Vignette 1: Returning to Nyssa

I'm a semi-retired performer, so I have a very, I wake up every morning glad I'm not on tour because I've been on tour for so long. But I've been back for 10 years. I never thought I would come back here. I grew up here. I grew up here, but I spent most of my adult life in either six years in Seattle and then 20 in Los Angeles College in Ashland. But I I never, ever thought I would come back here. I could not wait to leave here. I was very unhappy here, and if I didn't have a free house, I would not have moved back here. Rent is so horrible in Los Angeles, and I had come back here to do elder care on my dad and uncle. 10 years, like me just living in this house, but I did spend three dealing with elder care and then the the years, the futility years of, accepting that the whole thing was not going to happen in LA anymore.

Vignette 2: From Big Gay Artist’s Nightmare to Sanctuary

And I started a painting when I moved back here and that was in like 2013 to do elder care because it was literally my big gay artist nightmare to come back here. It was like, oh no. So I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna focus on my art and taking care of my family and getting this in place. I thought it was only gonna be six months. It was two years. It tanked my career in LA. I went back and tried for another three to like, blow life into the corpse of my career and it just wasn't going to happen. And when I had moved here, I had started this visualization painting of my perfect sanctuary because I was in stasis here. And the funny thing is I worked on it and worked on it and I had all the qualities I wanted for it. And it wasn't until I moved back here that I realized it could be very easily interpreted as this house. I don't think I could see it when I had my two old-fashioned, complainy father and uncle living in the house. I really could not see this as being a sanctuary. And my uncle never landscaped, so it was just like barren. But I've made it into the woods here. I've made a willow living fence and I've surrounded it with trees. And I've just created my own sort of bubble. My world in this very conservative, my neighbor across the street is a Mormon with a big gigantic Trump flag that has the spotlight on it. So I have my big old non-binary flag and a blue giant collie in my window. So suck it. We have a rural decorative conflict of without words, a Cold War here. But I win because her married daughter likes the non-binary NB that lives across the street. We've made friends over gardening and the Mormon mother-in-law that lives in that house kills her. I gay agendaed her. So that's where I live and that's why I live. And I've had to kind of create my own little sanctuary because I really didn't really didn't want to move back here.

Vignette 3: Losing Gay Community

I gave up my giving, losing the queer community I had has been really hard. So yeah, find a new one. But it's tough because, I have to drive to Boise. So, I want to hang out with people. So, it's been that part's been rough. I've been in kind of a time capsule, moving out of performing and into just Here, so my day-to-day is happy I'm not on tour, very much in a bubble. If I do leave, I'm usually going to a gig. I sound bath meditation now. I went from entertaining people to putting people to sleep, which I. I like it. Yes, I don't have thousands of people I have to try and, do a show with audience and you don't know what they're going to do and especially with children.

Vignette 4: Acting & Production Design

I would move more from acting into production design. And I was sort of I was the hot art director of the web series. And then when you leave, your crew kind of goes on without you. They get another one of you. And then there's awkwardness when you come back. So you like that team is gone. So that had sailed. So, I just made three sets of business cards of things I liked because I knew I wasn't building any giant puppets in Nissa. So, the least the one I thought was least likely is the one that took. So, I made a lot of puppets. I made a lot of everything because I did children's theater for so long. And then I designed a web series for a friend, and it ended up going viral and then Sony bought it and I ended up like designing full time. And I got a Streamy Award nomination. Yeah. And then somebody like tracked me down and had me design another web series, which was very flattering. But yeah, it was I got to do some animating, and I licensed characters like I'm from Nissa and I licensed characters to Sony. So, you know, that was cool. Yeah. So, it's like a secret world I forget about that I had all that like, yeah, I did a 17-foot-long crocodile puppet that I'm very proud of. There's a video to the monster under the bed puppet that I made. So, it's a full-size mattress that's got a box under it with teen puppeteers. I taught them all to puppeteer. And it's got these feet and this tail, and the feet move and the tail moves and it walks across the stage. And I've got, you know, puppets from Webster. I've got Adam Arkin, he used to be on Northern Exposure. His dad was in Little Miss Sunshine. I have a whole, there's a whole web series video of him and I have this talking carrot puppet and he's with the talking carrot puppet. So, I'm laying behind a chair as the talking carrot puppet, and the talking carrot puppet is hitting on him. So, he's, He's dealing with a horny carrot that's talking, so that's entertaining.

Vignette 5: Weird Witch House

When I was touring, we stayed in Ellensburg for a week and we based on all the other schools. So, Dick and Jane's spot was like my shrine I would go to. Yeah, I kind of get inspiration from their home a lot as I build my weird witch house in the woods that is not in the woods. I pretend I'm in the woods. Yeah, so I have a big, junked beat truck with a wooden bed and it's missing a door. It's not moving. It's my dad got it there. But I painted a dragon on it. I kind of want people to look at my house and think, oh God, does someone live there and keep going? Because I live here by myself. So if they drive in, they'll say, oh, is that a dragon? And they'll go, oh my God, that fence is live. That's a living fence. Is that an archway? And then there's a 19-foot living willow catio that I've built. So, once they get around to that side, they see it. It's not a terrifying... I'd like them to be like, oh, is it a witch? What happened to that house?

Vignette 6: Childhood in Boise’s Gay Community

I grew up in Boise with my mom until I was 13. And that was the gay community of the 70s. So that's what I was hoping to share a lot of is growing up there and my relationship with a trans woman as a child was my babysitter. And that was the best part. So, I moved, I was all around and mostly in Boise and then at 5 ended up in this building in Boise. It was an old house that had been made into apartments. Yeah, while we did that same building. Chris, we were on the top floor, and I think Chris was down the hall. And then there was, it was a big cobweb of apartment buildings. I always, although I’ve been working on a writing a piece about that house. I was just going to title it Jefferson Street. But yeah, it was just a big old Victorian house of lots of, it was, you know, half a block from the Safeway. That was our, discreetly nestled in that area of Boise used to be like a whole bunch of funky apartments. And it was very working class. Now it's a little she she. And it was my mom and I and her boyfriend. So, it's my white mom. I'm half Japanese and her black friend in the 1970s in Boise. And then the manager and his wife was they were Jewish. And then every gay man in Boise who had left their wife had moved, I guess, apparently, because I just knew construction workers came in at work time and then these beautiful ladies would come down the stairs. So yeah, we had each had an apartment and everyone knew everybody. And I love that era. Got to be just like completely dawdled and cherished. And you know, all of these people in the building in retrospect, these are all people who probably left their families and wives and they weren't around kids. And back then it was really the whole it's just like now it's the next wave, the same rhetoric. It's just at the trans community specifically now, but that they didn't they didn't get to. So, I was very like I had all these people spoiling me who just and were so safe. It was so safe. It was the most safe I ever felt as a child. was being a kid in the queer community of Boise. And that's what of my history to be is someone to know that. Yeah, I think it's important. I think that's, you know, one of the reasons I'm alive is to tell my story. And I'm a writer, and so that's why I'm, you know, put my stuff out. That was really an idyllic, the most idyllic part of my childhood was in our community. And I just, it infuriates me. when I hear the rhetoric, not just for myself and my friends and my community, but our history and for Chris. And it just, it just, of all things, just because so many of us are survivors of horrible things. The last thing any of us would do is hurt a fucking kid. So, in touch with our kid, our kid and ourselves. It's infuriating. So anyway, that's my early childhood and that's my story.

Vignette 7: Trans Babysitter

I had a babysitter and she was 19. And she told me when I first met her that people see me and they see a boy, but inside I'm a girl. And I felt so understood because I felt like everybody looked at me and saw a little girl, but inside I was a cat. Because in my brain, I'm non-binary and I couldn't, conceive of that in 1970, what that word was, but I knew I wasn't boy and I knew I wasn't girl. I lived literally three years as a cat because it just like, to me, I think that was abstain. It was like, so even though I had a trans babysitter, which, they always talk about protect the children from the trans people. I'm freaking trans. And I she's telling me this and I'm like, I feel so connected to you, but I'm a cat. I just did not grok whatsoever. And I have met like nine other people who as children were either cats or dogs. It makes sense. So yeah, I was my babysitter and she was wonderful. And would listen so intently. I felt very heard and she was so curious about, I felt very seen by Chris. And we used to play hiding the seek a lot and we'd be in my walk-in closet in the apartment. And it wasn't until I was 40, 45, I was in LA and I was on the street talking to Alexis Arquette. Alexis Arquette and Chris could be sisters. Beautiful blonde hair, just beautiful angelic people with an angelic vibe. And we were chatting and she liked my singing and I liked her chalk art and we were just, had this wonderful conversation and I kept noticing though, because we were out on the sidewalk, her eyes and it was this, it's hyper vigilance. And I saw super vigilance and we're having this wonderful conversation. It was just, something I noticed. And I flashed back to being in the closet, we played in hide and seek with Chris. And as an adult going, who were we hiding from? Then I started remembering, it would usually be, and it would be Chris. And she would tell my mom and her boyfriend and I, go, I had to go play hide and go seek. And I was hiding in the closet with her from someone. Never let me be afraid. We would tell stories and she'd have me draw and we would talk. And I didn't I never put together because as a little kid, I, you know, fun with her. She was in a fearful state that she was being hypervigilant during those times. She would be doing the same thing with her eyes and then ask me a question and listen and be so intent. And it was the I was having the best time as a very innocent child and the 19-year-old had the wherewithal, the mental savvy and the balance to do that at 19. I wish I always wish I could find her because that was just, you know, thank you. She actually me be an innocent child playing a game and most people would have let their fear show. This was a regular occurrence. We used to play hide and go seek A lot. I would imagine at 19. And this is before she had transitioned and she was some people were still calling her about, you know, we didn't have a concept of dead name back then. She was still, you know, I think she might very well have been one of Boise's sex workers. And I think she might have been a lot. from those situations and would be in a freaking closet. So yeah, it was, she was something else. Like I call her my Mary Poppins.

Vignette 8:  See Chris Again

Years later, when I was, oh, probably in middle school, I was at a big gay barbecue in Boise with the dress. It was a drag queen Tupperware party. This I'm standing there at this barbecue, and I hear someone call my my dead name and I turn around and I who someone who would look like a lanky, sandy haired, a Peter Pan-ish had become this beautiful blonde, gorgeous, and that's when she'd found her name too. She told, she ran over and recognized, and said, it's me, it's me, and then said her old name. And I was like, oh my gosh, and we were so happy. And then she had a vintage clothing store in Boise. So, I used to go and take the bus and see her. When I moved, moved, I lost touch, but I did get to see that. Middle school, I got to see her, and I hadn't seen her since I was probably 7. So, it was a big change for both.

Vignette 9: Mom Coming Out & The Wall of Homophobia

I was raised that it wasn't a big deal. And that's the thing that bit me in the *** because it was a big deal. They didn't tell me it was a big deal to other people. So I didn't know homophobia until my mom came out. So, I was like, oh shit. I, because my sister, my older sister, she's my half-sister, we have different mothers. My mom came out to both of us and my sister told the whole family. I thinking, oh, no big deal. So I was like, I'd already figured it out because she'd been the really hot bartender from the one gay bar in Boise had been staying the night. I'm kind of not stupid. Yeah. No one else here. So I didn't have a big reaction because it was like, oh, great, I'm glad you're happy. And so there was just this wall of homophobia that drove like any thoughts I was having, it just was like drove that way. It was, this is right in the Anita Bryant era. And yeah, so, and so they knew at school. So, I started 7th grade as the lesbian’s kid. So that was, I used to have the hot mom who looked like Suzanne Summers and everyone's like, my God, your mom is so beautiful. And then it's like, your mom's a lesbian. Yeah, my mom, who is, she's got a lot of impulse issues. She was dating my 6th grade teacher. So everybody knew because my mom dumped my 6th grade teacher for her girlfriend. So that was like, yeah.

Vignette 10: Pressure to Protect Community & Figuring Out My Identity

In the moment of it, was just surviving it. And so, it was a lot of denial about it, about how bad it was. But in retrospect, I mean, it kept me from exploring my sexuality. It kept me from really delving into anything about my gender identity because I had this really fucked up idea in my head that I had to be perfect or it was the community's fault. If I wasn't, if I was anything they said was going to happen to me by being around this community, I was hurting the community was really hard. It was really, really hard. And I've really only in the last few years been really processing that part of it because it really held me back. It would always have me hesitate. Even when I was an adult and living in Seattle and living in Capitol Hill. And I would hesitate. And I also just had this, in the 90s, they just didn't have a perception of things in the same way. And so, people would ask me what my sexual orientation was, and I'd say, I don't know. I get … I've been sleeping with guys so far. Like it was always just like a question form. And I would say, I think everyone, I think it's all kind of gray. That's how I feel about it. Cause I just didn't even, I knew there were, it was so hard to figure out … I'm pansexual. It was very hard for me to figure out what my deal was. Cause I, we were told you had to be repulsed by what set to know. And I was like, well, no one's really, I mean, most people repulse me, but the few people I find appealing, there doesn't seem to be a through line. It's kind of murky, I don't know. And then with my gender identity, I just always felt like I'm super shitty at being a woman. Which is like, I'd accepted, just a shitty woman. I would say, men go, you're more like a dude than a dude. I'd be like, because I'm a shitty woman. I didn't really care. I thought it was kind of funny. When I found out non-binary existed. It was like, I've always wanted to opt out of the post. Like, oh my gosh, she a freaking dude. And I didn't, like with my, you know, my mom being gay, I didn't realize me being just a person was going to be such a big fucking deal. Like I just, I didn't realize it would be so complicated for people like, like they didn't already know me being exactly like, you know, my whole life that, yeah, tough. So yeah.

Vignette 11: Discovering Nonbinary

The instinct I had of the times as a cat was like a deep sort of a knowing thing. But I had a phrase when I first found the word non-binary, I was in my 40s. There was this interim period which was like, I'm a shitty woman. We were always told like androgyny was a kind. But that was super, super neutral and that super didn't feel like that fit either. It always felt like, do I have to be like a space robot? I don't feel like a space robot. Yeah, it's like, I just kind of feel like a person that has tits. I just, not that attached. I did, when I first was exploring, I didn't think I had any kind of gender dysphoria Until I realized I've had a phrase since I was a little kid about certain kinds of clothing, and it's, I feel like a dog in ruffled panties. I've been saying that all my life. Uncomfortable and vaguely humiliating and seems impractical feeling of certain clothing. And I remember even seeing a picture of myself as a toddler in this blue organza fucking dress and this the hair and these little ponytails. And I hated that picture. The picture just pissed me off. If I didn't want to look at it, I'd put it down. Little kid, very little kid. I'd say three for sure. Two and three. Yeah. Being in my growing up years after that, I would mostly just feel like I there's these things we're supposed to do. So, people like us and your life is better because like I saw Grease and then Sandy changed her outfit and everything got better, you know, that kind of thing. So, like, oh, being a cheerleader is supposed to make things easier here at this place. Maybe I'll do that and see if things suck less. So, I would, I would try these little masking things on of like, oh, the ZZ top girls in this music video appear to be having a good time. Yeah, they seem happy. So, it's like there's a Linda Berry comic and there's this large girl and everyone's making fun of her for her weight and she's upset. And she's like, maybe that cake will make me feel better. And then she eats the cake. She's like, oh, God, I ate the cake. Now I'm just all done. You're watching me eat the cake. And now it's just going to work. Then she goes, maybe that pie. And that's how I was with my gender. I kept just trying these little bits. I'm like, no, now I feel like I'm just like caving to these like sexist stereotypes and none of them work. These archetypes are stupid. So, then I just sort of accepted that I'm a shitty woman. That was pretty much my 20s. I was like, I'm a shitty woman and I can't dig it. So, call me a bitch. I'm fine. Yeah.

Vignette 12: Storytelling, Playing Parts, Identity & Friendship

The years I was a storyteller, we always, we had all the costumes and props out of a trunk, and we would all play all the roles. And that's probably why I stayed with them for 20 years because I really liked wearing the big black mustache, but then I could wear the big black wig. And I was just playing these parts because they're, I'm just, you know, there's the base model. It makes sense in retrospect why I stayed; actors don't usually stay in places for 20 years with a company that's. Right. But that company, and there's a lot of people in that company who stay there too. Like it's a very, we all believe in reincarnation, and we all are like, you know, nobody is super rigid. They don't last long there if you're very rigid. And this is the company that's in LA? Yeah, it's called We Tell Stories. And you're still in contact with a lot of those folks? Yeah, They're family. They're like chosen family for sure. Yeah, it's, you know, we, and we're that, you know, those, you know, those friends you have that you talk to them in your head, years go by and time has not passed. They're all those friends. So, we are not daily chatters because none of us are daily chatters. Like, that's kind of why we like each other. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, they're there for me. But around here, there's no contact. It's been I've tried to make some friends here so far. I met. Oh, thank goodness. There's a trans person I met at a karaoke in the next small town who moved her from Portland. I'm like, Why the fuck did you move here? And so they are in a, I don't know what the relationship is with a cis gay man and he does karaoke. He's a karaoke host. And I'm making friends with them. But it's a lot of cisness here. And I like had a, I thought I'd made friends with this cis lesbian and then she fucking dead named me in an introduction. It was like, and you're arguing with me about it too. And it was just like, that's no, Yeah, it was weird. The arguing made it weird. It was like, why are we, like, I've said it a lot of times. I, yeah, I don't think it really got through to her previously that I'm non-binary. So, there's been this like, I think they were really hyper focused on the fact that my mom was a lesbian hearing anything else about me. So that was a bummer. And so, is the bar or club where the karaoke happens, is that a queer space? No. That's sad. Yeah. The first place I saw them, they didn't get asked back to host anymore. And I was like, and there's another one. I think, they come and I think there's, I think there's some people who are cool. And then I think there's some bars where he gets to work a couple gigs and then they can him. And I'm not sure why, but I'm going to go with Phobes. Some phobias. Yeah. Which is a bummer try and support their business because that sucks.

Vignette 13: Social Support, Activism, & Racism

My sense of community for me here, it feels very destined and I feel very, because the reason I started being an activist is because, Anita Bryant was telling everyone my family was burning in hell. So, I started at like 10. And coming back and going to Boise and standing on the same Capitol steps and being the kid that they all said was gonna, you know, I feel really committed to driving my ass across the river and going over there and showing up for things and representing for things. And I'm, you know, it's to be an older person, yes, let's treasure queer elders and our trans elders, but really, we're kind of like invisible weird Muppets off to the side. So, I accept that. But I'm wanting to use my creative side and my activism more over there. It gets deterred a lot just because of the racism too. So, driving across the river, I call going into the Eye of Sauron. I like I get I've been pulled over more in the past six months than my entire life. And it's race. Yeah. So that makes me anxious when I go over there, but I still go over there. So, I have a strong pull community, and I've been slowly meeting more people over there, but not super well. You know, it's I'm not used to knowing people outside of the theater production. And so I'm socially inept. I've discovered I thought I was really savvy, but it was literally just hanging out with actors and other actors. We all act like we have a similar language and a little community, and everybody knows everybody. And I and don't coming in as an outsider into, you know, the queer and trans community in a super hostile place, people are super wary. So, it's hard for those new friends. So, I'm being really, I'm trying to be really patient about that part of it and not feel like super rejected and depressed. Yeah. But I did, I did go to some protests and some vigils, and it was one time I was standing in the same spot I stood when I first stood as a kid over the Anita Bryant. Wow. Orange juice. My first boycott was Florida orange juice. Being on those steps in the same spot and seeing all the people, which was really cool because there weren't that many people back then who would show up and stand on the Capitol steps. Way bigger. So that was like, like the Grinch's heart grew. Yeah. I do. I do believe I was cathartically sobbing perhaps on the Capitol steps for that because it was pretty awesome. trying to be more active over there, but the whole racism thing is the troublesome obstacle.  

Vignette 14: Social Ties, Aging, Date, & Racism

When I came back to live in 2017, I first got involved with an acupuncture nonprofit and very inclusive. And I was volunteering there. And one of the board members who's the accountant who trained me, one of her daughters is trans. So, we had immediate like unicorn, like, whoa, so we made instant friends. And it's a super, it's like, it's one of the few places in Boise where you see a rainbow sign saying who they are inclusive of and they're not going to waiver on that. So, it's like a truly safe space. So, getting to know people that way was sort of first the acupuncture community. And then about three years into that, I started like branching out a little bit. No, two years because then COVID and lockdown came. So, it was like, now there's nothing. But then after that, I started trying more and actually going to like, I went to Boise and went all the way to Boise and I'm a hermit. I did go to the karaoke at the gay bar in Boise a couple of times, which fun. But it's all the way over there and it's late. So, I didn't do it that much. And then I had a long, strange, awkward flirtation for like a year that I wasn't like, it was super cryptic. So, it was like a thing. I don't know what was a thing. And then now I think I'm ghosted. So, I don't know what the hell that was.

Was this a person in Boise or near closer to you?

Boise, which is perfect for me because I am still a bit of a hermit. Like I would love like an hour away is great to me in a way of like, say I like my space. Yeah. So, and he did too. So it seemed like, oh, it's perfect. We're like 2 hermits who can like put their dog and no one's a fan. Baz. Because the hard thing is there's the whiteness, which is rough. So yeah, I'd been, it got sort of a thing of like we'd hang out and then on my way back I would get pulled over by a cop. Like it just started to get super, like I had my, I got, I got, I got frisked. I got pulled out of my car and frisked and my car searched like, yeah, and it started to be like, is my license plate on a list? Am I Are they gonna call ICE? Like it's just like going on. So I think it got weird for him. And the last time we had like, we hang up for like 4 hours playing games and then I was like, dude, I got pulled up again and didn't hear anything that time. And it was like, it's weird. Cause you know, it's the age. And then Like a week went by and I was like, okay, I'll give them the benefit of the debt. Maybe they're like, maybe they're in the hospital. Like I was like, you okay? I'm really busy and that's it. I was like, oh, well, that's, I'm really busy too, but racism does not listen to me. So, I just take your number out of my contacts. That sort of futile, whatever that was. But I did go to some protests and some vigils and It was one time I was standing in the same spot I stood when I first stood as a kid over the Anita Bryant. Oh, wow. Orange juice. My first boycott was Florida orange juice. Being on those steps in the same spot and seeing all the people, which was really cool because there weren't that many people back then who would show up and stand on the Capitol steps. Way bigger. So that was like, like the Grinch's heart grew. Yeah. I do believe I was cathartically sobbing perhaps on the Capitol steps for that because it was pretty awesome. Yeah, trying to be more active over there, but yeah, the whole racism thing is the troublesome obstacle. 

Vignette 15: Unaddressed Whiteness, Community & Dating

Yeah, it's a bummer. I think there's, it feels like the past six months or so, there's been more conversations online I've been seeing about the subject. 

Groups online or people living in that area?

Some kind of groups with all over the place. But yeah, I just find it a through line, you know, especially, and then I think the Pacific Northwest has its own special brand. of all alternative community unaddressed whiteness in disability community and the trans community and the all over the queer community and the activist spaces. It's just sort of a thing and I it's tiring. I do find that's where I see the most denial and the most like It's a and I can tell it's indoctrinated because the patterns of defensive behavior are the same too. So I used to try and be more diplomatic and patient, and I guess I hit 50 and just stopped. I didn't care anymore. I would just say things bluntly. And then I was fine. I get the same reaction I used to get when I was trying to be diplomatic. I thought, fuck I wasted my time trying to be diplomatic all those years. They were just going to get mad anyway. No matter how you say something someone doesn't want to hear, they're not going to want to hear it. Yeah, I think it's making me lately be a little bummed out because this is such a white area and I'm thinking, am I going to just never have another lover? Because I mean, I'm looking for like a unicorn that's a flying unicorn at this point, like person of the global majority who's like not maga and it was like not sis like wouldn't that be like hurrah so it's like I don't know but 

Vignette 16: Friends and Support at This Point in Life

I don't turn to them as much as I should. I have found that I have some people I'm really close to online. A lot of my communication now is online with and in this other era here I'm finding more people going through my specific thing of being like late in life, figuring a bunch of shit out, going, oh, that explains a lot of shit. Most of my friends, my chosen family, really, a lot of them are, I would say, still processing me being non-binary. My longtime friends, because in the artist actor community, it's not seen as any kind of big sort of dramatic deal and no one's gonna, it's not cool to be like a homophobe or a transphobe, like that's not cool. It's not like the rest of the world, which it was a luxury for all those years. So, we haven't really got into like deep conversations about it or anything, because I think it was more like, oh, Pogo finally found a name for their Pogo-ness. That is Pogo. So, and they're all at a point where they're all, you know, they've been married 20 years or they were their partners. And so, it's not like college or 20s when everyone was figuring things out and talking about it. It's not like anyone was surprised. And I don't think they because I've just always been me, I don't think anyone's treated it as anything. It's after them. I think it's like a non-issue. But for me, I'm here. It's a bared wasteland of stuff for me. And I'm having the adjustment has been challenging. So yeah. 

Vignette 17: Making This Home Mine

My uncle was really uptight about everything and like we weren't ever allowed to like paint anything or decorate the walls. So, I Oh, wow. I've gone with the theme of hydrangeas. I finger painted the whole fucking room and it was really cathartic. He would have. He also, you know, he never landscaped. So, I, you know, I've been building hundreds of feet of living willow fence, which has been a real, I'm obsessed with it. I have so much fun with it. I've got archways, I've got a tree tunnel, I've got a, and I've been doing a food forest. He would always cut down my dad's fruit trees. Fruit trees everywhere. I've got All these things that would've just, he would've been so pissed. And it's really like killing my inner child and making this place mine 'cause I've had to deal with, they were hoarders. So, I've had to deal with like six dump truck loads so far. And I finally, I can't sort their shit for a while, but it's, I've got the top floor mostly cleaned out. But like my bathroom is this all blue with clouds that look like animals. So, I've done that. Oh, he would have hated that. I'm sort of, yeah, I'm marking my territory a lot with that and just letting it be colorful and weird. I'm about to start a flooring project. I'm going to tile the floors. I've been going to Habitat for Humanity and getting my theme because I know it's a huge house. And nothing has changed since 1974. And it's got full grain shag carpeting that's 56 years old and it's hideous. And also, they were both, they were incontinent and stuff was going down here. Yeah, I've been working on getting the flooring up and just kind of, I try not to get overwhelmed, and I just do piece by piece with the house. the garden. My uncle had those giant satellite dishes, like outside a TV station, like the big ones that are like two stories tall. Three of them, you can't, they're there. So, I've planted willow trees that grow up and through them, so they're not visible anymore. I've been doing that. So gardening and finger-painting walls and putting my artwork up and, you know, putting nail holes in the wall, like all the things we were never allowed to do. So, I've been doing that. And that's when I really started to notice, like, oh, that two-story house with the it's this two-story house. And it says, oh, and then realize, oh, not paying. a mortgage or rent, I could actually travel and see all the places I've painted in this painting. I don't have that big nut to deal with, so I have a lot more freedom. I don't have to work the way I used to have to work because of that, which is great. And I get a little rent from land. My dad left us a little bit of farmland, this farmyard and then the fields in front of it and then another house and then the fields in front of that. And then it's split with my siblings and I we have like a a property sort of Mexican standoff of division of property. It's like we have to communicate for the rest of our lives. 

Vignette 18: Relationship with Siblings

What is your relationship like with your siblings?

It's in some ways better than it was. And in a lot of ways not. We're not super close. I've been away for a really long time. And I think I kind of fantasized that I would come back and I'd be like, the somehow the bring it all together. And it's like, no, it's not going to happen. My brother finally stopped deadnaming me after 29 years, which I guess I should be really happy about, but it's like, fuck you. It wasn't that hard when you finally tried. My sister does this really passive aggressive thing with it of going, what am I supposed to call you now? It's like … and she never used to even use my dead name. She had another, she used to call me Daphne, which is nothing like my, and it's like, so why are you so attached to it now? She's just being, she's. Yeah. So, and then every time she does it, I'm pissed because then it reminds me that she outed my mom and like, I mean, I was like, oh, right.  Fuck you. Yeah.  My sister lives, Two minutes from me. My brother lives like 10 minutes away. And they take time because my house is on one of the farmyards. So, we'll we will wave driving tractor. Yeah, they invite me to stuff. I kind of have a rule that was like, I have a three dead name rule. And then I leave. But I have found in the past few years like that, I don't even want to do that. Like, it's not worth it to me because I'm gonna be I'm gonna be mad. I'm gonna be ruminating. I'm gonna be It's that it's gonna spiral me and it's like, it's not worth it. I, yeah.

Vignette 19: Art & Creativity

Everything I learned as an artist, I learned in a rural area. Art for me from the very beginning of my life was always a way of putting, I would just take whatever's going on and just put it on into the art. As a kid, it was a way to stay out of my mom's way because she's a very violent person. So, reading and art were like my, and then I'm also a writer. And so, I've been working on a long term writing project about my family that's sort of like a patchwork quilt. And I'm finally at the point where I, which is so funny that I'm doing this oral history with you, because I'm at the point where I'm doing the my part and I've been really like, am I going to do this? I don't want it to sound like a bad journal. So, I wrote about a fight between my parents years ago, and I wrote it from the perspective of the rock back to like the beginning of their rocks. And they consider themselves solids. Then they began differently, like the whole history of rocks when they were lava, like his interpretation of it. And then when humans came along and their perspective on humans. But it's like the fight's a blip at the end. The whole thing's just about rocks. And so I thought, what if I do the sections on me for different types of solids. So, the cement where I hit my face and broke my nose as a child and the white neighbor lady stood over me and pointed and laughed while I bled. And that's how I found out about racism. The concrete, like that's kind of fascinating. So, I just want to like hone them down into these little blips or like, I want to do one about like hitchhiking with my mom in Vegas when I was 3. Which is inappropriate. Oh, it's not. But I want to do it from the perspective of the asphalt and the different changing roads or like, yeah, so I just like going from the theme of the different rock or rock-like substances that bore witness to certain key moments and try it like that. It's like the pavement and the foundation, the glue of the stitching and the quilt. I'd say my art has gone more from purely fantastical escape as a child, a lot of mermaids, a lot of living underwater, a lot of animals, to I used to use my art in in the elementary school era because I moved a lot. And art was a good way to make friends at a new school, drawing pictures. And then even moved into like 6th grade, I used to draw pictures of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or Farrah Fawcett or Wonder Woman and sell them to boys to buy French fry money after school, which I thought I like to joke that way I was like a pornographer selling money for French fries. But I would say my art then went into, I got really into surrealism. But then now I'm almost back to where I started because I really like bright colors. I like a lot of dimension. I like very vivid lines, but I've been working on this series of dimensional wooden icons out of repurposed materials. So I've been using a lot of, shape and dimension and storytelling. And then I like to sort of put little elements of myself in. so right now, the painting on my wall is on a piece of wood and it's a doll that I made into the roots of this tree. The tree is different metallic shades and it's dimensional. And then I have a gold disc with a face that's the moon. And then it kind of all blends into the finger painting of the wall in here. But I'd say I'm going for more like I almost use my paintings dimensionally, almost like I like the idea of icons and like gratitude shrines or story shrines. I like that idea. And I tend to get inspired by objects. Like I got this cupboard door, these two cupboard doors I found on the side of the road in LA. And one I made into this Medusa painting. But it's not, because the root story of Medusa is actually, it goes before the Greek myth and the whole story around Medusa was actually, because when Greeks would conquer someplace, they would kind of absorb their customs and retell them. So, when they absorbed the local sort of female godessy indigenous religion of a region, those priestesses used to wear snakes as headdresses, living snake. Take this local religion and you make their priestesses into a monster. That's danger, turn you into like this. But there's this slight bit of a temple, but like you can trace back the Greek myth of like she was in a temple serving one of the goddesses. So, it was like, take the priestess, but take away who she was really and shift it. So that's where it shifts. So, I made this Medusa to be more like a like a tie inspired. I wanted to kind of to represent all. She could be from anywhere. She could be from Africa. She could be like she's purple and gold and her snakes are metallic and kind of beautiful. I try to make it more like the headdress. So, I like to kind of retell myths or make new myths or make visualizations as well. 

Vignette 20: Creating Landscaping Shrines for Friends and Community

Yeah, I've also been making each of those. I mean, there's millions of starters on the ground. I each each one is a shrine to specific people. And I have some that are available. I add them and stuff, but I have a whole the whole South section is trans community members that I know. Yeah, it's really fun to do. I just have a friend who he sweet darling. He moved all the way to Spain in Spain and he hates it. Well, he's from Colorado. He's originally from Oregon. And he's feeling guilty and just like, oh, he's so unhappy. And so, I made him a shrine recently. And it's a harlequin weave. You take different branches and you weave it into like a lattice pattern as it grows. so I put disco balls on it, little disco balls, it's really nice. But I do little, if people are trying to manifest something, like my friend was trying to find a house, I'll put little charms on their shrine. Yeah, so that, and then it's also, then it's all through the growing season, it's watered with love and abundance and health. I have some friends who have cancer and I'll water their tree. Yeah, I had a friend who had an aneurysm and then a stroke and was in a coma for like three months. And I unity around him and his tree and it's such a dramatic man. They were literally just about to take him off to like a long-term hospice place. And they were literally just about to move his gurney and he woke up. He had to do this like a ta da. But yeah.

Was this a friend in your local community or back in LA?

LA and my storytelling community. But so I do that. That's another little. It's like a mix of magical and horrific because it's pretty run down and I'm working on a lot of that. But yeah, I have little magical scrapings that are, they're looking good. I'm feeling less like overwhelmed by it. I focus on what I can do like fingerprint the walls or landscape the outdoors with funky cuttings like I did the whole thing off of $15 cutting so that that yeah it's a thrifty it's a thrifty landscaping process yeah and he he didn't my uncle really didn't do any so we have all this erosion so I've managed to bank up a hillside and yeah It's finally, it's one of those projects of like, now I can look at it and really see it. Like I really kind of transformed the landscape and I, I lived in a place like that in LA of an artist who wanted to recreate Fiji on his property. Yeah, I took a lot of inspiration from how that man, Wolfgang Wolf was his name. He completely created this environment and did it on a budget and yeah, I think he would be pleased with. What I have done here, yeah.

Vignette 21: Aging & Witnessing Political Cycles & Activism  

Being 59 and being a kid and seeing that first big wave of that post Stonewall media propaganda attack, those propaganda tactics, they're almost identical to the ones we're having just swapped out. the target specifically. And the things I saw then are things I'm seeing now, not just in terms of the people coming at us, the things I'm seeing in the community, like this LGB shit. Because I remember in the late 80s, early 90s, when they wanted to just do LG, that B, they didn't want you B. So, it's like, but at the time, they didn't want BT. And I remember very clearly B didn't want T. They were they didn't want to be associated. They were very cis normative. They didn't want to. They were super fawning straight people at the time. And I also remember that we don't want to be called straight people era. Like people are doing same fucking thing. And I want to put a message in the bottle for younger generations who see this is this comes in waves. The predict the patterns are super predictable. whether it's coming at our marginalized community or any other marginalized community. That's why it's important to dismantle the white supremacy, an examining thing, because the only way we can get to intersectionality and solidarity and change this shit show, because it's just going to repeat. And that's what they get microcosm. I think this one time is just the one bad time thing for us. it's always going to go in waves and they're always going to swap it out and they're always going to pinnace each other against each other, always. So don't kiss their asses and don't screw the rest of us over with the LGB like that kind of shit. Don't do that. Cave to the tactic. It's an obvious tactic, so don't give in to it. And also, don't be so eager to tell the whole beacon of the world how scared and like have a little poker face. We need to have a little more poker face. Like that's the one thing we've lost because I think social media, we do share a lot and I think that's great. Also, I think giving information to the enemy they don't need. And I think we need to start thinking of like enemy and it's a, what's a battle? We have a lot of strategies, so let's be smart about this and let's be strategic about this. And those little divisive things are just screwing us. It's like running around at the poker table going, they have a queen and two fours and an ACEP there's like, shut the fucked up. And that's my message is Don't be hopeless. This is a cycle. This is a cycle. We know the prediction of this cycle. We know how to stop the cycle. We know more than we think we do. And we're stronger than we think we do. And having been seen it once before, I know how strong this community is. This community has created more change in shorter time than any other marginalized community, any other. It's amazing to go from what happened in the 60s to the 80s and 90s. That was shift. And what we should have prepared ourselves for was the scheming little backlash. It's like the scheming little backlash of the MAGAs in all those ways. Like they just eat it and store it up and feed it, nurse a grudge like a sick kitten, and hold on to it. And we need to remember who we are as a community. And that's a big part of why I want to record something for this is I've seen just what I've seen being a child in the community at that time, I'm lucky enough to be able to witness and say what I saw and then, you know, witness that 80s era, late 80s, early 90s of, you know, ACT UP and Queer Nation. Being in Seattle was a big hub for activism and to see the police tactics say, you know, all the same and just to remember and not lose hope. Because I think people are, it's their first time. And they grew up with all those fricking advantages, like getting to see other people hold hands in public and see like, what? Like that taken away. I cannot imagine what that's like. And I know that so many people are super scared and it's like, please trust that this has happened before and that we are as hell. Oh, and I think they're also trying to really divide people by it. I haven't seen this before. It's new. The younger ones. the ageism, the names of generations, they're way too into it. Like it's the division tactic. Like all, there's no hive mind. No age group has a hive mind. And they're getting very, anytime we're getting told to look at some other group as a monolith hive mind, everyone needs to red flag that for themselves. Like, oh my God, I'm being propagandized no matter what. And they need to see and understand that because I think they're missing that point. And I think it's going to bite people in the ass because it's, I see it really growing a lot lately. And it's like, God, can you not, can you have a conversation and not just label generations all the time? It's kind of weird. Like, how are they expecting to find freedom if we keep putting ourselves in boxes? This urge to box it, we got to really make it spectrum. Everything's A spectrum. Let's go Buddhist. Everybody's right. Do your thing. Just Leave each other's bodies alone. Come on.