some stuff about me, for new followers

- I am 33, originally from DC, have lived in Chicago since 2005. DIY music scenes are my home.

- I am in a couple of bands and have been making music for a lot of my life. This is one of them and this is the other.

- I am genderqueer/queer. They/their pronouns are what I am most comfortable with.

- I am 3/4 white, and my maternal grandfather, who was Mongolian (he shuffled off this mortal coil a while ago), embraced his light skin & white-passing privilege to the fullest. I mention this because I blog a lot about racism and anti-Blackness in particular; I do not do this for Good Person Points, I do it because it impacts people I love and because it is important and because it has played a significant part in my life (my grandfather defining himself against Blackness/rising into privilege). My maternal grandfather and grandmother helped raise me, so I have a lot of complicated feelings about family and my connection to communities. My parents are good people; we have not always gotten along but I love them very much and we have a great relationship as adults. My family was not anything remotely close to wealthy but I would imagine that our transition into the middle class (I am somewhere on the borderline between working & lower middle class as an adult) had a lot to do with our whiteness.

- I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and a person who has struggled with addiction in the past. I’m over 10 years clean.

- I live with my partner, who is a brilliant fucking person.

- You can call me Jessica or Jes.

- This is what my face looks like: 

- I do not blog about ‘social justice’ issues because I am trying to be an authority on such things or because I am trying to speak over anyone else. I blog about my own experiences and share the experiences of other people.

- I am a pretty good dancer, I think. I really love to dance, at the very least.

- I’m an old skate rat. I need a new board.

- I can fix your amp for you, probably.

- I am a deep record nerd.

- I write both nonfiction and fiction. And some poetry.

- Also have a major passion for history, particularly labor history.

- I work for a union. 

- I have a pretty open heart but am super picky about the people I let in, if that makes any sense. If you wanna be friends, we should be friends.