So far Pittsburgh is the roughest stop on our trip. Lots of little interpersonal bumps. As I told Eldest Child today, “Hey making mistakes is part of life. At least you won’t have to see these people much in the future.”

It’ll be good to move on.

I lost the contact information for one of the womyn I met at Michfest, which is a huge bummer because I’ve already lined up several people who want to hear from her. I sure hope she emails me soon. Eeek.

I have emailed everyone else who gave me their contact information. I feel super guilty about the data I lost. Crumbs.

I am so tired. Tonight the computer goes off at 9pm. I have to sleep. I’m catching up on laundry because the kids don’t have a single pair of pants or dress left. They can’t go about their day in underwear and a shirt so I guess I need to do laundry.

So. So. So. So. So. tired.

I was up till 2am watching what is happening in Ferguson… again. I am entirely overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening in my country. Then I went to get a waffle this morning because I was starving while the kids were asleep and I had a chatty conversation with a woman about baby carriers and their various functionalities. She asked me about my travel plans then proceeded to tell me at great length that she would never abandon her husband.

Between Michfest, police officers killing black citizens, and white women feeling the need to tell me constantly that I’m abandoning my husband by traveling… I feel like my life is fucking surreal. I feel like I can’t begin to say what I feel about any given topic because there are so many topics going on.

I am really tired. Today is going to be festive. We are supposed to visit with a friend from California who is in this area visiting family. I’m supposed to be all upbeat and cheerful and shit because that’s polite.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

We have to make it to Pittsburgh by the 12th so we can pick Noah up. Today and the next two days are driving days because we have to cover over 600 miles. Noah wants to go to a birthday party that is happening in Pittsburgh and that is why he is coming out this time. It was just luck that we are in Pittsburgh when he wants to be there.

Not sure if I will be able to be coherent this morning. I’m all over the place. I worry that I will need caffeine later.

The kids were up until 11 and 12, respectively. WHY COULDN’T YOU DO THAT AT MICHFEST INSTEAD OF WANTING TO BE IN BED AT 9?! I really wanted to go to the shows and the kids just couldn’t do it. Maybe it is because at Michfest we had to walk 3-9 miles a day. (3 miles roundtrip from our campsite to the main festival area. We camped too bloody far away. I didn’t realize we were in the very farthest spot from everything when we set up. Whoops.)

Youngest child is the one who made it to midnight. I blame the damn nap in the car.

The friend we see today has a kid in the same age range as my kids. They like playing together a lot so this should be fun. Tomorrow we are going to stop and see another fellow I met in the bay area who has since moved full time to Michigan. The next day we get to Pittsburgh to camp in the driveway of one of Noah’s college friends–they unschool their two kids who are barely older than my kids.

Lots going on. A lot of things to think about and remember and rehearse in my head. How to be polite. How to be accommodating. Don’t walk around screaming, “Fuck the police” all the time or it may be problematic.

But you know what? Fuck the police.

I got 15 ant bites in my last hour of striking camp. I don’t god damn know why. I think they were even falling out of the tree because they were landing on my back and biting me really high up–not just my feet. By the last one I was screaming and freaking out because it hurt and then I felt really guilty because I freaked out some neighbors. I’m sorry. That is a lot of bites in a short period.

I didn’t get bit at all by ants any other day.

Between the ants, mosquitos, and lesbians it feels like half of Michigan wanted to eat me. (I thought that line was funny. I didn’t actually get directly hit on at all by any lesbians. They were friendly and not flirtatious.)

Ok, kids are up. Breakfast is had. Must get moving.

I am entirely certain that this will turn into a whole series of essays. They may vary in coherence because I had such BIG feelings over the week I was there. I’m having a hard time unpacking my feelings into easily digestible bits.

You know how I never feel like I belong anywhere? Know how I leave every community after a relatively short involvement because I feel like I am poison and I am going to hurt the people there?

Well, I had one rough day during the week but it was one of those days that my period tracker app on my phone says will suck. So I don’t think that is about Michfest. I think that is me being able to have a bad day no matter how awesome things are.

I feel like I ripped my heart out and left it in the woods in Michigan. I will never be fully whole again because I can never return to those womyn and that hurts so much. I got contact information for many and I intend to send them emails tonight after I blog. I want to maintain relationships with these womyn so so so so much.

I’m not normally big on the “womyn” spelling, but it is so integral to the experience of Michfest that I will attempt to use it when I’m writing about the festival. In a weird way it is like saying Deaf culture or Black culture. I want to respect how they think of themselves. It matters how people are represented.

I barely know how to start addressing this. Why was it so intense? I don’t even fucking know. It just was.

I talked to Noah on the phone earlier and he said that it sounds like I have been longing my whole life for a community I didn’t think existed and now I found it in time to lose it. Yeah, that’s kinda it.

Every time I felt panic because, “Ack I need help. Shit.” Someone appeared like magic. Every time I was about to scream at my kids because I was just fucking done some woman yelled from a little distance away, “Hey kiddo! Wanna play?” Then my kids were distracted and I had time to do whatever it was I needed to do.

I felt seen and important.

I have been to many events that try hard to be like this event. They always feel like they fail in some substantial way. I’m not saying Michfest is perfect and all womyn who go are perfect. I’m saying it scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had.

I spent the last day walking around crying because I wish my mom had been able to meet these womyn. I wish she had been able to meet strong, independent, caring womyn. Youngest child kept asking me all week, “What was it like when you came here with your mama when you were a little girl?” No matter how many times I reminded her that I had never been before… (s)he just couldn’t grasp the idea that my mother did not take me to Michfest. It was just unthinkable.

Youngest kiddo was thrilled to “be a girl” all week so I may just use female pronouns for her in this writing because gender neutral is so difficult.

The penultimate day there was a parade from the older girls day care place. I can’t express what it was like watching hundreds of dressed up, having fun little girls marching along yelling at the top of their lungs, “Who runs the world?! GAIA GIRLS!!!!”

I went to workshops. I’m sure I write more about them separately in the future but for now one of them was run by a woman with a psychiatric history not that different from mine. She took those horrifying experiences of being traumatized by institutionalization and became a lawyer and has spent over a decade working on a UN International Treaty for the rights of users and survivors of psychiatric care.

Basically she is fighting to ensure that my government no longer has the right to tie me to a table and inject me with drugs just because they don’t like how I’m behaving.

I don’t think she’ll win in this country. But other countries have ratified the treaty and other people are having better lives because of her work. I feel humbled by her efforts. She is really and truly helping to change the world for the better so that people like me have the right to be treated humanely.

I feel completely staggered by that. Thank you.

I met an awesome homeschooling mom from LA. She is on the last few laps of that journey. Her youngest child is 17. We exchanged emails and I told her I really want to pick her brain in the future about how she has handled issues. She says she really wants to keep talking about these things and she is glad to talk to me.

I went to many workshops that promoted the idea of transwomyn being womyn and they belong on The Land as much as every other womyn. I feel like my point of view was absolutely respected. Yes. There were Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) and we had some spirited conversations.

I got into it with one womyn who was ranting about how angry she is that anti-rape propaganda mentions womyn because “Men are the rapists and they are the ones with the problem. Stop acting like this is a womyn problem.” I said that I know for a fact that womyn rape. She said, “I know. I was raped by a womyn.” I am sure my facial expression spoke volumes. I thought for a minute and said, “I believe that anti-rape propaganda does not necessarily need to mention the gender of perpetrators at all. We need to address the problematic behaviors. Saying that the propaganda should only be aimed at men ignores valuable demographics. If every victim matters, we need to find a way to speak to all predators.”

She didn’t say that much after that. She looked like she was thinking hard.

I didn’t say that I know for a fact that womyn rape because I have done so but I thought it real loud. I had to learn what behaviors were problematic and change them. That required education, training, and effort on my part. Most predators aren’t in my position to chase that education the way I did. I wanted it more than most predators. We need to change our whole society so that the problematic behaviors are recognized earlier and people get the feedback they need to change.

Kind of like how the problem isn’t a kid kicking me in the throat. The problem is the mom saying it is all my fault.

I could barely drag the kids out of the childcare. They were there until closing every time. (Closing for dinner. We didn’t stay out till midnight. I can’t hack that. Even if it is only 9pm California time. We were great at staying on California time when we were two hours ahead. As soon as we hit three hours ahead we adjusted and had to start going to bed at 9pm because we were waking up so fucking early.) We only made it to childcare three days of the week. You had to sign up at 8am the day before and we didn’t always manage. The slots for the littlest area filled up fast.

I don’t think it was all the nekkid womyn although I will admit that I probably checked people out a bit more than was strictly polite. Oh. My. Gawd. So. Much. Hotness.

And yet… there was a fuckton of womyn who were not remotely conventionally “beautiful”. My kids spent a lot of time whispering in my ear, “I thought men weren’t allowed on The Land.” I said, “They aren’t.” “Then why is that man standing there?” “That’s a womyn, honey.” “………………..oh.”

Yup women are fucking diverse and it is awesome. They had a whole parade for bearded womyn. Rock fucking on.

Womyn walked around topless with their mastectomy scars showing. They were beautiful.

I saw womyn of every weight and possible weight distribution they were all beautiful.

I felt so grateful to be near womyn who were so comfortable in their own skins. I felt so grateful to be near womyn who feel they have the right to advocate for themselves and their issues. I felt so grateful to be near so many womyn who are not fucking doing what they are told.

It was funny how many of the older lesbians told me not to swear. Ha. Ha. Ha. No. I’m ignoring you now.

I loved getting to the opening ceremony and hearing a womyn stand up and yell that we NEED TO BE FUCKING PISSED. Rock on, sister.

That is probably enough for the first dump. So many more feelings to sort. In the trans-inclusion workshop the leader said, “This is not a utopia. It’s not safe space–it’s safe enough space. We have an agreement.”

I swear to goodness that blew my mind.

Why can’t spaces work like this when men are present? Why do they feel different?

I have so many feelings about exclusionary space and safe space and…

I need to stop. Arms are hurting. Thank you Michfest. Thank you for everything you have given me. I will try to be worthy.

Noah is here! I am much less interested in writing. Instead I am petting him and asking him to rub my back.

The trailer is fixed! This is very exciting.

Uhm… stuff. Chicago pizza is good. I like it best with more meat. However much meat you want to put on it, add some more.

My diarrhea is improving since I wised up on the corn syrup. I’m not pooping like a normal person (I compare my poop to my children and feel so much envy.) but things are improving.

We had a five minute long thunder and lightning storm with hail. Yay Chicago?

Noah flies out tomorrow. I’m glad we get to see him so much in August. We won’t see him in September.

I have some good specific points for revising Outrunning Suicide to be distinctly more inclusive. I’m excited about that.

Oh, I need to go make another post. I’ll do that. On Tuesday we drive out of here early and head to MichFest. After all these years I’m finally going.

Yesterday was exciting. By exciting I mean shitty. By shitty I mean full of vomiting. Oh it was fun. And violent diarrhea. The kind of sick where you have to sit on the toilet and puke in the bath tub because everything is letting go at once no matter how you feel about it.

I’m sure you all wanted to hear that.

And apparently in Illinois they don’t sell make-you-stop-puking medicine over the counter. You have to go see a doctor. With my out of state insurance and two small children when I can barely stand up. Right. Pedialyte and prayer it is.

It did stop. *phew*

And while I was sick and sick our room key stopped working. Apparently if they give you two keys, using the second key makes the first key not work and then neither works. Why in the fuck did you give me two then?!

While fixing that I discovered that the person who said we could be in this room for eight nights… lied. Saturday night we have to get out. But the front desk people tried to convince me to go somewhere else for one night and come back.

Uhm, probably not.

I’ll go somewhere more expensive with a better bath tub and a door between me and the kids. So I can have sex. Cause after two months of abstinence I’m kinda tapping the floor.

But only for three nights. Whoa we are hemorrhaging money. I’ll come clean at the end of the year when I do my accounting. For now I’m watching the balance and wincing.

I mean, it’s not like we are getting low on money. Noah is better at earning money than I am at spending it. But I want to throw it all at my mortgage, not this trip. Which makes it a matter of priorities not safety.

That’s completely fucking crazy to me. I talked to a woman who likes to travel like me. But she has been stranded several times and she had to ask family to wire her money because she had literally $300 for the trip and that didn’t go far enough.

That’s why I traveled less when I was poor. It’s terrifying. I did it. But not like this. Travel means you run into so many situations where you just simply have to have money.

The god damn axel fell off my trailer. That’s going to cost some money. But I want to camp on it for at least another 9 weeks. Minimum of 9 more weeks. (Lots of time in hotels at Disney World and we get to stay with friends a fair bit.)

I feel like I’m going to have to get a better handle on managing my pain levels before I can do the around the world trip. I may have to devote serious work to healing my body so that I can do that labor. Right now it would be wicked hard.

I’m really enjoying traveling with the kids. They make everything fun and exciting. We spend so much time laughing.

The nice man who offered to tow our trailer has been texting me lists of things to do with the kids while we are here. Today we are going to the county fair. Because that sounds fun.

I will walk slowly. It’s going to be awfully hot.

Talked to my shrink yesterday. She asked how I can work more travel into my life on a smaller scale more frequent basis because this is very energizing for me. I love meeting new people. It is easier for me to emotionally self regulate in new environments. I always feel like I’m on a timer for when people will get sick of me. My anxiety increases as time passes instead of me feeling more comfortable and secure.

This is super annoying.

I’m really hard on my friends. I’m sorry.

When I am mostly only meeting new people it’s easier to keep up a “front” of personality. I may need assistance and I know that the only way I’m going to get it is if I am pleasing. So I keep it up when I’m going from new person to new person.

It’s hard to keep that mask up though. I’m a bitter, angry person. I wish that people didn’t need me to pretend to be happy and energetic in order to deserve being treated decently. It’s like a job.

A job I will never get paid for.

But I am finding that having *no* space for letting myself relax and be more natural is causing me to do better with the kids. I don’t like that. I mean, I’m taking out most points of stress too and that makes it easier to do better with the kids. Hard to tell what causes what. All I know is I’ve been doing remarkably little screaming for me. In two months, much of which has been stressful for one reason or another… I’ve barely screamed. Only a few times. Not even weekly.

That’s doing pretty good for me. Oh my poor children. Well, I say that because it sucks to have someone scream at you at all.

At least my kids get told, “When I scream at you it is because I am angry, frustrated, and I’m out of patience. It isn’t because you deserve being screamed at. That’s me messing up and I’m sorry. You never deserve being screamed at.”

I wasn’t told that as a child. It’s at least something.

I feel really bad that sometimes Eldest Child will say, “Generationally our family is doing much better. Your mom had it bad, you had it bad, I have it pretty darn good and my kids will have it even better!”

It feels weird and awkward.

I mean… I’m glad she thinks she has it pretty darn good. That’s nice to hear. My children assure me regularly that I am nice to them.

I really really really like traveling with my kids. It is a pleasure, joy, and full of laughter. I feel so loved.

The completely non-helpful streak in Duluth is over too. *phew* I think they need breaks from responsibility. Which totally makes sense because they are four and seven.

I just need to learn how to ride the waves better without freaking out about every up and down motion. This is hard.

I learn more and get better with every year.

I love watching the kids sleep together in a puppy pile. Melts my heart.

My arms hurt because I’ve been typing too much. That’s kinda funny. Tonight I went out and bought a bottle of champagne and a bunch of orange juice because holy shit it has been a rough few days.

I’m not looking forward to the diarrhea. But I’m looking forward to a few hours of feeling mellow. I ain’t felt mellow in a while. This is my second alcohol since the trip started so I’m averaging 2 drinks a month on the trip. That’s pretty normal. If I have more of this bottle it’ll up my average.

We’ll see. The kids are watching the Power Puff Girls. I’m tired.

Tonight we had a caramel apple for dinner. It was covered in nuts and white chocolate and milk chocolate. I’m telling you, it’s been a fucking day.

Ok, later we had cornbread and butter. We didn’t *only* have the caramel apple.

And we had jerky. What more could you want from life?! We have blueberries and bananas. That’s some healthy shit.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. I’m trying not to curse with the kids. Mostly because my eldest child told me, “I don’t want to be the kind of person who swears a lot. It sounds angry and I’m really not an angry person.”

So I don’t want to model swearing just the now.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Shit and motherfucker and piss and cocksucker and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

All the fucking shit-tastic motherfucking shit I’m not supposed to say.

You have no idea how hard it is for me to not curse. But I’m doing well. I asked the kids and they said I’ve been doing surprisingly well.

I heard that “surprisingly” you little shit. I love you.

I am doing really well at not cursing in front of them. The words swirl around in my brain and I don’t say them out loud.

Hell, the kids have me working on “shut up”. I’m not even allowed to say that any more! I taught fucking high school BECAUSE I was allowed to say shut up! That was the reason! OH MY FUCKING GOD. REALLY. I CAN’T SAY FUCKING SHUT UP ANY MORE BECAUSE IT IS A BAD WORD?! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This sucks so much. I’ve been motherfucking resisting this change SINCE I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD. I’M NOT GOING TO GOD DAMN CHANGE FOR YOU!!!!

Ok yes I will. God damnit. I will. I will only fucking curse in my god damn blog and that will be motherfucking it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This doesn’t feel fair. I’ll tell you.

I love you so much. I’ll move mountains for you. I’ll even stop saying shut up if it bothers you.

Because you are that important to me. You and you alone are worth this kind of effort.

But I’ll bitch about you on my blog!

I think it is hilarious (and perhaps problematic) that my kids now say, “I’m not bitching I’m just saying” because they don’t know that “bitching” is a bad word. If they knew they would yell at me to expunge it from vocabulary.

Picture me rolling around on the floor with glee because I got away with something.

Seriously, when I think about it I laugh uproariously. It’s hilarious to me. I’m an asshole.

I’m a potty mouth. I’m a potty mouth. Neiner neiner fucking neiner.

This place will be the last hold out. Here, in my blog, I get to be as motherfucking profane as I GOD DAMN WANT TO BE.

I NEED ONE PLACE.

Don’t bug me about this. If ever someone tells me that I should tone down the cursing on my blog I might literally explode.

I’M DOING SO GOD DAMN WELL IN REAL LIFE. FUCK YOU ALL EVEN IF YOU NEVER THOUGHT THE THING THAT I WANT TO SAY FUCK YOU FOR.

It’s that kind of day.

I’m torn between freaking out about the broken axel and thinking positive things like, “Thank goodness it completely snapped in a parking lot!” and “Thank goodness these nice folks can make me a new axel in a week when I already planned to be here for a week!”

It’s like the universe said, “I know…. Krissy needs a cockup RIGHT NOW since she ain’t going nowhere noways. Muahahahahaha.”

FUCK YOU UNIVERSE.

But not very hard since you were so sweet as to let the axel completely go in the parking lot and not the freeway. That was awful kind of you.

I need to call the old dude! Oh shit. It’s too late at night now. I’ll call tomorrow.

Illinois is so awesome. I need to write this down before I forget.

So we were sitting in the vestibule of a Staples store trying to talk to AAA on the phone. I was on hold a lot. But outside I couldn’t hear the phone over the stupid diesel trucks that wanted to idle RIGHT NEXT TO ME and inside the store seemed a bit rude cause I was practically yelling.

Anyway, we were sitting in the vestibule, and this lady walks by. She said, “Are you all stranded? Do you need a ride home? I can help if you just need a ride.”

Whoa. I’m sitting there with my two kids and you …. just offer a ride. Wow. Thank you. That’s so kind.

I told her we were on the phone with AAA and we were not actually stranded and thank you so much for offering. That’s really kind.

Then we went out to the van to get stuff for the kids to do because we were going to have a wait in front of us. The guy sitting in a truck next to our van was real chatty. He got to talking to us. It started with, “Wow that’s a bright shirt. What does it say?” We talked for a while then the kids and I went into Starbucks to sit a spell.

After a few minutes a gentleman I didn’t recognize walked up and said, “Are you the lady with the problem?” My eyes got big and I nodded and he plopped down on the chair across from me. “Tell me about your problem. I like solving problems.”

I told him, at great length, about what was happening with the trailer. He asked me many questions. At the end he gave me his name and phone number and said if AAA couldn’t tow my trailer he and his brother (the guy in the truck) could handle moving me from point a to point b.

I almost cried. He was so nice.

Then another man stood up and waved me over to his table. When I got there he said, “This is kind of awkward but… are your kids hungry? You’ve had a really hard day and I have five grandkids and I got lucky today with a $200 repair being done for free and I told myself God doesn’t do these things by accident and I heard your story and…. Are your kids hungry?”

I told him that we weren’t hungry, we have a whole van full of food and you are the nicest thing ever.

Holy moly. I’m not sure I’ve ever had four strangers offer that much support in such a short period of time before.

I fucking love Illinois. I’m so glad we broke down here. This place is wonderful. At every hotel they’ve been really nice and sweet and offered us random bonus things because it sucks we are having so much trouble and…

I feel completely overwhelmed. Bad things happen, ok, life is like that. People can be so kind. People sometimes see you struggling and say, “Can I help?”

I’m so glad we are on this journey. Even the hard parts teach me things I want to know.

I am so grateful that mostly I can just solve problems. Throw money at the problem and it will evaporate. That’s awesome.

Thank you, Noah. This is because of you. Not because of me.

It makes me more and more and more and more passionately devoted to the idea of a basic income for all citizens. If having money can provide this much dignity and security we are pieces of shit for not giving it to all citizens as a matter of course.

I’m bringing this idea up over and over and over as I travel. Basic income. Dignity. All citizens are worthy of support.

It is kind of funny to me how many people say they have never heard of this concept before. Really?!

I miss Noah. I miss Noah so much I physically ache. I’m kinda pissed we can’t camp because I had totally figured a way to get private time for fucking and now we are in a hotel room. NOT FAIR!

There was a part of me that thought about getting two rooms right next to each other just for the secks. I decided that was a bit expensive.

I want sex. Whoa I want to get off. Like whoa. I’m getting off when Noah is here. Period.

Funny how I’m not masturbating. I tried the other day for like a minute and then stopped because it was pointless. Not happening.

I’m tired. But the kids are staying on California time. Have I mentioned how much this sucks for me? I’m letting it happen so we can maybe see fireworks at Disney World. We won’t see them without the time change advantage. My kids will stay up until “midnight” and I’ll feel like they are impressively night owls and then we’ll go home.

Yay home. I miss Wonderland.

Almost August. I miss my home. Don’t go home till the end of November. Suck it up, wench. You did this to yourself. Crazy to think I have almost four months until this journey is over. Why crazy? Because I want Noah so bad.

He’s coming in three more days! Less than that!

It’ll be ok. We don’t have another 7 week stretch without him. Yay! I want Noah. I miss Noah.

Noah helps me feel like it is ok for me to exist even though I’m problematic. I do something positive for him.

That’s a lot of why I’m confused about how rapists should be treated by society. They might do something positive for someone. How much of that matters?

I don’t know.

Life is so complicated. I feel so incompetent.