CURRENT MISSION

becoming 'wildly disciplined, voraciously curious, exuberantly elegant, shockingly friendly, fanatically balanced, blasphemously reverent, mysteriously truthful, teasingly healing, lyrically logical, and blissfully rowdy.'

ABOUT ME

Queer, radical, poly, herbalist in training, plant-nerd, doula, bookseller, wanderer, sometime painter, all the time knitter, aspiring homesteader, owner of the world's largest scavenged dress-up collection (wigs included), voracious bibliophile & lazy yogi.

Currently settling into one place for the foreseeable future for the first time in recent memory. Consequently, I'm trying to find a community of queer/nerdy/playful/crafty folk, and work that sustains me/makes me feel like I'm helping create the kind of world I'd like to live in.

At the moment this looks like: spending half my time living in an old converted barn on a farm in Forestville while taking a year long intensive herbal studies course (plant medicine is people's medicine!), where I'm learning how to grow and prepare yummy and healing treats.

The other half of my time, I live in an awesome queer collective house in Oakland, working part-time at a bookstore, where I can indulge my book-lust and keep feeding my info-habit, lurking in cafes, burlesque shows and other cool community spaces/events, trying to work up the nerve to ask people on friend dates, figuring out how exactly I want my brand-new training as a birth doula to fit into my life (take on private clients and try to support myself that way? Volunteer as my form of activism?), taking (and drooling over the idea of taking) far too many classes about herbs, birth, acupuncture, sexuality and many other random things that catch my fancy.

Interests

Things I think about: Intentional communities and why I loved living in one but felt like something was missing, gender, how to get more involved in radical politics, communication especially the nonviolent sort, are people going to look at me funny if I wear my petticoats out in public and do I care, our strange/scary food system and why healthy/local alternatives are often illegal, kink, who can I convince to come with me to this roller disco/80's dance parting/bawdy storytelling/zine making/drunk bingo, fermentation, social justice, reproductive rights, DIY health, enthusiastic consent, civilization & its discontents, vintage lingerie and whether or not I can sew a reasonable substitute for a bullet bra, polyamory, cultural norms, identifying what I actually need and what I just think I should need because of how/where/when I grew up, what song my burlesque act will feature when I'm someday brave enough to get on stage, my dream home (an old Victorian filled with different generations of folk living collectively, growing/scavenging food, raising chickens, playing music, healing each other, making art, laughing and dancing and kissing into the wee hours), how I should spend more time doing cool things than reading about them....

• chickens
• arts
• books
• diy
• dancing
• dining
• politics
• reading
• music
• medicine
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

Any and all Derrick Jensen! "The Revolution will not be Microwaved" and "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz, "Vegetarian Myth" by Lierre Keith. Also, Daniel Quinn, Inga Muscio, Tom Robbins, books on midwifery, herbs, growing food, birth, and a whole nerd-tastic collection of urban fantasy.

Frazey Ford, Old Crow Medicine Show, Devendra Banhart, Kimya Dawson, Noah and the Whale, M. Ward, Lykke Li, Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros....

Harold and Maude, any B-horror movie involving Bruce Campbell...

Teach, Learn, Share

I'd love for someone to teach me more about fermenting things- my sauerkraut inevitably gets strange! Would also be stoked to meet dumpster-divers, train hoppers, and anybody who could show me a thing or too about living without a wage. I'm more than happy to talk herbal medicine with people and would love to teach someone to weave on a floor loom (it would force me to remember my slightly rusty skills).

Countries I’ve Visited

Guatemala, India, Mexico

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, United States