 Thank you. It's great to be here. I couldn't be more proud of Juliana, my little sister from another mister doing this. I'm gonna read a little bit from Look Busy. So 100, 100 worst stories buying for the easily distracted. I'm just gonna read a couple of them as sort of a moose bush kind of a Jane McDermott sampler. None of the stories have titles, but they did have numbers. So if you care, this is 31. I met a homeless panhandler in San Francisco. She was wearing leopard print leggings, a giant's cap, a hot pink leotard, and a button that said today I'm Irish. She asked me for three dollars and seventy seven cents and then for two dollars and eighty nine cents. How could I refuse? I didn't have exact exact change and ended up giving her four bucks. She thanked me profusely and said, you know, I don't care that you're gay. I'm totally fine with that. How do you know I'm gay? I asked her. Dude, she replied looking at me like I'm from another planet. How do you know I'm homeless? And this is 49. Sometimes someone will tell me that his old college roommate was gay. He'll tell me that he was impressed that although his roommate was gay, he never tried anything with him as if homosexual and rapist were synonymous as if anyone gay or straight given half a chance would do him as if his Moronic revelations are somehow supposed to make me feel safe and accepted in the world. When told stories like this I nod and say something inane like, well, there you go. I sigh inside while feeling another crack develop in my infrastructure. It never gets easier. So that's a couple from Look Busy. I'm working on a novel called Boys and Girls and it is the story of young gays coming to San Francisco in the 70s and what happens to them in the course of about 30 years. But it is also the story of the people that they meet along the way and this is the story of one of those women. I was born way upstate right near the Canadian border. We lived on a small farm with some timber, dairy, hay, and a huge vegetable garden. We kids boys and girls alike learned to do everything including milling lumber and grain. It was hard work, but we didn't know anything else. At night we'd listen to the radio or sing songs. I guess we were poor, but our standard of living was the same as everyone around us, so we paid no mind. We lived in nature and hunted and fished. We got to know the herbs that grew around us. We got to know a lot about sex too, just watching the animals. As we grew, it was only natural that we started to try things with other young people around us, whether they be boy or girl. Weren't much else to do. I happened to like girls the best, but boys were all right. We were all a little naive and stupid about conception though. Our mothers told us nothing. So a lot of us girls ended up with babies. I was one of them. My son was beautiful, with the bluest of blue eyes and a mess of curly, strawberry blonde hair. I couldn't believe how something that perfect could have come out of me. After the baby come, the boy who fathered him went rotten on me, and I took up with the girl I liked. She was a few years older, and she loved me and my baby like I didn't know anyone could. My folks were glad to not have to house and feed us. We kept to ourselves and didn't think what we were doing was anything wrong. What business was it of anyone's anyway? My baby's dad came around a few times early on, but it was clear he wanted no part of fathering or me. One day he came by and gave me a box of donuts and $20, and I never saw him again. I was 19. About two years later, that boy wrapped his motorcycle around a tree and was killed. Two months after that, his people come to me wanting me to give them my baby. I told them no. One of his brothers threatened to come over with some of his friends and fucked the queer out of me and my girlfriend. He didn't scare me much. Scared my girlfriend though. She had seen stuff like that happen. Shortly thereafter, his family sued me for custody of my son, and won. As a lesbian, I was declared an unfit mother. The child services lady came over and took my little boy right off my lap right there in court. I never saw my boy again after that. That was 1951. He'd be 30 now. After they took my boy, I was inconsolable. My woman tried to heal me and keep us together, but it was no good. She couldn't give me back what I had lost and we parted. I tried to move back home, but my folks were sickened when they heard about me. Not sickened about what I had lost, but sickened about who I was. My father gave me $200 and told me to go away and never come back. My mother wouldn't even say goodbye to me. But when I was leaving, I turned to look at the farm one last time and she was standing at the window staring at me gray and grim-faced like a specter. It's an image that haunts me to this day. I left New York and began to roam. I traveled throughout New England and then I lived deep in the Ozarks with a group of women that I met in Maine, one of whom was my lover at the time. One of the women had inherited some money and acreage in the mountains and had convinced us to go there and homestead, create a commune for women only. There were nine of us and we had no idea what we were doing. Only a couple of us had spent significant time living in the country and had skill in carpentry and such. We cleared the land to plant and pasture. There was a well and electricity and a couple of cabins already on the property. We were lucky in that respect. We built three more cabins, a communal kitchen and laundry, a barn. Four more women joined us. We got some goats and chickens, made cheese, created knit goods. We planted fruit trees and grew vegetables. It was ridiculously hard work, but we were young. This was 1963. Kennedy was president. The world seemed full of hope. Anything seemed possible. But things took a turn. The next window was brutal. We lost our fruit trees, two of our goats and all of our chickens. We had illness and no doctor nearby. Some of the women complained about inequities. We were running on one woman's money and she wanted most of the say so. That seemed only fair to me, but the others disagreed. Plus, a number were getting just plain tired of the life we were leading and missing the things we didn't have. Television, washing machines. It was nothing but hard work. Me, I found that healing. But many of the girls had never lived like that before and were getting sick of it. It was not the paradise they had imagined. Also, there was nothing to do out there. The nearest town was Mount Judea and it wasn't much of a place. The little town after that in the Ozarks was pretty much the same. None of those places were anywhere for women to be hanging around in, especially women like us. The woman I was with couldn't take it anymore and wanted to leave, so did a couple of others. I'd been settling into the rhythm of the place to tell the truth. I like hard work and I enjoy seeing things come together. But it started to feel like the thing was doomed, so I said my goodbyes to Madeline, the founder, and I moved on with my woman who was aching to go. Once we got to Memphis, my girlfriend didn't want any part of me anymore. It hurt, but I wasn't too surprised. She was sick of country life and was looking for a city to be in. City life just didn't sit right with me, never did. So I said my goodbyes to her and started roaming again, this time heading west. I just wanted to be who I am and live in peace. Isn't that what everyone wants? I picked up work and found comfort where I could and got by. Everywhere I've ever been, it has never been too hard to find a woman looking for another woman. It sure made the going easier. Before I knew it, a couple of years had passed. It's a marvel how that happens. One day I was eating eggs in a diner in Albuquerque. I was enjoying as many free coffee refills as the kind-hearted waitress would give me. It was 1966. A woman traveling alone was a rarity, but I was good at finding places where people minded their own business. I looked up to see two women across the diner sitting in a red leather booth that were eyeing me. They were a few years older than me, weathered, wearing Western work clothes. They looked like the kind of women that no one ever bothered, at least not for long. I knew well the look they were giving me. It said nothing but spoke volumes, if you know what I mean. The next thing I knew, they were offering me a place to stay for the night. I rested up at that place for a few weeks, then months pitching in on chores and such. They asked me what I was looking for in life. Well, no one had ever asked me such a thing, so I had to think. I just want a place to be, I said, finally. I want a place to be what and who I am, and not having to be explaining or hiding. I guess that's what I want more than anything in this world. That's when they told me about what they had in mind for a place in the high desert of Arizona, just for women and women only. When I met these women, they were Gwen and Inez, but after I was living on their place for a while, they started calling themselves Blue Heron Warrior and still Mountain Warrior. They were changing their names, they said, to turn their backs on the patriarchal paradigm that exists in our society regarding sermon names and to embrace their true anima with their forenames. They were losing me quite a bit here, but eventually I got the gist of what they were saying. They didn't want no part of men. As for me, I've been traveling around the country working hard and staying here in there where I could. It is a weary, lonely way to go. Even though I'd been down this road before and it hadn't worked out, I still liked the idea of a safe place for women where we could all maybe find some peace. I've known a lot of women in my day. Every one of them I've met was looking for a place to fix what was broken in her. Most of them were never going to find that place. I was about to find mine. Gwen and Inez, Blue Heron and still Mountain, had done a lot of planning for this women's land as they called it. They were both whip smart, had taught in universities in fact. I admit I was a bit dazzled by them, educated, well-spoken, good with their hands. I had always figured you had to choose two out of three, but they were the whole package. I could tell by the way they kept up their own place that they knew what they were doing and cared about how things were done. They had built everything on their own spread in New Mexico including digging the wells. I could also see how devoted they were to each other and to the cause as they called it. They had bought this big parcel of land or Tucson. These gals had money. I never asked them where from. They told me that the land already had some structures on it, water and a road to it. They told me that the air was crystal clear and the sky as blue as anyone had ever seen. And all the women there would be safe and free to do what they wanted. They didn't have to convince me much. I was ready to go. Former women were coming with us and each of them had skills and education and looks to boot. I'd never been with such a group. Off we went. Each of us driving a vehicle full of supplies. We had building materials and cages of chickens. We had sewing machines and enough provisions to last an army through the winter. When we arrived we found the cabins were sturdy enough to use and we set to building more. We cleared brush and dug and planted. Blue heron and steel mountain hired men to come and fence us in and do some plumbing and electrical. Once they were done that was the last time a man has set foot on the property. They were right about the air. It was clear and pure. And even though we were at altitude I felt like I was filling my lungs for the first time. We were settling in. The other women who come with us were young. No more than 26 or 7 I'd guess. And after they'd been there for a while they got to changing their names. They wanted a new identity to go with their new lives. A clear break from the past and all that had hurt them. There was some history or herstory if you will among the four of them. At some point some of them had been partners and maybe had just had sex with each other. It was never clear to me and I didn't ask. They each had them some sad tales to tell about family and how men had treated them. The stories ran deep in me. Blue Heron and Still Mountain named the place Camp Sister Warrior. All this got to me to thinking about my own name. The name I was given had suited me fine. I never thought much about it. It had never occurred to me that you could call yourself whatever you wanted. It wasn't until I was hiking through the property and I heard a cry that shot through me like electricity. I looked up and saw an enormous bird gliding through the sky casting a giant shadow on the ground. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. So free, so perfect. That night I asked about the bird. I had never seen anything like it before. Probably an eagle, Still Mountain told me. It was huge I said. Probably a female. The female was bigger than the male. That's when it come to me. White eagle. I decided to call myself that. I didn't even know if there was such a thing as a white eagle. Still don't. And I never understood much about that paradigm stuff. But white eagle just sounded right. I wanted to soar above it all. Break free, be free, like a cloud. Just like that bird I saw. I've been white eagle ever since. Sometimes I forget what my given name was. I find myself forgetting a lot of things the more I stay here. Including what life was like anyplace else. I guess this is my home now. William. I called my son William. Billy. Thanks so much.