hillary: why are there only two choices, and why do they both suck so much? How can anyone pretend that Red Team and Blue Team, both with the same funding sources and lobbyists writing the bills they don't read, comprise anything even vaguely resembling a functional democracy? 
Food, drinking water, access to medicine and basic healthcare, physical safety, basic job security and workers' rights, constant involvement in war abroad and massive over-incarceration and human rights violations at home, these aren't the concerns of a developed nation. And yet here we are. People buy painkillers online for dogs and other animals because they can't afford prescriptions or treatment for their injuries or chronic pain. Flint fucking still doesn't have clean water. The school and other mass shootings? Is there anything else to say about that? Apparently not. They're just going to keep happening. 
I'm not even going to get into racism now, otherwise this post will never end. Every developed country has racism, as people occasionally remind me in conversation: yeah but your country's economy and laws weren't founded on slavery, not if you're arguing from Europe. Everyone treated indigenous people horrendously and slaughtered them, and to this day profoundly depressing and inhumane displays like what happened at Standing Rock continue. But does your government still get away with setting dogs on indigenous people and taking what pathetic patches of designated wasteland they have left? Do your cops get away with frequently, routinely shooting unarmed black kids and men? One murderer actually got charged these last few days; another was simply re-hired by a different police department, as is what usually happens. It's apples and oranges. There's no simultaneously undeveloped-post-developed country quite like the U.S.

I'd like to vote for Angela Green, the appropriately-named Green Party write-in candidate. Here in Germany the Green Party is actually a major political party, with representation in parliament. Isn't that nice. It's just a sad little joke in the U.S. 
Nader managed to get what, 3% of the national vote in the 2000 presidential election? I remember how much talk there was about him, and everything - but in the end, the only choices are Red Team or Blue Team.

Vox posted an article about this very topic a few days after I posted this. 
Basically they try to say that the Republican-led attacks on Sinema are missing the point: it's gotten to the point that McSally supporters are mocking her family's hardship, and it seems like everybody is trying to decide how poor is poor enough, or how homeless is homeless enough. Of course, that's not okay. I've been there. It's really not okay.

The thing is, though, that the Vox article doesn't say what the point is. It doesn't address these serious misgivings, or her actual, documented history of flip-flopping on basically every single major issue! Her increasingly heavy leaning to the right, the sharp-tongued criticism by actual progressives she's worked with or refused to work with, and, oh right, that irksome little fact that paying your utility bills even though you have no utility service does not add up. Obviously her parents aren't going to derail their daughter's career while she's in her prime by being like, "Yeah, I mean, we were struggling, but she's definitely exaggerating the extent of it and playing it up to construct a more compelling narrative lol."
Attack ads are going to attack, just as the Flake ads attacked and discredited Carmona, for as long as that kind of harmful, slanderous rhetoric remains legal in the United States. But what is the point then, Vox? If you want to balance out all the questions, negativity, and outright offensive attacks just before the election, don't you think you should probably give some kind of credible or at least eloquent defense, maybe reasons why we should ignore all that stuff? Strong points? Pros?
There don't seem to be any.

So this, then, is my weird choice: the deal with Kyrsten Sinema, even, is that she appears to be an egotistical, lying opportunist who flip-flops on any and every major issue and who is fine with being hawkish and mildly to moderately racist. I genuinely wonder if she's mentally and emotionally stable and I have virtually no respect for her or confidence in her, but I have to vote for her.

Because we've very definitively come to a point where having the luxury of abstaining from a vote like this because you're fortunate enough not to be affected directly by the kinds of decisions Washington is making has ended. Everyone is affected now, and directly. That so many people are so thoroughly entrenched in their silly little worlds - whether massively delusional, massively partisan, massively self-involved or some combination of the three - is not only alarming, or generally bad, or because we have trouble unplugging and putting down social media: it's destabilising western society.

I have to vote for Kyrsten Sinema even though I know she's only in it for herself, because if there's actually a real chance to tip the balance here, which really never happens for Arizonans, then it would be supremely selfish to write in a name instead. And I did.