Hello everyone and welcome to living in this queer body a podcast about barriers to embodiment and how our Collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves this week. We have a really sweet episode. I'll tell you about it in a moment. But first I just want to let you know that I am hosting on December 8th from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern Standard.Under time a virtual Workshop. If you can't make it for the live event, you can always register and be sent a link to the workshop. You can consider offering it as a gift to someone who might need some extra support during this stress field season. I definitely feel the stress to so you're not alone. So some of the questions that we'll be addressing or exploring. In the virtual Workshop, how do we identify our needs when the demands of heteronormative colonial settlers and patriarchal holiday discourse has threatened our self determination. That's a topic in and of itself many many topics, but I want to frame things in a way that really addresses the structures of violence that kind of shape and create a kind of constricted. And set up emotionally for this this holiday season, how do we navigate caring for ourselves our partners and our friends during this holiday season, how do we nourish ourselves? And what can we generate excitement about? So if you're interested go to my website living in this queer body.com, or you can follow the link in my Instagram profile and you can sign up for the December 8th work. Chop and if you want some support one on one, you can always sign up for a one-on-one session with me also on my website or through the link in my Instagram profile. Okay. So this episode is basically my inner angsty confused and searching 20 year old self interviewing the creator of a Zine much beloved to me and Many folks that I know and love thank you Cindy for making Dora scene from 1991 to 2001 Doris made me feel like my inner World mattered and that consistent message was critical for me at a time. When most of what I knew about was skills for shutting down my inner life Cindy wrote her Zine Doris like she's figuring out the human. Condition she makes writing about the simplest and most common things playing music childhood cooking or sacks resonate with universal understanding she helps us make sense of more complex things like the satisfaction of doing useful work Natural Curiosity the ability to use logic gender Dynamics introspection the need for Challenge and change combating depression and creating art and literature. She shares an Explorer's emotions that go along with having an abortion rape dealing with the death of family or sexual harassment in a context that is enlightening and personal feeling like a close friend opening up to you. What's most impressive though is that she relates these things into every article in her scene seamlessly, and if you want to find out about this scene or all all all all the other things that Cindy produces and has produced you should go to www.irs.gov res Doris.com. That's Doris three times. So www.autostore24.com. You can also find Cindy at Cindy underscore. Crab CRA be be on Instagram. And Cindy is the author of The long-running. Nest autobiographical did seen Doris and compilation Book Encyclopedia of Doris. She edited the zine and book learning good consent. Also an amazing read she is a somatic experiencing trauma therapist living in Pittsburgh, and I am indebted to her for being brave at a time when I didn't know how to be brave in my writing and in my work and I'm honored truly to have Cindy crab as a guest on living in this queer body. Thanks everyone for listening and if you can consider making a donation I'm patreon patreon.com backslash living in this queer body or giving me a review like actually writing the review on Apple podcasts consider this a gift to the podcast for the year. I appreciate it. Okay, and I appreciate you. Thank you. Cindy thank you for joining me on this podcast. I am really honoured. I was just on the phone with my brother who said is this person one of the most famous people you've interviewed because he I introduced him to your work through like three years in so many years ago I got and I'm sure he'll be embarrassed this to hear that but I mean truly like you are an icon for me in a lot of ways. I really love your writing and yeah more broadly just what you've what you've done with it. So I'm looking forward to kind of getting to know you and in this way as well. So excited to be on a podcast cool. So I We'll start with the question. I usually start with and you can kind of go wherever you want with it. When you think about how you came to understand or learn about being in a body what comes to mind for you, you know, the thing that first comes to mind as I was I was born in the 70s and they had this kind of sad about water babies. And so I learned to swim like before I could walk right and I just remember swimming. Like just swimming a lot as a kid and just really loving being that kind of mobile and surrounded by sort of endless space and movement and just the joy and pleasure of swimming underwater mostly. Would you swim in a pool or in a lake or Canal? Like I grew up in Minnesota. So yeah, you could open your eyes you go. Hmm, and I'm still strong today. Oh. Not as much because I have some ear problems but uh, but I miss it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah on the other thing I was thinking about to about learning to be in a body was like when there was like when I was a little bit older and there was violence and my family I would like take this blanket out to a meadow kind of by our house and I would lay on this blanket and really watch the insects. I was sort of dream About how one day like the deer would find me and I would join the steer family, but I remember like just really like watching insects and being so like entranced by all the bugs and all the intricacies of them and just tell that sort of focused curiosity and wonder really sort of was took away some of the fear, you know, and created this peace and quietness inside. It's like a little disembodied. But also really embodied. Yeah, I mean that's I guess that's something that I really am interested in talking to you about in part because I know you've and I want to hear about this, but I know you've done some, you know, some pretty deep work around somatic experiencing therapy and just I'm curious what you what your thoughts are on on that kind of idea of like sort of embodied and sort of not and the way that the kind of sort of not and sort of embodied can can be somewhat regulating and soothing in a way like picturing you I think that image is just really powerful to me socially as like a trauma therapist someone who works with people who you know move in and out of different states of Regulation a lot because of their trauma history just thinking about that that image that you had to kind of move away from the difficulty and overwhelm of what was happening in your home. Yeah, but you you sort of brought yourself there and then found as you said this kind of focused curiosity within yourself that put you in a place of like reverie or you know, imagining that that was really I guess made things more easeful for you. Yeah. I've been thinking about it a lot. I mean I think about dissociation a lot because it was Much of my coping mechanism for so long and I still really love the feeling of sort of these days. I call it dissociation light up like being being a little disembodied. You know, it's very relaxing feeling for me. But I think about it. I'm also a trauma therapist and you know, I know how like distressing dissociation and that kind of like fragmentation can be and was for me like most of my life, you know, like sort of like I would feel you know, like when I was a a teenager something I you know, I looked like a boy. I wanted to be seen as a girl but I didn't want to do that work that you had to do to be seen as a girl and so I like felt one way on the inside. I was treated as in a different way and then I wanted to fight for myself, but I also wanted to like run away, you know, and there was this like sort of discrepancy of what I could do or how I could be in the world. and then the other thing I've really been thinking about sorry if this is a little detached but was like, you know in families of violence when there's like real real deep care there, you know, like like my family had, you know, I really loved my parents and I really loved my abusers, you know, hmm and like to be able to hold the Like both things. Yeah, I kind of have to compartmentalize them completely, you know, hmm and then and then how that compartmentalization gets carried into adulthood can become kind of wild. Yeah. Do you feel like you can speak a little bit about how how that did kind of carry into your you know, early adulthood or how it manifested in your early adulthood. We in ways that were very helpful for you and some ways that weren't. Yeah, I feel like some of the ways I carried that compartmentalization is by like on one hand like really wanting to connect with people and like really diving in and going you know. Really wanting to open up all the way no and just be seen and be and see them and get really deep and really close and then on the other hand like really not giving a shit, you know, like I'd be like, I don't know, you know, maybe at this point I someone would have diagnosed with borderline back then. I mean it's so clearly and borderline, you know, it's like a trauma response. I think so, you know, there was It's like there would be like a flip. It would be like this person. I really am so fascinated by them. So interested by them, and then there would be like one little Miss Attunement or one kind of offsetting thing and I would be like never mind. You know, I called it like the three-week rule. I would take people for like three weeks. Yeah, and then it was like something would would switch and I think part of it that I think I've been thinking about this idea. I've written a lot about consent and so I haven't really written about this so much because it's kind of maybe a little bit of a fraud topic but you know, I think sort of the way that consent dialogue unveiled over time. Is that like There should be these real clear ideas of what you want to do and not want to do you know right unlike you can set boundaries and be like, here's what I consent to here's what I don't consent to write and for me, it really wasn't like that. You know, there might be one part of me the totally wanted to like be having sex, you know, and another part of me the totally was uninterested in another part of me. That was like You know analyzing the whole thing, you have no, right. And so then it was like when I had to look at that, you know. I freaked out I would freak out and just be like, oh, what's this was this consent? Like was I consenting or not, you know? So I think there was a fear of really looking at at that kind of mixed feelings or fragmentation that kept me from really being able to form solid commitments with people. Yeah, I mean in some ways it's the way you're describing. It sounds a lot like how many people describe you know memories of like a traumatic event and and they described it as they're from the perspective of you know, floating a Of it or you know watching it unfold right and I think in some ways that's it's really important. I like what you're saying because it's what's really important is to take into account all of the different parts of oneself that are impacted by events, but also are at play in our daily lives, right? You know that there's parts are there parts of ourselves that are carrying a lot of hurt parts that are carrying a lot of like longing for or connection and it sounds like you really you know, one thing that you struggled with is really struggled with that part of yourself that that would you know cut things off as a protective measure and I wonder maybe you could talk a little bit about how you've learned to navigate that impulse or that part of yourself as you yeah, I think it's like Thursday's, you know because there's so much at stake like when it's like an intimate relationship or there's you know, physical the physical body involved and there's been abuse in the past like we sort of have these like rules for ourselves that we don't have in other places. So like, you know like so I go like to a restaurant and I'm like I get soup and it's like, you know spice level 7 and it's like a little too hot right? Yeah. And I'm like taking a bite. I'm like Bluetooth by sea, but also delicious like hmm. Do I really want those like not really but kind of you know, I'm like there's all this like navigating that you know, like I'm going to eat this it or like, you know, I go to like a show unlike my head hurt like my body kind of hurt. Like I don't really want to dance with my friends are dancing. Like I'm going to feel kind of left out if I don't dance and I know I'm going to feel better if I dance so like I choose to dance, you know, and it's like seven thing you're thinking today a lot about this like idea about like Choice rather than consent, you know, like what do I choose to do knowing that you know, there's not like a cutter dry answer about whether this is like exactly what I want to do, you know. Yeah, but that I can hold like these gray areas of life part of me wanting to move forward. Me having some hesitancy, like giving myself having given myself the permission to really explore what that hesitancy is about like not overriding it. Yes. Oh hmm. But just being able to be like, oh, there's that hesitancy like that. That part of me that's like afraid if I don't do this, I'll be deserted, you know, and then I could like Oriental my partner like I've been in this partnership for 10 years. Like I'm not getting to the largest this, you know, like right I can sort of like a dress whatever it is that. But that part of like signaling, you know instead of just trying to override it with like, oh I want this. I don't want this I can send I don't consent, you know rape. Yeah that either or I mean that's that's kind of also like where the spiritual bypass often comes in. I think you know that that idea like getting out of the uncertain or uncomfortable set of feelings that feel kind of ambiguous which mean for someone One who's experienced trauma and their bodies is not not a very tolerable feeling, you know, there's a kind of impulse to want to to know is this okay, or is it not? Okay is this good or is it bad buckler or is it not safe? And yeah, it sounds like you learned a lot from that. Do you think it was the training that you've done in somatic kind of based therapy, or I don't know like your experience with navigating sobriety or you know, look what are the things that do you think have sort of helped you to build up that I don't know like tolerance for ambiguity difficult feelings. I had like a sort of jungian therapist for a little while. Yeah, and she was pretty amazing. She was an old Earth firster. She was Linda on Earth First, you know that group Earth firster. Yeah who became a union? Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that's a good. Yeah resting trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. We did a bunch of work on. sort of the different cells, you know, yeah like I'm actually reading a row. I just started a really good book called The fragmented self of the trauma Survivor. It's really excellent. It's it takes sort of fragmentation approach. But then also cymatics really good any way we did it was right when I was getting sober like I drank a lot and my 30s mostly late twenties and thirties and then started to get sober in my late 30s or something and I was right when I'm starting to get sober and I like. lived by myself in the middle of nowhere literally and we did a lot of work, you know, like I think growing up we had there was like a big like in our child kind of framework for like peeling, you know, which I had tried to do a little like nurturing the inner child and that was nice and everything but it wasn't like sufficient, you know, and then there had been a big like dive into your deepest trauma and like rape, you know, uncover it and uncover all the memories and yeah, you know That was you know re-traumatizing. Hmm and And her approach was more like making friends with the disparate sort of voices and cells in your head. You know, which I feel like ever most people I know seem to have some, you know, like some amount of like the negative voice, you know, the critical voice like the child part, you know, so I think it's applicable to a lot of people where you like Sort of hold that voice a little separately with some compassion, you know and say like I hear you buddy, but like maybe tone it down a little bit, you know, hmm. Hmm. And so what that work, I did a bit of like just trying to like feel what it felt like to like be allow myself to like connect with some of those Like the critical self, you know the child cell like what it felt like physically a little bit and tried to just what did it feel like allow them to carry a little crazy making yeah. Yeah, but nice she had me watch Spirited Away. Have you seen this movie? Yes, she said she was like that movie is the psyche of the traumatized child. Old and that each character it's like a person, you know, like as part of your psyche. Hmm interesting Anna. Yeah, so that was a good visual framework just sort of put it all in. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that practice whether that relate people relate to that or not. What's really like a way to be start to be like kind to myself rather than like punished. I mean, you know, what's just like I hear your voice like you're telling me I'm stupid. I should think about this thing. I said like ten years ago over and over and over again, but you know, it's okay. I hear you. Hmm. It's sort of bring this neutrality to it Chuckles. Yeah, I mean I'm always curious, you know about how people kind of and I can relate to this myself, you know sort of coming to more of an acceptance of the multiplicity of oneself, you know, like the parts that you don't want to exist and you know the parts that don't seem to let go of you and what have you found that I guess supports you. In that practice of you know aiming at more neutrality like what are the kind of like physical conditions of your life that have helped you if anything to sort of support being able to do that if that does that make sense at all? Yeah, I mean moving away from like a real chaotic life helped, you know, like putting drinking. Definitely helped and like doing the you know, I went to a somatic experiencing training which is a three-year training, but I did work through a lot of my own trauma and sort of how my body had stored. If I play it kind of stuck by play patterns and you know, there's some like simple techniques that always really helped me which is like pushing one foot into the ground and then the other you know, it's like the sort of slow motion running, you know, like pushing the hands into the sides or couch and then releasing are these sort of just like a little bit of like self-regulatory movement. Hmm that help I think really learning about how the nervous like that it was a nervous system thing. Yes and not like some kind of like, you know. Something that I wasn't doing good enough. Yeah. Yeah, but it was like earlier every time yeah, I went back and just regulate. It's like you're I mean, I think that goes back to the like let's say the borderline diagnosis or something like that right where it's like this indictment of your yourself. Yeah. So moving away Mmm Yeah. So being like Oh, my nervous system like, all right, I see you like, what do you need like a little orienting, you know look around. little bit if there's a threat in the environment, oh, yeah, no threat, like go back to gray thing, you know like some things like that. I think really like learning to be try learning to stop trying to rescue people so much. Oh And then figuring out some of my limitation like I don't work very well in groups. You know, like I'm just not an organizer. I wish I was I like organizing but I'm actually just like To agitating to me is this point in my life? I aspire to be a better organizer at some point. Mmm. So like just identifying that like, you know, I'm more of like a one-on-one. Yeah kind of person has been more supportive. Yeah. How is your you're writing your practice with writing or your relationship to writing? Like what does it look like now? I'm working on. On a book right now. Hmm. Yeah, my writing practices pretty shoddy, but I think it's nice for people to know because you don't have to be like, you know, I think there's this idea of writers as being like I write as wake up 6 a.m. And write everyday stuff like that and my writing practice has never been like that never like I'll like typically by pattern is like all think about something. I think about like I want to start writing again. It's been a while, you know, and then I'll be like what subjects are speaking to me right now are like what do I feel like is out there in the world that like not being talked about in the kind of subtle ways. I wish it was yeah, like what do I feel like, you know people would benefit from like having a more like accessible. Language around or like what am I struggling with? Personally that I've sort of come out the other side of that. I feel like would you know serve others so I sort of think about that stuff and then when I spend some time just like talking to other people about what they think about those subjects, you know, yeah, and that's usually like two months of no writing. Just thinking Yeah, I'm talking to people and then like and then I like take some notes and then I forget about it and get distracted and then I like sit down and write a bunch for like a month, you know, and that's always been how I do it. Hmm by all of the like happier when I'm writing. So like I I always feel like I should have a more stringent practice. But at this point I'm just sort of like this is my practice now that I'm working on this book. I'm today is my first day. I'm going to go have a weekly writing group with a friend of mine. So we'll see how that goes. Mmm Yeah Yeah. I mean I've I was curious to ask you because they think you know the way you're talking about your process now, I have no idea if it was you know, so Or let's say 20 years ago, but there is something about aiming for the subtlety of experience that is not being addressed that I feel like was really a part, you know was part of your work with Doris Zine other things you've written but that's kind of character. Yeah, that was always kind of I can like before I was like a Punker whatever like Before I was into veins I was like in like more I hadn't gone to college but I had gone for a year, but I was around people who are really college-educated like what a cool people and who are super articulate, you know and came from that sort of background of having an opinion arguing that opinion with a lot of facts, you know, and I was more curious about like, how do we like come to decisions? Like how do we come to a pinion? Like, how do we Formulate stuff like what's all the things being left out, you know and so early and back again to that Curiosity versus fear thing like, you know, I just felt so limited back then and still to this day kind of about like the topics people talk about, you know, like when I was in my 20s, it was like music tattoos traveling, you know train hopping like these were like all this is the limit of what you could really talk about. Hello, this is like this is boring like really boring. And I found like through writing like, you know is a really great way to just you know, first. I wanted to be like a fiction writer and then I wrote things but like to be able to really like watch people like as a fiction writer to be able to like watch people and try to really capture like how they speak how they move like bring this real curiosity. Yeah to like the movement of bodies and like These patterns of people and how to relate tease apart. The differences was something that gave me a lot to focus on when I was in public that was like interesting and positive and like curiosity making rather than the sort of like dull repetitive conversations about who saw what band or whatever Anna. Yeah, and then the theme to like, you know, and today even also like, you know I go to parties it's so boring a lot of the time and so like I like to come prepared with some kind of like something I'm curious about, you know, yeah, totally I can I can definitely relate to that, you know, but I mean that that I think that comes that aspect comes a little bit Yeah from maybe an introverted sensibility or a kind of easily overwhelm at overwhelmed or sort of You know the kind of Mass Social world and I imagine that yeah, I mean for me it's similar, you know, if I kind of have like a thing I want to talk about or you know, it just it is it is helpful. I guess I'm thinking about you, you know younger you in the context of as you said like that you kind of being entrenched in these discourses a lot of them were. You know in some ways they were aiming to be extremely, you know, radical and transformative, you know these discourses around, you know, like the black. Oh, you know black Bloc Anarchy, you know, like an anarchist politics whatever, you know, lifestyle stuff and punk life and Anarchist life and and I guess for me, it's just interesting because what it sounds like what you've come to and not that you've you know, I'm not Presuming you've abandoned all these ideas necessarily or what but it seems like that perspective of kind of observing and being curious. Sometimes is actually brings us to into a much more transformative space than these kind of rigidify died, you know political stances and and things like that and you are and who you're really like first in like a dogmatic in someday. dogmatix scenes Yeah, they were about it. But the first like the first like anarchists and I was part of wasn't very dogmatic. Mmm. And I think it really set the stage for me to like watch something much more embodied and much more like Complex and mmm, you know, like it was they were it was intellectual but it was like really creative. Yeah and playful and really committed to like undoing power structures within our group. Hmm. Not just like fighting against, you know, yeah, it was pretty special but hmm, like the feeling of it like I was in the Splash Bakken America, unlike the feeling of like being like part of something. Yeah bigger and like supported like that, you know, just like in this group of people that just like had your back, you know, and that we're moving is like one creature, you know, just with so transformative, you know, and now I like I went to a while I was at like an anarchist book fair some Thing and afterwards like people laughed and they were like dressed in black. I'm like, you know. Kill all cops or whatever and I was just like I mean, it just didn't feel the same. I think it was more performative. Like it was less like people were like together moving together. Yes, like this is creature and more of like a performative. I mean, I think performative anger is really important and we do need a place for anger you now sure. But yeah, mmm, I love that. I really love that image of like the way that you've deeply felt in the midst of probably you know, what I imagined to be in kind of some of what I know to be very Like violent and frightening circumstances and yet being kind of buoyed by this this group of people in a really deep and profound way that that allowed so much possibility. It sounds like allowed you to imagine individually and collectively allowed you to imagine so much. Definitely. Yeah, I think there's like, you know for me trauma made me run my adrenaline really high, you know, and so when I found like other people are scenarios where the adrenaline yes, the collective adrenaline was at the same level as my typical adrenaline. I felt so seen, you know where its most of my life. I felt like just crazy just like totally unseen and like everybody was on a different vibrancy than me. You know and so when everybody's adrenaline was up, I was like, yeah, you know, right. Yeah, we really was Punk. Like I didn't really listen to punk music but like a lot of the people I ended up with which were lots of the performative punks and more of like just deeply deeply traumatized people who didn't know like how to do couldn't you know function in the world the way we're supposed to yeah, like they also had that high adrenaline often. Yeah, I think in some ways, you know, the way that when you're talking about that makes me think about back to the nervous system regulation, you know that there's something about being met with the same level of intensity that your It was like being on the same frequency. That's that actually can be quite regulating. You know her. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I'm that makes a lot of sense to me. Actually, I guess yeah one thing I'd like to talk a little bit about is your relationship to queerness and I guess specifically queerness, you know this idea of like how you came to maybe appreciate the notion of queerness as I don't know maybe also something that allowed allows for multiple a multiplicity of self to exist. Yeah, you know queer liked it and exist when I was like growing up. It was like to be fired a are and there was like a ton of gatekeeping and when like we're came out, like first of all, I didn't you know, like I didn't know what my desire was even though I slept mostly with guys like it wasn't like because that was where my desire was necessarily I was just That's what happened. And I really like love. I love all bodies and I like really love like this guy's to like just how vulnerable they would be was like some treasuring, you know, it was like I just felt like all their lives. They've been like performing or like expected to know what to do and When I like started like when the Antioch policy came out that was like you have to ask for consent all the time for each separate sexual move. Like I started like asking my partner's you know, like as it's okay. It's okay and that helped me stay in body. But it also like really was like the first time I think anybody had ever asked is like sis guys like if they were really into what was happening like not in the like Are you into this? But like and I like you might not be yeah or like and like I was like pretty much I mean I slept with tons of people. I was very promiscuous and you know didn't really have that much judgment around it. But I was like shocked that really shocked but in retrospect I'm shocked that not more people know this because pretty much everybody I slept with like Seems like they told me I was the first person I ever told that they've been abused as children, you know, like all these sub skies, and it was like this this permission was given to them to be like vulnerable by like this treasuring of their bodies, you know. Hmm, and it's very powerful. Anyway. Hmm. So like I loved that and I loved I loved, you know men and I also really like Don't like naturally. I was probably drawn more to I was naturally always really drawn to like androgyny, you know, like the first the first crush I ever had was definitely like someone who are like, oh, I don't know if that's a girl or a guy, you know, yeah like but there was like so much gatekeeping. It was like if you're by you have like one foot in the door of patriarchy there was just like hmm. It was just a shitty time and so when queer came out it was like not only could I like a lot of whoever I loved but it also was like this whole like gender presentation thing where like everybody saw me as a boy, but I wanted to be seen as a girl but I wasn't like I wouldn't like shave my mustache or whatever, you know, and like like all that stuff like how to place you know, yeah, and yeah, I could like I didn't have to because previous also like all the this girls are gay girls would call would think I was Butch, you know, I write about like feel but I felt more like All kinds of ways, you know, yeah. I'm so it really opened up like oh you can be all kinds of ways. You can be this one minute and this another star like, you know, that's what's made it more like for me at the time like you didn't have to perform your identity, you know? Yes, I think embedded in that, you know, that notion is is, you know, kind of back to this curiosity. You know, it requires conversations potentially with people. Who would I don't know maybe ask you like how do you relate to your like your gender expression or how you know, what does it feel like to you to like, there's a kind of opening up of you know, more nuanced dynamics that can become possible sometimes I mean not always, you know, it's not always the case. But yeah. Yeah, I've been curious about I guess I've been curious about your recent somewhat recent like Instagram videos where you're revisiting some of your old stories and kind of what prompted you to do that and how you Yeah, how you're thinking about that? Okay, I've been living for like 10 years. I look for 10 years in the rural area where there were no no cell phone service and we've had really just dial up internet until a few years ago, which is crazy. Right? So like I moved to Pittsburgh a couple of years ago now I have a cell phone. But I'm just trying to like honestly, I'm not totally sure if this is very interesting. But so I'm writing this I'm trying to write a couple books are just figure out if I want to write these books or not. One of them is a political autobiography about the 90s basically and the other is a utopian post post apocalypse utopian novel and And I feel like I need to have a more social media presence. But also it seems kind of fun. It's so I would I just yeah, I mean part of the reason I'm asking. Yeah, it's like a random kind of a random thing to be asked about but I guess the reason the reason I think it's interesting is because it does seem like you maybe have some sense that the stories that you were creating. That you're sort of revisiting publicly are there they're still really important and they have there's more there's kind of like maybe a new audience or more expansive audience for these stories, but that the kind of like tone and the way that hearing you read them. It's it's really it's really kind of captivating to me and it feels like a prairie particular voice. You know, it's like you have a very particular perspective on storytelling. So I think it's I think it's really interesting and I I'm I was glad about it because I feel like it's it will help, you know, a more like a younger audience to discover your work and a more expansive audience. Yeah. A lot of my stories I write them to be written out loud. Uh-huh. So, it's fun. I've always sort of wanted to To do something with them worrisome like an audio have that platform UI audiobook. Yeah. I'm into it. Thanks. Yeah, I'm excited about it too. Good good. So I guess the last question and again you can kind of go wherever you like with this, but if you think back to you know that sort of Younger version of you in a meadow with a blanket watching the bugs. Is there anything that you would want to convey to that serve younger version of you? Knowing what, you know now and having lived. Your life thus far I think I would say you grow up. You're safe. You have a miniature horse your beloved. Your curiosity will save you. Yes. Yeah, I love that. So a big hug. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you can tell the audience how they can learn about your work. Current Future Past. How can I find you? Yeah, I have a website at Cindy crab.com. Cin dyc are ABB and then I'm on Instagram to it's like Cindy and then like an under - crab and I also have a book learning good consent that I edited this on AKA pressed the go. Let it cool. Yeah, we'll put links. To all those things in the show notes and I really appreciate you being there and I look forward to hearing what people think when they may be discover for the first time your work. So I am I'm really grateful for you being here. So thanks so much for doing this podcast. I'm really grateful for it too and really great. Thank you. Maybe not maybe not.
In this episode we talk about dissociation, choice and consent, gender as "all kinds of ways," life before punk, how adrenaline and traumatized bodies interact and the dull and repetitive conversations that led her to live life as a writer. Cindy Crabb is the author of the long-running feminist autobiographical zine Doris and compilation book Encyclopedia of Doris. She edited the zine and book Learning Good Consent. She is a somatic experiencing trauma therapist living in Pittsburgh. Cindy wrote her zine, DORIS, like she is figuring out the human condition. She makes writing about the simplest and most common things - playing music, childhood, cooking, or sex- resonate with universal understanding. She helps us make sense of more complex things like the satisfaction of doing useful work, natural curiosity, the ability to use logic, gender dynamics, introspection, the need for challenge and change, combating depression, and creating art and literature. She shares and explores the emotions that go along with having an abortion, rape, dealing with the death of family, or sexual harassment in a context that is enlightening and personal, feeling like a close friend opening up to you. What's most impressive though is that she relates these things into every article in her zine seamlessly. You can find out about all the amazing things she does at: www.cindycrabb.com http://www.dorisdorisdoris.com/ @cindy_crabb https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/1212/  LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com  @livinginthisqueerbody   The Host:  Asher Pandjiris Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator   Queering the Holidays Virtual Workshop   December 8th:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/virtual-group-workshop    SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody    Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris    ---   Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/asher-pandjiris/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/asher-pandjiris/support 