49: Safe & Sound with Mercury Stardust
Today’s conversation brings us to the unusual intersection of social media influence, DIY home repair, and trans activism. I’m excited to introduce you to my amazing guest for today’s show!
Mercury Stardust, the “Trans Handy Ma’am,” is a professional home maintenance technician, burlesque performer, author, and award-winning activist. Mercury credits her TikTok success to her experience teaching burlesque, where she learned to communicate and create a safe space for students who had frequently experienced trauma. She has been featured in stories by NBC, NPR, Buzzfeed, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and Pink News. Her leadership within the trans community has led to collaborations with such brands as I Fix It, Lowe’s, and the trans healthcare community Point of Pride. Mercury’s recent livestream fundraiser ended up raising over $2.2 million, and she’s embarking on a huge book tour this fall to promote her book, Safe & Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair.
Show Highlights:
● How Mercury created a safe space with “Gentle DIY” in the male-dominated handyman world
● How Mercury became a home maintenance technician to supplement her living as a cabaret performer
● Why Mercury’s content caters to apartment renters and others who may not be comfortable with tools and DIY repairs
● Why Mercury shows up authentically without pretense and perfectionism
● What it’s like to be a prominent trans woman on the internet and still manage her mental health
● How Mercury handles the task of setting boundaries with people to protect her emotional and mental health
● Highlights from Mercury’s book, Safe & Sound, and her upcoming 52-city book tour
● How Mercury leans into her weaknesses and insecurities
Resources and Links:
Connect with Mercury Stardust: Website, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Safe & Sound book
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes
-
KC Davis 0:05
Hello you sentient balls of stardust. Today is a good day for struggle care. I am so excited to have mercury Star Dust here on the podcast episode say hello mercury. Well
Mercury Stardust 0:15
hello, Mercury.
KC Davis 0:16
Mercury and I've been listening to my podcast episodes and I realized I never introduce anybody. So I'm going to do that right official Okay, so Mercury Stardust is the trans handy ma'am. A professional home maintenance technician, performer and award winning activist Mercury credits her tick tock success to her experience teaching burlesque where she learned to communicate and create a safe space for students who had frequently experienced trauma. She has been featured in stories by NBC, NPR, Buzzfeed, Newsweek, Washington Post and pink news. Her leadership within the trans community has led to collaborations with such brands as I fix it, Lowe's and the trans healthcare community point of pride. Let me just stop right there. Because Can we just start by saying that you recently did a fundraiser?
Mercury Stardust 1:04
Yeah. 30 hour live stream? Yeah.
KC Davis 1:06
Yes. And your goal was to raise $1 million?
Mercury Stardust 1:09
Yes.
KC Davis 1:10
How much money did you end up raising?
Mercury Stardust 1:12
$2,253,000 a pretty wild number, to be honest.
KC Davis 1:20
So before we started recording, you and I were talking about how both of us have kind of known each other para socially through Tik Tok. And I want to just kind of like get into your origin story. So those who are listening, you know, you are most well known on tick tock, as the trans handyman, where you talk about home repair, home maintenance, and you really kind of geared towards renters and people that maybe have never learned how to do those things. And you're a safe space. Like that's obviously a very male dominated space like the handyman world. Yeah. So talk to me a bit about creating this space where people who maybe often feel excluded from being able to learn those types of things can come to you,
Mercury Stardust 2:02
it is wild, because so much of the way I teach is a direct result of how I was treated, right. So like I was treated badly when I was learning these things. When I was trying to be able to become a part of this industry. I wasn't always treated with like rainbows and sunshine, I was treated with a lot of like, you know, mud in your eye kind of mentality. And in order to have me survive, I just kind of like toughened up and turn the other cheek. And I hate that mentality. I hate it. I never want anyone else to have to go through what I went through. So naturally, when it came to educating people, it just was like a natural transition for me in a lot of ways. And I know a thing or two about transitions. So like, I just like becoming online and doing all this stuff. And communicating what I call a gentle DIY is very much just instinctual because it's the way I wish I was taught when I was being taught all this stuff.
KC Davis 2:55
And so what kinds of things like what are some of your biggest videos on like home care that you do? Because you're not the kind of homecare that I am where we talk about like dishes and laundry and cleaning?
Mercury Stardust 3:05
Yeah, no, the biggest videos I've ever done had been a wide variety. I'm very, very lucky that I went viral for like 10 different things all at once. But one of the biggest things is probably my wall stud video, how to find a wall started with a magnet, how to fix a door, a bunch of loose screws and a door hinge with toothpicks. You know how to fix mini blinds in your apartment by taking the bottom blind and putting it in the middle. Just the list goes on and on. Really, all the stuff that I thought was pretty straightforward stuff. Right? Like either I learned it on the farm growing up as a kiddo. Or I learned it when I was in the industry for 16 years. And I just thought a lot of this was secondhand or or like instinctual? You know, but there's no such thing as common sense, right? As we both know, there's many common ideas, right? But that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to automatically know how to do this stuff. So a lot of the stuff that went viral for was things that are pretty foundational educational tools in the home maintenance industry.
KC Davis 4:09
So when you got into home maintenance, were you primarily working on houses or apartment complexes.
Mercury Stardust 4:15
I got in through the whole maintenance door through the back door. I was a traveling cabaret performer and I needed to make money. And here's the thing as a traveling cabaret performer, I went to all these shows across the country, right? 125 different cities 24 or 26 different states. And I made my living Thursday through Sunday, just juggling, I'm half naked in front of strangers, you know, because we toured primarily in gay bars all across the country. But you know, if anyone who's in the industry in burlesque and cabaret knows you just don't make a whole lot of money anymore from the industry. So a friend of mine said, Hey, you should try to be a maintenance intern at this, you know company that does theatrical lighting called latronnik theater controls. And you should become a maintenance technician in their facilities department as an intern for some money. And I said, Sure, I'll apply, we'll see what happens. I don't really want to do this stuff, I kind of hate it. But might as well, I guess I'm good at it. I'm good at fixing things and working with my hands. So why not? So I applied and I got the job immediately. And then within four months, I became a full time maintenance technician. And then within two years, I became a full time Maintenance Technician grade two, which is a big deal in our industry. And then I just kept on going, I just kept getting getting certification with the certification, and I got 14 certifications in the field. And I primarily at first worked in industry for 10 years as a building technician. That is, like more like big factory company technicians, people who walk around and fix machinery, or people who walk around and fix, you know, maybe doors and painting and stuff like that, but not a lot of home stuff. I then shifted into property management and into private contracting, while I was there as part time, and then it became full time later on.
KC Davis 6:02
One of the things that I love that you do quite a lot is that the amount of times that I've had something that I wanted to do or wanted to fix, and I go to YouTube, and I go, okay, and bla bla bla how to fix this thing. And it's like, go and get the Agra 3005. And I'm like, I don't own that like, and you have so many solutions that I feel like are actually reachable for somebody who might just be renting an apartment, like maybe they have a basic toolkit. And the super that won't fix something.
Mercury Stardust 6:32
Yeah, is this mentality that you and I know very well about intersectionality. You and I have talked extensively online about this. And I think that like this is the same mentality I had when it came to helping people with burlesque, right, and making sure that we open that door and make people feel comfortable with things where they're at and making sure that we lean towards voices that are not often heard in our spaces, right. And one of the voices we don't hear enough in home maintenance is renters. And if you lean into them, right, if you lean into their restrictions and their experience, what you actually end up doing is you make things way more accessible for literally everyone. If you're worrying about cost, right? Like there's a complementation well guess what happens, you're helping renters if you're talking about like basic foundational entry level home maintenance ideas, then yeah, that's almost perfect for renters, because everything is in a rental, it will be in a home, but not everything that's in someone's house that they own is going to be in a rental. So like, by that very definition, I was focusing on people that could help everyone and everyone else in the industry, including this old house, all of them are doing is focusing on huge ideas for people that have become a select few in this country. A lot of people now especially, you know, my age and younger cannot afford to access housing, right. And a lot of us struggle day in and day out to try to make ends meet. So yeah, you know, the trick I have that went viral a few weeks ago about using toothpaste to be able to place a picture on a wall, so you know where to put the nail
KC Davis 8:08
I just used i, Yes, in the video that I posted where I said, you know, I wanted to do my gallery wall. And I had this like, long thing in my head about, okay, I need to trace each one on butcher block paper, and then lay it all out. And then I need to a laser level every little bit. And then at the end, I was like, I'm not going to do this, this is too many steps. I just need to throw them up there. And that's what I did. I got I had some that had the two holes at the back and I was like oh shit, and I did I put the toothpaste around it and I stuck it on the wall and I could see where it needed to go. And that's the other thing we talked about both having ADHD, one of the things that I find is that if I need to do something in my home, whether it's like I needed to put together some shelves, I needed to put up a pegboard for my tool. So they're easier to find. I wanted to put up my gallery wall because of my ADHD, if it's something if I get in, and there's one thing different, like, okay, I can hang a picture, but I've only ever hung a picture with one nail with the you know, the wire and all of a sudden it's the two and I'm going well how do I make those even little things like that, that I feel like other people might be able to just swerve and Google and figure out it paralyzes me, you know, and I sit around, I put it off and I put it off and I put it off. And one of the things that your content has been really helpful for me is not only the literal tips and tricks that I've learned, but also just this idea of maybe I could do this though, like maybe I could do it and it wouldn't be too hard and it wouldn't be too complicated. And you know, and so sometimes I just need that extra sort of push to go well, maybe this won't be as complicated as I think because I am so used to thinking that everything in the home maintenance world is going to be complicated.
Mercury Stardust 9:55
Yeah, like everything. It almost feels like it's gatekeeping ourselves. In a lot of ways, because like, here's the thing, if you never see yourself on these screens, or in this field, when you ask for help, if you never see a queer person or a trans person, or a woman who's wearing overalls and tools and doing this work, you're gonna start thinking this stuff isn't meant for you, the representation works for us to like, isn't just about helping other people come to terms with who they are a representation can genuinely be us giving ourselves permission sometimes to be able to want to learn how to do this stuff.
KC Davis 10:33
And just showing up as a real person. Because, like, I know, plenty of women that do DIY content and things like that, where they're, you know, putting together two by fours. But a lot of them are very straightforwardly like, thin, tan, wealthy women with perfect hair that are like, so that I whipped up a cabinet out of scrap wood. And I'm like, well, that's not I can't do that. But it gives you this idea that like, you almost have to be the kind of person that has your shit put together to be able to do something like that.
Mercury Stardust 11:07
Yeah, there's some videos where I have like, stands on my shirts, and stuff, you know, like, you see me and it's like, does she just come out of like, a hotdog cart? Or, you know, and I'm 100% I think they're like, Yeah, I can be in full makeup, right. But I could also be in stand outfits and stuff. And it's really important to me, that I don't clean up completely for that notion. Because here's another thing, a lot of the DIY Girls on the internet that I followed for a long time before I came here, you know, on the internet myself, looked like they would commit hate crimes against me, you know, like, they didn't always look like,
KC Davis 11:45
I'm sorry, that's so funny.
Mercury Stardust 11:48
It's true. Like, sometimes, I would be like, Oh, I love her. And then I would like dig deeper into her and be like, No, I don't love her anymore. I mean, like, it's like the religious undertones. Or maybe they don't have very sensitive ideas to those who are disabled. You know, they don't meet you where you're at, still, in a lot of ways. They are upholding the patriarchy and not necessarily opening the door. It's this mentality of like, oh, I walked through the door. But in order for me to exist in this room, I have to make sure I slam that door shut before you get through it. And 100% feels that way in this industry, sometimes, especially for DIY, like FIM content creators.
KC Davis 12:32
And the amount of times that you've come on the internet and just said, I am having a really hard time is so important. Because you know, and I'm kind of similar to you, like I don't want to be all put together. And even when I'm doing something that's not about my house, I don't want to clean up my house just to make a video. Because it contributes to that idea of like, I'm not allowed to do a fun project. Unless I'm on top of everything else, I can't prioritize fixing that door that's been bothering me for however long, because I've got a sink full of dirty dishes, or I can't, you know, and there's just all of this weird moralistic, perfectionistic hierarchy. And there's something really powerful about the way that you show up, and sometimes say, I feel really broken today, or, you know, I'm not all put together today, but like, we can still get shit done.
Mercury Stardust 13:20
I am working really hard on myself. And I am working extremely hard on trying to take care of myself more, I'm not good at it. I'm very bad at taking care of myself. I'm very good at helping others. I have very little skill when it comes to making bridge for myself. And what I'm finding is that what helps me a lot is to just call what it is and say what it is sometimes, you know, if I'm having a real bad time, one of the biggest stressors I have is I gotta feel like I'm making content. I got to feel like I'm making content, I got to feel like I'm producing I got to feel like I'm on the top of the world. I got to feel like oh, how dare I even feel bad because blah, blah, blah. So what helps me is just to say, hey, you know, guys not doing good. I'm a hot mess right now. And I'm not positive, I'm going to be able to make content and I took most of this past month off. I took a lot of this past month off making content and boy feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
KC Davis 14:26
Alright, so I want to talk a little bit about that about what it's like being a large content creator and the mental health side of it and all this. Let's take a quick break, hear from a sponsor, and we'll be back. Okay, we're back. So I want I would love to talk to you about what that experience has been like for you because I know what it's been like for me and I am in a similar place of like I posted three to four to six times a day for like two years straight and then hit a place where it was like I could force myself to keep doing it at this pace, but I'm not feeling it. I'm not in the flow and you know, talk to me about what it has been like to Be a prominent trans woman on the internet,
I knew I was gonna love talking to you, because I, you hit it right on the head. Sometimes when people ask me this question, they leave out the trans part. And it's a huge part of my identity, I just wrote a script for a new video that would coming out sometime soon, about how being trans is a small facet of my life. But it's also like, I'm five foot 11, right? Being mean being five foot 11, something I don't even think about. But other people perceive me as five foot 11 Because I am five foot 11. And how I am able to reach things off at the top of the shelf, how am I able to do all these things? I access the world through a different lens than someone who's five foot two? And that's just that's a fact of the world.
I'm literally five foot two.
Mercury Stardust 15:47
Yeah, oh, yeah. I call that. But like, I have a way through the world differently. So how I experienced the things just are innately different. And sometimes people leave that part out about me. And it's like, You're not telling the full story. So to answer your question, Casey, like, I'm also transitioning in front of millions of people. If you look back two years ago, two and a half years ago, to my first few videos, my bone structure and my cheekbones are innately different, my chest has evolved much more, I don't look the same, I just don't look the same. I don't even sound the same contrary to a lot of people's belief system. I am in fact doing voice training. And my voice is changing slightly over the last two years. And how I'm trying to talk to my audience is changing. Being a large content creator in front of potentially millions of people every day is a lot on your brain, when you're also someone who a lot of trans people look up to a lot of trans people look up to me, and maybe they've been transitioning longer than I have. Or maybe they just feel like there isn't any other trans person and they know that they can relate to them. And we I'm someone they can relate to in some way, that those responsibilities. Oh, my God, especially right now with all of the legislation against trans people. And all the communication about trans people in the last year to two years has been just absolutely nuts. So but so it's been wild is I feel like I'm strapped to a rocket Casey. And I feel like someone lit it. And I'm just waiting for it to fly off the handle. And I'm just like looking at the wick as getting shorter and shorter. And it's terrifying. I feel like I'm white knuckling it every day. And that's part of the mental health part of the mental health struggle is me feeling out where I am in the landscape of living my life, because there is no more blueprint for me when I wasn't just a technician, and I would fix toilets. And I would fix sinks, and I would fix doors. There was a blueprint of how I did my life, you clock in you clock out, you go home, you you know, you raise the kids and you go back to work. And it made sense to me, it was a blue line, not my days are sometimes all over the place, I can work a four hour day, I could work a 16 hour day I could work. You know, I could be in Anaheim for a week, I could be in New York for a week I could be you know, I may be doing a 52 city book tour like him in the fall, right? I'd be doing all these things all over the place. And there is no more structure in my life that made me feel like I was tethered to a reality that I understood. I feel like I no longer am in the realm of realistic expectations. You know, I feel like I don't know what my life is anymore. And as a trans person who's also just like, trying to figure it out. It's terrifying, to be honest.
KC Davis 18:37
So let me ask you two questions. And you can answer either one, whichever one's more interesting. The first is, do you ever feel there's this thing that I experienced sometimes because so much of my platform was built on being sort of a compassionate therapeutic presence, that when I perceive someone demanding gentleness from me, despite their behavior, there's this like, almost rebellion where I want to be a piece of shit to them. Because I there's like this resistance to this, like, even though I was the one who chose like, this is going to be my platform or whatever. I kind of like refuse to be someone's little character. And then the next question is, you know, how do you feel like how is it to balance this feeling of being a leader in the space without being the spokesperson for all trans people, particularly with trans people looking to you and non trans people looking to you?
Mercury Stardust 19:38
I think for me, in a lot of ways I try to remember remind myself all the time, Casey, that I am someone who consented to one video on the internet. You know what I mean? I consented to me, telling people that I was an intersectional feminist and trans maintenance lady that was my original tagline. It was a stupid tagline. And I consented to this idea of like that video itself is going to be inspiring and helping people and being kind. And then I felt like I was forced, in a lot of ways to maintain that ideal. The more I went along, the more I got a lot more rebellious with that, like image of myself, you know, that's when I used to love doing my weekly burlesque show where people would watch me online because I got to be like, Fuck you guys. You don't I mean, I got to be like, Yeah, my butthole you know, I got to Conor act a lot of the notions about me. But now that I'm farther away from my retirement from burlesque, and now I'm just doing this as a full time content creator. It's gotten more and more where people look at me as like a holier than thou entity sometimes, and I do get very uncomfortable with it. I do find myself because here's the thing. I am nice. I'm kind, but I'm not as Jory. Lauric skull, my very good friend would say, I'm no one's pushover. And I think sometimes people like they'll like, sometimes they'll meet me. And they'll tell me, they're very, very traumatic stories. And they'll tell me how I helped him in those traumatic times. And I'm so grateful to be able to help people in that way. But I'm also not emotionally capable enough to process every single person's trauma, I'm not able to. So I'm finding ways to try to distance myself sometimes for my own mental health, from the absolute unloading of people's emotions. So like I am, I can be kind one of the kindest things I can do to people when they don't know who I am. And just come up to me and tell me this kind of stuff. It's been like, thank you so much for telling me that. I'm not in a great place right now. I cannot hear more of this. But I want to send you my love. You mean a lot to me. And that's it. That's kind that is kind. And that is compassionate. But also that's setting a guy named boundary. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I think for so long, I felt like if I said anything that was counterintuitive to me being like, don't you worry, you tell me everything. You tell me about all that pain that you have. And then I'm not going to I'm going to go home and I'm going to cry into a pillow alone for hours. Because now, not just you but five other people do the same thing to me at Walmart, you know what I mean? And that's something that's happened. I don't know how what you feel like and what you experience. But for me, if I go to any gay establishment, or if I go to, you know, a pride, or if I go to a gay bookstore, if I go to anything with gay, queer LGBTQIA in it, I'm going to get bombarded and often put into a situation where emotionally I'm going to have a lot to process. And it's a weird feeling to have to be in spaces that are safe spaces for the queer community, but are no longer emotional safe spaces for me, you know what I mean? Yes, I'm on Yeah, if I'm going to a nightclub, and I'm like, Oh, good, I get to see a drag show. Well, guess what, you're gonna be almost a bigger name than a lot of the drag queens on stage. So you better be on you gotta be in full makeup, you better be in full gear, you better just own it. Because if you don't own it, it gets even more uncomfortable. And that's a hard dichotomy. So now into the second question about being a leader and not being a spokesperson. Boy, after we raised that $2 million, the amount of of people who were wanting more from me was surreal, Jory. And I, both trans women, and we work with point of pride, which is a nonprofit organization that actually vets and helps people directly, they do mutual aid for us. So we don't have to vet every single person ourselves, right, which is a huge task, I could never vet that many people, right, we helped 11,000 people, that's an insane thing to do, right? without actually having a structure around you to be able to do that. So after we raised all this money for point of pride, and we do all that the one of the biggest push backs we got from people was that we should have did actual mutual aid. People were really upset with us for not doing direct GoFundMe for people or things like that. And there's no way at a large scale, to be able to help that many people you just there isn't a functional way that I can still live my life and still be okay. And to do that. That's where burnout comes and that's where like, there will be problems. You still if someone has said it was like, I wish you could do direct mutual aid instead of rolling a dice like You're lucky that you get randomly picked. What is me picking on GoFundMe randomly do is the same thing. That's the same thing. But in point of pride, the notion There are criteria that makes you eligible, they try their best as much as they can be equitable. So they focus really strongly on people who are the most marginalized to help them and because of that, and that's been who I'm I'm aligning myself with, I very much have been take During their example, and using that, to help me understand how to lead in this industry, like how to lead in my community, I don't necessarily have to be the voice for every single person. But I do feel like, I need to be hyper aware of how I am perceived by people. And I need to be hyper aware of how my actions will hurt or affect or uplift or diminish other people's voices. Yeah, be honest, I'm still working this one out, KC
KC Davis 25:29
Yeah, I mean, listen, meet you. Well, I was just gonna say that, you know, the thing that we're not saying to each other, is like, the caveats that I would give to somebody that wasn't also a large content creator, which is the like, now obviously, I love what I do. And I am very grateful to have a large platform, and it is very meaningful. And I know that I'm privileged to be able to make a living doing this thing that I really enjoy doing. Like, I don't feel the need to say those things to you, and you don't feel need to say them to me, because we know how awesome it is, and how much privilege to just kind of have gotten lucky on the viral videos.
Mercury Stardust 26:04
Yeah, this job is the coolest job in the world. Are you kidding me? You know, it is the coolest, you know, here's the thing, like, for me, I worked 6570 hours a week, you know, in either construction, or maintenance or private contracting for years for years. You know, like, I'm my knees are still shot, my back is not doing great, you know, this job is a whole different kind of exhaustion. There is a genuine, I gotta be honest with people, I would not recommend this job for people who have heart conditions, I'm not gonna lie, it isn't. I feel like I'm stressed to the max most days in ways I've never been. I feel like I've found new ways to be exhausted in the last two years of my life. And I'm grateful. Like, I am so grateful for having the team around me, I have some mercury starters, media is not just me anymore, it is six people total, we have five people who work with me most days, three of which are full time people, and everyone gets paid equitably. I do not make much more than everyone else does. The minimal person I think gets paid three, two bucks an hour. So we try our best every single day to balance things out and make it less scary for me. But yeah, it is a lot. It is so much. And when you're talking to other content creators, there's like a shorthand that you get to have with each other where it's like, Hey, you already know these things. And I can't imagine when content creators, don't have a business person don't have a creative director and don't have those people around them. I did that for the first year. I don't recommend it.
KC Davis 27:46
That's amazing. I don't have any of those people. But I will say this, because I publish with Simon and Schuster. I do have a publicist, I have an agent, I have an overseas agent. I have like a marketing, you know what I mean? But they're not like reporting to me daily. They're like working for Simon and Schuster. But it's still a huge load. And I do have a woman that does my Instagram for me. And I think that the thing is like, it is awesome. But there's also this weird space where like, it used to be that like, famous people were celebrities, you were a celebrity or you were a non celebrity. And it's weird to be on the world of content creating where you have a platform, you become sort of a known person. And also you're reading your comment section,
Mercury Stardust 28:33
back celebrities had insulation from themselves in their fans at one point. We don't, you know, like it's a direct line to us in a lot of ways. You know, I don't really read my emails or my fan mails, like I used to, I just don't, my team does, and they will pick ones that they think I would like you to give it to me. So we funnel it through me a lot more. That's been a huge change. Because I used to find myself well, if you wrote it, I feel like I have to read it.
KC Davis 29:00
Oh boy. And I felt like I had to respond. And it had to be a very emotionally laboris response.
Mercury Stardust 29:06
I was taking phone calls from people at two o'clock in the morning from Alaska to fix their sinks. That's a real thing I did. Oh my gosh, there was someone who sent me an email the first two months or something being the trans handyman. And she was in the worst way Casey she was panicking about her husband was in the military and she was all along and she's in this like backwards, you know, area and Alaska takes two hours to get this in the nearest store. She had nothing at home besides like baking soda and vinegar. And I spent like literally hours on the phone with her walking her through how to like take care of her clog in her bathroom. She was like so devastated. And I loved it though. I loved that kind of stuff. I thought that was a coolest thing in the world that I got to be that involved in people's life but then it started really shifting and now the bigger I got the As a human, I got to some people. And the tone in the comment sections stopped being about me being a human and sometimes about an entity, like people would either choose to look at the lens of my of only I was a trans person, or people were to look at me like I was like a trans holier than thou entity. And they would either use me as an example to put down other trans people, or they would use me as an example of how all trans people are this one way, and it started shifting. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't be this directly involved in my audience anymore. I can't read every email, I can't comment everything, I can't do it anymore. It was a really hard shift. It's still hard. But sometimes I feel like I'm so far away from my audience now. But it's been for my best mental health I've ever done.
KC Davis 30:53
Good for you. Okay, quick break. And then I want to come back and I want to talk about your book. Okay, so you have a book, I have pre ordered it, I am so excited to get it. And it is called Safe and sound. So talk to me first about the title, why safe and sound?
Mercury Stardust 31:10
Well, it's safe and sound came because the pushback was they didn't want me to call it a renters friendly Guide to Home Repair. So ironically enough, safe and sound are renters friendly Guide to Home Repair was a way for me to compromise. Because again, they were so afraid of it being just for renters. But as I said, many, many times a focus is not an exclusion. So safe and sound, very much came about wanting to make the audience feel like they're being hugged by the book.
KC Davis 31:40
That is exactly how it feels.
Mercury Stardust 31:42
Because so much of things in this field are like how to fix your home for Dummies, you know, like drywall repair for Dummies, you know, or painting for idiots. You don't I mean, are Idiots Guide to this, you know, they're insulting you before you even open the book.
KC Davis 32:01
No safe and sound is such a perfect title, because it not only tells me that I can leave my apartment safe and sound like, obviously, I can't do certain things because it's not my you know, property. But it also made me feel as though I was going to be safe and sound in your hands like that I was going to be taken care of and I wasn't going to be shamed or made to feel stupid and any of that
Mercury Stardust 32:25
so much of the book that after every single chapter in the book, there's something we called an emotional reset. And it's like a paragraph to two to three paragraphs where I am trying to meet people where they're at. And I'm just saying, Hey, I know it's rough. I know it's hard. And if you didn't solve the problem, it's not the end of the world, you're gonna be okay. And I also have a QR video that we put the QR codes in them. And a lot of the book for not just the how tos, but also for the emotional reset. So you can pull the QR code up and you could see me in a video just saying something similar being like, Hey, it's okay. You know, sometimes things are hard and outcome that we wanted, didn't didn't turn out or you did it. And it was really tough. And now you're very tired. So take that break, you know, and that's the thing you don't, the reason why this book existed is again, because when I was starting in this industry, like 1516 years ago, my biggest source of learning how to do this stuff was books. But when I was reading it, I could never understand what they were talking about. I would listen, I would read Bob Villiers books and I loved his books are so detailed, but they were so detailed Casey that it was like, I was like, peeling back an onion that I would never be able to get to the center of I'm like, Well, you mean this thing, this like rubber gasket plastic thing, you know, and they'll have like a specific name a widget, ba, ba ba ba, like, what is the what you do Ba ba ba ba, you know, and they do just be a whole bunch of gatekeeping before I even got to the fix, you know. So when I was given the opportunity to do the book, what I really wanted to do was not focus on terminology, terminology is important and can be great for education. But there's a limit to it. There's a there's only so much new words I can take in in a single sentence. And if I'm going to call something that oh has a weird name to it by the specific name over and over again, you're gonna get confused. So I literally say Jigga thingamajig, like a bunch of this book, because as long as you get it and you can see an image of it and you have an idea of what it does. That's all that that's important. So that's kind of where a lot of the book The sense came from to was. It was kind of like taking my main idea online and just growing it and expanding it into a book.
KC Davis 34:48
Oh, I totally get that. I feel like that's exactly what I do with my book. It is genius to have the emotional resets in there. Because that's kind of like what I feel like when it comes to you and me and some other content creators like that's our life. corner of the internet is this idea that like who you are, and the fact that life can be hard, like, you don't have to check that at the door just to get access to some basic information. Like, one of the things that I felt was kind of like radical is that when not when I have zoom meetings with people now, I have really leaned into like, hey, we might have to reschedule. And there might be a kid in the background, and maybe you were sick that day. And maybe because I just realized, like, it's such a patriarchal idea that when we show up for quote, unquote, work, we're supposed to pretend like we have no life outside of that that could possibly be encroaching. And I feel like that's true of all topics and spheres of life, including people might think it's not profound, to allow people to bring their whole struggled self into home repair, but it is,
Mercury Stardust 35:54
you know, I'm gonna tell you something that I am just so scared to share on the internet, but I'm gonna say it anyways, my biggest fear in the world is financial stuff. And a few weeks ago, you brought on river nice, and that was like a life changing episode that you did. And that's the thing, there's so many aspects like, even for me, as a gentle di wire, there are so many things that I cannot get out of my own way on sometimes, because there's so much internalized things in the back of my head saying I'm not worthy, you know, and I think that there's the one number one thing that you meet, Revert a so many of us do, is that we are just essentially saying to people, that we are going to meet you where you're at, rather than telling you where you need to be. And that is a huge, the biggest difference. You know, like, when I'm showing people, how do we use toothpaste or a magnet or toothpicks to fix stuff, I'm just saying, Go to your cabinet, and grab what you got. And let's just do what we can, is it going to be perfect, maybe not. But you did something and you tried your best. And that's going to be a whole lot better than doing zero. So I don't know, I wish I could apply the same mentality to every single aspect of my life. But I'm still learning how to lean into my ADHD, I'm still learning how to lean into my insecurities about finances. And I'm really grateful for all our friends, a lot of voters I've never met on the internet, who are also doing the same things that you and I are doing, but in different ways to help bridge that gap for so many of us. All right, tell us about your book tour. My book tour is wildly stupid. It's 52 cities is the largest book tour in America this year. And here's a little tidbit of knowledge for you. The reason why we're doing 52 cities is because a friend of mine said to me that while you know you want to do 20 Some cities, that's quite a bit. I think that's a little like, that's a little hard to do. I don't know if that's gonna be reasonable. And I said, Oh, what will be the most unreasonable number that you could think about? And his response was 5050 would be an absolute crazy thing for you to do. And I was like, Okay, we'll do 52 I literally did this a respite. And if anyone knows me in real life, you'll know that I operate purely on spite. And I thought it'd be coolest thing in the world to travel for two months, and meet as many of my fans as possible and help spread the message that this book tries to give. And that's that everyone's worth the time it takes to learn a new skill. And I really do believe strongly in those words. And I was like, hey, you know what this puts me down in the south, it puts me down in the West Coast and East Coast and all over the place. We're going to so many bookstores, and we're going to almost specifically queer owned independent run bookstores. And that makes me so delighted. And the best part is, I think I'm some of the bookstores are going to let me fix up their bookshelves and fix up their walls and stuff while I'm there. So that's lovely. I'm so stoked about it. I think it's gonna be the funnest trip of my life. And it's going to be two months away. It's gonna be two weeks off, two weeks on two weeks off two weeks on two weeks off, all the way through December and then, right and the last trip is going to be in San Francisco. And me and my spouse are going to spend our five year anniversary in San Francisco for about a week or two. And I am so we're actually going to fly out the whole team. Everyone on staff is going to be flown out to San Francisco to so they can spend the holidays with whatever they want and with us if they want to. It was so grateful for all the love and support we've gotten to make this book tour happen.
KC Davis 39:49
Well, let me tell you one of the I haven't obviously read the book yet but so far my favorite thing about the cover is that your blue hair is on the cover because I I remember the video that you made when you first did your hair and talked about how you had always wanted blue hair. But that you just weren't ready to draw that much attention to yourself as this like beautiful trans woman that you are. And I remember that video, I've always remembered that video of yours. And so when I saw the cover, and I saw that, that I was like, This is what she wanted, like, this is exactly how she would have wanted to be on the cover of this book. And I'm so glad that you did.
Mercury Stardust 40:26
There's a good story behind that. So the person who did the illustrations on the cover, their name is glitter, hurricane, they're the very first Tiktok her to ever do wet or stitch one of my videos. They years ago, when they first did it, I messaged them and said, Hey, that was the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me. You know, one day, I'm gonna find a way to how to repay you for that kindness. Because it was one of the very first videos I put me on the map. They like their video went viral about me. And it really started opening up my life in a lot of ways. So when I got an opportunity to have someone illustrating my book, and glitter is in a really wonderful illustrator. I was like, I got an idea. So I really started to glitter and have them do it. And they're their art style is so queer and whimsical, and I love it. But originally, my hair was brown at the time. And we were doing it and then I messaged glitter and said, Hey, I got a surprise for you. That's going to change everything we're doing for the book. And it's a photo of me with my blue heron. But like surprise, can this be in the book now. And we had a deadline, our deadline was like really close to happening. And they only had a couple of weeks to change all the color of all my hair. And then we're like, okay, as a team, I want you all to know that my hair is going to be purple and blue for quite a while. So you better just lean into that. Yeah, it's quite funny. But my hair was before I transitioned, I had blue hair for about 10 years straight. And when I transitioned, I felt like I could no longer have blue hair. Because I felt like like you said, I felt like I was a target more than I already was. And I felt like I had a grow the blue hair out. And then we had my natural brown hair. And I loved my natural hair color. But it was not me. I love the blue. The blue is so much more galaxy and whimsical and, and wild. And I honestly feel like more of myself now after me dyeing my hair, you know than I did before?
KC Davis 42:32
Well, mercury, I can't thank you enough for coming on. And I just love you. And I've always admired you and your work. And can you tell people where they can find you if they want to follow you.
Mercury Stardust 42:43
They can follow me on anywhere on the internet. Under Mercury startups. I'm on tick tock on Instagram, on threads on YouTube, on Facebook, I'm all over the place, always helping people with their homes in some way, shape, or form. Or you can always find me on Mercury startups.com We'll be making a whole bunch of stuff on there. This year, we'll be able to look at all my how tos on there, eventually, as well.
KC Davis 43:09
And they can order the book I know you can get on Amazon. And I'm assuming it's out the independent bookstores as well.
Mercury Stardust 43:14
I highly, highly encourage people going to bookshop.org and buying local bookshop. or.org is a wonderful website that helps you find independently owned bookstores across the country. If you're able to go independent, I highly recommend it. But if you're not able to and Amazon is just the easiest for you or Barnes and Noble are great. go that route too. But my book is literally everywhere in the country and no think we've already sold something over like 30,000 copies of the book. And it's only in preorder. So boy, we're spicy. We're just pushing that book out.
KC Davis 43:48
Well, congratulations. That's amazing. Well, I love you so much. And I'm so glad you're here and I just I could go on and on. I promise
Mercury Stardust 43:56
I could go on and on about you. So I feel like to che
KC Davis 44:02
and I will see you at the Blue Willow bookstore when you come to Houston. Oh, I'm
Mercury Stardust 44:06
so excited. I cannot I'm gonna give you the biggest hug in the whole world.
KC Davis 44:09
Yes, you can see that I really am five two.
Mercury Stardust 44:13
You can see that I'm 511 Six one but don't tell the internet
KC Davis 44:18
All right, well, those of you guys listening go check out Mercury stardust. Get the book, check out the website and follow on Twitter and we love you all go take care of yourself today.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai