i can't wait to write about this in my zine.

[Oh gosh I've been writing for real things and I'm in the weird habit of capitalizing things right now!  Eeeek!]

Hi everyone, I, Earth's Widow, am delightfully surprised to have ongoing opportunities to share my meditative trance feminine witch spirit with y'all!  Last night, it was my innocent pleasure to play at the RCA squat here in Oakland.

On Monday, May 14th, I will be playing at the Purple House for Adam's birthday party show!  8pm.
And on Friday, May 18th, I will be playing at my favorite land project, the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture, at their work party.

Hopefully many more to come.  It's hard for me to turn anything down.

I like to play first-ish, so please arrive on time if you want to see me play.   

i am no longer angry.

i wasn't expecting to be so happy to be back in oakland.  i wasn't expecting it to be so warm.  i wasn't expecting to still have the island mentality of taking it easy and to, waving ta ta to some of my to dos, drive for a long time in big d, listening to beautiful music, with derek, visiting from new orleans, and go find lake anza.  i wasn't expecting to go to these death rock shows and feel comfortable and safe around everyone there, like i was at some super conscious punk show, and dance around till my skin melted into puddles and make physical contact with everyone there and feel like i had found my goth family, even in the folks i didn't know.

i went to ft. rad to see about some boxes that they had found of my stuff in a closet from years ago.  the batteries in this jenky tape recorder were still good for two songs of cocteau twins' milk and kisses.  i have some replacements, also.  sat in big d listening especially hard to the song above [it's an excellent breakup song.  but i don't feel broken up.  i still love it.], writing and self-caring and--oh yeah i'm mostly raw now--eating breakfast.  i have been staying in the city these past two nights because it is another universe and i can go to a cafe to work on stuff and not be interrupted by everyone i know.

i'm writing a dark magic realism novel right now.
so stoked about that and thousands of other pressing projects and i promise to be good to myself though and take time to slow down.

i also told myself, while in hawai'i, that when i got back and saw this one person at these shows, i would tell them that i have a crush on them.  after so long harboring an, unrecognizable until good therapy, self-sabotaging relationship aversion, this is a huge huge deal.  but i am still super shy after all and i told them in a text message and it felt so so good and it still does, even though they have not replied.

"if you are thinking of visiting my homeland, please don't.  we don't want or need any more tourists, and we certainly don't like them.  if you want to help our cause, pass this message on to your friends."

-haunani-kay trask, from the essay lovely hula hands*, which can be found in her book from a native daughter: colonialism & sovereignty in hawai'i.

i could argue that i am not a tourist but it really does not make a difference.

*the title of this essay is taken from a title of some song written by a white guy, pre-statehood, showing the way europeans have been romanticising hula dancers and hawaiian culture in general.  i had the displeasure of hearing this song for the first time while picking through the trash at the wharf shopping center in lahaina a few days ago.

this hitch-hiking ride to the library was my first in 13 days to be a predatory man!  i could tell he was probably drunk when he picked me up, but i was scared to upset a local and not accept a ride, plus, hitching is so normalized here that i was pretty whatever about it.  and probably since i have gotten thousands of positive rides here, all day every day, i had no problem at all telling this guy to fuck off and all of that.  but he drove me all the way to where i wanted to go, even though it was out of the way for him and i didn't have any weed and wouldn't have sex with him.  i feel like i am not phased but if you know me at all you will know that i am always phased.

my favorite home so far has been the banyan tree eating the ruins of a sugar processing plant long forgotten by industry.  banyan trees are my favorite trees, you know, and oh how i love buildings reduced to rubble, especially at the hands of nature.  oh gosh so beautiful.  i sleep in a hammock most nights.  i was too scared to gank from the REI and some dear cubs did it for me!  the three nights i have slept on the ground so far, i have had critters crawl on top of me in my sleeping bag.  mostly it wakes me up and i think it's cute and then i fall back asleep.   

it's a bit of a culture shock, as there are no scenes here, and i find myself taking whatever kinda extracarricular i can get.  like the drum circle at little beach and the fool moon dubstep party in hana in the rain.  laugh if you must but it would make sense if you were here with me in maui. 

i've been in the bay area for over a week now.  i have not told anyone, but i've run into people.

yesterday i returned some pills to wholefoods for store credit and i looked at all the overpriced small things and thought about buying them with this money i had on a card that said "thyme to celebrate," which i appreciated, because i really really really like thyme.  but i couldn't bring myself to pay for them so i resolved to come back later with a magic bag.  after i left the store, i couldn't help but think it would have been better to spend the credit on three things i need instead of dozens of snacks i don't need.  i am back in the cycle of eating sugar all the time, taking candida cleanse pills and even using miconozole*.  it's funny because of course i know that candida cleanse pills and miconozole [and tea tree, and garlic, and probiotics, etc etc etc] are not a solution.  i don't think yeast-arrest pills make it so i can feed the candida in/on my body all day every day but it won't grow if i just take these pills, but that is what i pretend while i'm at the grocery store these days.

a few days ago i got a parking ticket.  i thought occupy oakland was going to camp in mosswood park.  i went to a meeting before dark and was frustrated because only three people were talking.  one of them wasn't a man so that was somewhat uplifting, but it was was grossing me out.  this meeting was put forth as a general assembly.  ugh, i don't know, so it seemed like the cops had come and people were thinking we shouldn't stay another night.  another thing is that, since i was just gone for two months, i did not recognize a single person at the park.  like these people had all just moved here or something.  so i was happy to see josh and ayr and melinda and then it was getting cold so i went in big d to read.  and to sleep.  i parked in front of a sign that said i couldn't park there between 7am and 7pm.  so i set an alarm for 6:45.  and when i got up at 6:45, i had a ticket for being parked there between 12am and 3am.  and that is bullshit.  so i wondered if one could contest a parking ticket, and the answer is yes.  but i didn't want to go to their office.  i found out you can contest a parking ticket through email.  i had to do things like take a picture of my signature to paste onto this form on a computer and a picture of the citation, but it was worth it to not have to interact with them.  i think.

was it because i hate bureaucracy or because i just don't want to deal with anyone at all right now?
walking around, benefiting from how no one recognizes me at all anymore, i smiled at the abusive couple we kicked out of hellarity.  they smiled back at me.  i smiled at crystal, who i'd just been talking about with someone else.  she smiled back at me.  like we were all strangers.  

but when i saw john benson at that shitty grocery store, i said hi, and he said "i'm performing in about an hour."  and i went.  it was so outrageous and weird and i'm putting a thing about it in my next zine.  mikey knows i'm in town because i'm going to hawaii with him in a few days.  he asked me if i was going to play at the show he booked, which was right after john's show.  aw fuck, i guess.

mando and aleksi's house.  it was nice.  everyone was so drunk.  i saw a lot of people i hadn't seen in a while.  DA gave me such a good hug.  a person i've always bad-idea crushed on was really drunk and put his arm around me and i wanted out but i didn't want to be rude.  i didn't want him to notice and say "oh what, you don't like me?"  or some other stupid thing like that.  someone else was talking to me, too, while i sat there.  i started to have an anxiety attack.  it was so loud.  bad-idea crush was asking me about my trip and i was just saying whatever, shortly, trying to make them feel like i'm not a jerk, really, and i realized my voice was cracking trying to talk to these people and and i was like "i have to go sit in my van."

i played and, during my short set, between three and six people were watching.  friends had been enthused about my playing earlier, asking me when i was gonna go on, and now were nowhere to be found.   mikey announced it three times but they were having drunken debates at the fire.  they were at home 'cause it's past their bedtime.  they were smoking weed.  i played after all the loud bands, at like 1am.  i had never played at such a rager before.  i had to fight off some people doing piano karaoke so i could start my set, and when they got what i was saying, they said "oh yeah, okay, go 'head and play."  and then started playing piano again, like that dialogue had not just happened.  someone spilled beer on most of my stuff.  after my first song, some dude started walking around me, in between me and my stuff, asking his friend what the hat he lost looked like.  i just started doing the next song while they were all up in my shit.  whatever.  at the end, mikey yelled "one more song!"  he was laughing and i couldn't tell why.  i mean, i would have laughed, too.  but i wasn't sure if that meant he hated it or felt bad or just thought the whole situation was funny.
but when one of the housemembers i hadn't met asked me about magick and told me he was studying african magick i knew it was worth it.  then of course any conversation we may have had was interrupted and turned into a conversation between that person and the dungeon master about something sorta related, i guess.

aleksi said i could sleep in my van and come in in the morning and make breakfast and he gave me a key to the door.
i woke up to rain and a need to use the bathroom and a closed and locked gate in front of the house.  i didn't have the key to that.  so i left.

all of us going to hawaii were going to go to a far away REI for free stuff today and they all went without me 'cause i am back in my low pro world, away from all that noise.  i will be jealous of their good gear while i'm traveling with them, but at least i got to finish that book i was reading and read some zines and write letters and....

*miconozole is a chemical that is in most yeast infection suppositories and creams.  it's also used for athlete's foot.  explaining what miconozole is was an afterthought.  i really put the asterisk next to it just so y'all could know that the spell check doesn't recognize this word [not now, and not when i was spelling it without the E at the end] and gave me the option of correcting it as "semi-colon."

i can't hear very well out of my right ear because, four days ago, i drove through some mountains.  how the butt am i going to be able to handle a plane to hawaii next week?

the p.o. box did not disappoint.
letters, tapes, CDs, stuff people made, flattened pennies, zines...
i haven't even opened it all yet.  it's too much.

by rbm photo in bellbrook, oh.

i parked to sleep by where i go to my OA meeting but i slept through it.
i went to essex and found out my code had been cancelled, and as i stood for a moment to gather myself in bummertown by the gate, i heard that buzzing sound that means it's time to open it up and go inside.
i guess maybe that guy saw me at the gate and decided he could let me in, since i'm just one lady.  but i'd prefer to believe that i was permitted to enter by some otherworldly being who knows that essex is an important part of my morning ritch.

dank.