The last couple of weeks have been kind of crazy. As many of you may be aware, my debut memoir, Queerspawn in Love, comes out this week! The week after I will be embarking on a national book tour that will take me to Ann Arbor, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, before coming home to read in my hometown, SF. This means there is a ton of preparation underway both in terms of publicity and planning/packing/panicking. I’ve been writing content and trying to get it placed. I’ve been sending out a million review copies, press releases, postcards etc. The folks at the local post office know me very well by now. One of them finally asked what the book was about and when I gave them a chance to read the back cover, gave me quite the quizzical look in response…
This is of course when I am not working my full time job as a health educator, teaching Sex Ed all over Mendocino County, and this week down in Sonoma. I did my expenses and I’d driven almost a thousand miles this month in that capacity.
And in my spare time, I do ranch work. Lol. Last week, we ran out of water and when I went down to pump, realized we were out of gas. Going back and forth and dealing with the air stuck in the line took easily an hour. The weekend before last, I spent pounding t-posts into the ground and putting up panels as part of a redesign of our chute system. Last weekend was round-up, our twice yearly gathering of our cattle. Just my luck, it coincided with Passover, so this year I got to cook the Seder meal for fifteen people, the night before we worked cattle all day. I had the pleasure of giving my first reading to a gathered crowd of over twenty at lunch that afternoon.
I upped my round- up game significantly this time, by hopping into the pens and helping to sort cattle, a job of which I am generally terrified. When I thought afterwards about how I’d managed to get through it, all I could come up with was that I knew there was no other option. I need to learn how to sort and separate cattle. This is a necessary skill to have as a cattle rancher and I am very lucky to have amazing teachers. There’s no way around it but through. Which is sort of my motto at the moment. I’ve got a lot going on-most of it great blessings. When I get overwhelmed, which is often and largely my default state, I try and remember that and move forward despite myself.