🌿 "You will never be self-sufficient" 🌿
Because nothing living is.
The worst job I ever had was right after high school. I graduated and then immediately moved to Portland for the summer, determined to live on my own in the months before college started. I’d found a job for myself with a group called the Campaign to Save the Environment. I was an ardent 17-year-old environmentalist who wanted to devote my life to defending the trees and wolves and oceans. The job was doing something called canvassing, which sounded fun and political.
When I got to the city, I found out that canvassing was actually a hell job. Every day, a team of bright-eyed young people would head to a neighborhood and knock on doors, asking for money to save the environment. The brutality of asking strangers for money was equally matched with the nonprofit’s compulsory can-do perkiness. The managers had to enforce a spirited “we’re a family!” vibe but if you missed your fundraising quota—$89 a day—for more than a few days, you were automatically fired. The job attracted both whole-hearted political activist types like me, mostly in their early 20s, and financially desperate older people who needed to make rent at any emotional cost. I was hired on the same day as 14 people. By the end of two weeks, I was the only person in my cohort left. This was essentially a political fundraising pyramid scheme that chewed through people who wanted to make a difference in the world and spit them right out.
I stuck with the hell job because I was extremely determined to prove how smart and capable and self-sufficient I was. Here I was, living on my own, working a real job, doing whatever the heck I wanted. So tough. Never mind that my mom had helped find an apartment, that I dreaded going to work, and that I was so lonely I spent most of my free time wandering around the city calling my friends back home or listening to Elliott Smith on my Walkman.
Anyway, one of the scams-disguised-as-opportunities that this job presented was “camping canvasses” wherein a team of workers would drive to another city to camp out and canvas for a week (no expenses paid). I signed up for the camping canvas in Reno. On the day we left, an ATM machine ate my debit card. I had only $20 cash. But I was determined to make it on my own for the week. I learned that the Silver Dollar casino had a 99-cent pancake and egg special, so I devoted myself to eating pancakes and eggs for every meal of the six-day stay. The canvassing went about as horribly as you would expect, if you dropped a bunch of Portland hippies in the cul-de-sacs of Reno’s suburbs and tasked them with knocking on every door to ask for money.
On the last night in Reno, reeking from a week of camping in the desert with no showers and slightly queasy from my exclusive Silver Dollar pancake and egg diet, I was dangerously under my quota. As the sun sank in the sky and I still had raised zero dollars, I knocked on a door and a middle-aged man opened it just a crack. I plastered a smile on my face and explained that I was hoping to end coal power in America. He opened the door further and revealed that he had a gun in his right hand. “Get away from my house,” he said. I backed off down his front walk. He closed the door. I was left stupefied. The sky was brilliant pink and purple. I walked a few blocks away, sat down on a curb, and tried not to cry. I felt very alone. I did not knock on any more strangers’ doors.
When the team picked me up, I told them what happened. We went out for pizza. Around the table, everyone counted out their totals for the week. I came up short, of course. I knew it meant I would be fired. I felt like I’d failed my test of the summer, to live a real adult life and make it on my own.
But then, without me saying a word, the rest of the team recounted their cash. One by one, they put their dollars down in front of me, until they reached $89. These were not rich people. They lived in shitty group houses, drank Rainier when they could afford it, and had to think twice before buying a deli sandwich. With each dollar they put toward me, they lost out on any bonuses they would make for raising over their quota. “$89,” my manager said. “Looks like you just hit your quota.” I could barely squeak out a thank you, with tears stinging my eyes. All summer, I had been trying to prove I could survive on my own. But a network of people—my family, my friends back home, this crew of strangers in the same horrible un-unionized boat as me—had wound around me and held me. Without being asked, each person gave what they could so I could stay afloat.
I was thinking about this, which happened almost 20 years ago now, as I read Ross Gay’s new book Inciting Joy. He talks about how there’s this American myth of individual success—a strong man pulling himself up by his bootstraps, all on his own. That’s what I was striving for, to prove myself a brilliant solo success. In reality, we’re all reliant on other creatures in the world, whether it’s canvassing comrades or the trees that breathe out the oxygen we inhale. Here’s a passage about learning this lesson from his garden, an interconnected biome where roots and minerals mingle, and which thrives thanks to help from friends and birds and worms over the years:
“A garden shows us that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you earn or stash or hoard or bunker up, no matter even your fleet of spaceships, you will never be self-sufficient or independent. Because nothing living is. … Even the most rugged and prepped survivalist, though perhaps in his mind prepared to go it free of human help (aside from his rifle and his shoes and often his Sherpa and probably a few other things made by poorly paid people), will not make it very far without the fish and deer and berries and wild greens and firewood, and everything that made these possible. As the writers and ecological stewards Vandana Shiva and Robin Wall Kimmerer teach us, to be among the living, to be life, means to be in dependence.”
These days, I’m still an ardent environmentalist, but now that means recognizing how none of us are alone. Not the wolves or oceans or trees or me. That’s the idea I’m keeping in mind this winter, as the world feels bleak and I don’t know how to deal with mass murder and terrible laws and each daily injustice. We grow our own networks to survive—in fact, yours has probably already woven itself around you, if you can look up and see it.
Stuff I Made
Big comic on gender - This is the longest and most personally important comic I’ve ever drawn. It process my roller-coaster of emotions around coming to identify as nonbinary. I’m grateful to The Nib for publishing it and to everyone who has read it and sent me really nice notes.
Memoir comics workshop - People ask me all the time for advice on how to get started drawing a comic about their life or to tell the story of someone in their family. So this winter I’m running an eight-week long online workshop on writing and drawing memoir comics. This group will meet two hours a week for eight weeks and focus on creating a draft of a 20-panel comic telling a real-life story. If you register for yourself or as a gift, use the discount code FRIEND for 10% off, because I appreciate you being here. Register here.
Color Pencil Bolo Tie Kits - Whenever I wear my bolo tie out in public, I get literally nonstop compliments. Why deny yourself this power to magnetically attract praise? You can buy a lil color pencil bolo tie kit for yourself or as a gift.
Upcoming Events
Comics Club - Here’s what I’ve always wanted: an event series where people just hang out and talk about comics. Simple! Big thanks to Liz Yerby for organizing this exact event. I’ll be presenting some stories at the next installment of Portland’s Comics Club, along with three other artists, at the Bye and Bye in Portland on December 15th. This event is outside, masks recommended. 12/15, 6:30-8:30pm, Bye and Bye (1101 NE Alberta), free!
OMSI After Dark - For this fun after-hours event at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, my friend Audra and I will be selling comics and teaching people how to fold their own zines. The museum has an exhibit up about superheroes, which is why they invited a bunch of local comics-makers to table. Masks recommended but not required. 12/7, 6-10pm, OMSI, $25
Zine Workshops in Longview, WA - If you happen to know anyone who lives in Longview, Washington, I’m doing two in-person upcoming zine workshops for their public library. These workshops are part of encouraging people to submit to the Washington State Zine Contest, which you should check out if you live in Washington. Dec. 5th and February 7th, 6pm, Longview Public Library, Free
Stuff I Love
Normal Gossip - This is absolutely my new favorite podcast. It’s a fun, charming, engrossing story when I want a break from the horrors of the world (which is all the time).
Radical Queer Witches - This social card game that plays like Cards Against Humanity but is created by a queer BIPOC Portlander is truly sweeping the city like a sensation. I’ve played it twice IN ONE WEEK at different friends’ houses and laughed more than I have in a long time.
Friday nights on KMHD - You can stream my favorite jazz station, KMHD, from anywhere in the world. That might not sound exciting, but let me tell you that Friday evenings on this station are musical perfection. The series of sets from 4pm to 11pm are a back-to-back-to-back dream team of DJ talent that would make Spotify weep. Stream KMHD here.
Friday night comics workshops from SAW - While you’re listening to the sweet sounds of KMHD, take a free one-hour workshop on making comics thanks to the Sequential Arts Workshop. I’ve been loving these cozy, low-key classes that are organized every Friday at 4pm PST, each week led by a different artist. Sign up here.
Sabrina Imbler’s sea creature book - I have a favorite science writer and their name is Sabrina Imbler. Sabrina mostly writes about the little animals everyone else overlooks—invertebrates, crustaceans, weird deep sea thingies—in such an engaging and joyful way. See their headline masterwork: When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat a Squid From a Clamp, That’s Amore. I’m excited for their brand-new book about sea creatures.
Rent a Butch Calendar - Yes I did shamelessly order this 2023 calendar.
Trans people belong here shirts by Ash & Chess - Currently coping with the news of transphobic laws around the country by buying one of every shirt by these artists.
Sheer shirts in general - Look, I don’t know what’s going on with me emotionally, but in the last month I’ve bought three sheer black shirts, one from Wildfang and two from Etsy, and I’ve been wearing them on every possible occasion.
Tamora Pierce’s Alanna series - Gender-bending knight and healer Alanna was one of my favorite characters when I was in junior high. This series by Tamora Pierce involves magic, cats, a horse named Chubby, frank discussion of birth control, and a love triangle between Alanna, a prince, and the King of Thieves. I’ve decided the time has come to make an elaborately produced Alanna fanzine and am re-reading the series for the first time since I was 13 or so. If you also have an Alanna fan story to share, please write it out here and I’ll include it in the zine!
What I’m Reading
Abandon Me - Somehow I’d never read a book by Melissa Febos before?? This devastating essay collection is equal parts sexy, vulnerable, raw, and insightful, as Febos charts the beginning and end of an obsessive romance while also exploring her own racial identity as an adoptee.
The Gods of Tango - Here’s my pitch for Carolina De Robertis’s historical fiction novel Gods of Tango: In 1910s Argentina, an Italian immigrant woman disguises herself as a man in order to pursue her true passion, tango. As a sultry violinist, she promptly sleeps her way through the many boudoirs of Buenos Aires women, distributing orgasms left and right. And it has a happy ending!
City of Night - This is the book I will talk your ear off about if you make the mistake of asking me what I’m up to these days. I’d never read anything by author John Rechy, a Mexican-American gay novelist who has published 17 books. This was his first, in 1963, an astonishingly frank, funny, saucy, and lonely document of life as a gay sex worker across the United States in the 1950s. He was one of the three people arrested at the Cooper’s Do-Nuts riot! Anyway. Let me know if you want to talk about City of Night for an hour or two.
Beautiful World, Where Are You - Sally Rooney writes in a dry, observational style about such precise and rich emotions. I loved how this book captured the mood of modern-day relationship angst. It’s also so steamy, with detailed sex scenes that would make me actually blush as I walked around the neighborhood listening to the book (narrated in a lovely Irish accent).
Something to Do
Cook food for someone. My friends can probably tell when I’m depressed because I randomly leave a jar of soup on their porch. Or text to say I baked them cookies and would they like a delivery? When times get hard, I get generous. I recommend this tactic. Of course, a good cookie recipe won’t fix ongoing despair about the future of the world, but it gives me something to do with my hands, it helps connect me to my friends, and it results in tasty food. Here’s the potato leek soup I can’t stop making.
p.s. Here’s your bonus photo of Twyla for making it all the way to the end of the newsletter.
