Nan Patience on strike: top 10 reasons why

Click here to download Women’s Strike 2024 image (FREE; public domain)

Perfect for printing on adhesive shipping labels from a thermal printer.

I designed this as a vertical story format size in black & white for thermal printing. You can download this one or make your own!

Hey You, it’s Nan Patience!

Some of us may not know, but a Women’s Strike has been called for June 24th. Tell the others!

Others are vaguely aware of the Women’s Strike but don’t know why it’s been called.

I’ll be on strike*. This is me trying to get the word out.

Here are my top 10 reasons why I’ll be striking on June 24th, counting down from #10 to #1 on the 4seasonshelf YouTube channel:

Reason #10 : to send a message

Yes, yes, to send a message to be sure, but in a mad yet fun way! So clear your calendar and drop everything on June 24th.

I’m also posting short vertical pieces of this material to TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest, like this:

Reason #9 : all of our work should count

Women are priceless, yes, and no you can’t put a price on love, but you can put a price on labor in the marketplace. Fun fact: did you know that unpaid women’s work adds over $200,000/year in uncounted value per household? That’s not just women’s math, that’s actual math.

If women didn’t contribute this much unpaid labor, jacking up the economy every day, falsely inflating the official numbers by leaving out the foundation of most families, then what? “Women’s work” is important labor and needs to get more R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Reason #8 : fairness

Women do more than our fair share of emotional labor, caretaking, preserving family legacies, coordination, celebrations, events, upkeep, planning, holding everything, homemaking, and household labor. At one point, it’s ridiculous. Each of us — men, women and children — need to pull our weight in this area.

Besides, “women’s work” is kind of nice. I happen to like puttering around my house making it nice, being a mom and wife, taking care of all the things. I don’t wanna hog it all when I could be doing nothing.

Reason #7 : women’s health

Women’s health needs attention. Much of medical science and research is based on men’s bodies. Too little is known about why women are more susceptible to autoimmune diseases, cancers, and dementia. In many ways, women are getting poorer quality care than men. Women’s bodies are not well understood to this day in ways that they should be, putting strange ideas into people’s heads. I mean, menopause is an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

Women are in danger due to mass confusion and massive government overreach regarding abortion and contraception, among other gender issues.

Reason #6 : financial insecurity

Motherhood is penalized when it comes to retirement benefits. You’d think mothers didn’t work at all. Those gaping decades of supposedly being out of the labor force, and when you emerge, they call you Karen and tell you to go hide under a rock. Solution: credit parenthood generously in Social Security benefits. It’s fair, and it would help families. Start Medicare at 55 for everyone.

Reason #5 : childcare crisis

Quality childcare is unaffordable even if we can find it, putting children in danger and behind academically. Children like to be with other children from a very early age, and they like to play and grow together under the guidance and care of qualified, experienced teachers, nutritionists, and administrators. Children with early education have better outcomes in life.

Reason #4 : school & work schedule craziness

For five days/week, schools let kids out at 3 o’clock and employers let workers out at 5. Not to mention kids get summers off, they get sick sometimes, there are many, many other days and weeks off, and this is all very stressful. Let’s make up our minds.

Reason #3 : unequal pay

Women are still paid less than men in the workforce.

I did different versions of videos using different audio soundtracks of each platform.

Reason #2 : fear of violence

Violence against women, guns and mass shootings.

Reason #1 : on June 24, 2022 the Supreme Court handed women over to the barbarians and said, do whatever the heck you want.

June 24th is the day the Supreme Court created a second class of citizens for women in America with no sovereignty over our own bodies.

So… I’ll see you out there on June 24th!

~ Nan

* Note: my strike is for women’s solidarity. I’m lucky the men in my life are great, so this is in no way a comment on any of them. Heck, I even dedicated my book of love poems to my husband. Love you!

What can I say, I’m complicated.

Download Love Poem: “Thoughts Upside Down” by NY Poet NG Swett

People really like this short rhyming poem from Hold Me Tight, my book of love poems

“Thoughts Upside Down” from HOLD ME TIGHT poetry book by New York poet NG Swett. On 4x6 adhesive shipping label printed on a thermal printer.

4YOU! Click image for free DOWNLOAD of png for personal use.

Here is a short video I made of the same poem:

I’ve posted online a few poems from Hold Me Tight. I’ve tried different ones in different ways (e.g., videos, images, audio, etc.). This short vertical video has done the best so far.

As you can see, it types out the poem, and there’s a black and white image behind it of an upside down crystal ball. It shows the minimalist modern aesthetic of the book overall.

Thermal poetry?

I printed the poem above on a thermal printer and I’ll tell you why.

Printing a poem on an adhesive thermal label is an idea I got by two accidents.

One accident was in the original printing of the paperback poetry book. A poem accidentally sucked. So I made a label with a better poem and covered my shame. (And updated and uploaded my files to Ingram Spark and Draft2Digital for the revised hard cover and ebook editions.)

The other accident was printing out a dozen of the same shipping label for an eBay sale. A waste of precious labels, for sure! But printing a dozen poems on purpose and then sticking them up around town might be fun.

When I’ve got some thermal poems in my bag, I keep my eye open for a good spot. What’s a good spot? Visible, public, out of the elements a bit, smooth surface, and possibly used by other sticker people…

Can you see my thermal poem?

In recent years I’ve been selling a few things online, such as eBay, Poshmark and Amazon. I’ve become aware of a huge number of creative, entrepreneurial and community-minded people doing ecommerce, and many of us have thermal printers because of the time, money and paper they save in shipping. The cost of ink these days, am I right?!

People might like to print out a little poem and stick it up somewhere it can be seen. Maybe it will inspire others to write their own poems and paper the world with poetry.

Poetry — the readers, lovers and writers

The angelic people who have taken time out of their busy lives to flip through a few of my short poems have told me that they really like the shortest ones. Haha! But this one titled “Thoughts Upside Down” is one of my shortest though.

Seriously, short poems are easier to share online with the people because they can fit on one visual and in a short period of time.

And what could be simpler than a poem? Especially short rhyming poems, they’re just fun and easy to read.

Poetry is a weird thing

Poetry is a weird thing for most people, and no one really talks about it. You’d have to go to a local poetry jam or writers club to find anyone talking about this sort of thing. In fact, it’s not uncommon for people to be stone cold stunned quiet with nothing to say when called upon to read and comment on a poem or a book of poetry. Although I’ve seen that poetry is enjoying a new popularity which I’m happy to see and even happier to join in on.

So that’s why I like to be on my poetry bullshit right in plain view. It was over a casual lunch at the dining room table one day that I toyed with the title of a new poem in my notebook. I asked my husband to get involved, and “Thoughts Upside Down” is what we came up with. It was a pleasant lunchtime puzzle, and I’m quite pleased with the result.