A woman’s life is hard
Union Maid, as performed by the Amalgamated Everlasting Union Chorus Local 824 (we never did sing the Guthrie version)
Even with a Union Card
She’s got to stand on her own two feet
And not be a servant to the male elite!
We’ve got to take a stand
Keep working hand in hand
Cause there’s a job thats gotta be done
And a fight that must be won!
Marisa is here ostensibly to look after my son while I dash around doing press stuff, but she also says that she is familiar with the concept of emotional support.
That is something I clearly need, as the absolute oddity of the week has nullified most of my practical skills. The other night I found myself in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store muttering What do I know how to cook? What do I even eat??!
My dear friend took over and sorted out dinner, and my kids shouted with joy It smells like Portland!
In the evenings we’ve been working a lot – I continue to toil away on secret new projects, the boy has schoolwork, Marisa is putting together a book about Rock Camp.
The fact that we each sit here on dueling shiny white Mac laptops is in fact surreal, given how our friendship started, as members of the Chorus.
We used to sing together every week, lovely friends gathered in the living room of my house, M trying to keep the raggedy group in order, Stevie throwing pop-its into the circle when she was bored, my daughter singing faster than anyone could keep up with.
There were performances around town and on the road, most notably at the first Ladyfest, when Stevie and Erin Scarum accepted a challenge to wrestle in beauty bark right before we went on stage and then spent several hours wailingI have splinters in my ass!
I asked Marisa to guess how old my daughter was when she did the solo that night and she reckoned twelve or thirteen.
No; she was nine, still just a little kid, a fact that becomes more amazing as the years pass.
Rallies, zine release parties, movie premieres, bookstore events, a Mudwrestling Hoedown, everyone crowded into my basement raiding the costume collection – I do sincerely miss the good times with those friends.
I refused to accept a Chorus name since I’ve been burdened with a nickname since birth but that just meant they had to torment me in different ways, mostly by chanting things like Be aggressive! Bee is aggressive! while I tapped my foot and rolled my eyes.
Everything has changed so much since then, in every possible way; I don’t even have a wardrobe any longer, let alone an eight-hundred square foot magical thing-breeding basement full of elaborate costumes for every occasion. Not to mention the way that life has me spinning wildly away from everything I’ve ever known.
But I still have friends, and I can still sing, even if it only happens when Stevie or Marisa visit. We trawl through the record collection and something familiar comes on and my daughter and a friend set off on a song.
I don’t even sing when I’m alone but when they are here I follow their voices, and remember, and it is profoundly wonderful.