That awkward moment when somebody fucks up your pronoun.

Posted on August 16, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

Dave Cave and I were gonna make a video post about using coffee as an antidepressant, but it turned into a conversation about gender & pronouns instead.

At first, I thought we’d just start over, but then we decided to use the video as a jumping off point for more conversations. Many others, as well as myself, have written plenty about how to tell people about how we identify, what pronouns we use, what to do when people misgender us, how not to make assumptions about anyone’s gender, etc., and I know I’ve expressed both my anger and my wonder at life as a genderqueerdo… There’s lots of advice out there, lots of inspiration, lots of righteous bitterness… But when we made this video, we almost felt like we caught some kind of rare moment in nature, in action, and we needed to share it.

It’s an example of what happens when you fuck up somebody’s pronoun and they try to talk to you about it. Most times, I just let it go, but I get angry and I dwell on it for a long time, sometimes even months. I feel awkward about bringing it up in the moment, and am usually not in the mood to talk about it, but I can’t let it go every time just because it’s uncomfortable, or because I’m sick of dealing with it, or because I think they’ll use my chosen pronoun next time (they generally don’t). So here’s a look at how that conversation goes when I do have the guts to bring it up.

Maranda and Dave Talk About Coffee and Gender from Dave Cave on Vimeo.

Dave is one of my best friends. I made a zine with him, we exchange a lotta letters, talk on Skype, encourage each other, adventure together… You might think I’d feel more comfortable talking to him, but really, regardless of whether you’re a stranger, an acquaintance, or a friend, I still worry about hurting your feelings, I still worry about awkwardness, I still worry that correcting your use of my pronoun is not the most important use of our time. I know, I know, I’m letting you hurt my feelings when I avoid talking to you about it, and we could discuss forever why I do that… But what I really wanna do is talk about how the conversation goes when I do acknowledge your mistake in the moment.

I’m not calling you out. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. What I am trying to do is let you know you messed up, try to figure out why, try to help you mess up less, try to let you know how it makes me feel. There are a lot of variables that can affect how a conversation like this goes: your own experience with gender, your daily interactions with friends & strangers, the town/city you live, access to “radical” politics & lifestyles, dealing with other issues in your own personal life, how often you’re interacting with someone verbally as opposed to through the internet & snail mail, your willingness to have difficult conversations, and on and on and on…

There was a lot more I wanted to write about this, but after lots & lotsa talking (obviously this video doesn’t capture our entire conversation, which has been continuing over the last few days, and will never come to a solid conclusion/solution), I kinda just wanna let the video speak for itself, and I want to invite YOU to join our conversation. Think about this stuff, comment, share the video, talk to your friends… (Here’s what Dave said.)

Genderqueeringly Yours,

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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Take Care

Posted on August 12, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

When I went to Chicago last March, I got tattooed by Alana Robbie. In 2010, she tattooed a Greyhound bus on my left arm, and this time, she tattooed TAKE CARE on my knuckles. I’d written down hundreds of knuckle tattoo ideas over the years. For a long time, I’d wanted HOMESICK, but I felt it might be a sad message to see on my hands everyday; then I wanted KNOW HOPE, but decided to get it on a banner in my friend’s handwriting instead, so that left my knuckles blank. The message that ended up on my knuckles after all was probably the message I’d given the least thought to as a tattoo, but somehow made the most sense. TAKE CARE.

Each time I look down at my hands, I ask myself: What am I doing to take care of myself right now?

A little while, I asked some of my friends, What comes to mind when you hear the words Radical Self-Care? I was struggling at the time, and looking for inspiration. The answers they gave me were just what I needed. We talked about things like, learning how de-romanticize the idea of staying up all night with a bottle of whiskey and how to de-romanticize self-destruction, learning how to say no and set boundaries, remembering to take deep breaths, giving ourselves the compassion & empathy & caring that we so often give to our friends but not ourselves, letting go of overly critical views of ourselves, eating good food instead of attempting to live on coffee & cigarettes, sleeping well, taking long walks and making sure to look around at the beauty surrounding us, simply giving ourselves permission to exist, and knowing that self-care isn’t selfish.

Self-care, to me, is not a selfish act; and if it is, it is a necessary one. Self-care means self-preservation, survival, respect, love, compassion, awareness, and honesty. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t take of each other. So, what are you doing to take care of yourself right now?

For more self-care inspiration, check out Be Your Own Therapist, Mindful Communication and Consent (this is what i need), Shyness is nice, but…, What Would You Rather Be Doing (Part One) and (Part Two), and Self-Care When You’re Not at Home (for us travelin’ zinesters!).

I also want to talk about tattoos as safety objects. My friend Erin recently wrote about Safety Objects as Secrets to Survival, which inspired me to think about my own safety objects. My home is filled with them. I often collect branches, rocks, and even broken glass from the ground; I have a collection of beach glass that I gathered when Erin and I went to the Kingston Writers Fest together, and I still have the stones I got from the witchy store in my small hometown when I was a teenager. I have dried flowers, pennies squished on the traintracks, acorns, and pinecones. Some of these things I keep in jars, some I keep on my bookshelves, other I keep hidden in a little pouch in my backpack, with me wherever I go. Safety objects are often used as grounding techniques; when my mind tries to take elsewhere, in a bad memory or a flashback, for example, I can hold onto a safety object and press it between my fingers, tangible evidence that I am still here and that I will be okay. Sometimes just the knowledge that it is with me, without being in my hands, can be enough.

Everybody’s safety objects are different. You could use a pen, a handkerchief, a marble, a keychain… whatever. Even my tattoos work as safety objects. Looking at them, reminding myself of their stories, reminds of who I am, that I am surviving, that I am a wonderful, magical creature (and so are you!). Although unintentional, all of my tattoos have the same theme: survival. My tattoos tell the journey of my survival thus far. They also serve as a kind of coping mechanism: a tattoo appointment to look forward to often keeps me going through some pretty hard times, and the beautiful images and words on my skin make me want to keep my body on earth a little longer.

Caringly Yours,

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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Recovery is a Series of (Potential) New Beginnings

Posted on August 11, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

Changes are happening! I’m moving in September. Each time I get ready to move, I daydream about my new routine, my new home, my new self. I imagine setting up my spaces just perfectly, waking up early in the morning, drinking the yummiest coffee, writing lots, never procrastinating on anything ever again. Like a new home is gonna magically make me a different, better person. I know that that’s not the way it happens. I know that I need to actively make changes in my life if I want a fresh start, and I also know that I don’t need to wait ’til I move to a new place to make a fresh start; I can start making changes today.

What changes do I want to make? I know I need to be specific to get anything done, but sometimes it’s just a feeling I’m looking for, or I’m imagining my life in images rather than actions. So I need to define what I want. Right now, what I’m looking for is:

– a healthier sleep schedule (staying up all night writing is fun, but I prefer getting out of bed early, writing/reading while I drink my first cup of coffee of the day, and the feeling of possibility that comes with having a whole day ahead of me; a night owl schedule is fun for a bit, but I end up getting sick & cranky)
– a space that makes me feel inspired (my current home is perfectly beautiful and I have probably written more in this apartment than all my other apartments combined, but it’s time to move on, and having a new space tends to re-energize & inspire me)
– save my pennies! quit making impulsive purchases! eat cheaply & deliciously!
– drink more water

So now that I’ve written a list of changes I want to make, the task now is to figure out how make those changes.

One trick I’ve learned to wake up early is to set my alarm on the other side of my bedroom, so I have to get up to turn it off. Once I’m up, I’m less likely to go back to bed and curl up under my blankets. Another trick I’ve learned is to fill my coffee maker before I go to bed, so when I wake up, all I have to do is flick a switch and coffee is now being prepared. I also make sure my blinds are open when I go to bed, since the sun rises across my bed as I wake, and I know that I like to do something creative right away, so no matter where else the rest of the day takes me, I still begin with a sense of accomplishment and meaning. I go through phases with my sleep schedules, falling out of my healthier habits and into unhealthier ones, then trying to get back on track again. It’s a hard to maintain consistency, and I know I can’t do it all the time, but it’s worth trying.

Do you have any tips for maintaining a regular, healthier schedule? What works for you?

Having a space that makes me feel inspired is my goal with any place I live. The most basic thing I have done with most of the places I’ve lived thus far is simply painting the walls. My first living-by-myself apartment was pale mint green and I hung up colourful art prints and postcards. When my mom and I lived in a tiny house together a couple years ago, I had two rooms to myself, so I painted my bedroom black & red and got all black bedding, creating an atmosphere that was dark & cozy to invite sleep after dealing with a majorly destructive bout of insomnia, and I painted my other room bright lilac and filled it with colourful things. My current home has a lavender livingroom, sage green bedroom, and yellow kitchen. I don’t know if I’ll be painting my next place, but I am already planning where I’ll put my furniture and what I’ll put on the walls.


My gorgeous purple desk, found at a yard sale, spraypainted in my old back yard.

For me, it’s important to live in a place that expresses my personality. I don’t like living in places that feel temporary, or places that look like they were decorated by an uninspired landlord. No matter where I am or how long I’m gonna be there, I need my living space to feel like a home. It gives me a place to enjoy spending time in, look forward to coming back to, and it helps me take good care of myself.

What do you do to make your place feel like a home?

As for saving money, moving is gonna help me out with that since my rent will be cheaper (I’ll be living with roommates for the first time in five years! Adventure!), and I’m also trying to make better decisions about the food I buy. I do like to treat myself to fancy soy lattés now and then, but it’s not something I can do everyday, or even every week, so something as simple as a vanilla soy latté can actually be a bit of a special occasion for me.

Learning how to not make impulsive purchases is something I am constantly struggling with. Despite knowing it’s untrue, and knowing all the brainwashing that has gone into making me feel this way, I am one of those people who thinks that buying something is gonna make me happy and change my life forever. Whether it’s a book, a notebook, or a dress, I pick an item up at the store and imagine all the changes it’s gonna make in my life. This book is gonna be the best ever and it’s gonna make me write my own book! I’m gonna write the most magical things in this new notebook! Somebody’s gonna fall in love with me when they see me dancing in this dress! And so on… I need to constantly tell myself, This Purchase Is Not Gonna Be Life-Changing. It’s more likely that I’m actually just gonna feel intense anxiety as I throw my money away on something I don’t need, and I might not even keep it longer than a few months or a year anyway.

Also, while I tend to end up expecting This New Thing to make me so darn happy, I also really like getting rid of stuff, clearing out the clutter in my apartment & my brain, and I know that my new clothes are gonna end up in a thrift store, and I’m gonna sell my books to the used bookstore down the street anyway. So is this purchase really necessary?

Another way I prevent myself from making foolish purchases is this: with each thing I consider buying, I carry it around the store with me considering whether or not I really need it. For example, I went to Chapters today and was immediately drawn to their discount rack, which was filled with stacks of notebooks. Notebooks are my favourite! I found three notebooks that I liked, carried them around the store with me, and found another book I was interested in, a discount hardcover copy of a book that’s been on my to-read list for a while.

When I was ready to leave the store (i.e.: when all the bright lights & colourful things & expensive things hurt my brain & my body and I needed to escape), I sat down on the floor and began making my decision. I had three notebooks and one book, and I left with only one notebook. I left one notebook behind because it was too big to use as a daily journal and I knew I wouldn’t like carrying it around in my backpack all the time like I do with my journals; the second notebook I left behind because I was gonna use it as stationery, but I already have a ton of stationery as it is, and there’s no need to accumulate anymore right now; the book I left behind because I don’t like reading hardcover books, and I knew I’d be getting rid of it when I was finished reading it anyway, so why not seek it out at a library once I’ve read all the other unread books on my shelves. The notebook I brought home was a tiny graph paper Moleskine, which I decided to keep because I rarely see Moleskines on sale (50% off!), it’s small enough to carry around with me comfortably, and graph paper is so satisfying to write & draw on. (I am notoriously bad at making decisions, and felt that documenting the process of this seemingly simple decision would be useful.)

As for drinking more water… That’s easy! I try to keep a glass of water beside me at all times so that I always have something to sip on, plus I know that water makes me feel way better than soda or juice or whathaveyou. I even sometimes write down each glass of water I drink to make sure I’m getting as much as I need. Water is also good for preventing headaches, which I get often, so that’s more encouragement to keep chugging it down.

Positive decision-making, and changes to my daily routines, are crucial in my recovery (recovery with borderline personality disorder and alcoholism, to be specific). New notebooks and new living situations are good excuses for fresh starts! So, now that I’ve figured out how to make those changes I wrote in my list, it’s time to actually implement them into my daily life instead of just talking about them!

What changes are you currently trying to make? How would your life be different today if you implemented those changes right now?!

Decisioningly Yours,

P.S.: Have you heard? TELEGRAM: A Collection of 27 Issues is being published by Mend My Dress Press in October 2012! My very first book!

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 Secret Project Revealed: Telegram Anthology to be Released by Mend My Dress Press!

Posted on August 2, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

♥ ♥ It’s true! Telegram: A Collection of 27 Issues is being published by Mend My Dress Press! Read more about it here, and follow Mend My Dress Press on Facebook here! ♥ ♥

In Telegram: A Collection of 27 Issues, Maranda tells tales of daily adventures, friendship, gender identity, falling in love with bicycles, getting tattoos, moving out, going crazy, and their experiences with inpatient hospitalizations. They also write about their relationship with their twin sister, and learning how to take care of their mental health within and without conventional institutions, identifying as genderqueer, getting sober, living a creative and meaningful daily life, and finding reasons to keep on going.

This is the project that has kept me so ludicrously busy over the last few months, that has caused stress and anxiety as I read my past stories, remembered things I had forgotten, and decided which stories to include in the book, and which ones to let fade away. At the same time, it was such an encouraging and magical process, to be reminded of everything and everyone who have kept me alive, content, and sometimes even happy, along the way. I am so excited to finally be able to share this project with you! Colleen and Neelybat have been the dreamiest people to work on my book with, and I am so grateful to them for helping me make this happen!

“Telegram is the kind of zine that made me want to start writing zines in the first place. They write about their personal experiences with enough distance and care that they become not purging, but rather small maps that can help us to look at our own lives and the beauty of how we survive and become more fully the people we want to become.”
– Cindy Crabb, Doris zine, dorisdorisdoris.com

“When I read Telegram, I feel less fucked-up, like there’s another manic-depressive hamster running on a wheel beside me and making each other laugh to pass the time. Telegram makes me look at my life in a simple, non-overwhelming way, and makes me see the connections. Mental health is friendship and friendship is gender and gender is procrastination and procrastination is writing and writing is goal-setting and goal setting is mental health. When my zines grow up, I want them to be just like Telegram.”
– Dave Cave, Everybody Moon Jump zine, Everybody Moon Jump

Maranda is a zinester, writer, and daydreamer, and self-identified weirdo and genderqueer. Maranda began writing their zine, Telegram, as a way to connect with others when they were feeling shy and isolated in their hometown of Lindsay, Ontario. They wrote messages of encouragement alongside tales of depression and anxiety, and traded zines through snail mail. With each zine Maranda made, they learned to become more honest and open, began making friends by photocopying thoughts and feelings and confessions, and found that writing and sharing would be crucial to their survival. Maranda especially loves writing about mental health, self-care, and creativity, sending letters to friends and strangers, and sharing ridiculously personal stories. They currently reside in Guelph, Ontario.

Release date set for October 2012! Oh my gosh!

Anthologizingly Yours,

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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To be true to my own weirdnesses.

Posted on July 11, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

450 days sober. Celebrating by buying books on borderline personality disorder, and having a brief freak-out in a public place that resulted in me destroying private property. Anxiety & insanity are keeping me away from my friends right now and making all forms of communication exceedingly difficult, and I’m done apologizing for it. Sometimes I just need to take a break from everything. Weirdo forever!

The above paragraph was my Facebook status update today. Although I frequently talk about having the internet play less of a major role in my life, it is still one of my preferred methods of communication when I am experiencing the kinds of anxieties and “mental health issues” I’ve been dealing with lately. I have been too anxious to talk to my friends lately (except to apologize for my disappearance); honestly, it seems like the only people I want to be with lately are my sister and my partner, and I might as well learn to be okay with that because I don’t know how long it’s going to last. Each time I try to venture back out into the world, I just feel incapable and small and useless. I don’t know what to say when my friends ask me how I am or what I’ve been up to.

I’ve had some days recently where I want to drink again, and I need to stop myself. I need to figure out why I want to drink, and find ways to solve my problems without booze. At first, I wanted to drink because shitty memories were coming back to me, and I wanted to distract myself and/or erase them. But I know that alcohol would be a temporary solution that would end up causing even more problems, and even more shitty memories I’d want to erase. Then I felt like drinking because I was so fed up with being shy and feeling like I don’t have the guts to say what I need to say and do what I need to do. But again, attempting to drink those problems away would only cause more. 450 days sober is a big deal. I can’t give that up.

I went to the mall today to look for a cheap pair of sandals, but I found nothing, grew exasperated, and found myself wallowing in self-pity in the self-help section of Chapters instead. I bought I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold J. Kreisman M.D., and Hal Straus. I read this book last year when I was at Homewood, a local mental health treatment centre, and it’s time to read it again. BPD is gettin’ me down, friends. I’m not taking good care of myself these days, I haven’t been taking my meds, and I don’t have the motivation to get back into it… yet. Maybe re-reading this book will help me deal with some of my shit. Although there’s always an irritation factor when I read mental health books (because they are filled with case histories and stories that I can’t relate to, and because a large portion of certain books are devoted to describing different types of therapies and how to find a good therapist and I don’t have access to therapy, blah blah), they can also be useful. I don’t wanna totally get well or act normal or anything; I think the onus is on “society”, whatever that means, to be more accepting & accessible to crazyfolk, and not on us to try to pretend we’re sane and fit in or whatever, but at the same time, I do need to contantly learn & re-learn how to be a crazy person and keep myself alive in a world that doesn’t want me here, and knowing more about my diagnonsenses and where they came from and what to do with them is pretty darn crucial. If I can’t have a Real Life Therapist, books and writing and living creatively will have to do.


Sylvia Plath with her typewriter.

A lot of factors are contributing to my current anxieties: not taking my meds properly and not knowing if I want to anymore; resurfacing memories, some of which are almost brand new to me, others of which are appearing in such minute detail that it is alarming; feeling like I don’t have a place in any of the communities in the town I’m livin’ in and wondering what to do about that; feeling like my true-ideal-friendships are never gonna happen; being so goddamned broke all the fucking time and not seeing an end to that and feeling disconnected at a real and heartbreaking level from people who grew up with and continue to have access to the kinds of daily pleasures and conveniences that money can provide; re-thinking what I want to do with my life and how I want to do it. On and on and on…

“To be true to my own weirdnesses” is a quote from Sylvia Plath’s journals, written very close to the end of her life. I am learning how to be true to my own weirdnesses, and part of that means being honest when I am feeling like shit. I write these notes and letters and entries and manifestos not only for you, dear readers & friends & fellow weirdos, but for myself. I need these reminders on an almost daily basis, that’s it’s okay to be weird, it’s okay to be crazy and messy, and it’s okay to be a misfit among misfits (even though it is also sometimes very, very lonely and frustrating). I want us all to learn to be true to our own weirdnesses, whatever that means to us.

Weirdly Yours,

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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Creativity and Jealousy

Posted on June 29, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

CREATIVITY & JEALOUSY: STORIES

Have you ever felt so jealous you thought you might puke and/or cry? Because I have.

Jealousy has been a pretty big problem in most areas of my life for most of my life, and it’s only been within the last couple years that I’ve begun working on those feelings. When I was a kid, I had a hard time going to birthday parties because my friends’ families had more money than mine, so they got fancier gifts that I knew I could never have, and then I grew up to be jealous of lots of people for lots of things, one of the most notable being jealousy/envy of people who make good art, write good things, and especially people who can make a living doing that stuff. It used to be so bad that it would actually incapacitate me; I would simply read a good zine or blog entry or even a single sentence, and then just freeze (and even become angry at someone for creating something so beautiful).

I’m writing both as someone who has experienced a ludicrous amount of jealousy for my friends & acquaintances and their “artistic successes”, and also someone who has been told by others that they have felt jealous about the things I write and the things I do. I still have a hard time creating & sharing; it’s scary on so many levels.

My friend Clara Bee recently asked how we deal with jealousy in the realm of creativity. She said, “ATTENTION ARTISTS: Do you suffer from ~*professional envy/jealousy*~? Does it make you feel like an unproductive, talentless jerk? How do we combat envy of others’ work (and the petty in-fighting it can lead to)? What are your strategies? Should we be gentle with ourselves? Firm? Both? Like tofu?”

The journey to even begin trying to understand my feelings of jealousy started with this:

1. Riot grrrl politics, especially these two parts of the riot grrrl manifesto: BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-hierarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations and BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviours.
2. Realizing I was quietly & secretly jealous in my relationships and that my jealousy was destroying my self-esteem and mental health (and my crummy self-esteem was creating more jealousy / feelings of I’m not good enough, etc.).
3. Knowing that if I don’t create, I can’t live, and that I am writing to take care of myself and tell stories and become the person I want to be, and that this is not a competition (and that, in fact, competition is boring & destructive & embarrassing).

Sometimes it wasn’t the art I was jealous of, but the fact that somebody seemed to be having more success than me. This especially bothered me when I felt that what they were doing was mediocre and boring compared to what I was doing (I know that might sound arrogant, but I need to say it). The thing is, I hadn’t figured out what “success” meant to me yet (hint: it doesn’t always mean money & fame & adoration and all your dreams magically coming true at once), and I hadn’t yet learned that the way I perceive somebody else’s life is not necessarily the way it really is. I was really good at projecting all my fears and insecurities onto other people, and letting it wreck me. It’s important to remember that a lot of artists choose to document publicly only the more positive things going on with their lives and their art, and it’s easy for us to forget that they’re also going through a lot of shitty days, times when their self-confidence has disappeared, days when they are feeling stuck and unable to create, days when they are too broke to eat and too sad to make things, etc.

I remember the exact moment I realized my jealousy wasn’t killing me anymore. It was last March, looking at so many zines & books on the shelves at Quimby’s in Chicago when I was there for the Chicago Zinefest, and just knowing that all those wonderful things people were writing & doing, I could do those things, too (or different things), and I didn’t feel like they were better than me, ahead of me, more interesting than me, cooler than me, blah blah… I reached a point where I realized my life was finally coming together the way I wanted it to, and I suddenly felt inspired, capable, and determined.

CREATIVITY & JEALOUSY: HOW TO DEAL

1. Write down what your jealousy feels like, why you feel jealous, who or what you feel jealous of. Be disgustingly honest. Nobody else has to read it.
2. Write down ways you feel inadequate in your art. Now write down the opposite.
3. Allow yourself to feel jealous and make art anyway.
4. Learn how to be inspired without emulating somebody else’s style. Be more like yourself, not more like somebody else.
5. Ask yourself why you are making what you’re making. Find reasons to keep on going regardless of jealousy, envy, frustration, etc.
6. Know that there is no limit to your own creativity, and that there is more than enough room in the world for all of our art.
7. Know that you have your own voice, and that your voice is valuable and necessary.
8. Understand that creativity is more about process than outcome. Learn to love the process at least as much as the result.
9. Know that somebody else (a friend, an acquaintance, a stranger) succeeding does not mean that you are failing. What you do might seem less visible or less popular than what somebody else is doing right now, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worthwhile or valuable.
10. Talk to artists/writers/musicians/whoever you’re really into. Talk about how you’re feeling, ask them how they deal, ask them about their processes, tell them about yours. Maybe some of them are actually jealous of you! Share stories and encouragement, work together, organize together.

BOOKS TO INSPIRE YOU

What It Is by Lynda Barry
The Sound of Paper: Starting From Scratch by Julia Cameron
Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg
Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day by SARK
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev

QUESTIONS

Do you ever feel jealous of other zinesters, bloggers, writers, musicians, illustrators, and artists? What is it that you feel jealous of, and what do you do when your feelings of jealousy get particularly bad? Have you found ways to move through your jealousies and make art anyway? How do you react to your friends’ & acquaintances’ perceived successes? What are your current strategies for dealing with jealousy & envy? Would you like to change those strategies? How did you come to believe that the things you make/write/draw/play/sing aren’t good enough? Are you willing to do the hard work necessary to unlearn those beliefs? What books and zines and websites and artists inspire you? What art are you going to make today?!

Unjealousingly Yours,

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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Dear Diary: Can we talk about self-injury without making fun of ourselves?

Posted on June 6, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

Dear Diary,

I have eighteen fresh scars on my arms, and I’m not sure why. What I do know is that I wanted to be invisible today, but I couldn’t, and maybe this was second best. I don’t have the guts to tell my friends, but I’ll tell you: cutting still helps me feel better. I’ve quit before. I’ve quit cutting so many times. But I can’t think of any good reasons to quit anymore; if cutting is actually hurting me, I can’t see it. The only reasons I can think of to quit are not based on my own needs and wants, but those of others; scars make other people feel uncomfortable, self-injury makes friends feel like they aren’t offering enough support, cutting is something sad teenagers do…

When I read Cutting & Self-Harm: The Stigma & The Aftermath on Gala Darling’s blog, I was glad she’d written about it, but was left feeling like something was missing. It occurred to me later that her story of self-injury was one of “overcoming” (a word I will always detest), and seemed to write off self-injury as something a bunch of us do as gothy, angsty teenagers, and then grow up and out of it. Okay, so I was a gothy, angsty teenager once upon a time, but I started self-injuring as a child, and have continued through my twenties. Cutting, and other forms of self-injury, are not something that started overnight for me, and not something I have come to feel distanced from. I’m not concerned with hiding my scars, nor am I concerned with learning how to accept them. While I can relate to the story she tells of being the weirdo who was obsessed with the Manson Family and other murderers and serial killers, to wanting to be seen as that tragic fucked-up figure sweetly & sadly destroying themselves, to thinking that my scars looked cool; and to, like Gala, having experienced being with friends who cut themselves, people who carved my name into their arm, carving “choice words” into my own flesh, and to using therapy only as a means of getting out of school early… I am also just so darn tired of that story. At least, I am tired of that being the dominant narrative of self-injury.

I still find it difficult to talk about self-injury without a) being self-deprecating, or b) censoring myself. (Secret: This is not really a diary entry! My family is going to read this! People I love are going to read this! And they might be tired of worrying about me.) I’ve been guilty of telling a story similar to Gala’s, but mine doesn’t have the same happy ending. There are a lot of stories I have trouble telling without making fun of myself, and I’m sick of it. Can we get past the story of teenage angst and low self-esteem and talk about why we’ve chosen to continue cutting ourselves throughout adulthood? Because I know I’m not the only one.

You know what? We don’t even have to discuss it right now. If we could just admit to it and not feel ashamed, that might be enough.

From Gala Darling’s blog: “I never thought to use Vitamin E oil on my scars, which is probably part of why my left arm still looks totally gnarly. I edit it in pictures, mostly because I don’t want to have to answer any questions about it, but also because I don’t want anyone — especially a young impressionable girl — looking at it & thinking it’s cool, or that I would encourage it. Writing about it is different, because it gives it context. A photo is too easy to misinterpret.”

While I understand hiding scars in situations where you don’t want to answer questions about it, this paragraph really upset me to read. I know it’s Gala’s decision and I should hardly have an opinion on it, but my first thought was that hiding the scars is not only an internalization of stigma, but perpetuates it as well. That she would feel images of herself might lead to others’ harming themselves is just sort of disappointing. I want to believe that, if anything at all, it would make her seem more human, more relateable, but maybe I am just naïve. And maybe it’s none of my business and I should let it go. It’s just that it all got me thinking about it so much, and I don’t really want to let it go just yet.

Despite my criticisms, I do think her entry about self-injury was beautiful and inspiring; it took a lot of guts to share it, and I’m grateful that she was able to. Some of her words, and the tales of others she included in the entry, were useful and encouraging. Just, you know. It felt like something was missing.

Dear Diary, I told you I cut myself yesterday. Someone on the outside might wonder why I would cut myself when I have so many good things happening in my life right now. (I hate to break it to you, but Good Things Happening does not turn off the crazy-switch in my brain.) I don’t think cutting is the worst thing in the world; I don’t even think it is necessarily unhealthy or problematic. It’s just that I can’t always define what led me down that path, or where I am trying to go.

I had a hard time leaving the house yesterday. Lately, I have had difficulty going out when I am alone, and I’ve finally traced this current anxiety & fear & craving for invisibility back to yet another gender identity crisis. I don’t like to admit when my gender is becoming a problem again because I’m sick of talking about it, but I am in a place where I am so extremely aware of it that sometimes I just want to hide. It took me at least an hour to decide what to wear yesterday, and I don’t want to admit that the seemingly simple act of getting dressed is still so difficult for me, but it is. It reminds me of being eleven and hiding/swimming in my mom’s t-shirts, of being thirteen and screaming & screaming & screaming that I can’t go to school today because I have nothing to wear (the real reason I couldn’t go to school being, of course, the fact that I was unable to make myself invisible, though I could not articulate that particular anxiety at the time).

I finally forced myself to go out. I went to the post office and mailed a gift to my nana and poppa for their 60th wedding anniversary and then I went to the art supply store to buy pens. I got unexpectedly, triggered at both locations, and seriously wondered why I don’t just keep a razorblade in my pocket like I used to. My mood flew through various extremes throughout the rest of the afternoon, and when I got home, the need to cut myself hadn’t passed, so there you go. That’s what happened.

Right now, I can only compare it to those kinds of days where I wish I could start over, so I take a nap and then drink more coffee and pretend it’s a different day and I am doing all these wonderful things; cutting sometimes gives me a second chance the way a second pot of coffee does, only it tends to reduce my symptoms of anxiety rather than elevate them. All those silly alternatives suggested by books and doctors and therapists have never done a darn thing for me.

Scarringly Yours,

P.S.: Along with the links posted on Gala Darling’s blog, you might find The Icarus Project useful as well.

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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Stay wonderful, weirdos!

Posted on May 10, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

I’ve been working on a secret project, and it partly accounts for why my head and heart have been going to some strange places recently. As part of the secret project, I’ve been telling tales from my past that I have never told before, and examining the situations and circumstances that have led me to where I am today. The age of thirteen, and a period of my life leading up to and trailing that age were extremely pivotal for me, and now that I am twenty-six, those days are now the very middle of my life. I remember my sister writing about her quarter-life crisis a while back, and I didn’t feel like I was going through the same thing at all, because most of my life up until that point felt like a series of minor and major crises, and it was around that time that I felt like I might actually be getting my shit together and doing useful things with my life.

But now I feel it. Not a quarter-life crisis, but something similar, something like having these moments where my past is catching up with me, and I’m trying to figure out what that means, trying to figure out what to do with it all. Getting stuck asking myself unanswerable questions, like, “Am I a good person?” “What do all these things I’ve done actually mean?” My thoughts are spinning off in branches and vines and veins and roots, and it’s hard to follow it all, but I want to. I want to trace each tiny piece and see where it leads me.

I want to create something(s) that embraces, encourages, and sustains the freaks, weirdos, loners, and misfits, because I’ve always been all of those things and I don’t want to run away from it or try to hide it, and I don’t want anyone else to either; I want to be the freak-weirdo-misfit-loner forever, and have the most wonderful days because of it. I dream of creating communities and projects and events that facilitate the radical awesomeness of all us weirdos, where we can have more control over our own worlds, and not be scared to love and talk and write and dream.

Sometimes I wonder how my thirteen year old self would feel about the person I am today. When I see people who remind me of myself at that age, I want to befriend them, I want to hear their stories. I wonder about where they’re gonna end up. I think my thirteen year old self would be at least a little bit surprised that I am not dead, or that I am not in prison for murder. I think they’d be impressed at everything I’ve written over the years, they’d be impressed that I have my own apartment, and that I’ve found some truly magical ways to survive through all the craziness. I think they’d be really happy that I am still a total weirdo. I think they’d be proud of me?

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of my writing from my past. Sometimes I can laugh about it, but sometimes it’s actually really hard to get through. It seems like I’ve been talking myself in circles regarding mental health, and like I’ve been complaining about the same things since I was a teenager, and still not finding solutions, still not being able to change. So I’m working on figuring out how to change some of those things for real, and accept the things that I can’t change. I’ve been complaining for years that I write better than I speak, that I can’t take good care of myself consistently, that I am sick of being so damn shy… And I guess I kind of feel like I know what to do now. I know what I want to change and what I want to accept, and I’m working on those changes each day, slowly.

If I tell everyone my stories, will this keep me healthy and well?
– Tanya Davis, Art

Weirdly Yours,

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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I feel like a mess, and what I really want to say is…

Posted on May 9, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

My life seems to exist in lists and snapshots right now, and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said, “I’m gonna get my shit together… Again… Soon.” I feel like through much of April, I was caught in one of my weird brain things that I don’t have a name for. I didn’t exactly feel depressed, but I did feel distinctly Not Sane. I felt like I couldn’t name any of my emotions, but all of them hurt, even the good ones. My heart beat too fast and too hard and I felt like I was on the brink of tears all the time. I felt lonely, but also felt like I couldn’t be near anyone. I avoided my friends because I felt unable to speak and because I had no answer to the question, “What have you been up to lately?” I felt incapable of so many things.

Then again, last week, I spent two and a half hours sitting under a blossoming crab-apple tree, drinking coffee and reading all about love: new visions by bell hooks, pink petals falling upon me in the breeze, and I texted my sister to say, “I feel really fucking happy and content today.” So, you know. The wariness, exhaustion, confusion, anxiety… It comes and goes.

The lists I’ve been writing lately have names like, Reasons I Might Be Losing My Mind Right Now, and Want, and some of them are unnamed lists of other lists I need to write. At the same time, I have been crossing things off my To-Do Before I Die List, and adding more. I began writing that list three years ago and I want to continue writing it forever and ever.

On April 20th, I reached one year sober. The days leading up to my sobrieversary felt like a crisis. I felt lost and confused and struggled with a strange and strong urge to celebrate by chugging all the whiskey in the world. This brings me to another list, or at least another idea for a list: Reasons I Want to Drink. I am a little embarrassed to admit that one reason I want(ed) to drink was because I still find it really difficult to communicate honestly without some sort of “excuse” to be saying what I’m saying. I’m still working on daring myself to be honest, without apology. One trick I stumbled into that helps me say what I want to say is to simply begin my sentence with, “I want to tell you…” This is similar to a writing exercise Natalie Goldberg writes about in pretty much all her books, which is to interrupt yourself and write, “What I really want to say is…” It forces me to quit dancing around the subject and just fucking say it.

Last week, feeling sad and missing my sister, I got myself a bus ticket to Montréal. She picked me up at the bus station and we checked out a few dumpsters on the way back to her place. Even with my sister, I feel like it is easier for me to write letters than it is to have conversations. I have been drinking mugfuls of earl grey tea, writing letters from diners, and reading down by the Lachine Canal. Thinking about What I Want to Do With My Life.

Reading down by the river.

Amber Dearest writing letters.

Have I ever told you about my love affair with buses? Although I get motion sickness too easily, I adore riding buses. I think of my seat as a little cozy corner that’s all mine for the next few hours. I lose myself in a book. Right now, I’m reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. I used to spend entire bus rides writing in my diary, my handwriting all shaky and black and sad, attempting to record every moment, every conversation, every thought, every little thing. I thought that if I didn’t write it down, it never happened. I was scared to death of forgetting (and later, I became scared to death of remembering).

I know my writing is disjointed right now.

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO SAY IS: I want to change my life! My habits! The way I communicate! I want to stop being so self-deprecating when I talk about my past, I want to wake up early in the morning and write and chug coffee as the sun rises, I want to say nice things to people without being scared, I want to not feel sick and tired all the time, I want to quit thinking buying stuff will make me happy (it never has), I want to work on collaborative projects even though I am a loner and a control freak, I want to feel satisfied with my days, I want to be the weirdo who actually gets their shit together and does wonderful things (I think I’m on the right path?!), I want to encourage friends and strangers to do cool stuff, I want to not feel hopeless, I want I want I want (and that is a sign that I am doing more than just surviving!)… My plan right now is to write a vision of my ideal life, and to read that vision daily and ask myself how I am making that life happen right now.

What do you want (to say)?

Contentishly Yours,

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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New Zine! Real Life: A Magical Guide to Getting Off the Internet.

Posted on April 19, 2012 by marandaelizabeth

Real Life: A Magical Guide to Getting Off the Internet is a how-to and story-telling zine by me and my friend Dave Cave. We both realized we’d been spending way too much time online, and that we always ended up feeling worse when we wasted time on the internet. Sound familiar? Sometimes it seems like everyone is talking about spending less time on the internet, but they’re not actually just logging off and walking away. So this zine documents our attempts to do just that, and to encourage YOU to do the same.

We set challenges to do things like:

– delete your Facebook account for a pre-planned period of time
– don’t check your email unless you’re in the mood to respond to messages
– don’t use the internet first thing in the morning or last thing before you go to bed
– cull your friends lists!!!
– unsubscribe from newsletters
– set limits for how much time to spend online
– and so on…

And we ask questions like:

– at what times are you most likely to update yr pals on yr life via the internetz?
– how often do you check your Facebook feed? Why?
– what is your online persona like compared to your real life self?
– how do you decide when to click “like” and when to respond with actual real words?
– when you’re not online, do you find yourself thinking about what your next update will be?
– do you find yourself trying to condense the details of your day to fit within a character limit?
– how do you communicate with your friends who don’t have FB accounts?
– do you have to tell your friends if you’re not gonna be online for a certain period of time?
– have you ever tried to imagine your life without the internet?
– and more…

Dave and I also intervewed each other about our internet habits, and talked about how our internet-use relates to our mental health. While making this zine, my internet connection at home was disconnected after not paying my bills (broke life forever!), and Dave and I are both continuing our learning processes for how to use the internet wisely, and how to get the fuck away from it.

Get the zine here, and then get the fuck off the internet, for real.

Disconnectedly Yours,

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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