▶ today's drink: seltzer water
▶ listening to: Ecstasy by Strawberry Switchblade
Today is October 10th and I'm now 30 years old! About 7 or 8 years ago when I was really in the throes of depression, I went to an astrologer and had my natal chart read for the first time. She basically said I was aging backwards, and that the best years of my life where I'd feel most stable and like myself would be at and after age 30. Later I found out it's because all of my major planets are in fall, meaning they are not in the signs they want to be in. She also totally clocked my mother issues.
Hopefully this last year has basically been cleaning everything up to make way for the good shit coming. I genuinely think they have. Last year I quit my abusive job and I've spent the last nine months adapting to a new one that, while significantly more rewarding, is also much more exhausting. I am also officially blue-collar and low-income now, as opposed to medium-low income before.
My dog Milo passed away this summer. He was 13 1/2 (actually to the day), but it was still pretty unexpected. His kidneys failed in the span of three weeks, from "he's in very early renal deterioration, switch him to this food" to literally not being able to absorb fluids. We'd actually adopted a puppy a few months before because we wanted Milo to be able to pass on some of his knowledge, so to speak. The new puppy is now 7 months old, his name is Berry and he's a lot more active than Milo even at his peak. I'm glad they got to meet each other but it has been hard having to keep up with a teenage dog while also grieving. Milo's death has hit me pretty hard, honestly. I definitely let a lot of things fall by the wayside, zine stuff most of all. I didn't even check anything besides my work email until yesterday. I have a lot of catching up to do now and I think the only reason I'm wanting to now is because it's my birthday.
It's been a bit of a struggle managing my labor, income, and energy. I've had to give some things up for a while because I can't really afford them anymore in one way or another, and the first things to go have been my creative and zine practices. There are some parts I'm not sure if I'll really be able to do at all anymore, like distroing. Other things, like at least making my own zines, I'm now trying desperately to continue in one way or another.
I'm torn because I really love a lot of things happening in my life right now, but I'm worried I will always be just short of some resource to be able to do everything I want to.
All that said, I know my dad would be proud of me. My former middle name, Joy (I took James in honor of my dad when I transitioned), was in honor of my aunt who committed suicide at age 34. Growing up my dad would comment that he saw a lot of her in me, specifically in the blend of arts and academics. He probably also saw her depression in me too, and he always told me that if I woke up one day and I didn't feel better than I had the night before, I should tell him right away. I think he'd be proud of how I've spent so much of my life so far persevering. Things are a lot better now than they were when I was a teenager.
I might as well share my birthday wishes here as well.
I wish to have the resources (time, income, energy, health, and whatever else I may need) to continue making and sharing art, zines, and thought.
I wish for confidence in knowing that sharing on its own is still participation in community, even if I can't always communicate directly with people for any reason.
I wish for inspiration and capacity to align regularly.
And I wish for my very own pair of Birkenstocks.
▶ today's drink: Pepsi from my travel coffee mug
▶ listening to: The Wolf by The Brat
I swear, did I like neglect to do a zine trade with a mischievous spirit who has now cursed me with a monkey's paw for zine fests? It must be, because what other possible reason could there be for a sudden snowstorm closing roads in my county only on the single day I was to drive two hours for the first zine fest I'd have done in over a year and a half? I'm a little miffed with the weather departments too for claiming it would be max 1-2" snow literally while we'd already had 4" and no sign of slowing. Anyway, all this was yesterday, and when I got up this morning it was snowy but clear and bright, perfectly fine to drive. Ugh.
Anyway, as soon as I saw I would not be able to leave the house, I of course emailed the organizers. I didn't want to miss out on meeting other zinesters and sharing zines and all the fun, so I made a flyer I asked the organizers (who were librarians with easy access to color printing btw) to print out and have at my table/area, put up on maybe a book stand or something else upright for people to see, so I could still connect with people. They were super nice and said of course, so as far as I know this flyer did indeed represent me. I'm actually pretty proud of the flyer because I think it's cute so I want to show it off somewhere for, I dunno, posterity or whatever.
The text said:
Hi everyone, my name is Wesley! I run Twenty Two Zines, a zine distro and resource hub focused on radical creativity and a philosophy of sharing over selling. I live in Salem, and unfortunately I don't trust the roads to be able to make it today.
I'm really bummed so please say hello to me online! I have lots of resources on my website and I would love to trade zines or send you a free/pay-what-you-want bundle through the mail.
Check my site or email me at twentytwozines@posteo.net! please drop by Twenty Two Zines dot com!
Unfortunately, at least so far, I haven't had any communications from visitors or tablers at the zine fest, so looks like the flyer was a bust. Neocities has like a view counter thing and it looks like there were a few more views on my site, which is great and all and I hope people found some free zines or encouragement out of it, but damn it, I wanted to talk to people! I wanted the tactile experience of shoving a zine into someone's hand and watching them flip through it and reading theirs and making a friend!
And it's never About the Money or anything (I always offer everything for free/donation at zine fests), but to be honest I was also looking forward to getting a little bit of cash for the distro, I was hoping for ~$40, so I could take and pay for a few submissions people have sent me. It's one of those things where I could probably make it happen anyway, but since I'm still unemployed (that's a long story but you can see the first parts on these YouTube videos o' mine), and so I'm very hesitant about spending money on non-essentials, and unfortunately zines are essential to my heart but don't put food on my table. And I already spent $125 I'd slowly gathered over the last year to print more copies of zines for the zine fest that I just missed, UGH!
Anyway, the reason I wanted to make this blog wasn't just to complain about the weather and money, it was also to complain about the fact that this is actually the second time I've had to miss a zine fest, made a flyer begging people to connect anyway, and had absolutely zero personal interactions come as a result. I suppose it's only been a day, so I could give it a bit longer, but given the last time this happened I don't have super high hopes. That time was in I wanna say 2022, and while lots of people were thinking of COVID as over there were still new variants abound and the zine fest was trying to be very health-conscious, masks and vaxxes were required for tablers (except in extenuating medical circumstances), etc. Well of course the day before I started getting a few minor flu-like symptoms, and although I felt fine it could have been COVID and the drugstore tests weren't reading new variants, so I'd have to go into a doctor's office to get tested properly but they were closed because it was a long weekend and I didn't want to go to the hospital and possibly spread it. So I did the same thing, emailed the organizers and said I need to stay home out of an abundance of caution and asked if they could put up a flyer, etc. Honestly I remember their response being a little rude but I'm 100% sure I just felt it that way because I was already grumpy and disappointed and feeling sensitive and I didn't want them to think I hadn't been being cautious in my life so far or have them be angry I'd ended up taking a table from someone else who could have been there.
That flyer did not net me any interactions either. And of course when I got tested it turned out I didn't have COVID and also probably didn't even have the flu, but of course there's no way I could have known that. Doing the right thing is so frustrating sometimes.
I'm realizing all this sounds like some sort of pity-based engagement bait, but I promise it's not about that. I just wanted to meet some local zinesters and have some in-person interaction and I'm just annoyed that mother nature sent me to my room. I'll be honest that I still have some difficulty with online engagement--I have a hard time really feeling like myself or feeling motivated to keep up with conversations through text, email, any messengers or socials. It's not just you guys, I've just always been a talk-on-the-phone person over a text person, despite how it may seem from this long blog, haha! If you're the same way, I'll say right now that it sucks trying to find and talk to other zinesters sometimes, doesn't it?!
I spent the whole rest of the day installing a new blog engine and moving all my old pages over to it so I could feel like I was doing something to further the distro that didn't cost money and I did have fun. Maybe today I'll try to install a comment box for the blog so I can continue to be cagey about responding over text. If I have indeed done so you'll see it below ;)