Hello, Toronto!

Posted on May 25, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

I moved to Toronto last week, and the city has been treating me well. With lilacs, apple blossoms, columbines, and roses in bloom, and everybody riding their bikes, it seems like the perfect season to start over. I’ve never been in love with Toronto; for me, it was the city everybody ran away to when they “gave up” on their hometowns or other smaller, less exciting places. But now that I am here, and I’ve made the decision to make this place my home, I’m quickly realizing why writers, artists, and other interesting folk choose to live in Toronto. I’m so glad I’ve ended up here.

I’ve been walking everywhere, and drawing little maps from memory in my diary, marking intersections, cafés, and my friends’ homes, among other noteworthy places. I’ve been stealing lilacs and thrift store dresses, drinking grapefruit soda in the sunshine, and writing/ drawing/ daydreaming in each park I stumble into. I’ve been here for a week now, renting a summer sublet from a friend, and have created a lovely routine: I get outta bed around 8:30 – 9 in the morning, make coffee, write for a few hours, do some internetting, and then I go out for a walk and/or a friend-date, I read (currently reading Simone de Beauvoir, Twyla Tharp, and Eric Erlandson), and I go to bed looking forward to the next day. I’m feeling less fearful of getting lost, and I am feeling very inspired. I already feel more loved and supported after one week in Toronto than I ever did all those years in Guelph. I am convinced Guelph was a major cause of my chronic exhaustion and illness, because I’ve felt so much healthier after spending time in my hometown, and now in the city.

I have a cozy writing corner by the bay window in my bedroom, where I get to watch the trains go by, and listen to music blasting from car windows, including one car that stopped in front of my home in a traffic jam, and played one of my favourite Pearl Jam songs, In Hiding, which I took as a good sign. I watch cyclists go by and hope I can find (or fake) the confidence to take my new-ish road bike, named Pancake Breakfast, out into the city streets soon. There’s a bus stop at my doorstep, and a post office and photobooth on my block.

marandaelizabethclarabeelavery firstdayintoronto marandaelizabethstickerlindsay
{Click the images to make them bigger.} 1. Clara Bee Lavery; we drew pictures of each other the first day I woke up in Toronto. 2. This is the picture she drew of me. 3. Sticker graffiti, fight boredom in Lindsay, Ontario.

Readers & weirdos in Toronto, I wanna hang out with you!

Torontoingly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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The Other Side of Jealousy

Posted on May 9, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

Because I like writing about complicated and sometimes scary emotions, I’m gonna write some more about jealousy. I’ve been reading a lotta good stuff about jealousy lately, including When Good Things Happen to Other People on Rookie and Are Comparisons the Root of All Evil by Nubbly Twiglet. And I recommend, once again, Creativity & Jealousy: Stories & How to Deal, by me. However, this time, I’m not writing about feeling jealous. Instead, I’m gonna try to tell you what it feels like when other people are jealous of me.

I started feeling it the moment I began telling my friends that my zine anthology was being published. The feelings got stronger when the book was released, and stronger again when I told my friends that I had self-published my novel. For a while, nobody told me directly that they were jealous, but some of my friends started acting different.

Recently, a friend of mine told me they felt jealous of me, and after that, a few more friends admitted to the same thing. So we talked about it. While some of them did, in fact, feel resentful that I had published books before them, others realized that they weren’t ready to publish a book yet anyway; but because they wanted to, eventually, they felt like my books taking up space in the world left less room for theirs. That’s simply not true!

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At first, I didn’t know how to name my reaction. But then I figured it out: Defensive. I know that when I feel jealous of someone, it is because some part of me feels like I deserve what they have more than they do. So, that must mean that when somebody feels jealous of me, they must feel like they deserve what I have more than I do. And that makes me want to scream. It makes me want to remind you that I was not always a published writer, I was not always a good writer, I was often too depressed to write, I have written about a hundred unfinished stories for each completed one, I have lost track of how many times I’ve been hospitalized, I still feel violent and unsafe, I am not getting rich with my writing, I am still on disability for mental illness and chronic pain and it is taxpayers and the provincial government paying my bills, not me and not my words, I still choose to injure myself, I don’t think my stories are the most important stories ever ever ever but I do need to tell them to stay alive, I am still suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder and I don’t know how to talk about it except through fiction…

But I don’t want to defend my self. I don’t want my friends to feel jealous or resentful; I want them to feel proud. I want to remind you that I still feel jealous sometimes, too, and I know what it’s like, and holding my books in my hands is the most amazing thing ever but it hasn’t fixed my life, it hasn’t cured my depression, and I sure as hell have not gotten my shit together. I’ve spent the last two months living on my mom’s couch and giving my money to her shitty landlord! My wrists hurt too much to respond to all the lovely and life-saving letters I get in the mail!

Jealousy is inevitable, and even healthy, but it can also be poisonous. Like any emotion, if you do hard work with it, you can figure out what it’s trying to tell you, and then you can find ways to deal with it. You can choose how to interpret your feelings of jealousy, and how to respond to them. My jealousy often told me that I wanted to be visible, I wanted to be productive, I wanted other people to read my words, and I wanted to stay alive. My solutions were to write more, to write better, to talk about jealousy out loud, and to dare myself to do things that scare me. I started writing letters to people I thought were better writers than me, I learned more about writing, and I made a lot of really good, supportive friends.

While there might be a little bit of gloating to be had now that I am in what many would consider to be a very enviable position – Published Writer – it’s not my friends I wanna brag to; it’s every asshole who called me ugly in junior high, the kids who threw garbage at me and followed me home threatening to kill me in high school, every shitty ex-boyfriend who thought my zines were stupid and pointless, the cops who told me to smile when they took my mugshot, the teachers who told me to stop dressing in black if I didn’t want to be bullied, everybody who thought dropping out of high school was a bad decision, the ex who told me he’d lost all respect for me when I applied for disability, the boys with guitars who’d invite me to all their shows but never give a shit about my own art, the nurses on the psych ward who told me I was isolating and writing too much and I should come out and watch TV with everyone else… There are a lot of people I want to brag to, and none of them are my friends.

If I had published a book five years ago, it would’ve been a really terrible book, and I would feel tremendously embarrassed to read it today. But back then, I knew that I needed to publish books, and I felt completely lost and incapable. I felt like I was running out of time and needed to create and publish something immediately. I didn’t think I would live to be twenty-seven; I had a deadline to get all these novels outta me!

Writing does not need to be, and should not be, competitive. I write for survival, revenge, and friendship; not to make my friends feel bad, not to make you feel unworthy, not to take anything away from you. There is not a finite amount of words to be written, zines to be photocopied, books to be published.

I’ve been hesitant to write about the other side of jealousy because, like I said, I’ve become a Published Writer, so what else is there to whine about, right? But I need you to know that, unless you can use your jealousy to create more positivity in your own life, it’s not useful to me; it only alienates me further when I already feel pretty fucking disconnected from friends, artists, writers, punks, weirdos, etc. Let’s talk more about the things that scare us.

Publishingly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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My novel, chain bookstores, technology, class, etc.

Posted on May 2, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

So, when I first started to hear about eBooks, I didn’t really understand what they were or how they worked, and I’m still pretty foggy on the details; I don’t know the difference between a Kobo, a Kindle, a Tablet, an eReader, whatever, I don’t know how a book gets transferred to one of these devices, how to download a book, how much all this stuff costs, how much money goes to the writer (well, I know how much goes to this writer), where to find free downloads, etc. I have complicated feelings and fears.

My partner mostly reads downloaded books, which is how I started to learn a little more about them. When we read together, I’m able to see what a book looks like on a screen, and he shows me how to do things like turn the pages, highlight a sentence, change the size and font of the words, and so on. Although I still feel conflicted as to whether or not I’d ever wanna own a technological device to read my books on, he’s helped demystify some aspects of the whole thing for me. I was seriously afraid that an eBook would have a standard font, and other ugly, uncustomizeable things, and all the beauty of a paper book would be gone.

I’m writing about this because my new novel, Ragdoll House, is now available as an eBook, which you can purchase from AuthorHouse, Chapters/Indigo, and Barnes & Noble. The closest I’ve gotten to a non-paper-book-reading device is looking at decorative covers and cases for them, and seeing my partner read them. I have a Kindle app on my phone, but I’ve never used it, nor have I used dozens of other fancy things my phone does that I haven’t bothered to figure out yet.

When I was a teenager, I felt like the last person in my town to get a CD player. We grew up in poverty and, being twins, my sister and I were often given the same gifts, in matching or coordinating colours; we lived in a single-income household where our mom was obligated to buy two of everything. I grew up bitter & jealous of all the fancy things other kids had that we could not, and I still feel disconnected from even my closest friends when they tell me stories from their childhood that I simply cannot relate to. I’ve never even owned a DVD player. I don’t know what it’s like to live at or above the poverty line, to have the financial support of more than one parent, to have the opportunity to go to school, to have access to quality mental health care, or even to be able to buy a new pair of pants when the old ones have fallen apart and no longer fit.

My attempts to talk to anyone about those feelings have generally been met with absurd defensiveness on the part of folks who grew up with more money than me, so I don’t try to talk about it anymore.

I’ve always felt so far behind everyone else when it comes to trinkets and technology; despite feeling somehow ‘old’ when I discuss things like my inability to understand a lot of technological things, I know that my lack of access has more to do with class and gender than age.

I do have fantasies of getting rid of all my stuff, especially because I’ve been moving so often. It would be nice to clear out my bookshelves and keep all those words inside a tiny little screen instead. But, I’ve dealt with broken computers, and I have all kinds of floppy disks and CD’s filled with years’ worth of files of my short stories, my photos, etc., that I can no longer access due to changing technology that has rendered them useless. So, I have a fear of getting rid of all my books, downloading them instead, and then losing them when some other new gadget I can’t afford comes along. It’s a valid fear; it’s already happened so many times.

Also, I have chronic pain, and fiddling around with computers and cell phones and that kinda stuff fucking hurts. Writing hurts, sending a simple text hurts. My hand is numb as I type this, I have tingling pains in my fingers, and my back is sore. When I got the Netbook I’m currently writing on, I was hoping the touchpad would hurt me less than the mouse I was using with my old PC, which had self-destructed after eight years of use, but it was not to be. I’m afraid that turning the thousands & thousands of pages of all those eBooks I could be reading, will only increase this pain.

Being a zinester and a writer, I obviously have a tendency to prefer, and sometimes romanticize, things like paper, pens, books, snail mail, tangibility, etc., and those experiences and ideas have influenced my feelings about eBooks just as much as growing up in poverty has, or living in a society that tells me that the physical possessions I own give me value & worth has. I’ve been struggling with these things. For one, handwriting letters causes me extreme pain, but so does typing. Between September 2012 and September 2013, I will have moved at least six times, and lugging all those books around with me isn’t much fun. I travel a lot, and, while I have no need to actually have three-hundred books with me, my backpacks exacerbate my physical pain, and carrying one little device with a few books to choose from would be really nice (but it would also make one of the best parts of traveling – exploring bookstores in new-to-me cities and bringing home souveniers – pointless and unfun). I would miss the folded corners of pages, notes in the margins, and yes, getting my books signed by writers I love, and even signing my own books, which is something I’ve done more times than you’d think, and does bring me joy (and yeah, I know I just lost some punk cred saying that – I don’t care).

Of course, I’ve also been thinking about Chapters, a big chain bookstore that now carries my work. I used to spend a lot of time at Chapters, especially when I was a teenager and we didn’t have much access to a decent selection of books in our small hometown. The idea of somebody stumbling into my novel, either online as an eBook, or in-store on the shelves, delights me. Also, I want to make a living writing (just lost a little more punk cred again), and I do, in fact, get paid when somebody buys my book at Chapters – not as much as when you buy it directly from my publisher, or directly from me, but a little tiny bit nonetheless. There is also that part of me that wants all those assholes from my past (Hello, Lindsay!) to know that this weirdo high school dropout has their book in-stock at Chapters. However, I’m also not the biggest fan of chain stores (but not the biggest anarchist either – I am in an awkward in-between state, and that’s another story). When I think of Chapters, I think of bored, broke employees, and I think of all those stories of what they do with books that don’t sell within a certain timeframe: they rip off the covers and throw them in the dumpsters. That could be my book! Maybe it’ll be dumpstered by some cute punk, but, more likely, it’ll simply be destroyed.

I don’t know what my novel looks like on a screen, but maybe I will find out soon. I love holding my book in my hands, of course, but I also want it to be as accessible as possible.

Do you read eBooks? Paper books? Both? What are the benefits for you, personally, and what are the drawbacks? How do you feel about all this stuff?

Conflictingly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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Amateur Therapy Hour with Maranda Elizabeth & Dave Cave – video & transcription!

Posted on April 29, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

Me and Dave Cave asked each other three questions each, and recorded our conversation for his video series, Amateur Therapy Hour.

Dave asked me:
1. Are you already better?
2. Do you exaggerate or embellish your crazy stories?
3. How can we improve ourselves, and at the same time, realize that we are already enough?

And I asked Dave:
1. If you were a girl, how would you dress?
2. What do you want your life to look like when you’re 30?
3. What are you doing to change your all-or-nothing, black & white thinking patterns?

Transcription is included below.

Amateur Therapy Hour – finally w/ maranda elizabeth! from Dave Cave on Vimeo.

Dave: Okay, this is real, this is happening. We’re gonna do Amateur Therapy Hour with Maranda Elizabeth. I’ve never done one with them. We’re just gonna ask each other three questions.
Maranda: Let’s go back and forth, like, you do one, I do one.
Dave: Okay. I’ll go first. Um, these are – Are you already better?
Maranda: Better than…? I’m better in some ways. I feel like a lot of my negative-thinking isn’t as bad as it used to be. Um, my jealousy that makes me feel physically ill isn’t as bad as it used to be. I still have a lot of, like, “problems,” that, like, I guess I’ve learned how to deal with them myself instead of expecting somebody else to help, like a therapist or a hospital, ‘cause they’re fuck-ups. But I feel like I mostly only talk about positive things… Like, I make an effort to talk about more positive things in my zines and on my blog and the internet and whatever, but I think maybe I’ve done that to an extent that people think that my life is much, much, much better than it is.
Dave: Oh, right. Yeah.
Maranda: And it’s ‘cause I don’t tell people every time that I, like, cut myself, or every time I actually feel suicidal, ‘cause that happens frequently.
Dave: But it’s interesting, how, like, because so much of your life is writing about it, that because you’re writing about the good things in your life, you’re just kind of repeating the good things. So that portion of what you do in your life is reflecting good things. If that makes sense.
Maranda: Yeah. But I think that, like, writing is obviously what keeps me alive and – It started as a joke, but I said to my sister once, ‘cause I was feeling suicidal when I was visiting her a few months ago, and it was because I hadn’t written anything that day, not even in my diary or anything, and she was like, “How long do you go without writing before you feel suicidal?” And I said, “A day and a half.” And we laughed and whatever, but it’s very, very true, and it’s happened so many times since then. I hit the day and a half mark and I feel suicidal.
Dave: That’s specific.
Maranda: Yeah, it’s so specific! You can, like, count down to that minute where I get suicidal. And that’s why I’m ludicrously productive. I’m saying “like” too many times. But, there isn’t anything else I want to do; I just write compulsively because I have to.
Dave: Yeah.
Maranda: Okay, my question is less serious.
Dave: Oh, whatever.
Maranda: If you were a girl, how would you dress?
Dave: Susan Powter. Tabitha Coffee. I would wear black skinny jeans, I would wear a tank top, I would have a buzzed head, I would have henna tattoos.
Maranda: I was just gonna say, would you have tattoos?
Dave: I would have black high heels and red lipstick. Susan Powter is my fashion icon. But then sometimes I see – Oh no, I would be severe, severe fashion, like, edgy… What’s the word?
Maranda: Yeah, I picture you, like, kind of opposite of now, if you were a girl, you would care about fashion and style.
Dave: Oh yeah, yeah. I feel like if I were a girl, I would be, like, the type of girl with a six-pack and, like, jacked arms.
Maranda: Yeah, I picture you, like, muscular. You’d be a muscular lady.
Dave: Yeah. I’d be Susan Powter. I think that’s why I bond with her so much. Sometimes I think Joni Mitchell is my fashion icon. No, I don’t think that, ever. She’s not my fashion icon, but… Interesting question, yeah. Um, okay. I’m guilty of this. So, maybe, I don’t know if you… Whatever, I’ll just ask.
Maranda: Just ask. Yeah yeah yeah.
Dave: Do you ever exaggerate or embellish your crazy stories?
Maranda: I feel like I under-embellish, to be, like…
Dave: And that wasn’t me being, like, ‘I think you do this!’
Maranda: I know, I know. I know what you mean. Um, no, I… I’m not sure. I feel kind of like, I was thinking about how each time I’ve been hospitalized, or tried to be, or just whatever, it’s like, when I’m talking to people at the hospital, whether it’s, like, in the ER, or on the psych ward, when you’re talking to psychiatrists and stuff, it’s kind of like, um… If I’ve just become kind of speechless and paralyzed or whatever, then, you know, they can’t do anything because they don’t know what the fuck’s going on. But, if I’m too self-aware, or wordy, or, it’s like, I have too much information about myself to share, then they’re like, ‘Well, you’re sane enough to know what’s going on, or communicate this to us, so we can’t help you.’
Dave: Yeah.
Maranda: Um, I don’t know, I really feel like I don’t tell enough of it sometimes. Which is weird because, like, obviously I’m, like, over-sharing all the time, it’s what I do, but no, I, I – Because it’s really hard, I feel like it’s really hard to communicate what’s it’s like when I’m “going crazy” or when I’m suicidal, or when I’m manic, which is not even a thing I really ever talk about because when I’m manic, I’m productive, and then it’s like, ‘What are you whining about? You’re getting all this stuff done.’
Dave: Yeah.
Maranda: Like, ‘Look at you, writing all your things and publishing all your things…’
Dave: This isn’t my third question, but do you – I don’t know about other people in your life, but I can see through that. I can be, like, ‘Even though Maranda’s getting a lot of stuff done, like, I’m worried…’
Maranda: Yeah, you’re good at seeing that. I don’t think, like… My mom, the other day, told me to take a break from writing, because I was just, like, ‘I’m so exhausted, I can’t move my body, I can’t think, I feel half-dead, whatever, I slept all day. And I was like, ‘No, I can’t stop writing, that’s what I do,’ and I was talking about how it’s the things that distract me from writing that make me not feel good about myself. But then, I put my Etsy shop on Vacation so I don’t have so deal with that for a few days, and it’s like, I do need other people around me to tell me to slow down and take care of myself.
Dave: Yeah, slow down.
Maranda: Slow down. I wrote it in my planner yesterday, because you said it. Slow down. And I did. I did, like, hardly anything yesterday, compared to the shit I’d written on my to-do list that I had to do. And that was helpful. And then today, I, like, got shit done. I had a good balance of yesterday and today.
Dave: Do you…?
Maranda: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah! I was like, ‘Ask me things! Let me talk more about myself!’ Um, what do you want your life to look like when you’re 30? And how old are you now?
Dave: I’m 25. Um, hmmm. Well, the first thing I think about it still doing fitness, which I think I will still stick with. That’s not being like, ‘Oh, I’m super jacked!’
Maranda: Something about that word just makes me giggle.
Dave: Jacked? Oh yeah, it’s ridiculous. I mean, I still wanna be doing fitness, but I’m thinking about, would I be okay if I were still working where I am? Because maybe that’s the deadline for me. Non-negotiable, in five years, that has to change. I would still, honestly, my priorities have changed, but now my life goals have been, like, creating, doing art things where I live now.
Maranda: Yeah.
Dave: Whereas, a year ago, it was like, oh, I’ll just live here and go to the city and do these crazy art shows.
Maranda: Yeah. Or, like, I’ll go to Toronto and everything will be perfect!
Dave: Yeah. But, like, just out of laziness, I’m like, I’m not gonna travel. Because I think, like, I’ll just go there for the audiences, but wouldn’t I be happy here if I could just walk to a place and do stand-up and have an audience of 10 people? I’d be way happier. Way happier!
Maranda: Also, even though Toronto isn’t far away, it’s like, now I realize how exhausting it is to go to so many different cities.
Dave: Yeah, yeah.
Maranda: And traveling, and being on buses, and it’s like, yeah, you’re just sitting when you’re on a bus, but it’s so taxing on my system.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah, so I think, still, be healthy, um, I don’t know, this sounds so stupid – I’ll be healthy and do stuff. I don’t know, I honestly don’t think of…
Maranda: You think ‘Be healthy and do stuff’ sounds stupid?
Dave: Um. Yeah.
Maranda: It sounds pretty great.
Dave: Yeah. Well, it’s pretty simple. Okay, my last question for you. How can we self-improve ourselves but at the same time, still realize that we are already enough?
Maranda: Um…
Dave: This is a big one.
Maranda: Yeah. I think that that has a lot to do with accepting that this, life, art, writing, what we’re doing, is a process, and we’re not coming to a goal or an end point where it’s, like, ‘Check! Got that done! I have my self-esteem now!’
Dave: Self-esteem! Check! Self-realization! Check!
Maranda: I feel silly using words like ‘acceptance’ and ‘process’ and, like, but it is. And…
Dave: How can we have goals to be a better person, but at the same time, realize that we are already a complete person?
Maranda: Break everything that you want to do into small tasks, I think, and write it down. I feel like it’s too big to say, ‘I want to be a better person.’ Like, okay. What does a better person look like to you?
Dave: Okay.
Maranda: Do you, like, go for a walk and eat a banana a day and write a couple paragraphs…?
Dave: What does a better person look like?
Maranda: Yeah. You just have to break it down into the smallest, daily parts.
Dave: Yes.
Maranda: I mean, yeah. You can be on a continuum of improving yourself, and also taking steps backwards, ‘cause, like, yeah, we’re all gonna fuck up, we’re gonna hurt ourselves again, we’re gonna have shitty communication skills, we’re gonna have arguments, whatever, or self-hate-type stuff.
Dave: Yeah.
Maranda: But it’s just accepting that you’re not gonna reach and end point where you’re a good, better person now, and that’s how it is.
Dave: Yeah. I like how, as you’re talking about art things, like, with the numbers game, like online and sales and how many people have read your zine and, when is that point when, okay, I’m there?
Maranda: I know!
Dave: Yeah! ‘Cause you said, like…
Maranda: Well, I mean, I was thinking the other day, yesterday and today, like, yesterday was the day that my second book was published, and I was just like, ‘Okay. I’ve crossed this off my to-do list. I published two books. I did it. Does everybody love me now?!’ Now I’ve done these things. I’m still the same Maranda I always was.
Dave: That’s scary.
Maranda: A little bit of me, even though I know better, was like, ‘Now I have book and can hold this in my hands, everything’s fine now, and I have the perfect friendships, and my daily life s really great, and I’m a Real Writer,’ and all this validation and stuff, but, my life is exactly the same, except I have, like, more number to take care of… Not like, ‘Ooh, I’m making so much money, I’ve lost count!’ But, like, emails to take care of, percentages to do… All the little tiny daily things that I didn’t know were a part of publishing.
Dave: My god.
Maranda: Or how time-consuming it is to just get the word out, tell people that these books exist, go into bookstores and talk to the owners about putting the book on the shelf. Which is amazing, it’s my dream come true…
Dave: Yeah, no, I mean, let’s not pretend like it’s…
Maranda: But it doesn’t solve all my problems. It does give me bragging rights in this small town.
Dave: Absolutely. Everywhere.
Maranda: Like, hey, look at what I did!
Dave: Everywhere! Okay. Last question.
Maranda: Yeah. What are you doing to change your all-or-nothing, black & white thinking patterns?
Dave: Everything!
Maranda: And nothing!
Dave: Oh god. Noticing it. And being, like, now it’s like, oh, there I am, thinking I have to be, like, swinging from one extreme to the other, like, there it is again.
Maranda: Yeah. And do you think you have to be All Sane, or All Crazy? Like, full-blown crazy or totally okay?
Dave: Yeah, see, that’s the thing. I’m always thinking of that, you know: Cured! Sick! You know? Better or not better! Is this good for you or is it bad?! Whereas, like, maybe it’s kind of in between. People who know me know that I’m a little intense about food.
Maranda: A little.
Dave: To say the least. Everything I eat has to be good for me, nothing bad, but then I’m like, with other things, like fitness, and writing, I’m like, ‘Oh, I didn’t write enough. It’s never enough.’ It’s that matter of, like, ‘Oh, I didn’t write what I planned to write, I’m not a writer.’ Or, ‘I can’t do anything, I’m not a creative person, I’m not doing anything with my life.’
Maranda: I sometimes write to a point where I feel like, ‘This is enough,’ and then I wake up the next day, and I’m like, ‘Holy shit, I have to 500,000 words today.’
Dave: Yeah.
Maranda: Otherwise, I’ve failed at everything.
Dave: And it can be the stupidest things. I’ll be, like, laying on the couch, tired, because I’ve done, like – I told you about this before, but I’m gonna brag about it now. I’ve been up since 5AM. I’ve been blogging for an hour.
Maranda: Which is real writing!
Dave: It is! It’s real writing!
Maranda: It takes time, and creativity, and imagination…
Dave: We’re yelling at ourselves!
Maranda: Blogging is real.
Dave: And then, 8 hours of work, I’ll come home, I’ll go to the gym, I’ll be out for another hour, then I’ll come back, and I’ll clean or whatever, and then I’ll be on the couch at 8 0’clock and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m tired. I’m so stupid for being tired!’
Maranda: Why do we feel so awful when we’re tired?
Dave: I know. I don’t know. But then I’m like, oh, I’m just tired for a reason. Not because I’m lazy. I’m tired because I’ve been doing stuff.
Maranda: Yeah.
Dave: Okay. Let’s wrap this up, just so it’s not, like, an hour. But maybe one day it will be an hour.
Maranda: Tell us if you want it to be an hour.
Dave: Lookin’ at you, HBO.

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This is why I no longer participate in local zine communities.

Posted on March 20, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

All right, this is for my zine friends who ask me, “What’s the zine community like in Guelph?” and for those of you who wonder why I hardly ever table at zinefests in Canada anymore, but instead scrounge up the cash for Greyhound & Megabus tickets to adventure with my pals abroad instead. It’s for those of you who wonder why I no longer feel at home in Guelph, why I’m fucking burnt out, why I’m angry all the time, why I don’t show up to your events and no longer try to organize my own. When I talk about lack of support and lack of community, this is what I’m talking about. (If you give a shit about accessibility and zine culture, maybe you’ll appreciate this. If you don’t, then maybe I’m just alienating myself from you further, and maybe that’s for the best.)

First, let’s talk about Canzine and Broken Pencil

I’ll start by reminding you why Canzine and Broken Pencil are pure bullshit. First, please read Broken Pencil & Canzine: We need to talk about this, Part One and Part Two. I wrote these entries back in 2011, but they are still relevant today, and they explain part of my history with Canadian zinefests; they explain why I feel bitter and alienated. But if you’re too lazy to click the links, here are some quotes:

From Part One:

“Remember the time they printed a “zinester gossip column” undermining the efforts of survivors of abuse to bring abusers to accountability, and accused the so-called “drama” of Microcosm Publishing to be not much more than a series of internet arguments? Yeah. And remember the time they said that holding events in accessible spaces is a priority to them, even though, to my knowledge, Canzine has never been held in an accessible space, and although this year’s event was rumoured to be accessible, a notice was sent out last minute to note that no, of course it is not. Again. Last year, Broken Pencil published something I had made without credit and without my permission, and it was submitted by someone who had been told to stay out of my life because he is a creep. Gross! And when I wrote them a letter telling them to credit me in the next issue, and to let them know that I am not okay with my work being associated with the person who published it and why, I was told that credit and my letter would appear in the next issue – they weren’t, and the situation was never again acknowledged.”

“Broken Pencil, you give me the creeps, and you are so far removed from the community you claim to support that you don’t even understand why we have such problems with you. Tabling at Canzine is always a difficult decision for me. I love going to zine events, I love spending time with my zinester friends, I love the adventure of it all. But I am really uncomfortable with supporting Broken Pencil by showing up at their events, and paying for a table. Each year, I say this will be the last year, but when registration comes up again, there I am, typing in my name and my zine titles, sending them money for a table, encouraging my friends to join me so I don’t go insane. And then I get pissed off again and swear I will organize my own event with my friends, we will swear off Canzine for real, their problems and mistakes are too big for us to keep forgiving.”

“A friend and I were asked to participate in a panel on mental health zines. I was slightly dubious of becoming more involved than I wanted to be, but I was also excited about the opportunity to share, to potentially have crazyfolk and other folk who care about mental health and brutally honest stories find my words, and hopefully be inspired to share their own. So I agreed. I was asked to send a bio and a picture for the event listing on their website, and I did. This is the bio I sent:

Maranda Elizabeth writes about mental health, self-care, finding & making a home, learning & sharing, queer & gender identities and adventures. They make a zine called Telegram Ma’am, and has a blog at marandaelizabeth.com.

And this is the bio they posted:

Maranda Elizabeth writes about mental health, self-care, finding & making a home, learning & sharing, queer & gender identities and adventures. Maranda makes a zine called Telegram Ma’am, and has a blog at marandaelizabeth.com.

Notice the difference? Yeah. The erased my ambiguous gender identity, and of course, they didn’t bother to ask first, to clarify their decision, or acknowledge the change at all. When I sent the email, I told them I prefer the pronoun ‘they’, that that’s why I used it in my bio. And they took it away.”

{Note: This was before I had changed the name of my zine to Telegram. Please don’t use ‘ma’am’ when yr talking about my zine, it’s gross and dismissive.}

FROM PART TWO:

“When you advertise your event as a zine fair, you are you going to attract zinesters, and some of us just plain don’t care about your cupcakes and your screenprinted t-shirts. They are always overpriced anyway. Um, a lot of us are broke, and when you charge a lot of money for your “art”, you have chosen to make your creations inaccessible to many of us. The lack of zines at Canzine is disappointing. It sucks to write your heart out as a means of survival, then get stuck at these events. Accessibility also means affordability. By selling expensive items and charging so much for food, the organizers of Canzine need to think about who they are excluding. “

Back to more recent happenings…

I also want to quote from the transcript of the Health, Disability, and Accessibility in Zines panel that I participated in recently at Chicago Zinefest:

>> Maranda, I know that you challenged Canzine over their accessibility issues. Maybe you can start off with this. Not to call you out on stage in front of all of these people. Can you talk about your call-out?
>> [Holds their hand to their head, motions pulling an imaginary trigger] Yeah. I feel like 100% accessibility – whether it is physical accessibility, emotional accessibility, is impossible. You will never, ever make any kind of space accessible to everyone. It’s not going to happen. With Canzine, they are in an extremely physically inaccessible space. It is impossible to table there.
>> It is on the second floor, right?
>> Yeah. It is usually takes place on several floors, and the tables are very squished together. So, you’re crawling over and under your tables if you have to pee. You’re probably touching your neighbours. This would be like an extreme distance if we were tabling beside each other [gestures to other panelists sitting beside them]. People are walking behind you to move around. Some dude – it is always some dude – walked behind me and while I was sitting here at my table, did not acknowledge me or say a thing, picked up my chair to move me out of his way.
[ Laughter ]
I’ve spoken with the organizers for years and years and years about making it accessible in various ways. They basically don’t care. They have also chosen to misgender me in a cover story in their magazine and on their website after I have explained why that is not okay. That is a very, very, very long story. I try not to associate with them anymore. I don’t know, I have really, really complicated feelings about disability. I feel it comes up a lot in zines and zine communities and we don’t know what to do about it and how to make spaces accessible. I don’t know, I’m too frustrated.
>> That’s okay. I think that, you know, in zine communities, we have an openness to talk about these issues regardless of if we’re doing it right or wrong. I think something you’re talking about is like, I would like to talk to you or another zinefest or event about my accessibility needs or something I see as an issue. I think that’s something that is important.
>> I don’t know what it is, but somehow when I come to U.S. zine fairs they are more accessible and more comfortable and interesting. My experiences with zinefests in Canada have been extremely negative. We even had emails from organizers of different zinefests saying, ‘Accessibility is not our priority right now. Thanks for writing. We’re not going to do anything about it.’
>> In Canada?
>> Yeah.
>> Do you think it might be a cultural difference or no?
>> I have no idea. I guess it depends on politics and stuff. The organizers I know in the States are more, like, political, whatever that means. Whereas maybe the organizers in Canada have been more, like… art students.
[ Laughter ]
>> Has anyone else, do you have ‑‑ does anyone else have a comment? We’re in an arts school. Keep it down.
>> I’m going to alienate everyone.

And that brings me to this: Introducing Kazoo Print Expo. I really wish I had read this article before Chicago Zinefest, because it provides a perfect example of what I was trying to talk about at the panel (and reads like a satire). Let me break it down for you.

“The event has been going on for a number of years,” said Drystek. “It started off as a pure zine festival and was for a small zine community around Guelph. [During] the past couple years it’s been comics and zines and now I’ve changed it entirely for print media.”

As far as I recall, the Kazoo Zinefest/ Zine Expo/ whatever it used to be called began in September 2008, with maybe fifteen or twenty tables set up in St. George’s Square in downtown Guelph (subsequent zine fairs have taken place in a) Ed Video, an accessible space (!), and later, in inaccessible churches). I still remember buying a bright yellow Kazoo t-shirt with a bike rack on it, and two teenage girls trying to steal zines from me and my twin. The zinefest happened again in 2010, 2011, and 2012 – I don’t remember it happening in 2009, but maybe I was just in the hospital and dead to the world at the time, mental health timez, I don’t know.

2013 is the first time I’ve decided not to table. The Kazoo zine fair has never been my favourite, but I always got excited about it anyway, because, like I said in previous entries, I used to be madly in love with Guelph. I had this fantasy of meeting other rad zinesters and writing & organizing together, but what usually happened was I only talked to the friends I came with, and then I took a bunch of anxiety pills and hid in the local indie bookstore, and chugged alcohol (when I was still an embarrassing drunk) or coffee (after I quit drinking). We whined about boring cis dudes who make boring comix, and we hung out on the lawn of the Church of Our Lady to admire/cringe about Guelph. (And we started saving up our pennies to go to places like Chicago, NYC, and Philly instead.)

“The mission [of Kazoo Print!] is to celebrate local Guelph media,” said Drystek. “Kazoo has a long history of holding shows in Guelph and they’re always getting really interesting and upcoming artists/illustrators to work on their posters for them, so I wanted to make this event more reflective of that new style of illustration being used: moving away from the “zine” and more towards individuals.”

To quote Amber Dearest, with whom I’ve been having lengthy discussions about this stuff: “Things can be both political and about the individual. Um, I think there’s a pretty popular slogan about that?”

I’m not sure how to handle the suggestion that zines are not about individuals – they are almost exclusively made by & about & for individuals, hello, that is where our reputation of being self-absorbed weirdos comes from – and I am mostly just hoping that this is a misquote? It’s true that the posters for a lot of shows in Guelph, especially those organized by Kazoo, are pretty attractive, and it’s totally the kinda stuff that’ll be framed on people’s walls one day (if it isn’t already), but y’all know I prefer messy photocopy art anyway, and also, why does there need to be this constant great division anyway? Between lower-case a art and capital-A Art, between art students and DIY/DIT punx and zinesters, between zines and stuff that is Higher Quality Than Zines Made By People Who Had the Privilege of Going to School For It, between people who wanna make money and people who just wanna share stories? Why does it always feel like we’re coming from separate turfs, and you guys just stepped a little too close to my treehouse and now I have to come down with my long-arm stapler in my hands and explain to you my love & need of zines, again?

“The Guelph zine community is too small to have one event and the zines are usually more political,” said Drystek. “I wanted move away from the political aspects and more towards [a focus] on the art itself.”

Actually, Guelph is home to the Arrow Archive, the largest zine library in Ontario. (Um, I don’t actually hang out there because it’s housed in what is kind of an Unsafe Space for me, but that’s another story – er, I guess it’s part of this story, too, actually, but I don’t know if anybody cares.) They hold frequent zine workshops, readings, & events. It’s in the Guelph Resource Centre for Gender Empowerment & Diversity, but maybe that’s, like, too political? The Guelph zine community only seems small if you’re not actively participating in it.

Guelph zinesters have done a lot of hard work to make zines more vibrant, visible, and accessible in this town. Sorry you weren’t there? Although all of our goals have not been accomplished thus far, that doesn’t mean we don’t exist. The main reason there isn’t a Real Zine Fest in Guelph, from my perspective, isn’t because there are a lack of zinesters; it’s mostly because there is an embarrassing lack of accessible spaces in Guelph, and a lack of support from other artists in the “community” (lolz), and organizations & businesses in Guelph, as well as a lack of communication, often due to, um, politics. I would tell you more about my own organizing experiences in that town, but I’m kind of burnt out on it, you know?

Also, in what imaginary fairytaleland do you get to have an event that distances itself from politics?! Politics and art are continuously intersecting. If you can’t see (or if you are able to choose to ignore) how things like class, mental health, disabilties, and all forms of oppression intersect with the creation of all arts, then you have an incredible amount of privilege that I cannot even fathom. I honestly cannot imagine one not revolving around and depending upon the other. My brain actually kinda fizzled out when I read that part. (Still kinda hoping it was a typo or something.)

There is one good thing I can say about this whole mess: At least they took “zine” out of the event name, so we know we don’t need to bother with them anymore. Canzine have yet to make that change, even though it’s becoming more and more difficult to find zines at their events.

FULL DISCLOSURE: In 2012, I applied for the volunteer position of organizing the Kazoo! Comic & Zine Expo. I was turned down, and the job was given to the person interviewed in the link above. A few weeks later, while I was at Chicago Zinefest, I received an email asking for help with organizing & promoting the fest. I was told that my name had been given to her by some dude who does the Kazoo collective thing, but I’ve never actually spoken to him, so meh. Anyway, I accepted the challenge, because my heart & my guts & my life are in zines and this was back when I still cared about the zine community in Guelph and wanted it to flourish, so I ended up being the silent, unacknowledged weirdo behind the screen who ran the Facebook event page, wrote up descriptions & links to the people who were tabling (incidentally, nobody at Kazoo got around to telling me who was tabling, so I was only able to promote my friendz, hooray!), blogged about it & posted about it & all that other boring but necessary online promo stuff, and then surprise, nobody from the Kazoo collective actually ever acknowledged me for doing their work for them, and I still kinda don’t even know who they are outside of the internetz because they’re just not part of the communities that I participate in (or, used to participate in. But I do remember that back in Spring 2007, the very first show I ever had the guts to go by myself was a Kazoo show, so).

Meanwhile, 2,000 words in and I haven’t even told you about the embarrassing “Panel on the Highs & Lows of Self-Publishing” or whatever it was called; as far as I know, it was “organized” the day before Kazoo zinefest 2012, and I was probably only asked to participate because they didn’t know who else to ask. It took place at a bar (y’all know how I feel about events at bars), and nobody showed up, because it wasn’t advertised or promoted in any way. Thankfully, I had a few friends with me who were able to see how, um, uncomfortable the whole thing was, and were able to ask a few questions about zines, because the facilitator(s) sure as hell had nothing worthwhile to talk about. (“What kind of paper do you use?”) I’m still recovering from that shitshow, but it did provide a few inside jokes for me and my friends, which we like to repeat to each other when we are at actual zinefests. (“Your art hurts my eyes.” etc)

And an update on the response from Broken Pencil about their fuckedupedness

After I personally and publically called out Broken Pencil for choosing to erase my genderqueer identity (and several friends kindly took the time to write to them as well, to support me, and to remind them of their fuckedupedness), I didn’t get a response for six months. Eventually, the editor sent me an email, which I chose not to respond to. Because being nice to cis people isn’t my job.

She wrote: “Hi Maranda,

It has recently been brought to my attention that you may feel that the change I made to your bio (when you participated in Canzine 2011) was purposefully done to disregard your preferred pronouns, and that my apology to you in regards to this error was viewed as a brush-off. I wish to explain my intentions to you in greater detail.

At the time, I only understood that you did not want “she” or “her” to appear in the bio and I did not understand the importance of “they” as a pronoun. Many of the wider discussions regarding the use of “they” as a pronoun (for example, the dialogue with Rae Spoon and Xtra!) had not yet appeared in the public consciousness, and I was not aware of the introduction of the word as a singular pronoun. So I changed “they” not as an act of misrepresentation or with any deliberation [bolded by Maranda, because lolz], but because I had never seen the pronoun used in this way and wished to ensure that the biography was grammatically correct. It is a mistake that many other journalists have made and subsequently learned from. I truly apologize for this error, but please know that the act was not done with any malicious purpose, but rather from inexperience with the pronoun itself.

I would not have changed that word had I known its importance and utility. Please know that we greatly valued your contribution to our Canzine panel last year. I am very sorry for the error.

Take care,
Lindsay Gibb”

I’m making this email public because a) I think it’s funny, b) You don’t get to be a cis-sexist, erasing jerk without having to deal with the consequences, and c) Even though so much time has passed, I still get sooo fucking angry when I think about this situation, and I don’t want to keep it to myself anymore.

I’ve basically chosen to interpret this email as, “Sorry we didn’t respect yr pronouns! We didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about and were too embarrassed to have a conversation about it! I hadn’t heard of that other Canadian genderqueer and didn’t give a shit because you aren’t as famous or well-known as them! The English language is really important to me, and I chose to use it to invisibilize you and make you feel unsafe, oops, sorry! (Also, this was not a Sorry-I-Fucked-Up apology, but a Sorry-You-Feel-Bad apology, which as we all hopefully know, is not an apology. It’s just boring defensiveness, which is what always happens when somebody gets called out.) (Also also, in a hilarious turn of events, Rae Spoon was featured on the next cover, but I haven’t brought myself to read the article, because this stuff gets triggering as fuck.)

Further reading:
Writing for Friendship
Self-Care for Zinesters
My Complicated Feelings about Trigger Warnings & Safe(r) Spaces
If This Makes You Feel Awkward, I Don’t Care
Genderqueer Killjoy
Guelph Annual Radical Zinefest 2012 – It’s Happening! (For the lolz. Obviously it is very much not happening.)

If I have any friends left, that’s neat.

Calloutingly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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L.A. & all her crazy charms.

Posted on February 28, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

When I left for tour, the most precious item I brought with me was a blank journal. I filled these pages with stories, notes, details, plans, ideas; I glued in fliers, receipts, stickers, business cards, lists; and I pressed between the pages sprigs of sage and rosemary, a clover, magnolia petals, other plants whose names I am unfamiliar with, and a little white feather. I wrote on a total of four planes (with transfers), four buses (transfers again), and the car we road-tripped in; I wrote in bookstores, cafés, on the floors and in the homes of friends & strangers. I drew pictures of coffee and fancy soda bottles. Although bringing a fresh new notebook with me, baby’s first tour diary, gave me the awful sense of I-must-write-the-most-meaningful-&-profound-things-ever (I didn’t), the notebook, as usual, was what kept me feeling safe & okay.

After dealing with the hassle of canceled buses & flights due to snow, I finally arrived in Seattle, and Colleen picked me up and drove me to the first date of our tour. I squished through crowd and found Neelybat, hugged her and squeeled. Although I’d arrived too late to participate in the reading, I danced on not-enough-sleep & too-much-caffeine to her band, Ire Adrift, and made fun of boring cis dudes who were taking up too much space (as always).

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[Click images to make them larger.] 1. Neelybat taking pictures with her seafoam green Diana camera. 2. Neelybat at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. 3. Me & Neelybat at the beach.

I spent the night sleeping in her Iceland-themed guest bedroom, and then we did readings in Olympia and Portland. At a record store, I picked up a used copy of Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus, in which somebody had written on the inside cover in black ink, P.S.: Pass it on! (In an effort to destroy cis-centric language, I’ve been known to instead shout, CIS DUDES TO THE BACK!) I had good conversations with the Mend My Dress Press intern, Helen, about introversion & writing.

I celebrated 666 days sober in the backseat of the car, singing Hole & Green Day & Sleater-Kinney, with my tourmates, and taking blurry pictures through the window. We spent the day driving through the Pacific Northwest and into California. Osa read out loud from an interview with Bikini Kill in an old issue of Maxiumrocknroll. We discussed the possibility of having a slumber party with Courtney Love.

California was fucking beautiful. It was my first time. I’d never seen palm tress, birds of paradise, jade plants as tall as me, etc. We drove by miles of orange groves and miles of cherry blossoms, and again, I took blurry photos through the window. In Oakland, I stayed with Ocean; we watched a documentary on Aileen Wuornos and had good discussions about writing, creativity, living situations, home & travel, and so on. She read my Tarot cards in her backyard, and I got a sunburn.

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1. “We want the freedom to determine the destiny of our community.” 2. A dreamy purple house in Oakland. 3. Magnolia tree.

And then, the Mend My Dress Press crew arrived in Los Angeles! I stayed with Meredith, and we were later joined by Alex Wrekk. So many zinester slumber parties! We filled our days & nights with zine gossip, zinester crushes, vegan pizza, fancy pop (lavender! dandelion & burdock! too many root beers to name!), coffee, walks in the sunshine, and, as always along this tour, good conversations.

L.A. Zinefest happened, and it was amazing. This was one of few zinefests where I didn’t have a panic attack! I talked to so many good people, got reunited with an old LiveJournal friend, found some good zines, giggled lots the Mend My Dress folks, participated in a workshop on anthologizing zines…

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After the workshop, I came back to my table and ERIC ERLANDSON WAS LOOKING AT MY ZINES. Excuse the allcaps, but, Hole. The band who’ve had the most impact & influence & inspiration on my life & my art, whose lyrics were my first tattoo, blah blah. After listening to them for my most of my life and most of this road trip, it was strange to suddenly see the guitarist standing in front of me. I don’t want to be somebody who freaks out over celebrities, because come on, but Hole are a really big deal to me, and it felt like some kind of good sign. So I got up the courage to talk to him. I feel weird talking to famous people because I feel like there’s not much I can say to them that they haven’t heard before, but whatever, I talked to him a bit, and I gave him my book, and we took a photo together. He was very sweet & kind, and I not-so-secretly want him to read my book and become my pen pal.

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1. Me & Eric Erlandson of Hole. 2. Neelybat drawing my name on her hand. 3. Petals in my diary.

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1. Me & the first palm tree I’ve ever touched. 2. Reading Anaïs Nin’s journals by a lake. 3. A rose from a rest stop in the middle of nowhere.

It all ended too soon, and I was driven through the rain to the airport to fly home, listening to the Raveonettes. And so I’m home now, and it doesn’t really feel like home anymore, but I am making some changes to remedy my disconnect & sadness, but that’s another story.

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1. Lavender soda. 2. Standing on a sidewalk in Los Angeles, just before me & Neelybat got our matching tattoos. 3. L.A. Zinefest flier and some flowers I picked by Sunset Boulevard.

More stories & photos from our tour are at MendMyDress.com; and if you missed us on tour, come hang out with me & Neelybat & Osa at Chicago Zinefest on March 8th and 9th. I’ll be participating in a panel, Writing about Health, Disability, and Accessibility in Zines: A Panel with Kerri Radley, Maranda Elizabeth, and Dave Roche at the Conaway Center, Columbia College, we’ll be doing another workshop on Anthologizing Your Zines, and POC Zine Project will be there as well. Yeah!

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1. Holding hands. 2. Girls to the front. 3. Me at the Beat Museum in San Francisco.

Touringly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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Writing for Friendship

Posted on February 1, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

When I talk about why I write, the words that come up the most are “survival” and “revenge” (I wrote all about it in my book); the third reason I write is just finally dawning on me: Friendship.

At each of my book launches, what I’ve want the most is to make connections. I want new friends, new pen pals, new discussions, even new crushes. I don’t want to be a Rock Star on a Stage Making You Listen to Me, and then Leaving. The reason I tell my stories isn’t because I think I have the Most Important Story to Tell, it’s because I want to encourage you to find ways to tell your own stories. Whether that be through writing, talking, drawing, journaling, painting, whatever. I want more stories from traditionally marginalized people, shy people, weirdos, queerdos, crazy people, depressed people, and misfits…

Here’s something I’ve been telling people lately, something I’ve been telling myself: Befriend the people who make you feel intimidated. Why? Because, cliché as it sounds, they are probably just like you. They are probably struggling with a lot of things and they probably want meaningful connections and magical friendships, too. I know I do. I’ve been told many times over the years by people both in my hometown, in my current town, and far away, that I seem “intimidating.” I used to take it as a compliment. I feel so small and useless, yet people are actually scared of me! Yay! And then I thought, hey, how the hell am I gonna make friends if people are scared to talk to me? Could feelings of intimidation be contributing to my feelings of loneliness?

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[Click images to make them larger.] 1. Root beer party. 2. A page from my diary, about friendship. 3. Another page from my diary, about a letter-writing club, with point-form notes.

And it wasn’t just that folks were intimidated by me, it was that I felt intimidated by them, too. If I read someone as more attractive, more talented, more successful, more confident, more whatever, than me, I just plain assume that they have everything they want/need: they have enough friends, enough projects to work on, enough events to attend, enough things to do and people to see. They don’t have time for me. I’m not cool enough/ queer enough/ punk enough/ writerly enough for them. I leave them alone, or I say something awkward and then stumble away.

Total fail. We just lost an opportunity for a new friendship to blossom! Fuck that. We should’ve talked. We should’ve exchanged fliers for our zines and wrote sweet notes on them. At each of my book launches, I’ve talked a little bit about learning how to prioritize friendships, and wanting to make new friends; I’ve invited attendees to talk or to read their own stuff, ask questions; I’ve tried to make each event interactive in some way, so folks can participate rather than observe, and I’ve told everyone to write me letters. I do seriously want to hear from you; I’m not just saying it to be nice.

Of course, when I imagine myself as part of an audience at a book launch, I know that I would probably feel intimidated, too (and probably at least a little jealous – let’s be real). I’d probably forget to question my assumption that whoever is reading is a Busy Person with lots to do; they are too cool for me and they don’t have time for me. I hope that’s not how anybody feels when they hear me read, because it’s just not true. For me, it’s just me projecting my own insecurities onto somebody else. What about you?

Friendship. It seems so obvious. That’s why I started making zines, right?

Befriendingly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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A queer, self-conscious performance.

Posted on January 18, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

I’m recovering from (and feeling inspired by!) my favourite trip to Montréal thus far. I spent four or five days hanging out at the Tulip Farm, having good conversations with friends, and eating cheap/free food. It was like a long, beautiful Quiet Party. It took three buses to get there: one to downtown Guelph, one to Toronto, and one to Montréal; then a Metro ride to St-Henri, my twin’s neighbourhood.

Sunday afternoon was my book launch! I’ve held three book launches so far: Guelph, Toronto, and Montréal. All of them have felt so cathartic, so scary, and so beautiful. I’ve been lucky to read alongside some of my best friends and favourite writers/artists, and to be surrounded by people who value honesty, guts, and weirdness. In Montréal, Kit read about various kinds of silences, and “menno & madness” (growing up Mennonite and depressed); Hayden read about bipolar disorder, un/acceptable forms of self harm, and dealing with the fucked up mental health care system. The room was full. I felt so grateful to hear their words, to see them have the guts to tell their stories, and to cry. I made new friends. And I made new pen pals, I hope!

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[Click the images to make them larger.] 1. Lemon-custard pie homemade by Stefanie, Amber’s roommate-soulmate. 2. Typewriter, tiara, & desk at the Tulip Farm. 3. Me, thinking about the politics of embracing Femme as a FAAB (female-assigned-at-birth) genderqueerdo.

Being in my pals’ homes always makes me think about my own home: What do I want my home to look like? Feel like? What do I want my days to look like? What kinds of energy do I wish to create?

I like reading the spines along my friends’ bookshelves, seeing the posters on their walls, reading the notes they leave for themselves. I like seeing what kinds of dishes they use and how many plants they have. I tend to sleep well when I’m in other people’s beds/couches.

What made this trip so lovely was seeing how my twin and her roommate have created their home and how they interact with each other. The Tulip Farm looks like a delightful mash-up of cupcakes and valentines, with typewriters on display and a drawer full of tea. They make good food and they know that not every silence is awkward. I also got to spend quality time with some dear friends of mine: talking, hugging, chugging coffee.

“Altogether a queer, self-conscious, self analytic performance, interesting to me.” – Virginia Woolf’s diaries

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. I’m trying to be more intentional about my friendships. What does that mean? It means I want to make time to hang out with my friends one-on-one. I want to have good, complicated conversations and I want to hang out without the stress of keeping one another entertained. I want to be honest and vulnerable, the way I am with my zines. I want to feel less lonely, more connected. I want to spend time with creative weirdos, I want to talk & laugh & cry and sometimes just drink coffee and write. I want to do my usual quiet, loner things in the company of good people. I want to love, and feel loved. Me and some of my friends have been practicing saying “I love you” out loud because we just haven’t done it before, or haven’t done it often enough. It’s still hard.

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1. Winter magic at used bookstores. 2. Taking pills & writing notes at the Tulip Farm. 3. Courtney Love, taped to the bathroom door, embraced with a tinsel heart.

It is strange to feel content, but sometimes I really do. Me, Amber, and Kit, had this wonderful realization as we were walking along the sidewalk together that we’ve barely had to take our usual winter survival strategies into account because we’ve been having such an amazing, gorgeous winter without all the heavy despondency and darkness that usually befalls us in this season. I told Amber I was having the best time in her city that I’ve ever had, and she said, “This is what happens when we prioritize friendships!”

Friendshippingly Yours,
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P.S.: Come see me and my Mend My Dress Press pals on our U.S. West Coast tour!

P.P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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Smash the silence with the brick of self-control.

Posted on January 7, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

This is my third year participating The ArtClash! Collective’s Annual Fun-A-Day Project. Everyday in January, I’ll be reading a zine (of course), and writing about them in a weekly blog entry. I’m not usually very good at daily projects & goals, and haven’t been able to keep up with even seemingly small, simple projects like sending a postcard-a-day, or just taking my fucking meds. I do, however, love trying. So I’m trying to keep it pretty simple, and I’ll try not to feel too disappointed if I give up before the end of the month.

So, this is Fun-A-Day Monday #1!

Let me let you in on a not-so-secret: I ignored Cometbus zine for my first decade of zine-involvement. Yep. There were several reasons: a) it seemed like there were a million issues and I didn’t know where to begin so I didn’t begin at all, b) I didn’t (and still don’t) read a lot of zines or books or anything by cis dudes, and c) for all the good things I’d heard about Cometbus, I’d also heard a lot of (good, feminist) critique, that made me feel like I wouldn’t like the zine anyway.

The first issue I read was #54, the one where Aaron Cometbus hangs out with his old friends in Green Day on their Asian tour. I picked it up at Quimby’s in Chicago, IL. When I was a kid, one of the first cassettes I was given was Green Day’s Dookie; I’d been thinking about that album and feeling nostalgic (I soon thereafter bought it again, after not having heard it in, like, nearly fifteen years or something. I still love it!). I read the zine on my porch in the sun, and didn’t hate it. Later, I got Add Toner: A Cometbus Collection from Wooden Shoe in Philly, PA. The pages aren’t numbered, but I’m guessing it contains 300+ pages, and includes issues 45, 46, 46 ½, 47, and 48, plus a collection of stories, 8 Out of 10 Days, previously published in different forms of earlier issues, and also a bunch of stories and “behind-the-scenes”-type stuff of what was going on as he made certain issues, why he wrote them, blah blah, which are parts of zine collections that I really enjoy; I had to resist writing book-length explanations of some of my zines when I made my anthology (to tell you what had really been going on at the time, rather than just what I had felt able to share at the time).

When people ask me what Cometbus is about, my answer is usually some varying form of, “Um, like, cliché punk rock tales, I guess, but good ones?” This book is crammed with stories of coffeeshops, copy shops, all-nighters, squats, relationships, shows, etc., but/and it’s really good. I think it’s hard to write those kinds of stories without sounding like, “I did this and then I did this and blah blah”; Aaron is good at not just telling stories, but capturing moods and motivations and making you wish you were there. There’s a part where he talks about not wanting to die young, but wanting to grow up and be an older eccentric punk, and I liked that part because, yeah, me too. Cometbus makes me wanna write and makes me wanna live, and that’s probably the best thing a zine or a book or any piece of writing could ever make me feel.

“It wasn’t exactly solitude which I loved best, but just a sense of being by myself. More often than not, my private time was spent in public. I liked to be around people or places where I could feel their presence, places that felt “lived in.” Empty streets, doorways, cafés, abandoned buildings, busy bustling avenues, buses, and BART. Riding public transportation, walking the hills, skating around, exploring or just sitting on the rocks on the waterfront. Keeping myself open to new ideas and approachable to new people. But most of the time, keeping silent.”

Next up, I read issues 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Deafula zine. I love reading/ writing/ listening/ talking about communication! Kerri writes about being deaf. She writes about Deaf community and culture, and talks about the differences between identifying as capital-D Deaf and lower-case-d deaf. She talks about various methods of communication, including ASL, lip-reading, writing, and texting, and shares ideas for how to communicate with deaf people (and how not to!). Kerri notes that she hates parties (me too!) and prefers to hang out in small groups and have one-on-one conversations (me too!).

In the first issue, she wonders what kind of person she’d be if she contacted scarlet fever as a child, which led to her gradual deafness. Would she be more popular, outgoing, and social?

“I love being myself and wouldn’t change it for anything, and I wouldn’t take back getting scarlet fever. But, sometimes it was hard. And because it was hard, that shaped who I am today. And now that I’m an adult in charge of my own happiness, I try to do my best to keep myself in situations that make me happy (smaller intimate ones with people who understand me) and out of ones that make me unhappy.”

In later issues, Kerri talks about the fucked up disability and health care systems in the United States, and the difficulty of getting hired by someone when they know you’re deaf. She also talks about all the awesome stuff you’re missing out on if you’re not deaf (one of my favourite parts!). I need to write her a letter!

The last zine I read for the first week of Fun-A-Day was Mend My Dress #9.4 by Neelybat Chestnut. Subtitled, they were all my friends, and they died, this newletter-style zine documents Neely’s feelings about death, which she especially thinks about in Winter. She writes about friends who have died, planning her funeral as a child, thoughts about her own suicide, and plans to get a DO NOT RESUSCITATE tattoo. She writes about what she wants to happen with her body when she dies, and being a nice ghost.

Neely’s zines are among my favourites because she writes about difficult things with a mix of both delicacy and anger, and reading her zines feels like getting a really good letter in the mail, or having a really good conversation with a friend at a slumber party.

“if a party is thrown, please do it in my house, if at all possible, while my body is still in the home. everything i own will be a huge free pile. other than these small things, i don’t really care. just don’t let me haunt you.”

Fun-A-Dayingly Yours,
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P.S.: Don’t forget to read & share Self-Care for Zinesters (especially with so many zine events coming up)!

P.P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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Self-Care for Zinesters

Posted on January 3, 2013 by marandaelizabeth

{For an extended version of this piece, please buy my zine, Self-Care for Zinesters.}

♥ INTRO ♥

I’m writing this as an introvert, weirdo, and decade-long zinester who has depression, BPD, and chronic pain, and someone who does a whole lot of zine-related travelin’. I’m prefacing all this with a bunch of labels I’ve applied to myself so you have an idea of where I’m coming from, and what my experiences might be like. I can only write from my own experience. If you have anything else to share on the subject, please do!

♥ ZINESTER LIFE ♥

Within the zine community/ies that I am a part of, I feel like a lot of us are probably introverts, especially those of us who make perzines, and when we get together for zinefests and other zinester-type social events, we wanna hang out with all our pals and share hugs & stories & drinks & photos & everything; there are so many people to see and so many things to talk about. It’s hard to make time for each person we want to talk to, and we often forget to set aside time for ourselves as well – especially when we’re traveling. What I hear the most at zinefests is, “I feel overwhelmed!”

Me too! I feel overwhelmed simply going out to run errands or meet up with a friend at a café, let alone spending my day talking to literally hundreds of people, looking at thousand of zines, and, frankly, trying to sell myself and my writing. It takes a lot out of me. I get extremely anxious at zinefests, and my anxiety often expresses itself as shakiness, twitching, shortness of breath, and not wanting to be touched. I often lose my voice from talking to so many people in one day, and my brain becomes completely overstimulated with all the words, papers, sounds, patterned tablecloths, people, noise, etc. But I’ve tabled at more than a dozen zinefests now, and I’ve learned a lot.

♥ FOR ZINESTERS ON THE ROAD ♥

Tell your friends about your needs. If your friends don’t know what you need, they can’t give it to you. Everybody has different expectations when traveling, especially visiting new cities, and it’s best to discuss it first. If you want to spend your days waking up early and hanging out at bookstores and cafés, and they wanna spend their days getting drunk and dancing and seeing all the sights, you’ll need to figure out how to coordinate your plans happily.

Write a list of what to bring. No matter how many times I’ve packed my bags, I will always forget something if I don’t start writing a list in advance. Even if I’m just going back to my hometown for a few days. So, write a list. Write down the most obvious stuff, like underwear and a toothbrush, write every single thing you can think of. That said:

Pack light. Carrying stuff isn’t much fun, especially if you have chronic pain. Just bring the essentials. It’s okay to wear the same t-shirt two or three or four times. Plus, you’ll probably end up bringing new-to-you clothes and zines home with you, so you’ll be glad to have the space to carry them. Also, get a good backpack. Vintage suitcases look cute, but they are difficult and clunky, and they don’t leave your hands free to flip through used books or take pictures of your friends.

Bring a good book. Obviously.

Tiny pharmacy. This is what I call the black lace make-up bag that I never leave home without. Inside my tiny pharmacy are: psych meds, vitamins, ibuprofen, Tylenol 3, Xanax, Rescue Remedy, Tums, mints, hand lotion, peppermint oil, and sometimes make-up. I get frequent headaches, migraines, and motion sickness, and these are all essential items to take care of myself on a sixteen-hour Megabus trip and a fifteen-minute bus ride in town. (I put a few dabs of peppermint oil under my nose to blot out the synthetic scents of perfume, etc., that cause my headaches.)

Sleep well. Sleep is underrated. Slumber parties are fun, especially with my zinester pals, but eventually, I need to go to bed, and I need to have a decent amount of sleep to be able to function happily the next day. I’ve had insomnia for most of my life, and if I don’t take my meds, I don’t sleep. So I try to take them at a reasonable hour (which’ll vary depending on who you’re with & what you’re plans are), and I know that my friends don’t think I’m a total killjoy when I need to go to bed (or couch, or floor…).

Eat fruits and vegetables, drink lots of water. This is the responsible traveler in me talking. Just a day or two without fruits & veggies, and I start getting cravings for kale & spinach & apples & bananas. It’s true! Try to keep a good snack and piece of fruit in your backpack at all times.

Take pictures. Sometimes I feel like an awkward dork when I take out my camera, but c’mon. You might never be in this city again. You might not see your friends until the next zinefest. Even the moments that seem the most memorable do disappear over time. Capture everything you can. Also:

Write in your journal. Even if you only have time for point-form notes or quick sketches, write it down. There are so many adventures, conversations, thoughts, and ideas that happen on the road. You’ll want to remember everything you can. (Especially if you’re gonna make a zine about it when you get home!)

Be realistic about what you can do in an unfamiliar city. You won’t die if you don’t see everything. My favourite places to go in new-to-me cities are bookstores, cafés (cozy indie cafés are best for hanging out, but I am not opposed to going to Starbucks when I want a yummy, familiar drink, especially if I’m in a hurry), thrift stores, anywhere with cheap & delicious food (especially burritos), and of course I make sure to get recommendations from friends. Also, I love wandering. If you have the chance to go out without a destination, do it. That said, I am also a total home-body, and I am happy just to hang out at the place where I’m crashing and drink tea and talk and write in our journals together. No pressure, no money spent, just quality friend-time. I don’t need to see all the sights or be entertained 24/7 to have an amazing time.

Be patient (about getting lost, confused, being broke, etc.). You’re gonna get tired and you’re gonna get cranky. Despite all your careful planning, there will be a time when you haven’t had enough sleep, you’re constipated, and none of your friends can agree on where to meet up for brunch. There’s a bookstore on your list that you haven’t seen yet, your shoulders hurt from your heavy backpack, and you’re hungry. Don’t worry. It’s okay. You’ll figure it out. And when you get home, you’re not gonna remember how cranky you were; you’re gonna remember how yummy the French toast was, and how excited you are about the split zine you started planning with one of your long-distance pals. Also. Let’s talk about transit. I don’t know about you, but that stuff confuses me. I grew up in a small town, and I live in a bigger-but-still small-ish town that has only simple bus routes. Transit in other cities freaks me out. I tend to follow my friends and not know exactly where I am. I can take transit by myself only with very careful instructions and little hand-drawn maps from friends, and even then, I am freaking out in my head until I reach my destination safely. But, as much as it scares me, I am aware that people do this all the time, that I am not the only person who gets nervous about it, and that kind people exist and they will tell me where to go if I ask. Everything will be okay.

Appreciate each moment. Seriously. Even if you plan on coming back to this city someday, even if you’re gonna hang out with the same people at the next zinefest, this trip is never gonna happen again! Be present in each moment, take deep breaths, take care of yourself, and take care of your friends.

Don’t make plans right away when you get home; rest. Again, seriously. You’re gonna be so tired when you get home, and your thoughts are gonna be spinning. Go home and go to bed and stay in bed until you are ready to get up (um, unless you have a job to go to). It sucks to get home late after spending all day on buses, and then have to get up early the next morning. If your local friends know you’re back home and they wanna hang out, tell them you need some time to recover first.

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[Click the images to make them larger.] 1. Me at Magic Gardens in Philly, PA. 2. A note on my table at Philly Zinefest 2012. 3. A stack of my books.

♥ TAKING CARE OF OURSELVES & EACH OTHER AT ZINEFESTS ♥

Label your zines with prices & descriptions. This’ll save you from answering, “What do you write about?” ten thousand times. You’ll also be likely to sell more zines because people will know right away what kind of zines you make and how much they cost. Some people, myself included, are often too shy to ask how much a zine costs, and will pass up your stuff if they don’t know.

Bring snacks and water. Like I mentioned before, I tend to lose my voice at zinefests. Water is essential, and so are snacks. Some zinefests are so busy that you’ll hardly have a chance to leave your table and go to the bathroom, let alone get something to eat. Make a sandwich, bring snacks from the bulk store, stock up on granola bars, bring a couple bananas, etc.

Bring change (whether you’re tabling, or admiring). Somehow, the first person who comes to my table at a zinefest always wants to buy a $2 zine with a $20 bill. No. You are at a zinefest. Bring loonies & toonies if you’re in Canada, and $1 and $5 bills if you’re in the States.

Bring fliers and pens and a notebook you can rip the pages out of. You’re probably gonna meet a lot of people that you wanna exchange contact info and notes with, so make sure you’ve got fliers that describe your zine and have contact info on them, and paper and a good pen that you can write stuff down on and give away.

Plan to sit beside a friend. For me, this is totally essential. I have had some really bad experiences sitting beside strangers at zinefests that I don’t care to retell here. Suffice to say, not everybody at the zinefest is gonna be as wonderful as you are, and you’ll want to sit near people you get along with, who respect your art and your space. Request to sit with a friend. Not only will you have someone to talk to all day, you can also watch each other’s tables so you can explore the zinefest on your own and find neat things.

Learn how to say no (be clear about trades). This one might be controversial. The thing is, I don’t do tons of trades anymore. I have very specific interests in what kinds of zines I read these days, and I don’t wanna feel obligated to carry home a bunch of comics by boring dudes, feminism 101 zines, or zines filled with a bunch of problematic language. There, I said it. What I do want to read are really good, critical perzines, radical mental health zines, zines about getting sober (recovering from alcoholism, not straight-edge), and zines about lived experiences & identities of genderqueers, non-binary people, and trans folks. I also like the occasional fiction zine. Lately, I’ve been putting a little sign on my table that says what kinds of zines I’ll trade for; some people read it and get it, some people read it and ignore it, some people probably don’t even see it. There are polite ways to turn down trades, and you don’t have to feel like (or be) a jerk for doing so. Be nice, be assertive (I’m still learning). (And if you end up with zines that you don’t want, pass them onto friends or to a zine library; just because you don’t want/like a certain zine, doesn’t mean nobody else will.)

Participate in workshops. You’ll learn useful stuff and have really good conversations and meet wonderful people! I’ve been to so many wonderful workshops over the years, and have always learned something new, and left feeling super-inspired. A lot of my stories have come to me through advice and prompts given at workshops. Also, don’t forget to tell the facilitators how rad they are; it can be nerve-wracking to get up in front of people and try to teach them something and hope for participation and inspiration and stuff. Workshops are the best (though I sometimes have to miss out because I’m behind my table all day).

Don’t take pictures without asking / Don’t touch somebody without asking. I know that zinefests are really exciting and they are filled with attractive, creative zines & attractive, creative people, but please please please DO NOT take pictures of us or our stuff without asking. It is uncomfortable and gross and it wrecks my good vibes when I see a stranger pointing a camera or holding up their cell phone at me. ASK FIRST. Most zinesters will probably let you take pictures if you ask first, and tell them who you are and why you’re taking pictures / what you intend to do with the pictures. We love having photos of us at our tables! Just don’t be a creep. When I see people taking my pictures without my permission, I turn around and hide my face. But if you ask first, I’ll smile for you, and maybe we’ll even become friends.

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Here is an awkward photo of me hiding my face from someone with a camera who didn’t bother to ask for consent before taking my photo.

♥ AND ONE MORE TIP FOR HOME & AWAY ♥

Keep a notebook and pen with you. Write on paper you really like, with a pen you really like (it’ll help you write more and better, I swear). Sometimes the thoughts I have while on a bus, at the post office, in a bookstore, at a friend’s house, in a café, etc., disappear if I don’t write them down right away. Also, it doesn’t have to be an idea for a whole zine or a whole book. It can just be a word you like, a conversation you overheard, a story you want to tell your friend.

♥ SEE YOU IN LOS ANGELES! ♥

The next zinefest I’ll be tabling at is L.A. Zinefest on February 17th, 2013. The organizers asked, via their blog, what advice I’d like to give to first-time & aspiring zinesters. My answer: Write the kinda stuff you wanna read. Write the kinda stuff you wish you had found when you were younger. Don’t be intimidated by people who’ve been making zines longer than you. Don’t try to emulate somebody else’s style: be more like yourself, not somebody else. Learn how to make double-sided copies and don’t forget to watch your margins. Be open to kind critique. Don’t expect to get famous, or to make money. Keep on writing even if it feels like nobody cares. They also asked what the best thing is that’s ever happened to me because zines. I said: Learning critical-thinking skills, learning how to be honest and write well, meeting wonderful people through snail mail & zinefests, finding magical friendships, having the guts to share my stories, encouraging others to tell their stories, learning the value of my own experiences, and knowing that DIY self-expression saves lives.

Take good care of yourself and your zine pals!

Ziningly Yours,
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P.S.: If you’ve benefited from my writing in any way – if my words have inspired you, helped you feel less alone, or sparked some weird feeling within you; if you’ve felt encouraged, or curious, or comforted – please consider compensating me by offering a donation of any amount. Whether you’ve been reading my writing for years, or just stumbled into me this afternoon, I invite you to help me sustain the process!

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