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Coyote here

QueerCoyote

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So I never actually posted an intro here to my knowledge, though now I've been here a while. I apologize if this is verbose, I've had a really rough day/week and am kinda loopy on my pain meds right now, tramadol turns me into a sappy puddle of feels.

Hillbilly Castro / Andy told me a long time ago that I should check out STP, that I would probably like it... eventually I did, and I'm still here.

I met Hillbilly in Syracuse through a friend, and we ended up spending a lot of time together while he helped out his mom for a few months. He met me shortly after I got out of a gaslighting relationship that I had entered into after dropping out of college at 84 lbs with bad anxiety, an overwithdrawn bank account, no food, and physical health issues, having sex with photographers for money to pay overdue rent. He fed me and we had deep conversations about life and ethics, we took drunken long walks at 2 am and found ourselves looking at stars and watching our breath frost sleeping in tarps on local state land. Eventually I was able to feel like a person again and like life was worth something. I fell in love with his two younger brothers and became pretty good friends with his mom.

Eventually winter came and Andy left for warmer places, I went back to college and my health improved to the point that I was able to work full time to pay for it and rent, even it put my disabled body through hell. Every few months he would stop by and regale me with his tales that kept me going with the knowledge that the world was larger than the tiny bubble I was forcing myself to endure. I joined dirty kid and traveling groups, I befriended all the homebums in Syracuse and started under the table food, clothing, and gear drives for them and others that wouldn't/couldn't go to the local mission or who were overlooked by local charities. I found meaning. I got involved in defending other poor people in our highly segregated southside and westside against prejudice in city planning and locally unwanted land uses. I found local urban places that I could escape to with my tarp and sleeping bag when living with others and inside walls became too much, buildings I could scale to sleep with the stars above me, water towers I could trip next to at night and watch the city light change on a timer while the city slept. At one point I moved into the woods, two miles up a dirt road to a shack of a cabin and lived off the grid with my dog and cat raising ducks and showering with cold well water under a perforated milk carton eating food I foraged or earned by working at a neighbor's homestead. I learned to fight tooth and nail for my right to be recognized as queer and not tolerate shit for it. One night I had a shotgun rifle pointed at me just for walking in state woodland at night and looking untraditional and shouldered past the man confident that I could handle it. I learned to be self-reliant without money and to trust that no matter what I could have my own back.

Last summer I worked my first paid biology research job. This semester I took a graduate course on environmental justice, racism, and poverty and the professor tried to convince me to change my studies to do a grad degree under him (I didn't but his approval was so necessary for my confidence), and had conducted my own self-directed environmental conservation research in Pennsylvania. Yesterday I walked across the stage for my Bachelors of Science, and assuming I pass my finals and my research paper is approved I graduate with honours.

I'm not a traveling kid by lifestyle, and I'll always be a bit of an outsider because my passion and goals drive me to situations where I'm housed up if not close to it. If I wasn't constantly finding friends willing to rent to me for half of what rent should be I would be homeless and have been homeless out of my car for short periods of time in between these scenarios. I love and heavily relate to y'all. My goal is once I'm an established research biologist is to create an environmentally-minded sustainable intentional community off the grid with anarchist ideals and a family feeling for transients and long-term residents.

I hope you're all warm, fed, and safe from fires. If you ever need food, hit me up, if you ever need a place to sleep, hit me up. If you just need someone to talk to at 3am to keep you from bad decisions, hit me up. I firmly believe human kindness is a life-changing superpower, as it's certainly kept me alive in this world when otherwise I would have opted out long ago.

So yeah, hi. I'm coyote (sorrel if you know me irl) and I like being here. I'm queer, an anarchist, and I try to do my best by everyone I meet and whatever I have is yours so long as I can spare it. I'm crying right now writing this as I recognize how far I've come and just what I've come through, and shit is really rough right now but looking back I know if I got through all that then I can definitely get through this.
 
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If you ever need someone to kick around social theories with on how to stop power dynamics of a community from getting toxic, I've basically gathered a thesis worth of ideas in my adventures. One of my goals is to build a home base around them one day. Mapping the sustainable aspects of one through an understanding of the biology would be pretty cool, too.

(P.S. I met a Sorrel once at a commune, been anywhere in the Midwest like that?)
 
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meatcomputer

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Sorrel?!? how funny, I know you, we met when andy brought you over to rust temple. This whole time I've seen and appreciated your posts on StP and what a treat to now know that I've met you in real life. Stay warm friend :]
 
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Odin

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Amazing intro amazing writing... thank you for sharing... The genuine words strike to the core for any mind that will recognize.

Currently it's blah am dark... n im just listening to coast to coast.::alien::

I firmly believe human kindness is a life-changing superpower

And this world needs all the superhero's it can get... haz you.
 

Zaphod

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Wow, that's awesome! I'm glad you're doing all that work comrade! I'd love to hear more about how you're building community and solidarity as that's work I'm interested in as well
 

Tude

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Awesome intro - heartfelt, and man alive I live in Rochester NY - would love to meet up with you sometime. So glad you got some issues worked out with health and all and are thriving and growing!!
 

Hillbilly Castro

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hell yeah sorrel love you so much
glad yer finally out of school and looking forward to seeing what you do next - hoping you find time to ride bikes with me and erin!
 

creature

plastic wingnut in a microwave
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Super good read : )

I'm wondering if *I* met you, too..

If you came over to RT with Andy & there was a bald guy on fire, that was probably me.

I hope it was you, though I think it was just in passing, at most..

I second Wouter & Odin on your posts..
Encouraging & words that not only show strength, but from which it can be taken, too..

Remember your youth.

& interesting on the biology end..

i may PM you on an idea or two..

i have something bubbling in my head..

throw you on a boat & bring the Oceans back to Life???

; )

anyways, good stuff..
i can just about feel the goddamn water from the carton..

good for you for being hardcore enough to see through it all, not just as experience, but towards a thing, too...

peace, mofo..



.
 

QueerCoyote

granola punk
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Olean, NY
If you ever need someone to kick around social theories with on how to stop power dynamics of a community from getting toxic, I've basically gathered a thesis worth of ideas in my adventures. One of my goals is to build a home base around them one day. Mapping the sustainable aspects of one through an understanding of the biology would be pretty cool, too.

(P.S. I met a Sorrel once at a commune, been anywhere in the Midwest like that?)

Not me, but I love kicking around social theories on power dynamics! HMU sometime here or shoot me your number.

Sorrel?!? how funny, I know you, we met when andy brought you over to rust temple. This whole time I've seen and appreciated your posts on StP and what a treat to now know that I've met you in real life. Stay warm friend :]

No shit?? Were you one of the two we drank with or did I just meet ya in passing? I always hoped to reconnect with y'all, RT was amazing. Actually have it on my list of "places to consider looking for jobs/graduate schools near" because of that experience.

Wow, that's awesome! I'm glad you're doing all that work comrade! I'd love to hear more about how you're building community and solidarity as that's work I'm interested in as well

I'll be making a post on my EJ class content once I'm done with this last paper as I think it's great content that needs to circulate. As far as other stuff goes mostly I've been active with the local socialist chapter to challenge white supremacist rallies in the area and to try and add another voice in the group who are calling out the need to make space for more diversity and to focus on the history of local activism of black and jewish people in the area, instead of just the white/green activism.

My under-the-table drives primarily has been me putting out a call for equipment/gear by contacting churches and secondhand stores for donations. Was able to get 12 winter sleeping bags out to the community last year, this year got a bunch of tarps, coats, and gloves out. Worked with a lawyer two years ago who wasn't allowed to get directly involved with her clients to get heaters and water filters to local somali refugees who were living in old industrial structures. I also have access to the Syracuse University Hendrick's Chapel food pantry, which lets me take canned goods/shampoo/etc and redistribute.

Awesome intro - heartfelt, and man alive I live in Rochester NY - would love to meet up with you sometime. So glad you got some issues worked out with health and all and are thriving and growing!!

I'm leaving Syracuse at the end of the month, would love to hang out before I go! HMU with your number and let's make plans.

hell yeah sorrel love you so much
glad yer finally out of school and looking forward to seeing what you do next - hoping you find time to ride bikes with me and erin!

I didn't get that pannier for nothing!

Super good read : )

I'm wondering if *I* met you, too..

If you came over to RT with Andy & there was a bald guy on fire, that was probably me.

I hope it was you, though I think it was just in passing, at most..
i may PM you on an idea or two..

i have something bubbling in my head..

throw you on a boat & bring the Oceans back to Life???

I like boats! I don't have any marine ecology background, but first hand experience is a great teacher.

I can't remember if I met ya specifically, but I met about 4 people those two days so possibly? If you remember someone getting schwilly and giving Andy a stick n poke that was me. I did the pistol on his shoulder.

1513022199835.jpg
 

QueerCoyote

granola punk
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Location
Olean, NY
Sorrel?!? how funny, I know you, we met when andy brought you over to rust temple. This whole time I've seen and appreciated your posts on StP and what a treat to now know that I've met you in real life. Stay warm friend :]

Was it you that I gave that piercing needle and told you to sew your boot? ahahaha
 
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