I am in a 13-passenger van with three other women of color. Celana, Asian. Alma, Chicana. Andre mixed (Phlipina/White), Myself, Black. Three out of four of us queer. Driving to Sacramento to protest at the WTO gathering.

Out the window to our left, an oil refinery as we are passing through Richmond, a mostly Black and Brown folks’ town. My lover tells us there is an elementary school less than a mile away. Children play. Breathe in the noxious air, drink the toxic water. The oil wells and pumps and buildings, she says used to be painted like Tart n Tinys. Celana confirms. Pastels. Sickening. Like candy. Poisoning the children. It is properly gray, now. And silver.

To our right, a C&S Sugar factory. “Or a front for something else,” Alma laughs. We have all developed a way of laughing darkly at the most hideous things. It’s how we hold onto ourselves.

The two women in the front seat pass a Fuji apple back and forth. “Flammable. Explosive. Let’s get away from that truck.” Alma turns to Andre and I in the back. “You never know what these trucks are carrying anymore. They’re not labeled.” She looks out the window. “Radioactive! Oh my god, dude, that semi is carrying radioactive materials. We all just got radiated. And he’s driving that! Oh, my god.” She pauses, considering. “Radioactive, that’s so crazy. I’m like, ‘they’re not labeled anymore.’”

My lover sleeps, her head on my lap, a brown sweatshirt keeping light from passing through her eyelids.

I drink a tea I have made from nettles, sarsaparilla, passion flower, vervain, ginger, black peppercorn, and lemon. An infusion I’ve seeped overnight. Steep for 10 minutes and you have a cup of tea. Steep overnight and you have a medical dose. Good medicine. Nettles for energy & to relieve anxiety; sarsaparilla to increase progesterone levels and sexual energy; vervain (verbeena) to turn down the mental chatter preventing me from being present and in my body; passion flower to release the buildup of tension my body holds onto, to loosen up; ginger because it’s good for everything; black peppercorn because I hear it aids in the absorption of everything else; lemon for tartness; and then xylitol (birch bark) and splenda for sweet. (I don’t want this tea to have straight-up sugar in it.)

I am trying to support my emaciated sex drive. The healing properties of herbs have suddenly captivated my attention. Every day the tea is slightly different. I make a quart of it and drink it all day like water.

If I had health insurance, I would have my hormone levels tested. I think they’re off. I think my progesterone is low. I do not ovulate enough. I bleed only a few times a year.

We can see downtown Sacramento from the highway. Three helicopters overhead. It’s already started. “Albuquerque is so fucking small—I went to high school with half of the fire and police force,” Alma says, “Fortunately, no one I know has had to arrest me, yet. I think that would be kind of weird for both of us.”

We get on a bus to take us downtown. There is a bus route detour. They can’t take us all the way there, because, yesterday, busses were ‘vandalized,’ and there was a lot of graffiti. Inside the buss there’s a sign. Red and white blockprint:

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what all the fuss is about—a USDA conference. I say BULL. You say SHIT: BULL! SHIT! BULL! SHIT! BULL! SHIT! Oh, yeah!

The signs tell me it’s Girl Scout Cookie time. That summer day camp is “loads of fun.” That there will be “no shame” “no blame” “no names” if I choose to “surrender” my baby.