thanks everyone who wrote us in at the indy and then voted for us later. we are honored to be honorably mentioned as 'best hip hop band' in the triangle. especially with such prestigous acts nominated in that category. perhaps if we work hard enough in the coming months, we will be able to inspire a new category for next years polls, the lesser known more clearly defined 'best unsigned queer spaz rock dance hip hop-a-billy shag potato mashers with bad fashion and good attitudes band' (sponsored by pbr). who knows, maybe by then i'll be back in med school and chad will be in the top 20 on american idol, our predestined paths to glory.

we just got asked to play homo-a-go-go III this august in olympia. i got so super excited. it's a melting pot of my people, the QP, and all who inspire and aspire to bring up the noise. plus, that means we get to go west side for a short ride. my adrenal glands are smiling. so i walked down memory lane to the first H.A.G.G. that we played after we had only been a 'band' for 5 months. i had 50 less gray hairs, a loving girlfriend, a good job and a best friend who had a burning desire to be on the stage. this was the performer bio that we submitted in 2002:

"(robo sapien is) a body moving beat boxin hip hoppin rock groovin lady loving gender fuckin lo-fi spaz dance duo from san fransico. people say robo sapian make good lovers and spaghetti, and they're inviting you for dinner."

we didn't know what we were doing then but goddamn it was a good time. seems the only thing that has changed is our zipcode.

buffalo. our good friend april took us down to the mall where she works at 'the picture people' to finally take some long overdue press photos. 30 shots later and we have finally captured the fact on film that we really do look like the idiots we feel we are.

we cross the border into canada like sliding off a greasy log backwards. with the beautiful laura dewaal in the driver's seat, we barely had to stop the car before getting waved in. leslie looked at me in disbelief, 'that was it?'. 'yeah, i guess so'. i hate crossing the border and making up stories about how you are not going there to share your art. i remember sini anderson making a joke about it when we toured together, sarcastically saying, 'it's true, i do the poetry'. and my friend michelle from 'pal' shitting on the officious in a fake 'foreign' accent saying, 'i go to flight school in florida'. we joked about what we would do if they questioned our ID's, i pretended to look over the driver's seat and call everyone by name, 'osama, osama, osama and suddam'.

in toronto we met an adoring leslie fan who actually had her record a song over some beats that he had. she made it up on the spot about her alien love and a rocket ship and her gold pants alien children who had strange names that were just crazy sounds she slurred out of her mouth. it was hillarious. maybe i haven't been laughing enough lately. maybe i am that miserable in north carolina. but i cannot stop losing my shit on this trip.

the owners of the bar where we played become the first officially recognized married lesbian couple i have ever met. i shake their hands and we toast to them. it made me feel like i am definitely moving to canada and then in the next breath my stomach hurt at what it would feel like to be married. congratulations and get me out of canada before i fall in love again.

so besides rocking the free world, this trip has been calmingly absurd. we laugh a lot at each other and at other people. we listen to country music in the car. we drink beers and take turns walking the dog. we sleep on floors and couches and slowly spill our histories into conversations.

today i had my hand in a box of puppies at a pet store and we ate at the original 'wendy's' that dave thomas opened.

i'm a ly. it just happened. i made a joke when we were packing the car that we should bring the keytar because leslie would find ly's along the way. a ly like me. boom, that was it. the next thing i know i'm in a small dressing room in the basement of a bar in canada putting on purple sequened spandex and pink lipstick. i know the songs already. and the show basically. so after a quick tutorial from the dr. i'm faking my way through the set on stage and having the time of my life.

it's healthy to gender fuck this hard. i need to take myself less seriously, to try to physically exist, to feel pain and embrace the awkwardness i felt as a kid. when they were trying to figure out what to do with my hair and telling me how to walk in the shoes i said, 'you know, i did used to be a girl'. we all looked blankly at each other as if we needed to be reminded or acknowledge perhaps that i wasn't still one in the sense that our grandmother's intended.

the first night i kept losing my shirt a little. that was uncomfortable. and my feet were killing me from the dance moves. chad laughed with pride every time we made eye contact. it kinda made me want to jump out the window and run but i had to hold onto the moment in the name of leslie hall's vision: i'm a ly. sassy gay. that's the ly name we came up with.

it's all so weird though. like i feel this connection with the dykes in the audience as a robo, singing about being queer and being free and celebrating your life the way you feel it, and then i'm so far outside of myself it's like i'm across the bar watching through the window, some awkward chick on stage who perhaps used to do theater.

we just did 3 shows in 3 days, times 2 and thats 6 for me. toronto, buffalo and columbus, oh. we have met the nicest people in the world, helpful, loving, just wanting to be happy, bestowing gifts of kindness food and drink and shelter in exchange for our time. a simple equation of math: we make you happy, you keep us alive. laughing like seals at robo and then doubling over at leslie & the ly's. i can't take music seriously anymore. there's so much more to say. i'm learning from people. there's always so much to learn.