(no subject)
Yesterday I went to a local comics and zine fest and it was good and awesome. I came home feeling like I do every time I attend similar events, feeling invigorated and bursting with the urge to be creative. Of course, whenpreviously encountering this feeling, I wrote about it in my journal and never really followed through. Last night, as I was - my hand to the sky - writing the following words, Being surrounded by others with the same creative compulsion and who find ways to channel their creativity into these perfectly imperfect little books causes me to feel driven to do the same, that old familiar feeling crept over me. It whispered, Oh Pu-leeze; it poked me with memories of every fucking time I had probably written the same fucking words. It sent images to my mind of each damn journal, dating back to 2000, in which I had written them.
Then I told that voice to shut the fuck up, came up with the name of my new zine, and changed the subject by suffering vicarious embarrassment through the Aaliyah biopic on TV.
This morning, though, I had a thing. Revelation? Epiphany? Simple clear thought that makes things seem less awful and repetitive?
I mean, isn't that what I'm doing here? Isn't this what I've been doing since 2008?
Last night, I came home exhausted (as such socially intense events seem to make me) and hungry. I ordered pizza, took a shower, and drowned myself in zines I had picked up throughout the day. With the exception of the brilliant and hilarious X-Files fanzine "They Call him Spooky," all the zines I picked up fell into the Personal Zine category (aside: write the word zine over and over and I'm reminded of when Anna Marie and I first started to grasp onto those strings of friendship that pushed the bounds of our previous manager-supervisee relationship and how she pronounced zine phonetically with a long i and it took me 3 months before I haltingly told her she was saying it wrong). I spent three hours reading about one person's crippling anxiety, another's hopefully nihilistic examination of death, ruminations on friendships lost and gained, and one about a woman's time as a TFA teacher in Philadelphia that took my breath away with its brutal honesty. And yes, I did start thinking about my own imaginary zine and what it would be about and how I would make it visually appealing and how I could send it to these other zinesters and how they would read it and offer feedback and possibly, possibly, I would feel validated and less lonely.
I don't think loneliness will actually kill me, but I can see how it will infect my life in such a way that it will be the fatal symptom that I ignore for years until I am dead. I am lonely almost all the time, and I know - I fucking well know - that this causes me to seek external validation in a way that is almost desperate in its yearning. The main difference between me now and me then (pick a then, any then will do), is that I can accept this and not judge myself for it. Now. So right now I need people to tell me I'm pretty and worthy and deserving of good things and love. I am, obviously, not alone in this. Where those brilliant, courageous zinesters I met yesterday and I differ is that their outpourings of "Tell me I'm pretty" are packaged in neat little books with drawings and quotes and crooked pages.
I have chosen to type my words out on a screen and post them here (and previously: blogspot, wordpress, my-fucking-space, various online forums, and so-on dating back to 2001). It's not a cute little handmade book that anyone can keep forever (or recycle the next day). But the sentiment is the same. Here I am, here are the inner workings of my psyche, here is how I've changed and grown over the past 6 years, here are my losses and gains and how I feel about them. Here.
Like zinesters, I have made and lost connections, gained friends I treasure, and found some other great writers, whose inner lives I find as fascinating as those printed on paper between two covers. I have lived vicariously through them and you, and learned a little about how it is to be someone-who-is-not-me.
I may still do a paper zine. I actually put a silly little one together for the NOLA Queer Book Club Collective table and it felt amazing to create something with my hands and see a finished product. But if I don't, I think it's time to let go of recrimination and self-doubt. Without realizing it, I had already created a space for myself, and cultivated it through the years so that it reflects my own personal corner of the universe. I see this and am pleased.
For those of you who worry that your blogs and such are sad, desperate pleas for attention. So what? Writers from Pepys to Proust to Woolf to Hunter S. Thompson have been putting their personal crap out there for other people to read for centuries. Yes, we want attention. So fucking what? We've been trained since birth to equate attention with love and value, so what better way to help ourselves through difficult times, or seek out others to celebrate great times, than to jump into a space where you know there will be people who care about you, even if it's just one part of you. Do it. Say So fucking what? to yourself and write out your anxieties and hopes and lost loves and plans for the weekend. The only person really judging you for doing it is you.
Now tell me I'm pretty.
Then I told that voice to shut the fuck up, came up with the name of my new zine, and changed the subject by suffering vicarious embarrassment through the Aaliyah biopic on TV.
This morning, though, I had a thing. Revelation? Epiphany? Simple clear thought that makes things seem less awful and repetitive?
I mean, isn't that what I'm doing here? Isn't this what I've been doing since 2008?
Last night, I came home exhausted (as such socially intense events seem to make me) and hungry. I ordered pizza, took a shower, and drowned myself in zines I had picked up throughout the day. With the exception of the brilliant and hilarious X-Files fanzine "They Call him Spooky," all the zines I picked up fell into the Personal Zine category (aside: write the word zine over and over and I'm reminded of when Anna Marie and I first started to grasp onto those strings of friendship that pushed the bounds of our previous manager-supervisee relationship and how she pronounced zine phonetically with a long i and it took me 3 months before I haltingly told her she was saying it wrong). I spent three hours reading about one person's crippling anxiety, another's hopefully nihilistic examination of death, ruminations on friendships lost and gained, and one about a woman's time as a TFA teacher in Philadelphia that took my breath away with its brutal honesty. And yes, I did start thinking about my own imaginary zine and what it would be about and how I would make it visually appealing and how I could send it to these other zinesters and how they would read it and offer feedback and possibly, possibly, I would feel validated and less lonely.
I don't think loneliness will actually kill me, but I can see how it will infect my life in such a way that it will be the fatal symptom that I ignore for years until I am dead. I am lonely almost all the time, and I know - I fucking well know - that this causes me to seek external validation in a way that is almost desperate in its yearning. The main difference between me now and me then (pick a then, any then will do), is that I can accept this and not judge myself for it. Now. So right now I need people to tell me I'm pretty and worthy and deserving of good things and love. I am, obviously, not alone in this. Where those brilliant, courageous zinesters I met yesterday and I differ is that their outpourings of "Tell me I'm pretty" are packaged in neat little books with drawings and quotes and crooked pages.
I have chosen to type my words out on a screen and post them here (and previously: blogspot, wordpress, my-fucking-space, various online forums, and so-on dating back to 2001). It's not a cute little handmade book that anyone can keep forever (or recycle the next day). But the sentiment is the same. Here I am, here are the inner workings of my psyche, here is how I've changed and grown over the past 6 years, here are my losses and gains and how I feel about them. Here.
Like zinesters, I have made and lost connections, gained friends I treasure, and found some other great writers, whose inner lives I find as fascinating as those printed on paper between two covers. I have lived vicariously through them and you, and learned a little about how it is to be someone-who-is-not-me.
I may still do a paper zine. I actually put a silly little one together for the NOLA Queer Book Club Collective table and it felt amazing to create something with my hands and see a finished product. But if I don't, I think it's time to let go of recrimination and self-doubt. Without realizing it, I had already created a space for myself, and cultivated it through the years so that it reflects my own personal corner of the universe. I see this and am pleased.
For those of you who worry that your blogs and such are sad, desperate pleas for attention. So what? Writers from Pepys to Proust to Woolf to Hunter S. Thompson have been putting their personal crap out there for other people to read for centuries. Yes, we want attention. So fucking what? We've been trained since birth to equate attention with love and value, so what better way to help ourselves through difficult times, or seek out others to celebrate great times, than to jump into a space where you know there will be people who care about you, even if it's just one part of you. Do it. Say So fucking what? to yourself and write out your anxieties and hopes and lost loves and plans for the weekend. The only person really judging you for doing it is you.
Now tell me I'm pretty.