“Portland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It’s proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.”

Someone told me once that Lucinda Williams takes six years between albums, and that’s what stuck to me; it’s like, you really are a factory. You don’t do things to make them, on your own time.

With a stretch belt, anything can be a dress – a dinner napkin, a tablecloth, even a towel. Just wrap and snap, and away you go in an incredible outfit. Another plus is that the belt will pull all eyes to your lovely curves, and they even look good around a coat or a jacket.

I work really well under pressure but I really hate doing things on a timeframe.

There is no rule in the pink-triangle guide to coming out that you must wear a rainbow flag cap and organise a full band parade.

I have a lot of feminist idols. My favorite thing about growing up in Arkansas – well, not favorite but something I’ve always felt grateful for – was that I really had to dig for what I could. There was no Internet. There wasn’t tons of feminist literature floating around.

Sometimes love can mean letting go and loving each other from a distance. Maybe that’s what you’re feeling?

I don’t have a good attention span and can’t spend long in record stores or video shops or games emporiums without getting grumpy.

I really worshipped Mama Cass a lot. Mama Cass, who was really fat and she didn’t lose weight. Yeah, she went on diets but for the most part of her life and the better part of her career she was a big person.

Even talking, I’m super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There’s no way I can fight it.

I’m shameless, and I love a pun. There’s a lot of Beth puns.

I’m like cheddar: Yes, other cheeses are more ooh la la, but I’m strong, mature, and oh so delicious.

Because I didn’t have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn’t hand us enough variety to choose from.

I’m naturally a mousy blonde, so I dye my hair, and my eyebrows would disappear if I didn’t get through at least a pencil a month.

A beautiful plant is like having a friend around the house.

Barack Obama was amazing, but he wasn’t perfect. We all know that. He was the closest thing to perfect America’s ever had. We were basking in the glow. We forgot that there’s always going to be a backlash within a movement every time.

Just like my straight friends, I am repeatedly asked when I plan to have kids, and have been told many times, by various branches of my bloodline, that “even lesbians can have babies these days.”

I know the constitution in Oregon was passed in 1859. Free expression of opinion.

Oregon is outflanking California as the most left wing state in the union.