Erica, The Hetrick-Martin Institute and how I saved a baby

Sunday was PS1 and Astoria, Queens.

Before heading out, just before noon, I called a friend (this person will remain anonymous) to see if I could swing by for her MoMA member card. She answered the phone with a voice in pain and self-pity, "Hello?" she growled in greeting. It was a brief conversation with many giggles on my part and much whimpering on hers. Thankfully, she was able to make it to her door with the Van Gogh decored card in hand. She showed me the bruise on her forehead, I giggled some more and bid her well as she frowned at the hot and clear day she was missing.

I must admit, abashedly, I'd never been to PS1 and hadn't realized how just off the Pulaski Bridge it is, how just over Newton's Creek she lay. All I had to do was roll down Vanderbilt, make a right on Flushing, race up Kent, merge with Franklin, make a right on Eagle (which I missed and had to detour), fly over the bridge, merge right on Jackson, and bickety-bam! I'm there. Locked my Mercier to a pole with my brand new Kryptonite triple reinforced U-lock ... long story but couldn't go without mention. No one likes to drop 100 bucks on a lock because theirs suddenly malfunctions ... nuf said.

I saw her arriving before she stepped through the door, was unsure for a second, had imagined a different height, but yes, that tantalizing mouth, it was certainly the woman I came here to meet. Erica was wearing a dress of earth tone yellows greens and browns. Her smile mischievous. Her laugh not always appropriate but contagious.

We'd made it to the second floor, via some uninspiring installation, with a Mondrian grid she noted, before we discovered the most random of connections: Hagerstown, MD. Her hometown rang a bell I couldn't immediately identify. Ah, yes. Our processing center! The international humanitarian agency that I work for has its donations' processing center in Hagerstown, of all places. And, apparently, people are from there. And it's Amish country. And no, Erica is not Amish, I'm assuming. All this discovery against the backdrop of Rania Stephan's film posters of busty Lebanese women. Post an artso-political Lego people evoking Adam and Eve computer sex talk in English as a shaky second tongue, by Frances Stark.

We were most notably moved by Edgardo Aragon's Efectos de Familia. Part of the video sequence made me recall Le Tigre's Bang Bang and sent shivers through my body. Going upstairs we got some Better Energy from Esther Klas with an uplift in mood upon contemplating her curious concrete sculptures and comical plaster casts.

Leaving the museum whose staircases are decorated by silhouette nightmares and thought evoking images of exodus, heading up 23rd St. under the 7 tracks, we got to talking shop. What is Raw Fiction? What is the ballroom scene at the Hetrick-Martin Institute? What does it mean to work for a well-established and well-funded organization - the limitations and the freedoms? As we moved into Astoria our conversation moved toward the changing of neighborhoods, hipstuppies and yupsters, their trendy restaurants and the neighborhood nightclubs where the ethnic Europeans dance together.

A fellow writer, traveler, French speaker, youth advocate, over-tipper (yes, she's served tables, too), actress who can carry a tune, to be a reader at the launch. Wonderful, couldn't have asked for a better introduction to a like-mind. So nice meeting!

Oh yeah, and I saved a baby too. Sunday morning. Near the Grand Army Plaza fountain. Her dad just turned his back and walked a few steps away waiting for the dog to do his business in the ivy grass and the stroller started rolling down the incline toward the steps. The child, maybe two, maybe not quite two, made no sound but donned her hat to me when I planted my foot against the stroller wheel and stood patiently in front of her waiting, longer than you'd expect a dad to have his back turned to his baby in a stroller. His response when I stated my reason "It was rolling" bluntly to his surprised face: Oh thank God her mother didn't see! And we nodded a smirking goodbye as I sat to watch the fountain and get some sun medicine, wake up and inhale calm.

Shawn(ta), Women's Press Collective, Thunder Clouds and the Universe Answers

Yesterday I met Shawn(ta), my favorite youth librarian, in the industrial setting of Lowe's parking lot and the Gowanus Canal. I was early and went for a wander along the oily canal, sat on a bench and gazed at construction trucks tidying up a pile of scrap metal as cars and trains silhouetted the sky on highways traced against a western backdrop of darkened clouds bulging threateningly around the sun. To the east blue skies and fluffy clouds alluded to a wonderfully warm spring.

Shawn(ta) was wearing the dress she'd bought at BAM's Dance Africa Festival the day she discovered the Women's Press Collective. Yes, she discovered, but not like the explorers and conquerors of yesteryear but as the afroqueer of the present. Our lady called out to the universe: "Universe," she cried, "guide me, I need something new. Being a youth librarian, academic librarian, lesbian archivist, story corps archivist, co-producer of Rivers of Honey, a monthly cabaret for women of color, founding co-editor of Her Saturn Returns anthology, queen of okcupid, in a serious relationship and about to embark on a second master's in creative writing, is not quite enough!" She takes a breath, closes her eyes and feels the universe listening. "I need something new. I want a writer's collective. A women's collective, but not queer. Not strictly of color but not solely white women. A working class women's collective, founded and established and running strongly. Something that goes back to the end of the Civil Right's Era, the radical that was born as the nation settled into the material apathy of the 80s."

So the universe gave birth to WPC. An organization of women volunteers who started by helping women farm workers of the UFWTexas put their voices in print. Flyer creation and article writing.Voices that need to be heard are given the support to organize and get others to hear them - hmmm, sounds a bit like Raw Fiction, only larger scale and driven by a real political goal of bringing the socio-economic bottom up to a livable standard so no one can fall into disrepair if they hit bottom. Wow. Good job, universe.

"Asante sana," Shawn(ta) thanks the universe.

At my weekly visit to the BPL youth section, to check out flyers for teens and catch up with the latest from the sexy librarian, I was invited to go meet the women of WPC. Not only is this going to be useful for my project - they have a whole system dedicated to supporting member projects and they offer trainings in using printing presses and software - but I'm going to meet so many inspiring women who are engaged in their own grassroots projects.

The young woman who gave Shawn(ta) and me the orientation is called Courtney, looks early twenties, is super knowledgeable about printing, farm workers, WPC, Sojourner Truth, and living outside the system. She also had really cute hair: messy short twists. She is a full-time volunteer. She receives no wage, eats what is in the kitchen and sleeps where there is a bed on offer. Wow. We stepped back into radical history. There is no religious doctrine to this, nothing cultish, just straight-up badass philosophy. Word.

And they know what they're doing with recruitment. We enter and we're filling out volunteer forms. We leave and we're given dates and times to return. The next step: what WPC can do for us. So I'll be going in at 10am on Saturday morning to talk about my project and learn what they can do to help me. I'm going there to get inspired and, hopefully, to inspire.

Also, the rain poured while we were on the inside and it let up when it was time to leave. Thank you, Madame Universe, you are loved and respected.