Letters To Australia

I just can’t get the fesival out of my head – I’m homesick for it.

I haven’t gone through the journal I kept (to make it family friendly edit it into something linear and well written) so I won’t post that yet… don’t hold your breath for it because I’m lazy and forgetful.

I did, however, receive some pics from friends and spend a good portion of my life going through other people’s photo’s on flickr. Thanks to Gayla and CJ for the photos at the beginning, and thanks to whoever uses flickr for the rest. I don’t claim credit for any of these.

(Also, if you find yourself in any of these and would prefer I take them down, just tell me and I will. That goes for the previous fest entry as well… I tried to be sensitive and avoid posting pictures of anyone less than fully dressed without permission, but if you’d rather not be here at all just drop me a line and it’s all gravy.) (Also if I have a photo up that you took and you want credit for it or for me to delete it, again, lines and gravy.)

Gayla’s Photo’s:

Gayla (right) and her partner Phoebe (left), Godesses of Lift Giving. Big love to them.

Kat, Goddess of Lift Sharing. Check how hard she’s rocking her water bottle. Bitch and Animal stickers, totally hip.

Coming back from… something. Vagina monologues maybe. Gayla pointed her camera at this cutie and she just stopped and posed for a little while, then went quietly on her way. I spose she gets it a lot for being so cute.

Also, notice how sensible everyone’s shoes are.

Opening ceremony.

Gayla harassed them after Kat and I got through.

The crowd at Night Stage.

Opening ceremony – the dancers went in and out of the pink hole the ribbons are coming from. Can you guess at the symbolism?

BITCH! I felt so uncomfortable when I was helping set up in Iowa that time, I tried to avoid saying her name. It seems stupid now, but I guess most people would be like that. Anyway she’s brilliant.

Comedian Elvira Kurt. I didn’t really know who she was before fest. Or I did but I didn’t really care. She won me over.

CJs photos:

The exact moment I discovered the Mutant Bug Bite on my thigh. It’s STILL healing, I have no idea what it’s problem is. Asshole bug. CJ was trying to get a naughty photo of me, but you can’t see shit so I win.

Focus!

Home

Happiness! Dana and Yvonne

Butch Parade leaving from triangle. Someody asked me if I was going to march in it and I had a bit of an identity crisis. It repeated itself when someone asked if I was going to march in the femme parade. The answer to both was no.

Crowd at Day stage

Femme parade. You can see Lori and Juliet on the right.

Femme parade. Dana and I watching.

Michfest Watermelon is the greatest!

Dana says this is her favourite of CJs photos. Mine is her ripping into Liz for something:

‘Namaste, bitch!’

No seriously she’s probably saying something nice.

The quilt.

‘JOIN THE SISSY BUTCH REVOLUTION – WE HAVE CANDY’

Tempting.

I love how they have their hands wrapped, like they’re going to break out in a boxing match.

We’re in the fucking woods

Amazons at Triangle

Flickr photos:

Demming, one of the DART (Disabled Resource and Access Team) busses

The dish drying rack. I was like ‘Dish bag? wtf do I need one of those for? NO.’ and Maggie was like ‘I will buy one big enough to dry cars in for no particular reason.’ It worked out well, really. For me.

The land really looks like this.

And this.

The Janes, badly labelled I thought.

The sign by the kitchen. Everywhere else except by orientation – where you can be seen from the road – clothing is optional.

The kitchen tent, the flags are where you line up. This photo was taken from the shuttle.

Night stage, I wish I knew who took this photo because I love it. Look at the moon.

Orientation. Anywhere but fest this place would have left me scarred and haunted by nightmares… chaos! I had no idea what to do or where to go! But fest womyn are the greatest. So helpful, so on top of things.

A typical path. Even getting lost was a fun event.

Art on the fence between workerville and the rest of the land. The old me would have been like slightly repulsed by the fact that it has pubic hair. Like maybe it’s too in your face and unnecessary. The current me thinks the whole thing is beautiful.

Taps where we washed dishes like good women are supposed to. Only it was in the middle of the woods and it was only our work because EVERYTHING was our work. What a magical place.

Ace just now:

‘Tae, I think your adoring public has had enough fest photos.’

Me just now:

‘Lucky it’s not up to them.’

P.S

marga gomez marga gomez marga gomez (just so you find it)

So tonight was in interestingly American Redneck experience – Demolition Derby in Macon County, Missouri!

Ace seems incredulous that we actually went, but I’d have been incredulous if we didn’t. How could I possibly pass up something like a demolition derby?! That’s like… that’s like somebody saying ‘Hey it’s midnight, let’s drive to Iowa’ and me saying ‘No, I think i’ll go to bed.’ or finding a street vendor that sells vegie dogs and NOT buying one. Some things you have to do so you can say you have, besides which, it was kind of fun.

So basically, the premise of a demolition derby is that a whole bunch of stripped, beat up cars park in a muddy oval, wait for the flag waving guy to say go, then play dodgem cars until all but three of them fall apart, roll, get rammed out of the ring, catch fire, lose their tires or basically anything that causes them to stop dodgeming. Then it begins again, and again, and again. After four heats, the twelve cars that have survived, albeit barely, enter the ring together and beat the snot out of each other until one is left running.

I think, anyway. I only last two heats before it got monotonous. I almost regret leaving because I heard there was supposed to be a tractor pull at the end (get two tractors, face them away from each other, tie them together, watch) but really I would have fallen asleep or got beaten up or something. Perhaps food poisoning from the derby fare.

Here is tha pictures:

Sign out front. Retro, no?

Not really. Those cool sorts of signs are everywhere here. My favourit is the one on the main drag in Kirksville. The stubborn owner spells out ‘VACUUM CENTRE’ over and over and over. But over and over and over some not terribly witty smart-ass Kirksvillain edits it to read ‘CUM CENTRE’

Parking director. No kidding. He told everyone where and how to park.

Bleachers! And an oval of mud!

Ok, not to be a judgmental bitch, but this guy was great. Alco shirt, blue jeans, bandana hanging out of his back pocket. You can’t see his red neck but he really did have one.

Lesbians like folk singers, underarm hair, U-Hauls and nachos.

Guy in a white pick-up truck, holding a flag while we listened to the national anthem. It was intense. I stood with my hand over my heart because I didn’t know that I didn’t have to and I didn’t want to get killed, but it was so wierd. Everyone was so reverant of the flag and the anthem, all the screaming yelling bloodthirsty Demo Derby fans fell silent and listened respectfully.

‘America is the greatest country on earth!’

Intense.

Firetruck and firefighters in case anything/anyone caught fire. Several cars did but not spectacularly enough to warrant any exciting firefighting action.

Everything asploding

Chaos

Tractoring and bulldozing the cars off at the end of the first round

And again

DEMOLITION DERBY!

Like my shirt? I wanted to fit in. I think I failed a bit.

Fail!

Let’s smash shit up! Look at the fire in our eyes! Look at our rage! Our passion! We LOVE us some demolition derby!

This car was brilliant. I think I can I think I can. It just would not die. It’s wheels are pigeon toed, it’s boot is bent RIGHT UP, it’s cabin is crushed in on it’s driver, smoke is billowing out of it’s engine but still it fights.

Here’s a video I took, I didn’t even notice the kid exploring his ass until I got it onto the computer. If you are wearing headphones maybe take them off, because people yell and it’s not pleasant when it’s loud.

So like a fool I put my photos on Caroline’s computer and forgot to send them to myself. This means I am missing some fest photos, photos from the sailing trip and photos of dinner with Liz and Bry.

I also haven’t yet gone through and saved the photos of fest that CJ sent me, nor have I received photos from anyone else.

But fear not, I do have some photos. And here they is:

Lunch (finally) with Liz and Bry at the Eaton Centre. They shopped and I limped after them and flirted with a guy from Melbourne. Funny the effect accents can have on me… :S

Scandalous! My canadian and I on the ferry to the Island in Toronto.

Less scandalous. I got super tanned in that day’s sun… super tanned by my standards at least.

‘Australian! Take pictures of me!’

Bagel on Dundas Street in the very early hours of the morning. Tim Hortons makes life worth living.

The CN tower from afar. I meant the photo to be like that. Did so.

Walking down College street, after walking past Ember Swift without noticing, I happened upon this creepy clock backed by a creepy sky.

How to get to Caroline’s house

Nay’s ass, Nay’s Gimp Shoes. I learned the fine art of lurking from Caroline.

This is unfortunately the only picture I have of Nay, but what a fine picture it is!

Fake meat from Kings! I don’t even like fake meat. I do, however, like Kings Cafe.

Kensington Market on Pedestrian Sunday. This photo is grey for reasons I do not understand, but the day was sunny and beautiful. I ventured into the market to get food for the 23 hour bus trip I was preparing to take that day but I kept getting distracted by things like breakdancing kids, people offering free advice, and running into people I knew. I also meant to buy maple syrup and presents for the kiddies… I accomplished very little.

Breakdancing kids.

After feeding myself, taking deceptively grey photos and failing to think of anything I needed free advice on, I decided to get down to being productive and accomplishing the things I needed to do before I left. Heading up towards the convenience store I walked straight into Sharon, life saver and giver of lifts, and Ember, maker of beautiful music.

I love coincidences!

Turns out not only were both of them at the island the day before, they were at the same part as Caroline and I. On top of that, the night before Ember spotted me on College street and thought me vaguely familiar but couldn’t place me. I didn’t even see her, but her hair is brown now and she seems fond of wearing big sunglasses. In the market, before Sharon pointed her out, I wouldn’t have recognized her if I’d fallen over her, so my chances of noticing her standing outside a bar at 1am were about zero.

So we stood and chatted for awhile and Ember translated everything into mandarin for her chinese friend – whose name began with a G, I think, but which I cannot remember in its entirety – then I walked up the street with Sharon while we tried to find her bike. Afterwards, I walked all the way back and halfway up the stairs to Cs place before I even noticed the glaring lack or presents, food and maple syrup.

Too late though, I had to pack and haul ass to the greyhound station.

I seem to remember taking more photos than this on the bus, but perhaps I just thought about it a lot and fell asleep because this is the only one I seem to have. Interesting fact: contrary to popular opinion, that mark on my arm is NOT teeth marks.

I should have a video of Grandpa the hamster thing somewhere, but I don’t seem to, so here’s a video of Caroline being mean to me and me totally forgetting which country I’m from. Enjoy.

I’m freaking out. My accent. It is lost!

I was going through my camera and I watched a video I took of Caroline saying mean things about me, and my accent is TOTALLY FUCKED.

Oh Mah God.

I knew it was all screwed up but holy crap… it’s pretty much gone! I have no Identity! I have no nationality! I don’t even exist!

I’ll never speak again!

Me, Elvira Kurt, Marga Gomez, Alix freaking Olsen and Kat who I carpooled up with. We were walking back from the vagina monologues and they were walking in front of us so we harassed them for a picture.

Ten thousand points for subtlety, the theme for this years festival was ‘Vagina’ and this is what you had to walk through to get to the Night Stage. Note the clit at the top.

This is CJ from Boston. She camped next to me and spread rumours about Dana (not maliciously though).  She rides a Harley and you can totally tell. CJ is the person to go to if you are in need of a beeah.

Gabrielle from Toronto TOTALLY disappeared on me, so CJ and Dana helped me duct tape this sign to my back. I got a ride out of it, but then that woman totally disappeared on me. It was good for starting conversations though. That’s Kat laughing at me in the corner.

It says ‘I NEED A RIDE TO TORONTO please! sun/mon’

Sleeping alone was hard because it was so cold it was literally painful. This is me getting up at 6:30 to do my first workshift on the very first day. I’m not terribly impressed in this photo, but it ended up being really a lot of fun.

Not to mention this is the sort of morning that greeted me every time I got up.

This is my teeny tiny yellow tent. It’s just the right size for one person, more turned out to be an issue. The green and black one to the right is Dana’s tent. You could fight literally eight of my tents in one of her tents. The yellow one you may or may not be able to locate in the top right corner is Maggies tent. She has no idea quite how many times I nearly crawled into bed with her after stumbling into the solo collective, sans flashlight, in the early hours of the morning. Serves her right for putting such a confusingly similar tent near mine, I’m sure she did it on purpose.

This is Dana giving me a haircut near the Day Stage. Note how ratty and yuck and long my hair is. It turned out pretty well. People always make sympathetic faces when I tell them that it took literally two hours to get done, but it was so much fun. That’s kind of how michfest is: everything takes forever and time behaves strangely. If you accomplish nothing in an entire day save for sitting under a tree by the kitchen and talking to passers by, it has still been a worthwhile day.

Plus that haircut did wonders with tha ladies, thanks Dana.

This is Dana dancing, I don’t recall who to. She is the most bizarre incredible dancer, and when she dances – as with most everything she does – she’s totally unreserved and unselfconscious… until you point a camera at her. I had to launch some sneak attacks when she was distracted.

This was the femme parade. The femme in the cape is a fabulous spoken word artist who performed at the burlesque show, but I don’t remember her name. Catwoman, I believe, is the very same woman who greeted my shuttle onto the land with a ‘Chocolate Shake.’

What an interesting person.

Me, Dana, CJ, a random femme and Angela at the entrance of the metaphor. Angela camped by CJ and I and the three of us sat around talking every now and then. Fest is great like that – we have so little in common, but we were close anyway.

On the way to get her mountains and mountains of barter market stuff from her car, Dana and I took a break to watch a random performance by Nervous But Excited somewhere on the road. How much do we look like a Butch/Femme couple? I totally wouldn’t have sat like that if I’d been able to see myself. HA. Also I look like I have sex hair, this photo is so misleading.

Setting up for the Barter Market a drum parade walked past. The woman in the green pants with red hair is Corinna from Sydney. I used to engage her in pointless conversations just so I could hear her accent.

This is the Crosstown Shuttle that ran from Triangle to Downtown and then back. ‘Downtown’ however was really a bunch of important tents and a sink. You can’t see in the picture but the shuttle gets pulled by a big tractor which is driven by really really hot butches. They tend to be shirtless and I assume the driver was in this photo otherwise I probably would have included her in it. Nobody thinks twice about being shirtless at fest, but that doesn’t mean they want their pictures in your camera or on your blog.

CJ, Dana, Me, Kat at the acoustic stage. Note how nice my hair looks, nice and short.

Not sure why this picture didn’t rotate. This is after Kat, Lori and I helped Dana take out her impressive braides. GINGER FRO!

This is Lori. She got pulled up to dance with Von Iva and I just about couldn’t stand. She’s going to sleep on my couch next year, but I’m thinking it might work out better for me if I don’t own a couch. She totally gave me a blood lip, but I didn’t mind too much.

Kat wearing Dana’s hair extensions. Note the ferns. I think it’s a good look for her, something different.

Juliette from the Ani show, this is us sitting together after the closing ceremony. She makes Iowa city seem really appealing.

I totally didn’t even ever post about the rest of that camping trip, huh? Or the Ani concert, huh?

Well… aren’t I just superbly unorganised and horrible at blogging.

I’ve been keeping busy. I spent this week past in the middle of the woods in Michigan without about 3000 lesbians and haven’t really had time for blogging – not to mention I’ve been completely cut off from technology.

My plan is to post the blog entries that I scrawled in my little notebook (at 5am after a night in the twighlight zone, sitting in the sun listening to Garrison Starr, hanging out waiting for the tractor shuttle… no situation was conducive to legibility) every now and then. I would say in real time as if it were happening but I’ll probably never post anything at all. You’ll just have to ask me for all the exciting stories.

As of midnight monday night, I am in Toronto.

Getting here was about as interesting as getting to the festival – I had two rides fall through, one from a Torontonian with a supa hot accent named Gabrielle and one from a giant black womon named innocence who would have been THE most fun to ride with ever – and I ended up standing by the front gate with a sign that said ‘Toronto’ while the last fifty people filed off the land.

For some reason Gabrielle and I were totally incapable of finding each other, and I lost innocence in the chaos surrounding the thousands of womyn all departing with all their shit at the same time. It was nobodies fault really, but it still stressed me the hell out.

After standing by the gate awhile Yvonne – the friendly butch from the twilight zone who frequented Dana’s tent – pulled over in her great big pick up and offered me a lift and a place to stay in Lansing . She and the other womon who’s name I’ve forgotten stopped by me and were like ‘Come to Lansing!’ and I was like ‘Totally!’

I would have done it, too, only my visa was about to expire so I could only have stayed for one night and would have had to get a greyhound to Toronto anyway. So I thanked them graciously and went back to standing and hoping.

A few cars later, just as I was about to freak out and ask for a lift to anywhere with a bus station, a sedan with Ontario plates stopped and motioned for me to get in. THANK GODDESS.

See here’s the thing – never ever in a million years would I ever even consider thinking about hitchiking anywhere ever at all. Except fest.

I don’t think you can really understand unless you’ve been, but believe me when I say I wasn’t putting myself in danger.

The woman who pulled over, Sharon, turned out to be best friends with Ember Swift, which is a totally bizarre coincidence but one that worked out fabulously because I had the privilege of listening to a new, unfinished, solo track from the upcoming album.

It is so far from anything I’ve ever heard or would ever have expected from Ember. It was as beautiful if not more beautiful than Pek, and I don’t even really have the words to describe it.

I can’t wait for the album.

So Sharon and I split gas to Toronto and since it was late and she was late and I was a stranger etc. she dropped me off at a subway station instead of driving downtown to drop me at Caroline’s, which is totally rational and not unfair but still scared me a little.

New city, new transportation system, middle of the night, two huge running-and-fighting-prevention duffel bags… it was a bit nerve wracking.

It was especially rough on me having just left the land hours before, I was feeling a bit bewildered being back in a city, back in a patriarchy, back in a selfish culture and back in the real world.

But I got here uneventfully and Caroline, who’d never even met me before, greeted me half dressed and offered me Nay’s bed to sleep in, even though I’ve never met Nay before either.

It kind of set the tone – that’s what everyone in this house is like. Friendly and welcoming and free.

I woke the next morning to C climing onto my bed/Nay’s bed to offer me a map that she’d drawn. The map featured a book store, a market, the CN tower, a queer women’s sex toy shop and some sparkly cat stickers – ‘Because lesbians like cats, little slut.’

Apparently in this house, or at least in Caroline’s world, ‘little slut’ is a term of endearment. It’s what she calls me when she’s not calling me The Australian.

I’m not entirely convinced many people know my name, because nobody uses it. It’s all ‘The Australian says we can stay on her couch next year,’ ‘I wonder if the Australian likes grapes,’ ‘The Australian and I are going to get some cake for dinner.’

C even uses it to address me directly,

‘ Hey little Australian, come here a second.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re holding a whip.’

‘Prude. Hey Nay, come here a second.’

Today is my third day here. I’ve mostly been napping and eating pastries (thats not even a joke) but I’ve also done some blog worthy things.

The night before last I borrowed Sarah’s bike and C and I rode through the city and the night to watch some bike messengers, including her girlfriend Maija, play bike polo. Which is about the coolest game ever.

Then we rode through the city and the night some more to get some ridiculously good cheesecake for dinner at midnight.

Last night Caroline was like ‘Let’s go sailing!’ and I was all ‘Let’s totally go sailing!’ so she and Maija and Inah and another bike courier whose name I don’t think anybody ever told me and I all went out onto the lake on Inah’s sailboat.

I am probably spelling Inah’s name wrong, but let’s pretend not.

It was supah supah fun and we all ate brownies and candy and chips and listened to music and cool things like that while we sailed but then the cops killed our buzz.

Our motor flooded and so we ended up heading in later than we meant to – just as night fell – with no lights. We were totally safe but it was technically illegal and the cops pulled us over. Everyone was a little bit scared that they would board but they didn’t and I have to say, regardless of everyone elses impressions, canadian cops are very friendly.

Today I slept late and didn’t get up till like midday. It’s not my fault though. I feel totally mentally rested and refreshed from festival – but physically I’m exhausted. The kind of exhaustion you can’t get over in a decent night’s sleep and I haven’t even had that yet. Last night C slept at Maija’s and offered me her bed which is more of a giant comfy marshmallow than any bed I’ve ever seen, and it was so comfy and warm and quiet that I just couldn’t quite get up.

When I did I headed down to the market and got a danish for breakfast. I thought it might be nice to eat it in the park and I accidentally sat next to a crazy woman. I totally thought she was just a hippy watching her kid or something until she started talking.

‘I’m sorry you guys,’ she yelled, ‘I got nervous. I appreciate the future and the past… but not the present. I have to get this off.‘

Then she started harassing me so I left. I felt bad for her but it’s not like she was even asking me for anything, she was trying to engage me in conversation that didn’t make any sense and I was a little scared of her.

I went to a vegetarian restaurant after that and got some nuggets and a pork bun, then I wandered around following my map and went to the women’s bookstor. I bought a zine and felt very trendy.

I hurried back, limping because I hurt my foot at fest and it’s only getting worse, and climbed the stairs to the apartment as the sky broke.

I’m meeting liz tonight for dinner, which is way exciting. It’ll be so good to see her again and also to have someone to tell all my blog-inappropriate stories. I’m so glad it stopped raining and I hope it continues not raining because we’re meeting on the corner.

The end