Miss Teen Ohio

OOTD: ...awhile ago?

2012-01-04T05:02:00.001-08:00

I don't remember what day I wore this, but I did, and I documented it, whilst eating a crispy chicken sandwich from Wendy's. Jango watched longingly:

David Bowie Tee and Polka Dot Scarf: Thrift Store
Red Cardigan: Forever 21
Plaid High Tops: Forever 21 (via Gabriel Brother's)
Jeans: Delia's

It took me an hour or so into my shift at work to realize that I had coordinated my polka dot scarf with Bowie's polka dot scarf on my shirt. Totally not intentional. I've been waiting so long to wear this scarf with something! It's just kind of big and impossible to work with.

Oh and this Bowie tee was $1 at the Village Discount Outlet! ONE DOLLAR.

The New Year Doesn't Erase Old Problems

2012-01-04T04:14:00.000-08:00

So here were my goals last year:

1. decide where to move once my lease is up.
2. read at least half of the unread books on my shelf.
3. don't purchase any more books until #2 is achieved.
4. start a band with jordan.
5. continue writing in my journal, hopefully at least once a week.
6. write a split zine with amber.
7. attend SXSW.
8. not dye my hair until it is chin length again.
9. find a big girl job.
10. continue practicing my guitar and learn to play standing up.
11. GET MY LICENSE.

I accomplished 1, 6, 8 and 10. Jordan and I have been trying to start a band, but it hasn't really happened so I won't count that. And I didn't find a "big girl job" but I found a really cool job that has allowed me to save quite a bit. So maybe that counts?

For 2012, I'm taking it easy again:

1. Stop complaining so much, especially via social networking websites (i.e. Twitter)
2. Finish reading the entire Harry Potter series.
3. Learn to drive and get a car.
4. Play guitar even more.
5. Write more often.
6. Read more.
7. Start paying off student loans.
8. Get a couch.
9. Finish at least one zine before NYC Feminist Zine Fest/CZF.
10. Continue to grow hair/not chop it all off.
11. Find an exercise routine that's simple and will fit my schedule.
12. Be happy.

Sounds simple, right? I took the "daily" or "weekly" or whatever from playing guitar/reading/writing as I think those stipulations were almost making me sort of dread doing those things. I do still want to get to a point where I'm writing in my journal at least weekly if not every day, but we'll see. I haven't even written in it once yet this new year.

I also have been saving and may have enough to get a car soon. I'm hoping this will motivate me to get serious about getting my license. I mean, I'm turning 26 this year. It's about time I get this over with. Savings can also start going to small loan payments and a couch. Looking at this one, to be precise:

I think it would look pretty great with my yellow velvet chairs. Plus it would be nice to have something for guests to sleep on (if I were to ever actually have guests over).

Not cutting my hair has been really really difficult. It's shoulder length when straight now! But considering it took a year to get to this point, it may take another year to get to the length I want and I just dunno if I can hack it (pun intended?):

A little ombre hairspiration via Tumblr

I didn't include it on the list as I'm not sure it's something I want to/will do all year, but I think I'm going to quit drinking for at least a month. I went to our company holiday party the other night and drank more than I wanted to because I felt awkward around so many people and I hate when I use alcohol as a crutch like that. So I'm going to cut back again. Maybe a cider or glass of wine here and there, but no more vodka, especially in social settings!

What are your goals in the new year? Do you even believe in resolutions? Part of me thinks they're silly, but obviously I still try to set them every year.

P.S. - The title of this post is from "Good Talk, Russ" by The Ground Is Lava. Go listen to it/buy their EPs/see them on tour right now with Warren Franklin if you live in any of those cities.

Fembots Have Feelings, Too

2011-12-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

I hope you all saw Robyn perform on SNL this past weekend. If not, here's the clip of "Call Your Girlfriend." Enjoy!

Does anyone love her little squid/octopus jacket as much as I do? Why she is not the biggest pop star of our time is beyond me. She's amazing.

Oh and here's some stuff I wore over the past week or two, mostly just to work because that's all I do:

Shirt: Berea Fest VI
Cardigan: Gabriel Brother's
Shorts: H&M
Scarf: Found
Boots: Hot Kiss (via Gabe's)
Tights: Kohl's (and no I will not link you guys so stop emailing me)
Grey Socks: Chinese Laundry (via Gabe's)

My grey and black day, which followed very closely after my black and white day.

Sweater and Key Necklace: Forever 21
Skirt: Target
Tights: Kohl's
Boots: Hot Kiss (via Gabe's)
Belt and Scarf: Thrifted

I actually didn't wear this for an entire day. I put it on to go to the salon with my sister, as I was treating her to a haircut, but after walking around awhile, I realized this skirt is rather constricting. Which really bums me out because it is SO CUTE. Also, you can't really tell but I was wearing my Hot Kiss combat boots with this outfit and the last one. I wear them with basically everything nowadays.

Sweater: Thrifted (maybe one of the best things I've ever scored!)
Tank top: Clothing Swap
Jeggings: Target
Boots: Unionbay via Kohl's
Necklace: Forever 21

Wore this to work yesterday and only my boss, Randy, complimented my sweater. I mean, come on! This sweater RULES. What is wrong with people? I wore my ankle boots instead of my combat boots, though I did my combat boots on at first. Trying to mix it up.

Sweater and Scarf: Thrifted
Blazer: Pacific Sunwear
V-Neck White Tee: Target (via Thrift Shop)
Skinny Jeans: Delia's
Plaid Chucks: Forever 21 (via Gabe's)
Hat: H&M
Scene Boy Hair circa 2006: Homegrown!

This is what I wore today. Look- no boots! And no winter jacket! It was surprisingly warm out today, so I decided to take the opportunity to wear this amazing blazer I got for $15 on sale at PacSun a month ago. And whoops, speaking of mixing it up, here's the same scarf as that yellow sweater outfit. This thing brightens up an outfit so easily though. I adore it. None of my other scarfs sit as well or are nearly as beautiful. I guess you can't really tell, but I wore a knit black hat, too, because- as demonstrated by the final photo- I didn't shower today and my hair looks ridiculous.

OOTD: Monday & Saturday

2011-11-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

This past Monday, I decided to visit the nearest Gabriel Brothers to my new residence in Cleveland. The Gabe's in Kent was one of my favorite places to shop- besides being one of the few places to buy clothing in Kent that was within walking distance/on a bus line- and I've missed shopping there very much. I was a little skeptical if this one could be as good, but dare I say, it may have even been better! Afterwards, I went out to the mall to return some things to Forever 21 and hang out with Jon, Jordan and Eric. And the following is what I wore! Please excuse the poor lighting and my absence of a head:

Skirt: Forever 21
Black Scoop Neck Tee: H&M
Cardigan: Thrifted
Pearl and Lace Necklace: Candie's
Other Beaded Necklace: Clothing Swap
Sweater Tights: Kohl's
Headband, Combat Boots, and Black Knitted Knee Socks: Gabriel Brothers

You can't really tell in the photos, but I had black knitted knee socks layered over my sweater tights. This combo, along with my combat boots (which are Hot Kiss brand, only $15!), has become a staple for me this fall. I feel very 90s grunge in it. Cute and warm!

Today, I had to work 3-11 at the bar. It was very warm for late November in Ohio, and it put me in the mood to wear a dress, even if I would be stuck indoors for most of the day. I decided to bust out this thrift store gem that I've not worn since I let Jon borrow it for our Bikini Kill cover show last Halloween:

Jon and I last Halloween, pre-coupledom.

Obviously, he wore my dress rather well, and I think I've been intimidated to try it since! Not to mention it's a little bit big on me. I decided to go with a black and white theme, and I think it turned out well. My one boss made sure to tell me how good I looked so that must be a sign that I did something right, right?:

Dress: Village Discount Outlet
Cardigan: Thrifted
Shoes: Endless.com
Sweater Tights: Forever 21
Necklace: Hot Topic (Clearance Rack!)

turkey day!

2011-11-24T02:25:00.001-08:00

pug loaf! don't worry, you'll understand if you keep reading.

today is thanksgiving. i have really mixed feelings about this holiday every year, personally (beyond, ya know, political objections to the holiday). as a kid, my mom was still vegetarian, so thanksgiving had a different meaning for us: RATLOAF season. what's ratloaf, you ask? to be honest, i've asked my mother in the past, but don't quite remember. it's essentially some kind of TVP veggie meatloaf concoction, but to be funny, my mom would shape it like a rat and give it a little black olive nose. i don't have very fond memories of ratloaf, and was always jealous of other kids having big turkey dinners and leftovers. (note: i tried to find a photo of ratloaf to share with you all, as i thought there was one on facebook somewhere, but alas, no luck. so you get pug loaf instead!)

then for years, after my dad passed away, thanksgiving and christmas were the only two days out of the year i would see his side of the family. usually, it would go something like me getting real upset that i hadn't heard from anyone since the previous christmas, then i'd give in and call my aunts the night before or the day of thanksgiving and they'd say "oh we miss you! come over!" then i would show up and get drilled about my life choices by people who didn't care to be a part of said life the other 363 days of the year. once i got tired of the fact that i was the only one ever calling, i spent a few years alone, working, or at a friend/boyfriend's place, but still really bummed to not be spending the holiday with my own family (i.e. my mom's side of the family, whom i am much closer to).

last year was the first thanksgiving in quite some time that i remember us spending together. my sister and her boyfriend hosted at their apartment in tremont, and she made an AMAZING turkey. i was still pescetarian at the time but i cheated and had a few pieces. for the occasion, i decided to try making vegan pumpkin cheesecake, and was really pleasantly surprised by how well they turned out! my grandma even told me that had i not said anything about it being vegan, she wouldn't have known the difference.

this year, i'll be spending thanksgiving at my boyfriend's, and finally meeting some more of his family! i was going to make the cheesecakes again just for myself, but found out jon's one aunt is vegan, so i made two and will be taking them over!

the photo makes them look a bit greenish, but they are really a beautiful orange and i cannot wait to try them again! i got the recipe here, but altered it just a tiny bit (as in, rather than using nutmeg and ground ginger separately, i just used a teaspoon of premade pumpkin pie spice, and then cut the cinnamon down to 1/2 teaspoon, since there's already some in the pumpkin seasoning). i do find it easier to blend half the ingredients for each pie at a time, as it's kind of a lot to blend at once, but maybe that's just because i don't have the best blender in the world. also, the recipe makes a teeny bit extra filling than you really need for a typical pre-made crust. last year i bought some of those little individual serving crusts and filled those with the extra mix. this year, i just let the filling overflow a little bit. they seemed to flatten down a bit after baking and cooling.

if you're in ohio/PA/wherever else there is a giant eagle, double check your cans of pureed pumpkin. there was a recall on food club and valu-time brand canned pumpkin. i found out at giant eagle because i'd found a single can of food club brand pureed pumpkin, and the self-checkout wouldn't let me scan it. a cashier came over and informed me about the recall, saying they thought they'd pulled all the cans off the shelf but i guess that one snuck by somehow! you can read about it here. they haven't really said what the exact problem is, and no one's gotten sick yet, but it's probably best to double check what you've got/maybe even used by now.

lastly, but most most importantly, it's my best friend natasha's birthday today! she is a wonderful person/poet/friend/mother of the smartest little girl, isabella, and i love her very much. way more than this silly holiday, no matter how emotional i get over it. happy birthday, lovely.

this is how i disappear(ed)

2011-11-24T01:15:00.000-08:00

it sure has been some time since i last updated this blog. i got a tumblr awhile back and have done the majority of my "blogging" there since summer, but also, i moved to cleveland in august and haven't gotten internet set up at my new apartment. i occasionally walk over to gypsy beans, the nearest coffee shop, to use their wifi, or use my phone as a mobile hotspot, but for the most part i am online way less often than i once was. and that's a good thing! i was spending far too much time on the internet before. now, when i'm not working (and i work quite a lot these days) or spending time with jon, i either watch movies, attempt to work on the next issue of my zine, or read harry potter. i'm working through the entire series for the first time! i read the first three as they came out, then gave up on the fourth for some reason. i'm halfway through the 4th now and thinking "if i'd only read one chapter farther back when i got this book for christmas years ago, things would have gotten REALLY interesting!"

mrs. WEALSEY? (i think this was in the third book)

but telling you all about my life as of late is not the reason i am updating! instead, i want to announce that despite my lack of internet, i still want to attempt to start posting here a little more often. as a few of you may know, i was trying to run two other blogs for awhile- a style blog and a food one- but they had very few followers and i gave up after only a few posts on each. so, i've decided just to combine all three blogs- so this one will discuss fashion, food, my personal life and whatever the heck else i feel like talking about!

like, my hair for instance.

(warning: lots of photobooth pictures of myself making dumb faces ahead!)

i decided back in february to start growing it out for the first time in years. at that point in time, i had already let my mia farrow-esque pixie cut grow quite a bit shaggy:

SASSY.

the past nine months have been a serious labor of love. i originally told myself i wouldn't dye my hair at all until it was the length i wanted (i.e. way past my shoulders- a length i've never had in my life). once i made it to chin length- which took a little extra time as the "trim" i got in march or april to get rid of some split ends put me back to pixie length- i couldn't take it anymore. i decided to "reward" myself for getting my hair that long, and i bleached half of it:

this felt like my sixteen year old punk rock dreams come true.

then bleached all of it/dyed the darker half red:

eventually i dyed it back to brown and realized i never should have fried it like that to begin with. i had my friend lynette trim the major mullet i was rocking sometime in the summer, but other than that, it's just been slowly growing, and it finally feels like it's actually getting somewhere. however, lately, i'm experiencing something really strange. my hair is just about shoulder length now. i straighten it almost every time i wash it because naturally, my hair is some strange kind of wavy that just looks like an awful poof on my head if i don't style it. evidence:

attempting to look like one of those girls in a commercial for a frizz controlling product.
but seriously, this is what my hair does when i dry it, with no product.

now that my hair is hitting my shoulders, however, it doesn't want to stay straight. instead, it's flipping outward:

the most up-to-date photo of myself! taken just hours ago as i waited for my vegan pumpkin cheesecakes to bake.

it's kind of cute, i suppose, but also frustrating. the only solution i've thought of so far is to throw a bump-it and a headband into it and act like i just walked out of the 1960s. but i haven't been quite brave enough to wear it out of the house. what do you think? this was just a test run, not actually styled/sprayed into place:

i've also been fighting the extreme urge to dye or cut my hair for about two weeks now. i thought maybe after a few days it would pass, but it's still there. i even bought a box of burgundy hair dye awhile back and it's in my closet, taunting me. maybe i should just shell out the bucks and get extensions? i am SO READY to be done with the awkward length growing process.

RIP JDV / scattered thoughts on being a woman in my local scene

2011-05-29T23:14:00.001-07:00

this weekend, i attended the final joie de vivre show at rawk space in rockford, illinois. i went with my boyfriend and his band, the ground is lava. the above picture was taken by yours truly at the end of the night.

for their final show, JDV asked a ton of their friends' bands to play, and it became an all day fest. in all honesty, TGIL and annabel were the only bands i really knew. i'd heard of a few others, and have seen some of them at shows here in ohio in the past, but wasn't too familiar with their music. that goes for JDV themselves. regardless, without even knowing the bands/songs, the energy in that room was so great. even though the whole thing started at 2 PM and went til about 1 AM, most everyone was there the entire day. and they stayed stoked the whole day. every band had kids singing along and dancing and crowd surfing. it was hard not to feed off of how happy everyone else was, whether i knew the bands or not.

but i have to say, i couldn't escape thinking all day about what a white, cis-dude-centric sort of day it was. yes, there were cis-women and non-white people in attendance, but looking at that photo- which consists mostly of just band members and not the audience- you can see what i mean.

i was somewhat bummed while taking the photo because here were all these guys piling on each other for what i'd heard a few refer to as a "bro-shot" or something like that, and about five of us girls stood back to take said photos. obviously, a few ladies made it into the shot, though i think only 2 or 3 played in bands that day. it felt like all those quotes you hear from riot grrrls, how back in the day, girls were just at shows to be "coat hangers" for the guys. in this instance, we were there to document them.

i guess it kinda ties in to how the same day, my friend scotty (from annabel/northwestern) was talking to me when we took a break to get a few drinks at a nearby bar. we are both from the kent/akron area and he lives in a house that does a lot of shows that i attend quite often. he was telling me how he doesn't want me to feel alienated at shows there, and that he wants me to know that he's got my back if anyone ever offends me or makes me feel uncomfortable. he also said something like, "bri, you are a part of this community. you have a say," which almost made me cry because so often i feel NOT a part of our scene here in kent/akron/cleveland, overlooked or just taken as some dude's girlfriend. in reality, i've been making music and playing shows since before some of these guys were even old enough to be allowed out of the house late enough to attend said shows, i just am not currently in a band active enough to be recognized as part of the scene.

it was just so sweet of him because when i tried to address this issue in the past with someone else who lives in the same house, i was dismissed and told that i need to stand up for myself. i tried explaining that it's not always so easy to do that, especially when you're one of five ladies in the whole place and everyone assumes you're just somebody's girlfriend, and not a musician yourself/interested in the music. even more so when some of those ladies don't mind the sexism, so ya know, the dudes can play it off like "well SHE isn't bothered so obviously you're just being over-dramatic."

this isn't even getting into instances of anti-gay slurs or racist remarks that get by at these shows. i mean, even at the JDV finale, two young white girls kept telling my boyfriend how much he looked like their friend, then when their friend arrived they introduced the two of them to say "look how much you look alike!!" but of course, they looked nothing alike besides being skinnier black guys. i only caught the end of it, and i didn't really know if it was my place to call these girls out on how ignorant and racist that is, but it just added to some of the sadness i was feeling over things still not being as inclusive as we, as a scene, try to pretend they are.

there were other things bothering me, too, like the crowd surfing/moshing that kept me from standing close at some points. while on one hand, i enjoyed seeing people so enthusiastic over the music, and seeing kids crowdsurf and dance for TGIL made me smile wide like a proud mama, i also don't like getting kicked in the face. and i like being able to stand close so i can watch how everyone is playing, look at pedal boards, etc. i also was feeling uncomfortable with how many guys were taking their shirts off- an assertion of dude privilege i had never considered much until i read lauren denitzio's essay on sexism in punk (which has grown into a several part series that if you haven't read yet, you really need to. immediately).

i guess what i'm trying to get at is that it was a really tough weekend. because as much as i loved the energy, how happy all of my friends were, and getting to spend time with them/spend time in another city and all, i wasn't getting away for the weekend like i originally thought i would be. i was instead further submerged into the reality that there is still sexism in our scene, along with racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and so on, and came home feeling more lost than before, unsure how to address any of it. so i wrote this.

EDIT: just a few more thoughts. i totally get that the weekend was about the end of a great band, and i'm not trying to make people overlook that, or say there was nothing good about the day. like i said, it was a super posi day, which is awesome! i was really happy most of the day, there were just moments that got to me, and reminded me of the kinds of things that happen back home (though in a way this scene really extends throughout all of the midwest). shit, these things happen at berea fest even, and that is kind of the highlight of my summer every year! i generally don't say anything because i'd rather just remember the good moments, but i feel like these are things we shouldn't be ignoring.

also, i know i said a bit about people assuming i am just some dude's girlfriend when i was, in fact, attending the show with my boyfriend, who's band was playing. so, in the case of this particular show, i get why people might think that. but it is pretty much always assumed of me at a show, whether i am dating anyone or not. it is assumed of most women. it's why we get this condescending question of whether we're with the band or in the band that i've rarely seen posed towards guys. so yes, i am dating someone in a band, but i am also a musician, i am also interested in this music and this scene, and i have been long before he came into my life.

great texts i got tonight

2011-05-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

from two of my favorite people. i feel the need to document them cuz they made me laugh.

1) jon threatened to tell the wendy's employees at the drive-thru what great boobs i have (cuz, uh, yea, we were discussing how awesome my boobs are, ok?) awhile back, we were at the speaker ordering food and he looked over and said how beautiful i am. he then proceeded to be sure all the people working could hear by shouting it into the speaker. when we pulled up to the pick up window they were all walking by to look at me- which sounds kinda creepy typing it out. i was embarrassed, for sure, but i also found it funny and was all giddy over the fact that he didn't care about telling anyone around how beautiful he thinks i am (and THAT is really sweet, isn't it? he's the best). well anyway, that's why he joked about telling them about my boobs. when i said i would hide in the backseat if he did, well, this conversation happened:

jon: i will not let you!
me: you cannot stop me! you'll be driving!
jon: i will figure out a way! i'll put a pug in the front seat
me: you are sneaky!!!! i will just have to remember to not be lured in by a pug trap
jon: i'll get you because i'll have a whole army of pug puppies in the front seat so you'll be distracted
me: aaaaaaah! i would totally forgive you for telling wendy's about my boobs if you had an army of pug puppies

srsly. i would. AN ARMY OF PUG PUPPIES. he knows my one true weakness. later, when we said goodnight, he called me "boo bear cuteface smooshy sugar coated candy head" and i called him "puffysmooch babeasaurus rexington". yes, this is what texts between my boyfriend and i look like. HAVE YOU PUKED YET?! (it is our ultimate goal as a couple to be so cute it induces vomit)

2) a drunk text from serene! (one of my closest friends)

serene: bri. i'm fuckin drunk drunk and i fuckin love you.
me: lol. i'm fuckin sober sober but i fuckin love you, too.

but then she got real on me and i almost cried. doesn't help i already cried like three times today cuz i'm a stereotype and my lady time makes me super emotional about EVERYTHING. but seriously, this would make me cry either way:

serene: really, you have no idea how much i appreciate you. when i move away (hopefully!), besides my family, you'll be who i miss most. you're amazing. i'm so glad you're in my life. i've grown so much with you. you're my most successful relationship!

i love that girl. it's really hard to think about the fact that when i leave kent after this summer, she won't be right up the street. and even harder to think that once she graduates and finds a job, she might take off to somewhere really far away! much farther than the 45 minute drive between kent and cleveland. but she also told me that if she ends up out west and is stable enough, she hopes to my contact out there if i end up choosing to move there, too (as i've often mentioned wanting to end up on the west coast at some point in my life).

so how about you? got any good texts to share?

grrrly spa night!

2011-05-07T11:38:00.001-07:00

last night, my friend lauren hosted a grrrly spa night, complete with an appetizer table, homemade all natural facial cleansers/masks, a rose petal/epsom salt/orange oil foot bath and a clothing swap! it was too much cute for me to handle, and just the kind of relaxing night i needed. here's some photos!

the appetizer table: bruscetta, mushroom pate, corn salsa, zucchini fries, jelly beans, licorice, and sangria!

sarah dippin her toes in the foot bath (before washing her face in it lol)

the lovely hostess, lauren, applying an oatmeal-yogurt mask to her nose. meep! so cute!

jayni striking a pose as she tries out the pineapple cleanser.

sarah and her separate, heated oatmeal mask. her first question: "can i eat it?"

out of the swap i got a fabulous floral polyester dress, a red sweater that was just made to go over the dress i wore to the party, the grease soundtrack on vinyl, a tiny black purse with big ol' polka dots inside (just what i've been looking for!), an olive green 3/4 sleeve cardigan, and the most badass jazzercize leotard. it's lilac with...well, THIS on it:

WORKOUT!

i meant to make raspberry bellini martinis for everyone- bought champagne and peach schnapps and everything!- but we were pretty set with the punch bowl of sangria lauren provided. lately i've just been getting excited to try new drink recipes. guess i may just have to host a grrrl night of my own soon?

"please explain feminism to me"

2011-04-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

there seems to be a plethora of guys approaching me and my feminist lady friends lately, asking (or sometimes demanding) us to explain feminism to them. a few lovely people on tumblr posted and reposted a quote from the latest issue of my zine that explains how i feel about being asked such a thing:

if you are truly interested in feminism, or in what your feminist friends have to say, listen to them. read a book. do a little research. it is how we gained the knowledge on the subject that we have, and it is actually a little insulting that you expect us to hand that over to you in some neat little package. and expect to feel a little uncomfortable, but do not let that stop your learning process. this applies to accepting ALL of your privileges. i have gone through it too. women are not exempt just because they are women. - from "motor city kitty" issue sixteen

the thing is, i don't think these guys realize that they are essentially reinforcing their male privilege by expecting us to just tell them how it is, that it is our duty to do so. no one explained feminism to me. by the time i took any type of feminist theory or women's studies courses in college, i had already learned the majority of the things my professors presented to the class on my own- because i truly wanted to know. when these guys tell me they "want to know" it feels insulting, because when i want to know things, i go out and i learn them. i don't expect anyone to teach me (except maybe asking a friend to teach me embroidery or my boyfriend to teach me to rollerskate- totally different!)

i understand that as a feminist, i should be willing to help others learn. and really, i am- that's why i write zines. i know they are usually just preaching to the choir, but i am not as articulate verbally and i know it, so i am doing what i can. having such conversations one-one-one with every guy that asks me to is just too draining- especially when they are going to get defensive and argumentative because the things i am trying to say will challenge their (usually white, straight) male privilege and that's uncomfortable. i get it. but that doesn't mean i have to be the one to put up with it.

i like how my friend lindsay put it in a tweet to me: "i don't see how 'don't treat women like second class citizens' needs outside explanation or perspective."

but just in case it does, check out feminism 101. or go to your local library and read a book (just search the catalog for things like "feminist theory", or try out "the second sex" by simone de beauvoir for starters). or order zines from fight boredom distro. for you guys, you might like "don't be a dick"*- a zine about "sex, porn, consent, 'being a man' and living in rape culture"- it's written by a guy! and no, reading it does not make you a dick (as amber, the owner of fight boredom distro and one of my best friends, likes to point out).

there are so many options out there for you if you truly want to know (that don't involve you expecting other human beings to mentally and emotionally drain themselves for you).

*i am pointing out this particular zine because i've found a lot of these conversations with guys asking me about feminism stem from me posting links to articles online about sexual harassment, abuse or rape. and i also find that these guys tend to respond only to other guys in comment threads, ignoring the many women who have often said the same thing.

chicago zine fest, round two, part three

2011-04-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

saturday morning i did the usual- woke up, showered, got dressed, rushed to put the final touches on my zine. i left by 10, making it to the fest just in time for cindy's writing workshop at 11. i went straight there without saying hello to anyone. i saw maranda in the back of the room before the workshop started and asked her to come sit up front with me. the workshop was extremely intense, making several of us cry- me especially. i'll probably write a bit about that in my next zine, but wow. it was tough and a strange way to start the day. i was so glad to have maranda there to hug me, and when i excused myself to go blow my nose and check my makeup in the bathroom, cindy followed and gave me a huge hug, saying that while the idea is to be brave, sometimes we're still just too vulnerable.

after that i had to leave for awhile as any time i talked to someone i was nearly in tears. i still hadn't had the chance to copy my zine so eryca lent me a discount card for kinko's and i found a nearby one. it was, however, in the hilton and thus copies were 20 CENTS PER SINGLE SIDED SHEET. uh, what?! i didn't realize this until after i'd put $5 onto my kinko's card. silly, flustered me figured i might as well make a few copies of the zine since i'd already spent the $5, not thinking that i could just as easily save that $5 on my card to use at the kinko's back home where copies only cost 9 cents. i made a whole FIVE copies of issue 17 of "motor city kitty" and headed back to the fest, picking up a mint soy latte on the way (ugh, caribou coffee, your lattes are nowhere near as great as scribbles or, dare i say it, starbucks). i ended up not handing out the five copies of the zine, deciding i'd rather just keep working on it once home. so, MCK 17 is NOT out yet! i'm hoping it will be within the next month, though.

asher arrived at the fest and we went to the queer zine workshop led by milo of the queer zine archive project. it was way more relaxed than cindy's workshop as milo just sort of let it be an open discussion. i wanted to stay after for j. bee and jami sailor's panel discussion on zines in academia, but it was already 3 PM and i'd only walked down the first row of tables on the first floor. i walked around most of the 8th floor tables, stopping to trade with a few people and chat. i properly introduced myself to alex wrekk after feeling really awkward as i'd been one of maybe five attendees to the columbus stop of the zines on toast tour yet hadn't said a word to her then. why am i so shy?!

i watched amber's fight boredom distro table for an hour so she could walk around. here's what she looked like behind the table, though!:

i don't know why i didn't take many photos at the fest like i wanted to. i had really wanted to take pictures of peoples' outfits to post over on my fashion blog, but i just got overwhelmed with the whole day. it was nice to take a breather and read a few zines, including amber's half of our split (as i hadn't had a chance to read it until then!) once amber came back i had maybe a half hour to rush around to a few more tables. traded with jake, found jon and eric's friend mowgli to say hello, traded with bree of "adorn", and thanked cindy again for leading the workshop, reintroducing myself as the girl from berea fest with the doris tattoo. then it was all over! the day felt like it flew by even faster than last year. for only having visited maybe half of all the tables, i still made out with a ton of new zines to read.

i made my way back to asher's to rest for awhile and get ready for the out of this world zine fest after party! asher and i took a few photos before i headed out:

(that pink metallic jacket is one of my favorite things but i rarely have an opportunity to wear it!)

then i left again for the party. eryca called me while i was waiting on the bus, saying she was lost and just trying to see if i was there yet to help her find her way. then once i was on the bus, not far from the party, she and megan got on the same bus, so i didn't have to show up alone! we went in, said hello to a few people, then i decided to walk to a nearby corner store to see if they had anything i was willing to drink for cheap. amber, maranda and heather arrived right as i walked outside, and i realized i'd lost one of my favorite earrings.

the walk was kind of far, but nice. i get really anxious when i walk into a big room of people for the first time, and sometimes need to just take a breather on my own. the first store had woodchuck cider but it didn't want to spend $10 of my last $20 on it. the next store was run by an older hispanic man who couldn't really understand what i was asking for. he offered me a six pack of those bacardi mojito things but i said no thanks. i ended up buying a small bottle of smirnoff vodka for $4.75, figuring there'd be something to mix it with back at the party, but then there wasn't. so i ended up just gifting asher with the bottle once home. i tried drinking a miller lite that amber gave me but after half a can, i just couldn't stand it. at 25, i still don't think i will ever reach the level of desperation people say i have to go through one night to get used to drinking beer. and really, i don't know why i was so desperate to drink. the feeling just made me sort of sad. probably because i still associate dancing with drinking and usually need it to loosen up. ugh.

still, the party was fun. the dj went on a bit of a terrible, not very danceable hip hop kick for maybe an hour. i was convinced they were trying to kill the party so everyone would leave. amber and i stood upstairs looking down at the party and talking for awhile. i tried to take an overview picture but it was too dark:

"closer" by nine inch nails came on at one point after we'd been upstairs for awhile and i looked around for someone else willing to dance. maranda was the one! we went down and danced for awhile, then took some prom photos:

(amber, myself, heather and maranda- you can find more of these on the CZF facebook page!)

and then the dj played "i wanna kill" by crocodiles and i was so ready to dance. amy leigh was too! we got a big zinester lady dance circle going and ramsey of "list" (and one of the organizers of the fest) took a bunch of pictures of us dancing:

we kept requesting bikini kill all night but the dj wasn't having it. around 1 or 1:30, amber, maranda, heather and i decided to head out. we stopped by skylark to take photobooth pictures. amber and i took two sets together so we could each have one. i took a set with maranda, then she and amber took one. we all did a set with just one of us in each panel, and then amber took a set on her own. i wondered if everyone in the bar was really confused or if this kind of thing happened all the time.

(one strip missing as i haven't had the chance to scan the second one of amber and i)

heather was kind enough to drive me home. we said our goodbyes and i got a little bummed that i couldn't spend sunday with them as well.

sunday i woke up, packed and said goodbye to asher. i took the train and a bus to my friend emily's, where erika and josh had stayed for the weekend. it's weird how i knew a ton of people from kent who were in town, but didn't see any of them the whole time. erika, josh and i stopped at wendy's for lunch and then we were on our way home. i read a bunch of zines in the car and slept a bit. we picked up their dogs from erika's dad's house then they dropped me off at the kling house where i was greeted by jon with a big hug and kiss. it's funny- i probably wouldn't have even seen him until sunday had i been in town, but i still missed him so much. there was a show at the house that night with northwestern, the reptilian, empire! empire! and the ground is lava. skyla and i got mcdonalds for dinner (so much fast food! yuck!) i watched northwestern then got really sleepy. the reptilian were extremely loud so for the second or third time i just listened to them from the couch upstairs while watching pete and pete with lindsay and skyla. i fell asleep on the same couch for awhile during empire! empire!'s set, then went downstairs to watch TGIL. after the show, jon, jordan and eric drove me home and i was locked out, as heather had pinned the envelope with my key in it to the corkboard inside the house? (when the whole point of the envelope was to leave it in the mailbox so i could get back in haha). had to wake up my roommate to let me in, said goodbye to jon and hello to jango, who greeted me with a hug. yes, my cat hugs me. i pick her up and she puts her front paws around my neck. it's adorable. she's been super cuddley since i got back.

SO. there you have it. my little vacation. coming back to kent has generally been a giant bummer. i spent five days in chicago surrounded by like-minded people, then i have to come back here to, well, just bullshit. i really need out of here. sadly, i went totally broke at the fest. thank goodness i work the next three days! hoping for some decent tips.

were you at the fest? did you have an awesome time? i bet you did. if you weren't, how did you spend spring break (or the plain ol' past week if it wasn't spring break for you)?

chicago zine fest, round two, part two

2011-04-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

friday i woke up, fixed my awesome lilac and silver manicure, showered and worked on issue 17 of my zine (which i was trying desperately to finish before the actual fest on saturday).

(my manicure! only my left hand looked awesome, sadly)

(working on my zine on asher's table)

by 1 PM i headed out for the first reading/panel of the fest. i got there right before the reading started. mostly students read from columbia's student publication, silver tongue (which they kept calling a zine and it somehow irked me?), then there was a panel discussion with al burian of "burn collector" and aaron cometbus of (duh) "cometbus". i could only see half the stage as there was this pillar blocking al and one of the interviewers. i was getting a little panic-y being on my own and not seeing any of my friends in the crowd, but at the end i found amy leigh of twelveohtwo distro, shira (whom i met at berea fest last year) and eryca of "my little friend".

i got invited to dinner at earwax with eryca and others but really didn't want to miss the youth reading at 826CHI. a bunch of us rode the train together and then shira and i went to the youth reading with jen twigg. saw richard, andy gardner and jake snider there. richard sat with shira and me for the youth reading, which was great! as somehow who once taught, and who hopes to continue teaching in some form in the future, i always love to see kids/teens reading. and man do they have more guts than i do! i would have been so nervous reading in front of all those people NOW, let alone when i was 13-18.

there was a half hour or so between the youth reading and the zinester reading. i spotted amber and maranda sitting in the back of the room so i gave up my front row seat to sit with them. jon called me while i was saying hello so i excused myself to call him back. we just chatted shortly, mostly him saying he's in the future (ya know, chicago is an hour behind ohio and what not). went back in and talked with amber, maranda, brittany of "playing victim", emilja of "ship of fools" and a few others. when i told emilja i was from kent/cleveland she told me she hated cleveland. i asked why, and she told me about going on tour with her friends' band and how they played this place in cleveland where kids were just wrecking things/throwing things around the room and it was really violent in general. "was it the tower?" i asked and of course it was. "i'd hate cleveland, too, if the tower was my introduction to it!" i said. because seriously, i don't care who reads this, fuck that place. it's a bunch of macho hardcore bullshit every time i go there.

the zinester readings were great, too. i need better adjectives! maranda read from her latest issue of "telegram ma'am". jake read some poetry. everyone i was sitting near seemed to get upset about a poem he read about masturbating but, maybe it's just because i know him that it didn't bother me. i mean, if it had been a woman reading about masturbation everyone would have been cheering it on, i feel. someone read a story from my friend danielle's zine "zaftzig zen". it was kinda cool to go "hey! i know her! she's from kent, too!" and cindy crabb read from the latest "doris" about a friend who committed suicide and i was holding back tears. she is amazing (more on that in part three).

after the readings, amber, maranda, heather (of "dig deep" zine and the new owner of stranger danger distro), liz (of "yarntea"), her husband, matt, and i got dinner at earwax. upon meeting heather she said "i love your zine!" which was a total first in person, and shocked me since stranger danger had declined it for distro awhile back. but then i remembered that someone else used to run it so obviously the new owner could like different zines! earwax was alright, not as great as i had remembered from last year. we pretty much all got vegan espresso milkshakes (which were stellar) and black bean burgers (which i thought were 'meh'), except liz who got tofu scramble.

it took us awhile to get out of there, but we still made it over to quimby's relatively early for zinester karaoke! i was so happy to see grace standing outside as we approached the store, as she was supposed to be on the same bus as i was coming into town and i assumed she wasn't coming at all since she hadn't been on it. i felt a little awkward at first walking in, as amber, maranda and heather all know so many more people than i do so they had a lot of people to say hello to and what not. plus quimby's is always overwhelming because i want to buy everything! and it was packed:

(don't know who the girl on the left is but i LOVE her skeleton hand barrette)

we looked through the karaoke books but i couldn't find anything i felt brave enough to sing without some liquid encouragement (sad, i know). plus people were singing the songs i would have chosen left and right. "no scrubs", "wannabe", "punk rock girl", "cherry bomb" and "you oughta know" were a few of my favorites.

(maranda singing alanis morrisette! yea, girl!)

(amy, eryca and [a girl who i met but who's name i forgot because i'm awful!] singing "no scrubs")

i had to leave a bit early to catch the last bus to the red line, and sadly missed out on amber's performance. back at asher's, we crawled into bed and watched "the beach" which was horrible and hilarious.

read about day two of the fest, the after party, and returning home in round two, part three!

chicago zine fest, round two, part one

2011-03-30T12:00:00.001-07:00

(one of my favorite zinesters and best friends, amber, and i)

can i even begin to describe what an amazing week(end) i had? well, i'm going to try. [edit: i posted this all at once originally then after seeing amber's first post on her experience, decided maybe i should break this up so it isn't so daunting to read at once.]

tuesday i spent with jon, per usual. he took me to the library to print off my megabus ticket, then to kinko's to photocopy a few things for my zine. we got franklin square deli for lunch (i tried out the motor city bagel again because...i had to!) and i used my punch card at scribbles for a free peppermint soy latte. i am obsessed with them. jon tried it and said "coffee wouldn't even drink that!" we don't agree much on food, it seems. heather stopped by to get my key and to meet the kitties she would be watching for skyla and i until sunday. i packed and worked a little more on my zine while jon took a short nap. once i was ready to go, we stopped by singular practice so i could give jordan a hug i promised him, and then jon drove me to olmsted falls to spend the night with my grandparents. they love him! i had a really hard time falling asleep, so i wrote for awhile and listened to the ground is lava.

wednesday morning i woke up and plugged my phone in to charge while i took a shower. when i got out, i realized my phone's screen wasn't lit, as it should be when charging. i tried a few different outlets and wiggled the cord around, but the thing just wasn't charging, so my grandma drove me to the nearest t-mobile store. of course, i've had that phone for over three years now and they no longer carry it or its accessories, so they couldn't even test out another charger to figure out what the problem was. bummer! also, their systems were down due to the storm going on, so the most the guy could do was tell me i was eligible for an upgrade. he couldn't actually activate a new phone for me. i decided to just find a t-mobile store in chicago and pray my phone would stay alive long enough for me to get ahold of asher once i got to chicago.

went back to my grandparents', ate some stroganoff, then they dropped me off at tower city to catch my bus. we were an hour and a half early. i just wasted time walking around, listening to sleigh bells. once on the bus, i turned my phone off to save battery life, and was EXTREMELY bored the rest of the trip. got a turkey burger from hardee's when we stopped at a rest stop for dinner. i highly suggest none of you ever do this. it was pretty disgusting. we got into chicago a half hour later than we were supposed to, but asher was there waiting for me. we caught up a bit on each others lives as we walked to the red line back to his apartment. found out his place is pretty far north compared to where all the fest happenings were, which worried me at first, but it wasn't much of a problem.

thursday asher worked in the morning. when he came home we went to t-mobile and i got a smart phone! found out it would only cost $15 more per month to have 3G so i said, why not? this was actually a total godsend as i used the maps app a lot to find my way around the city. i didn't feel nearly as lost when on my own as i did last year. i actually spent a lot of time traveling around the city alone this year. it was kind of nice. we then picked up some groceries from target and spent the rest of the evening at starbucks so asher could use their wifi to send out a job application (what corporate whores we were!). we also got a drink and a bite to eat at a bar called fat cat's i think. it was alright but i spent $13 on a vodka tonic and some fries. ridiculous!

read about day one of the actual fest in round two, part two!

stupidest, silliest, most adorable couple?

2011-03-01T23:06:00.001-08:00

tuesday is officially boyfran day! today jon put on a pair of my sunglasses and said "lets take pictures!" i always wondered how couples come to that point where they just start taking photos of themselves without feeling awkward. i still felt awkward, cuz i kinda hate cameras, but jon is ridiculous and made me laugh the whole time. i wanted to post them somewhere, but not all on facebook. so here we are. hope you barfed. it's my goal to make us one of those couples that disgusts everyone.

oh, this is probably the barfy cute one, actually:

sparkle like bowie in the morning sun

2011-02-22T02:26:00.001-08:00

(illustration by Cleo H.- check out her deviantART page here!)

i've started a new blog! it's tentatively called "Goth Is The New Black"- and look! i used proper capitalization in the posts! it is a style blog, documenting some of my own day-to-day looks as well as posting photos that inspire me and what not. so follow me if you're into that kind of thing.

in other news: check out the cover i drew for the valentine's day mix i made for my boyfriend (yeeeaaa i have one of those now. and he's a total babe who i'm head-over-heels for)

i was drawing some diary comics for awhile in this style- well, people with dots for eyes, giant foreheads and no other facial features. i had to add smiles for this because my boy has a great one! plus, ya know, it's valentine's day. i wanted us to look happy. the mix itself included everything from lemuria to prince to deee-lite to the yeah yeah yeahs to peabo bryson and roberta flack. i was pretty proud of its eclectic-ness.

i'm working on a new issue of my zine, which will be a split with amber of culture slut/fight boredom. for one of the first times in years i'm on a serious deadline to get this done. more news on that in the coming weeks, i promise! for now, here's the cover:

hope life is treating you all well!

goals, round two

2010-12-23T01:04:00.000-08:00

last year i posted a list of goals for 2010. here they are again, with those accomplished marked as such:

1. write in a paper journal every day.

2. write a poem a day for an entire month.

3. practice playing my guitar daily.

4. ~~GRADUATE.~~

5. open a punk house with skyla when our lease is up.

6. finish the riot grrrl kent zine.

7. ~~finish more than two issues of my own zine.~~

8. read, at least, a book a week after graduation.

9. write, at least, one letter per week.

10. ~~START A BAND. a serious one. that practices regularly, and plays shows.~~*

11. release an album/ep (whether on my own or with said band.)**

12. write and release a poetry chapbook.

13. ~~go to a zine fest~~

14. visit my uncle in seattle.

15. ~~meet amber forrester in person~~

16. ~~get jango fixed~~

17. get my license (is it sad this isn't a top priority?)

18. ~~bike to cleveland (bereafest?)~~

19. ~~finish my existing tattoo, as well as get my pineapple tattoo with my sister, my teaching tattoo (a drawing by one of my 4th graders from this semester), and any other tattoo i can.~~

20. successfully make over-easy/medium eggs on my own.***

21. ~~learn to bake yummy vegan treats~~, and bread.

*i didn't start a band yet, but i joined my friends' band, like the days, back in march.
**this one hasn't happened yet, but we did start writing material for a new album that we'll hopefully be recording towards the beginning of next year.
***still can't do over-easy well, but i made a perfect poached egg one day!

technically, i didn't get to cross much off this list, but still, i feel pretty accomplished. especially since GRADUATING was a huge huge deal. looking back, this was a lot to ask myself to achieve in only a year. especially with daily/weekly/monthly type goals. and though i may not write a letter per week, or play my guitar daily, or write in my journal daily, i did manage to do these things far more often than i did before.

i also posted a list of some overall life goals. haven't really gotten to any of them yet, though moving out of ohio may happen next year, and i technically went on a three day tour with annabel the weekend after thanksgiving, but i'm hoping to do a real one next summer with my own band or with friends.

so what about my goals for 2011?
1. decide where to move once my lease is up (HAS to be done.)
2. read at least half of the unread books on my shelf.
3. don't purchase any more books until #2 is achieved (thanks to maranda for that idea).
4. start a band with jordan.
5. continue writing in my journal, hopefully at least once a week.
6. write a split zine with amber.
7. attend SXSW.
8. not dye my hair until it is chin length again (doubtful!)
9. find a big girl job.
10. continue practicing my guitar and learn to play standing up (seriously.)
11. GET MY LICENSE (yea right.)

taking it a little easier this time around.

in other news:
tonight was my last night working as an employee of professors pub. i have worked there for almost two years now. the bar has been bought and will reopen in january as "stone tavern." and yes, i will be working there still. it should still be a really cool bar/venue and i'm excited to see what the new owners do with the space. i am not, however, excited to no longer spend nearly every day with brad (the previous owner/my former boss). since reopening professors in july (after we closed in may, thinking it was possibly for good that time around), i have become the senior bartender. for awhile i was brad's only employee upon reopening, and he is the only person that worked at the bar more often than me even since we hired others.

brad saved my ass when he hired me. i had been working at wendy's for two years without a real raise, working 30-40 hours a week for minimum wage. i was starting to feel like a better job was not possible when one night, i walked into the bar with a bunch of friends and shannon- the door guy that night and a longtime friend- asked if i still wanted a job. he introduced me to brad and i was pretty much hired on the spot. started out working door, where essentially i got paid to sit and read and occasionally look at someone's ID, for more than i was getting paid to bust my ass at wendy's! after six months or so i got moved to serving food (while we still had it) and then eventually i got trained to bartend- a skill that will definitely come in handy for quite awhile.

brad and the majority of my fellow employees became like family. especially brad. he's always been there for me, and has been a serious rock for me for the past several months. i really don't know what i'm gonna do when he moves away! just keeping my fingers crossed that he chooses to go somewhere that i want to go to as well.

anyway, this now means i have a month of unemployment ahead of me. i am half excited, mostly because i'm currently financially stable enough to get through a month without working (this hasn't happened in several years), but also half scared because i struggle to keep myself active and feeling productive as is. work is the one thing that has gotten me to leave my bed most days for the past few months. i am bad at that kind of self-discipline. hopefully i will take advantage of this time off. i'd really like to go on a little vacation but i'm not sure where to. i can't spend too too much on travelling. i may just end up spending a week in cleveland with my grandparents as i've been promising them i would since i graduated in may, and i really should try to spend as much time with them that i can, while i can/before i move (as i will probably be moving farther away rather than back to cleveland.)

you can't stop the fire that burns inside of me

2010-11-02T07:09:00.001-07:00

last tuesday we had the halloween cover show at professors. my friends skyla, emily, jordan, and i formed a bikini kill cover band, adding jon in on bass for a few songs at the last minute. other bands played as the foo fighters, alkaline trio (with a misfits cover), the pixies, the smiths in the styling of the misfits and the smashing pumpkins. it was one of the funnest nights i've had in a VERY long time.

i plan to write a bit about this experience for my zine, so i'm trying to keep this short. but i can't get over how much more confidence i have in myself now as a singer. i haven't sung for a band since my first band, so ricki. ok, and two shows with my joke dance-noise band, hasclurhof, back in like 2006. still! that is such a long time.

granted i was singing songs i didn't compose, thus the vocal melodies and what not were already done for me, i found that once on stage i used my own voice rather than the more kathleen-imitating one i'd been using at practice. i think it was partially from just the energy and nerves of being onstage, and partially from still fighting off a cold. but nonetheless, it was my voice.

and everyone loved it! every time i looked out at the crowd everyone was smiling or looked in total awe (which is an incredible feeling, let me tell you!) i got SO MANY compliments on my performance, and people telling me i need to front a band or join their friend's band or whatever. andy, the guitarist for the band i play bass in, asked why i never sing for us (which i found kind of funny because we play cute indie pop, and the way i sang at this show was so completely the opposite of that.)

the first time around, when i sang for so ricki, i got a lot of criticism on my voice- people saying it was too flat or something. and i agree, my voice was awful in that band. i cringe listening back to old recordings. but it made me feel like i could never improve, which made me really sad because i absolutely love singing. i can't help but sing along to songs on the radio, when i'm listening at home, or even while at work. i just do it constantly.

i guess what i am just trying to say is that even though singing someone else's songs, and just sort of trying to imitate them, by the time we were done i really felt like i was just performing as me. and doing a good job at it. that felt amazing.

also, i really love this shot of jon and i singing "suck my left one" together:

getting to spend time with the ground is lava boys (jon, jordan and eric) was just another really great outcome of this experience. sometimes they say silly things, but i don't feel as scared about calling them out on it as other boys make me feel. they are genuinely nice people and i feel awful for prematurely judging them based on the way i perceived them from afar at shows (i know i hate when people do that to me, but i guess we all do it.)

emily and i had been talking about starting a band long before this whole cover show thing, and i think this was the push to really get us going. having people ask "who are these girls? where did they come from?" and talk about how great we were after the show makes us really wish we had something to show, like "here, this is what WE write." so we're gonna try to start working fast. i think we're both eager to play in front of others again, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of music we end up writing. we both have similar interests in a lot of different genres, but as a singer, i'm drawn to do things that are a little grittier, as i'll be the first to admit my voice isn't typically "pretty." we also already have three (!!!) different people who want to drum for us, which is totally crazy because drummers are probably the hardest to find.

i think we're having our first song writing session today if all goes as planned, so more tales in the future!

and duh, thanks to everyone who came to and played the show. it was an even bigger success than i ever imagined it could be!

double dare ya

2010-10-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

guess who gets to sing and play bass in a bikini kill cover band? THIS LADY! i'm sure you can all figure out just how excited i am about this, as bikini kill is probably my favorite band and friggin "jigsaw youth" was my first tattoo.

we practiced for the first time yesterday and i totally surprised myself when i was able to just grab the mic and dance and scream. maybe i'm finally coming out of my shell? i'm sure i will get nervous when we have to do it in front of people, but i've never gone to a band practice and just started singing in front of my band mates right away. it usually takes me a couple practices to feel comfortable doing so, let alone with other people watching (we practiced at jon from the ground is lava's house so he and eric of TGIL watched some of it.) maybe it's just easier/less intimidating because i know the vocal melodies already. but seriously, it really boosted my confidence. plus singing "suck my left one" is probably the most fun thing ever.

the show is on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26TH at 9 PM at professors (110 e. main st., kent, ohio 44240). it's 18+ and FREE so if you can make it, we'd love to see you there.

there will also be sets by the ground is lava as the smithsfits (smiths songs in the styling of the misfits), in their honor (ft. members of underdogs of nipomo & reverse the curse) as foo fighters and annabel as the smashing pumpkins. plus surprise mini sets by some other bands and a rock star costume contest.

SERIOUSLY- BE THERE!

what i've been doing

2010-09-14T03:24:00.000-07:00

-attending the fourth annual D.I.T. fest.
-eating meat on occasion, but always being slightly dissatisfied.
-working most nights of the week.
-purchasing bus tickets, planning adventures.
-really looking forward to being in columbus next sunday-tuesday.
-slowly reading "even cowgirls get the blues" by tom robbins.
-thinking about non-monogamy (thanks to frl.zucker for the link.)
-listening to esben and the witch.
-wishing the annabel EP was out already because their songs are always stuck in my head.
-dying my hair red.
-lying in bed and staring at the clouds outside my window.
-copying "motor city kitty" #15 and sending letters.

what have you been doing? most everyone i know is back in school and busy with that. i am trying to keep productive but most days that just turns into me buying groceries or walking to starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte. which isn't really productive at all. may start working on my next zine soon, though. ideas are floating in my head. need to spend less time on the internet.

2010-09-04T00:51:00.000-07:00

it feels so good when you go through one super shitty week, then follow it up with a pretty fucking awesome one. every day i've felt productive. i worked tuesday-friday and made enough money to replenish my bank account to where i like it. i am smitten, even if from a distance (literally), but also single and lovin it (recent divorcees club hollaaaa). EVERYTHING IS AWESOME.

adventure time!

2010-09-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

summer is nearly over. it already is for all my friends still in school, but for me, it doesn't end until the leaves begin to change and i've got to wear a hoodie every time i leave the house.

sadly, i didn't get to do much over this summer. i worked one day a week at the hookah bar, bringing in just barely enough to pay bills (thank goodness i saved some of my last refund from school to pay the deposit on my new place!)

but now that professors is open again, said-deposit is paid and my rent is cheap, i've got enough extra cash to go on a few adventures. especially when megabus tickets cost $1.

adventures in the works:
A) CANZINE! i found megabus tickets from pittsburgh to philly to toronto (where canzine is held) for only $11.50. i have a ride to pittsburgh for $5 and a place to stay in toronto for two nights with amy of twelve oh two distro.
B) montreal! this is in the works. i am hoping that after canzine i can go back to montreal with amber and spend a few days.
C) the fest 9! i got offered a ride down with a buddy whose band is playing. i've been wanting to go for years and have just never been able to take the time off school/work/life, let alone had a way there. florida in october? yes please!
D) the zines on toast tour in columbus! i know plenty of other kids down there, so it might be nice to take a greyhound down, see the reading, then hang out for a night. or if anyone would be willing to drive a lady that would be even more awesome.
E) philly zine fest! yes, another zine fest. just two weeks before canzine. i might try to catch a late bus on saturday from pittsburgh to philly for $1, go to the fest, then crash for two days and take a bus back to pittsburgh for only $1 more. this is if i can find a ride to and from pittsburgh, or if i wanna pay the $54 in greyhound costs from akron to pittsburgh and back (in which case, i'd probably just take a greyhound straight to philly)
F) ann arbor! i kinda grew up there as my dad moved to ann arbor for several years when i was a kid, and i'd spend the majority of weekends and quite a chunk of time each summer with him there. i just moved into a co-op house which is a part of a national co-op. said national co-op holds a convention in ann arbor each november, and the kent housing co-op would pay for me to go to it (i.e. transportation and food, perhaps lodging). it'd be nice to revisit ann arbor, so i may go.

this all just sort of popped up in the past week. the only definite plan right now is canzine, but i want to do it all!

i know you're all mostly in school still, but does anyone else have any adventures planned? have you gone on any recent adventures? does anyone want to go to any of these events with me (as in, drive)?

your love is so colorful it flashes like a neon sign

2010-08-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

ani difranco has a song for every emotion i've ever felt, i'm quite certain of it. so, as i was browsing my ani collection to find something that matched my latest particular heartbreak (yea, i do that, ok? it's comforting), i stumbled upon this track again, and the words struck me in a way they never had before. not about how i was feeling that very moment, but how i felt in a past relationship-- the one with "the worst ex" (or "dickface", whichever you prefer). her song "bodily", off the same album as this, always seemed to sum that situation up perfectly, but this verse gave me chills listening to it in a new way for the first time:

i was floating above myself,
watching her do just what you wanted.
poor little friendly ghost,
wondering why her whole house feel haunted.
i told myself i was strong enough,
that i had plenty of blood to give,
and each elbow cradled a needle,
but listless and faint ain't no way to live.

could this woman write any more perfectly?

here's a video of her performing the song live. it's a little slower and sadder than the recording on the album. ani always switches songs up when she plays them live-- just one more reason i love her:

manflower

2010-08-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

debate: would a manflower be more man or more flower? or would it be equal halves?

life: skyla and i had a sucky overlap where we had to be out of our apartment by noon on july 31st, but can't move into our new home until august 15th. i am very grateful to have a lady like serene in my life, who has welcomed me into her home, kept me laughing, made me a smoothie, driven me to akron to get my cat fixed and put up with me always being in her living room watching mad men. her dog, effie, hates me though, i think. she peed and pooped on the couch i sleep on, peed on my pillows, and chewed through my computer cord. jango also pooped on my other squish pillow and my graduation blanket and my fedora one night because she got locked in the spare bedroom where they were. such a bummer.

books: i finished reading "everything is illuminated" finally. i told myself i'd try to get up to reading a book a week after graduation. i got through "house on mango street" and "push" in a few days each, then started on "everything is illuminated". after two weeks or so of reading diligently every night before bed, i ended up putting it down for a few months. i guess effie did me a favor by chewing my computer cord, because then i couldn't take my laptop to work with me today, and i got to spend the whole opening shift reading (the hookah bar is always very slow from 5 til about 9 or 10. so i get paid to chill, basically, which is nice.)

my friend brittany is starting a book club, too. we sat outside of a show at the kling thing house on sunday night talking about literature and grad school. that also helped me want to get back in the habit of reading, and remember what i loved about being an english major.

this is just some pointless rambling, i suppose. just hoping i'll get a little more motivated to do things other than check facebook and watch tv.

anticipation: i can't wait to move into red house, though. mostly i can't wait to sleep in my own bed again. and to paint my room and unpack and have my typewriters and a backyard. and to live directly across the street from the post office! what a dream come true for a zinester!! maybe i'll actually get a p.o. box since it will be so accessible. and send off all those letters i owe people.

BEREA FEST V!

2010-07-18T16:48:00.000-07:00

(photo by adam maraschky)

this weekend was more than i ever could have asked for. i have loved going to berea fest for the past two years, but this year took the fucking cake! possibly because of the mass amount of bands there that i loved. possibly because the general attitude of everyone seemed even more happy and positive than ever. possibly because i was there with a lot of friends who made me feel more comfortable and at ease. but no matter the reasons, it was great!!

skyla and i had been trying to organize a bike ride up to berea fest for several months, and everyone who was originally down either backed out due to work or just not wanting to. so we decided the two of us would just go on our own. at first everything seemed like it was falling apart. it was supposed to rain, my boyfriend wasn't able to take all of the extra stuff we couldn't carry on our bikes, we got a late start (my fault), etc. it took us way longer than i expected, but at least we got to go at a pace that we were comfortable with, as opposed to over exerting ourselves & feeling like shit the whole weekend. my shoulders & neck got pretty sunburnt despite applying sunscreen three different times during our voyage. and my butt is still killing me. but WE FUCKING DID IT and i feel really proud of that. it's the longest bike ride i've ever done (a little over 40 miles i believe). it also means i get to cross #14 off my list of goals to accomplish in the near future (making that 6 out of 17 goals accomplished thus far!)

sadly, we missed slingshot dakota & spooktober, as we didn't make it there until 6. but had we gotten a ride with any of our friends going to the fest from kent, we would have missed them anyway. the first day was a lot of lying around under trees and downing bottle after bottle of water. my personal highlights were algernon cadwaller and the sidekicks. my god, the sidekicks. i love this band so much. and i feel like a dork for it considering i know 3/4 of them, but they are just so good.

that night we camped at crystal springs. i did this last year with doug, and it was super fun because a ton of kids who didn't even know each other ended up around a fire singing songs until the rain sent us all to our tents. this year was also fun because i camped with a ton of friends. we pretty much sat around drinking in the dark and talking. my boyfriend & skyla's boyfriend went swimming in the disgusting lake and every time we walked near the shore they'd start getting out and we'd run like we were being chased by sea monsters. i kind of wanted to swim because i felt so sweaty and gross, but not being able to see anything scared me.

in the morning a few of us got breakfast at some place called ari's family restaurant. they had creepy bathrooms and a bar (???) stocked with only well liquor. then i headed to the fest with annabel who had to be there at 11 to set up, as they went on at noon. helped them load in and then began another long day of total awesome.

i can't even remember everything. a big highlight for me was cindy crabb approaching me during bridge & tunnel and giving me a copy of her band's cd, all because she saw the doris tattoo on my shoulder. i had heard she was there and was super nervous about her seeing it & being creeped out, because i know some people get that way. everyone kept telling me it was no big and that she'd probably be really flattered. i was really relieved that she approached me first! i wanted to give her my zines & tell her the story of getting the tattoo with amber, but every time i tried to go to her table, she wasn't there. and then she left early, so i'll have to write her a letter & send them this week. her band, snarlas, is SO AWESOME though and i really wish they could've played the fest.

i also got to spend time with my zinester buddies grace & amy whom i met at the chicago zine fest. grace is from toledo and amy came from toronto!

(amy and i talking to her envelope tattoo twin, kate. photo by grace)

during vacation's set i decided to sit in the women's bathroom (which has a nice lounge area with couches) to charge my cellphone. i walked in to find amy, grace, my friend katie from kent and a bunch of other women having a girl pow-wow. i didn't really say anything cuz i felt like i'd intruded in on something but i've never really experienced girls just getting together to bond & vent like that, even at such a posi place as berea fest. it was super cool to stumble upon it! when good luck started setting up we all started hurrying to go watch them but exchanged names & what not to find each other via the internet so i made a few new friends.

good luck were amazing. i got to stand a bit back & dance with grace and amy. it was nice to actually dance as opposed to everyone moshing around (though there was plenty of that going on in front of us, too). the only other time i really danced all weekend was for lemuria, pheramones & a bit during super bobby.

other highlights were getting yummy thai food (though i took mine to go since i ordered for skyla & ian, while everyone else stayed to eat there), toby foster (his songs steal my heart), seeing lizzy for the first time in months, seeing richard, running around the parking lot while it rained with lindsay and thomas, taking a nice nap under a tree while listening to tin armor play, getting to actually have a conversation with matt on the ride home as opposed to just saying hey at shows, my cousin chad randomly showing up, and getting to spend a bit of time with my boyfriend before he left for tour today.

i am already amped for next year! bands weren't lying when they said people wait all year for this. like connor told me, he woke up saturday morning and it felt like christmas. i think i maybe even like berea fest more than christmas.

a little shameless self promotion

2010-07-03T04:17:00.001-07:00

i got kind of bored the other day and decided to record a mix. i've been using traktor and a nano kontroller for a couple months now while djing, but am just now really utilizing some of the features. still figuring things out a bit. i'm gonna try to do a mix a month (or on some kind of regular basis) because i think they'll a) help me practice, b) be something fun for me to do and c) be a way for me to share some tracks i really love.

(and look, i know traktor is really entry level stuff, but i'm broke and new to this. mike filly told me that GFF and i make traktor sound good if that counts for anything!)

June Mix by Bri Z

Low Motion Disco - Love Love Love (Aeroplane Remix)

Cloud Nothings - Morgan (Gobble Gobble's Nimbus Shamble)

Tokyo Police Club - Graves (Nightsweats Remix)

Little Boots - New In Town (The Golden Filter Remix)

80kidz - Spoiled Boy (ft. Lovefoxxx of CSS)

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Time of the Assassins (XXXChange Remix)

Amanda Blank - Shame On Me (Yuksek Remix)

The Blow - The Love That I Crave (Strategy's Strata Club Remix)

Cansei De Ser Sexy - Move (Cut Copy Remix)

Mr. Flagio - Take A Change

Au Revoir Simone - Knight of Wands (Straight Up! Remix)

Crystal Castles - Air War (Joe And Will Ask? Remix)

Peaches - Lose You (Slash Fiction Remix)

Gorillaz - Stylo (Alex Metric Remix)

Scissor Sisters - Invisible Light (Siriusmo Remix)

Uffie - Add Suv ft. Pharrel Williams (Armand Van Helden Remix)

LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls (Holy Ghost! Remix)

Lykke Li - Breaking It Up (Pocketknife's Loosefoot Remix)

Robyn - Dancing On My Own (Fred Falke Remix)

what happened to the bri that hated remixes? i didn't even mean to use so many in this mix! maybe next time i'll spruce it up a little with some original tracks that are dance-worthy as is.

feel free to let me know what you think! i hope it made you shake your booty alone in your bedroom, or you can put it on at a party to dance with friends.

if you haven't heard, GFF and i will be back at b side liquor lounge on sunday, july 11th. so if you dig this mix, and you like going out to dance, you need to be there!! it's free for 21+ and only $5 for 18-20. 10 PM-2 AM. rsvp here.

who's that girl?

2010-07-03T01:34:00.001-07:00

good girls are pretty, like all the time.

i'm just pretty some of the time.

good girls are happy and satisfied.

i won't stop asking until i die.

i've become kind of obsessed with robyn over the past few days. here is a pop star i can get behind! lyrics i can relate to, dancey beats, and look at that hair! i'm quite jealous of it's perfect platinum blonde-ness.

i wanted to post the video for "who's that girl" because i effing love the lyrics, but all the embedding for it is disabled on youtube. so i highly suggest you go watch it here: robyn - who's that girl?

instead i'm posting her latest single, "dancing on my own". i have to agree with some others, this is about to be the dance anthem of the year. the fred falke remix is highly recommended too!

i've seriously not stopped listening to this song for the past week or so. and i'm constantly singing it. if it had existed last fall, hot damn would it have been my personal anthem.

i know this isn't a music blog but i just had to share how much i love her.

pep pep day

2010-06-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

today is one of three days a year that are usually really tough for me (september 27th, the day i found out my father died, and october 10th, his birthday, being the other two).

father's day always manages to sneak up on me. i realized today when i overheard my roommate calling her father to wish him a happy one. every time i get a little sinking feeling in my chest, and am reminded what a big part of my life is missing. what a big part of my life has been missing for over ten years. and, well, that sounds like such a long time that i should just be over it, or not feel that sad about father's day every year, but i can't help it. i suppose i never dealt with the grief very well.

alas, i am trying to make the best of it. i was actually really happy to have a reason to call my grandparents, as i was just thinking about calling them last night. i've been missing my family a lot lately. i think this might be the first time i've ever called to wish him happy father's day, though. usually i'm too upset to bare saying the words. but you know what? he may not be my dad, but i wouldn't be here without him and he's a great man. plus, i called grandma on mother's day so i'd just be a terrible grandchild if i left him out today.

and in memory of my dad, here's a great video of him playing bass with his old band, numbskull. they are the first band of his i have a memory of (i think perhaps i was alive for some of the basketcase years but was far too young to remember them- though i've seen videos and have recordings and love all of my dad's bands i've heard, duh). anyway, i remember one year numbskull played studio-a-rama at case western. i was pretty young, maybe 3 or 4. old enough to be tumbling around on my own two feet, but i had to still be at least that young because my parents were still together, i believe. i was lying in the grass while someone played (maybe them? i'm not sure) and someone ran by and stepped on my little ear! what a jerk! seriously, who ignores the presence of a child and their safety? geez. funny, maybe a year or two later i had that ear stepped on again at a slumber party. what a strange thing to have happen twice in your life.

so this is numbskull. there are two bassists in this video. my dad's the one on the right in the beginning of the video. that's the bass i learned to play on and still own today. i love watching this video. i think the bass line that kicks it off (the one my dad's playing, of course) sounds so badass.

so, happy pep pep day to anyone who may be reading and happens to be a dad.

side note: what's with everyone posting stuff on the internet congratulating single moms on fathers day? i mean, i get it, there are a lot of single moms in the world. i was raised by one! but there are single dads, too, who deserve credit as well. not to mention fathers day is here to celebrate the dads who ARE actively involved in their children's lives and shit, that deserves a big round of applause, i think. i just don't think anyone would ever have the audacity to say "big ups to all the single dads this mothers day!" lets be fair, people.

zine writers block

2010-06-13T11:53:00.001-07:00

by keyke

i told myself i wasn't allowed to work on a new issue of my zine until i graduated. i just wanted to focus on school (the whole two courses i ended up taking my final semester, and even those were a struggle!)

so now that i have the time to work on a zine-- so many free hours i could spend typing, cutting and pasting!-- i feel so completely uninspired. not even uninspired. i have lots and lots i want to write about, but when i sit down at my typewriter, or even at my computer or with a notebook, i can't seem to get the words out.

i know. other zinesters always tell me, "don't rush it. it'll come to you", but i really want to have a new issue done in time for berea fest. this is the most frustrating feeling.

what are your creative summer projects? are you having mental blocks working against them? how do you deal with it?

zine fests, tattoos, life since march!

2010-06-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

i haven't posted on this blog in quite some time (though i've made a few posts over at gut instinct, my food blog). i'm not really sure why.

i've (sorta) completed 5 of the 17 goals on the "things i hope to accomplish in the near future" poster i made for myself back in january. and even if that's all i get done this year, i'll feel really good. which ones were they you ask? let me tell you about them!

#11: attend a zine fest.

on march 12th and 13th i attended, tabled & had some art up at the chicago zine fest. all in all, it was fun. being my very first zine fest, i was a little overwhelmed and i think the stress/panic-y

feelings kept me from thoroughly enjoying myself. but i sold and traded tons of zines, and best of all i got to cross another goal off the list.

#13: meet amber forrester!

yes, thankfully, amber was also in attendance. as i think i mentioned before here, amber and i have been friends via zines & letters since about 2005. it's about damn time we met! she is the raddest, sweetest girl. i worried i was too shy and quiet around even her, but she assured me recently in a letter that i was not (thank goodness!) while there, we decided to be a bit irresponsible with our money and get zinester tattoos together!

amber getting hers (a photo i've forgotten to upload for ages! kinda crappy, just off my phone)

mine, before it healed. we got the same one. it's a drawing by cindy crabb from her zine "doris."

which brings us to #15: finish my tattoo & get pineapple tattoos with taryn (my sister).

by "finish my tattoo" i meant the buncha blank ink on my left arm. designed by moi, made permanent by kyle at arkham tattoo in akron, ohio:

my sister and i have also been talking about getting pineapple tattoos for...i don't even know how long now. why pineapples? well, back in high school, i used to go to her place after school (she lived with her dad), and we'd play xbox or watch silly shows like pokemon and elmo's world. on one particular episode of elmo's world, elmo was singing about different things to the tune of the elmo's world theme song. he happened to sing at some point:

PA-PA-PA-PA PA-PA-PA-PA PINEAPPLE!

my sister and i looked at each other and immediately broke into hysterics. we do this randomly a lot. no one else ever seems to understand and/or find these things as funny as we do but alas, pineapples stuck. it escalated into buying each other pineapple related gifts constantly, and tattoos seemed only right. i made drawings of the two of us as little pineapples that we considered getting, but we decided on more traditional styled ones with a banner for each other's names. we also went to kyle for these:

our grandparents have yet to see them.

#8 i didn't exactly accomplish ("start a band.") instead, i joined one!

my good friends thishi and andy started like the days about two years ago, with andy's brother, ben, on drums, and their friend beth on bass. beth got married and moved away so they've been without a bassist for quite some time, but had a show booked. apparently, andy told thishi it would be nice to have another lady in the band again (cute!) so they asked me. we also had christian join on guitar & synth at the same time. they are all some of the nicest, coolest people i've ever met. i feel like a big dork at how excited i get about my band! you should listen to our songs. they will make you smile, i promise!

and finally, #3 GRADUATE!!!

yes, after six long years at kent state university, i finally graduated. i have a bachelor's in english, a minor in writing, and i graduated cum laude (with honors)! i didn't even find out that last part until i was at lunch afterwards with my family and my mom asked why i didn't stand up when they acknowledged the cum laude students. "your name was listed in the book under it" she told me. no one had brought it to my attention before that! though i don't know why i didn't kinda figure, considering i've been on dean's list multiple times (ya know, not braggin or anything).

i walked at commencement just for my grandparents. i ended up sitting next to my buddy randy. i've known him since freshman year so that was kinda cool. i had someone to laugh with about lester lefton's silly hat and all the dumb speeches. afterwards i had lunch with the family, grandpa made me cry when he started crying and said "your father would be so proud of you" (realization: this may have been the only time i've ever seen my grandpa cry), then sat around for a few hours thinking "what now?!" until i went out for drinks with some friends.

so there's that. not much else is new. glenna and i DJed at b side in cleveland last sunday and had a blast. it's been a secret dream of ours for years. it was totally packed and they loved us- so much that they booked us for another date in july not even 48 hours later (when it took us six months to book that gig on sunday!)

i'm blonde now, but i miss my pink hair. i think i want to cut off even more tomorrow (today) before i go see the golden filter. something like this, perhaps? katie would be so happy. she's been telling me to get the "rosemary's baby" haircut forever:

join the professionals

2010-03-09T20:20:00.001-08:00

the chicago zine fest is this weekend. i'm excited beyond belief, but also keep kind of forgetting it's happening. maybe i'm just having a hard time accepting that it is, cuz it seems too good to be true. i can't wait to see my friends, and meet amber(!!!!!!!!), as well as to visit chicago for the first time.

as part of the festival, there's an art gallery show on friday night. i've decided to submit some prints of my work. i chose my pug portrait ("everything is awesome") as well as the kathleen hanna portrait i did ("feels blind"). as i was looking through my sketchbooks to choose, i found this drawing i did on day four of the fun-a-day project, and complete forgot i drew!

for those who have not seen the movie to catch the reference, this is of the character corinne burns from "ladies and gentlemen: the fabulous stains." she's kind of my hero, and it's a bummer the way the movie ends (but, well, i won't give it away).

what i need to do this week:

-finish reading chapters 4 & 5 of "ulysses" for class tomorrow

-complete logic homework by thursday morning

-copy zines, then cut, collate, fold & staple those babies

-PACK!!! preferably make a packing list cuz i'll forget stuff

-make a trip to the bank

-make sure jango will be taken care of all weekend

-get prints of my art for the show made

-scan pages of my zines for the show, as well

the plan is to leave sometime on thursday with lexi, pick up her friend from vermillion, go to ted leo, get dropped off at my mom's after the show (by either lexi or chris), then catch the megabus at 7 AM friday morning. i arrive in chicago at 1:45 and go

tta get my artwork to the gallery by 3, i think. hopefully sarah can meet me when i get there or else i may get kinda scared & lost.

oh, and i chopped all my hair off. or, rather, lexi chopped a lot of it off, then i wasn't quite sure how i felt about it so i got even more of it chopped off at skullz. i've been growing it out for months but finally decided short hair frames my face so much better. and now i look super fierce:

women's history month poetry reading

2010-03-02T21:16:00.001-08:00

this thursday, march 4th, i'm doing two poetry readings for a series of readings throughout the day by "outstanding undergraduate women poets". i got asked to be a part of it by katherine blackbird-- the first creative writing professor i had here at kent, and the director of my writing portfolio a few semesters back.

i know quite a few of the other ladies involved. the first reading i'm in is from 11 AM-12:15 PM, with my bff natasha and also with erin. we each get 10-15 minutes to read that time. then i'll also be part of the 2:15-3:30 PM reading with more readers (natasha, myself, two girls i know we're publishing in luna negra but whom i've not met, plus two other girls i've never met). we get about 5 minutes that time around. there'll be a Q&A session afterwards.

aaaand there are even more readings. one is from 9:15-10:30 AM with alyssa, gabz, courtney and anna. i'm contemplating skipping logic to sit in on that because it's sure to be good. the last one is at 3:45-5:00 PM with three ladies i do not know.

it's all at the women's resource center (off of midway drive, the big white house across from the c-midway parking lot). i know it's not a very big space, from what i remember of the one time i was there, but i'm pretty certain this is open to the public so if you can come (to any or all of the readings), i'm sure it'll be good.

i'm fairly nervous and unsure of what to read. the fact that it's all women reading, and about being female writers, has me really evaluating the work i've done thus far in life, and realizing the majority of it isn't really about "the female experience" (a term i'm rather sick of saying/typing after this midterm i finally completed). i find that kind of odd considering how big a role feminism plays in my life-- how is my poetry not also inherently feminist? i've no idea what my poetry is about, really. heartbreak, cleveland and dead dads? i don't feel like i have any kind of consistent style.

basically, i'm really unsure of what to read. it also doesn't help that i don't have anything "new" to read (and by new i mean written within the past three years). i have only written maybe five poems in that time frame which is super disheartening to me as a writer.

well, whatever i choose to read, i hope it will be satisfactory to the ears of my audience. i'm sure to be sweatin and shakin and blushin (supa nervous symptoms). at least i'll have natasha there to hold my hand, or give me that little reassuring look.

peggy

2010-03-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

yesterday i modeled for my friend erika (check her out. she's awesome!) she needed a 50s-esque secretary, (like peggy from "mad men" she told me) and asked me to do it because i have cute dresses. we ended up using one of sarah james' dresses, actually. it's identical to a dress peggy wears on the show, i'm told.

here are the two shots erika gave me. i absolutely love them, and also love that they are of the right side of my face, yet i still like them (i have a bit of a barbara streisand complex in that i only like one side of my face.)

i think i look strangely like my grandmother in the second shot. i've never really seen a resemblance between us before this. i'm hoping to give her a print of one of these as a late birthday present.

in other news:

i'm currently having an anxiety attack over not finishing my midterm paper on time for my senior seminar. i feel like a total jackass and a failure. i've dropped at the midterm point each time i've signed up for a senior seminar in the past. i'm really worried i'm going to have to drop again, which means another semester of school, which means more debt, and putting off grad school even longer. i've never turned a paper in late in my entire college career, i think, so this is extra tough on me. i felt so stupid approaching my professor to ask what the penalty was. a grade off per day it's late. here's to hoping the end result can be at least a B paper so that i get a C at the lowest, or else i'm fucked.

in other, happier news:

the chicago zine fest is less than two weeks away! amber and i are gonna try to get tattoos together while there, though we're not sure what of. shannon suggested we get typewriter letter keys (not the button but the whole key) of "z" for "zinester" (as he found my use of this word really funny over breakfast.) i am really excited to go on a little adventure all alone, though i'll actually be around a lot of people i already know once there (brittany, richard, ryan, andy, sarah, maybe joe & jason if their band, the cloud nothings, IS there that weekend as chris said they might be.) also, i'll be going to columbus the following friday to see p.s. eliot. columbus friends, lets hang out!

the big bad fire's gonna steal my soul

2010-02-16T17:14:00.001-08:00

i'm getting frustrated with myself for not creating more. i did two days of the fun-a-day project then remembered that, oh yea, i'm a busy lady with work & classes & homework & a social life, all of which are not very conducive to taking a couple hours out of each day to do an ink drawing (because, yea, they really do take me a long time.)

i did manage to finish another issue of my zine:

it's about hope and bicycles and the punk community and teaching poetry. hit me up if you'd like a copy. they're $1-2, or we can trade, or if i really like you you can just have one.

the chicago zine fest is fast approaching. i think i am going to meet up with kathryn (of "a million birthdays" zine) sometime next week or the week after to have a zine copying & collating party for the fest, as i'll be tabling her zines along with mine (and hey, anyone else that wants me to take stuff to the fest, let me know!)

i've been contemplating making little greeting cards or postcards or stationary or something out of some of my drawings to sell. i need to get on making some good prints for the art show friday night of the fest, too.

i wrote two articles for zines in the past 12 hours. one was for my friend erica's queer punk zine, and the other was either for the next issue of my zine or for the riot grrrl kent zine if we ever make it.

so i guess i've been kind of productive. i just wish i were drawing more, writing more songs, and writing poetry again. i don't know what happened, but i just never write poems anymore. maybe that part of my life is over with.

what creative projects have you been up to?

chicago zine fest!

2010-02-09T13:25:00.001-08:00

it's official. i'll be attending & tabling at the chicago zine fest march 12th-13th. i am beyond excited. not only will my friends richard, andy gardner & ryan eilbeck be there, but i will be meeting & tabling besides amber forrester & sarala bee. plus melissa ann of "she's so very" will be attending, and ramsey of "list" zine is helping organize the whole thing, as is a nice dude named neil that i met at the ghengis con event a few months back, and leslie who's blog i follow. THIS IS ALL REALLY FUCKING EXCITING FOR ME (if you haven't guessed by now.)

i also have the opportunity to have some artwork shown that friday. i can't decide what i should make prints of. should i frame them? i've never done an art show! i think i'd like to submit the everything is awesome pug (last post), my kathleen hanna portrait, maybe the jango kisses picture, maybe marty's portrait, maybe brett's. maybe something new. help me decide!! i'll also be submitting some pages from the zines i'll be tabling, as they're going to make a big collage wall of zine pages. it all sounds so cool!

in other news:

i've already quit the fun-a-day project. i wish i'd had more time to plan and prepare for it. i just can't keep up with spending a few hours a day doing a drawing when i have school, work & vegan chili dates to go on.

there's already a foot of snow on the ground, and another storm is approaching. we're supposed to get 6-9" from this one, i read. my evening class is cancelled. i should use the time to catch up on reading for my classes tomorrow, but i'd much rather highlight my hair and work on issue 14 of "motor city kitty." i'm gonna try to be a good student and do the work though, since i already missed both of my literature classes yesterday so i could go take photos of shannon as he got his chest piece done for one of his class projects.

i tried venturing out to mail some orders, trades, distro submissions and various other packages, but as soon as i got to campus my boots flooded from slush on the ground. i can't stand having wet feet, especially when it's freezing cold outside, so i tried to just catch the bus back to c-midway to catch the other bus that goes to my house. instead, i accidentally got on the wrong bus. basically, i wasted a bunch of time that i could've spent dealing with the wet feet & mailing the packages. oh well. hopefully i can get them out tomorrow.

fun-a-day, day three

2010-02-03T23:23:00.001-08:00

if you know me, you have to know by now that i love pugs. and i am very happy to have finally drawn one! they usually look way wonky when i try.

"everything is awesome" is a track from the new jaguar love album, "hologram jams", which comes out on march 2nd. you need it in your life, trust me. the whole album makes me wanna dance a lot, plus it carries the 'keep it posi' attitude i try to surround myself with nowadays. how could i not love it?

i cheated and didn't do anything on day two. i kinda slept for like 12 hours instead, then had enough schoolwork to keep me busy the other 12 hours that i didn't get a chance to. but like i said, this is a pretty chill thing. plus i only decided a day before the project started that i was gonna do it so...whatevs. it's fun!

fun-a-day, day one

2010-02-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

besides yesterday being my birthday, it was also day one of a month long project called fun-a-day (which i discovered thanks to the lovely amber forrester.) i'm not involved in any particular city project, as i didn't find out about it until january 31st, but it seemed such a cool idea that i had to join in! i was between writing a letter a day and doing one sketch per day. my friends on facebook all seemed to aim towards drawing, so here we go.

the above is my first sketch for the project. i was watching the documentary "grey gardens" on netflix. my women in cinema professor had shown us a few clips from it last week and apparently we're watching a biopic made about the same women (big edie & little edie beale, jackie o's aunt & cousin as well as socialites of the 40s-50s who just went kinda nuts & let their home get entirely run down, infested with raccoons and stuff) tonight in class.

this is little edie and a quote she says in the movie. i'd gotten as far as sketching this out in pencil, then was surprised by a few of my good friends showing up with blueberry pie & root beer floats-- a birthday tradition that started freshman year in the dorms because i really like blueberry pie and, well, root beer floats are always awesome. so technically i didn't get to finish this sketch til today with inking it, but whatevs. it's fun-a-day which, to me, also means bein 'lax.

more to come!

it's my birthday!

2010-01-31T23:32:00.001-08:00

acceptable presents include:

- nick zinner (or his photo books, i guess)

- vegan cake, blueberry pie or root beer floats

- gift certificates to cool zine distros

- younger lovers' "newest romantic" record

- pugs and hugs

i bought megabus tickets to chicago and back for the chicago zine fest in march as a present to myself.

the paper people

2010-01-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

i haven't been doing much too much drawing/posting any of it here, but here's some new stuff.

my sister and i as pineapples, for possible matching sister tattoos:

pineapple b.

pineapple t.

and two fliers i did for an upcoming american war/saint seneca show at the pub. the first didn't come out how i wanted (though everyone i've showed it to likes it a lot.) the second i LOOOOVVVEEE.

in other news:

i accomplished pretty much none of my winter break goals (a.k.a. to read a bunch, finish my zine and draw more.) after two hectic weeks in a row between holidays & a wedding, i just sat around in my pajamas, read a little, wasted time on the internet (jersey shore and netflix, anyone?) and slept A LOT.

my last semester of college starts tomorrow. most everyone had class today, but my TR 'women in cinema' class has been cancelled all week. so instead of going to classes like everyone else, i spent the technical first day of the semester finishing the above fliers, rummaging through a coworker's things she's giving away, shopping at gabriel brother's (and of course, spending too much money) then had thai gourmet for dinner with serene and sarah j. my fortune cookie said "it's definitely a day for work, not play, so don't be tempted." i'm hoping it applies to tomorrow since all i did today was play.

so i don't forget

2010-01-05T00:13:00.001-08:00

so i don't forget. some of my goals, now posted on my wall (with room to add more.)

food blog!

2010-01-04T17:31:00.001-08:00

i've been compiling recipes for a long time to make a food zine, and one day i'll get around to it, but for now i've decided to create a food blog-- gut instinct! (gotta thank my ex for the title as we once discussed making a food zine named that.)

i've got the recipe for my dinner tonight up thus far, and i'll be sure to post more in the near future. follow it if you like food and cooking, i suppose.

goals

2009-12-30T05:05:00.000-08:00

i'm not usually not one to make new years resolutions. i believe that any time of the year is appropriate for making/having/achieving goals. but for some reason, this coming new year has pushed me to finally create these lists, as i've been wanting to.

so here are some things i want to accomplish, this year:

1. write in a paper journal every day.

2. write a poem a day for an entire month (that isn't february. that's cheating.)

3. practice playing my guitar daily.

4. GRADUATE.

5. open a punk house with skyla when our lease is up (sorry, mom.)

6. finish the riot grrrl kent zine.

7. finish more than two issues of my own zine.

8. read, at least, a book a week after graduation.

9. write, at least, one letter per week.

10. START A BAND. a serious one. that practices regularly, and plays shows.

11. release an album/ep (whether on my own or with said band.)

12. write and release a poetry chapbook.

13. go to a zine fest (preferably the portland zine symposium.)

14. visit my uncle in seattle.

15. meet amber forrester in person (we've been friends for too long to not have met!)

16. get jango fixed (yeaaa that still hasn't happened.)

17. get my license (is it sad this isn't a top priority?)

18. bike to cleveland (bereafest?)

19. finish my existing tattoo, as well as get my pineapple tattoo with my sister, my teaching tattoo (a drawing by one of my 4th graders from this semester), and any other tattoo i can.

20. successfully make over-easy/medium eggs on my own.

21. learn to bake yummy vegan treats, and bread.

and these are things i want to accomplish at some point in time:

1. go on tour. with my band, someone else's band, or a zine tour.

2. teach overseas (i do want to do this, just not immediately after graduation.)

3. bike farther than cleveland.

4. volunteer at the rock camp for girls.

5. go to graduate school. for what? dunno yet.

6. get published. beyond d.i.y. publishing (though i love it.)

7. learn to play the drums.

8. organize a fest (music, zines, etc.)

9. teach. i'm pretty sure it's what i want to "do."

10. open a zine library (even if it's just within my own punk house.)

11. volunteer at a women's clinic.

12. take dance lessons. any kind.

13. have a vegetable garden.

14. adopt a pug.

15. learn to repair and build bikes.

16. complete a short story that i really love.

17. overcome my issues with sex (probably gonna be a lifelong thing.)

18. have a record released on seafoam green vinyl.

19. own enough books to fill a room.

20. build and use a darkroom.

21. move out of ohio.

i know there's way more i want to do in life but these are just some things i thought of right now. what are your goals for 2010? for the next five years? ten years?

***edit***

thought of two other general goals:

22. try pineapple flavored kit kats!

23. convince ted leo to play "i need a roof" live (mentioned on twitter earlier this week. no response. one day, ted. one day.)

christmas (one seriously long post!)

2009-12-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

my sister and i drew portraits of one another as a christmas present for our grandparents. we wanted to get cheesy studio portraits done with winter wonderland backdrops and matching christmas sweaters, but never had the chance to get together and do such a thing, so this became the next best option. they loved them. here's the one she drew of me:

talent. my family has it.

i spent the sunday before christmas with my mom's side of the family-- what i consider my more "immediate" family- my mom, sister, and (maternal) grandparents. i spent christmas eve evening at the pufferbelly with brett (free peach martini thanks to a friend working, and splurged on a deliciously filling $11 plate of pasta with artichoke hearts, olives, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes and garlic). then i stayed up til 3 AM cooking vegan eats for my uncle and i to have on christmas day, watching "happiness" and drinking lambic.

christmas day i was picked up in the morning by jack, who was kind enough to drive me to strongsville, where my aunt lives. i was the first to arrive. my uncle (who lives in seattle and i had not seen in 9-10 years, since i went to visit him there the summer after my father passed) and grandmother arrived with my other aunt's husband, and soon after the rest of the family (said other aunt and her five children.) i haven't seen my dad's side of the family since christmas of 2006, besides that time i randomly ran into one of my aunts and cousins at the berea dairy queen while serene, corey farrow and i waited for max-- the drag king i very briefly dated-- to get home from work so we could go to b-sides. if this tells you anything about how much my dad's side of the family seems to care about keeping up communication with me, i gave my aunt my new cell phone number that day and she replied "good. maybe we'll see you at christmas?" this was in june. i replied "or sooner?" but i knew it wouldn't happen.

this was most likely the most emotional christmas i've had in awhile. my uncle brought pictures to share (of course) and as we reached ones of my dad he turned and asked if i was okay with seeing them. had he not asked, i would have been fine, but it seems when people ask if i'm okay, that's when i break down in tears. some of it was the usual missing, some of it was wondering if my smaller cousins even knew who this person in the pictures was-- as the oldest of them was only ten or so, and the youngest just born, when he passed. plus there are no pictures of him around my aunts' houses that i've seen. i wonder if they ever even mention him.

at dinner one of my aunts grimaced at the sight of the lentil-stuffed portabella caps and vegan mashed sweet potatoes i'd prepared for my uncle and i. she asked what a lentil was and i couldn't imagine life without knowing lentils-- let alone 40+ years of life that way. they insisted we (the pescetarians) could eat the cheddar-broccoli and creamy potato sides they had prepared even though both used cream of chicken soup.

at 7 or so we were picked up by my uncle (and dad's) lifelong friend and former bandmate, jeff. we spent the night at his place and watched videos of their old bands-- three songs from a live shadow of fear show, a basketcase practice video and a garten kirkhof halloween show. seeing any video footage of my dad is always amazing as i'm just finding out any even existed. it was also cool to see both my dad and uncle playing instruments i now own-- dad's old black strat wannabe (that has since been water damaged, unfortunately) and his 72 american made fender p-bass.

after jeff went to bed my uncle and i stayed up until about 2 AM talking about some seriously heavy things-- from never dealing with my dad's death (either of us), depression, suicide attempts, relationships, addiction. it seems strange that after 10 years of not seeing each other, and never having any real "adult" conversations before, i opened up to him so easily. but i truly love my uncle, and am so glad he's still with us.

when i got back to kent yesterday i cried my eyes out for hours. i can't even really tell you why. and even though i have numerous friends in kent, i couldn't think of a single person to call. i didn't want anyone to see me like that, because i don't know how long it's been since i cried that hard and uncontrollably.

today i finished reading "female chauvinist pigs" by ariel levy. i'm about to start lorrie moore's "birds of america" finally, though it's due back to the kent free library by tomorrow and i've already renewed it once.

one of my best friends, katie, is getting married this coming saturday. wednesday we're driving to dayton for her bachelorette party, then driving back thursday so glenna and i can DJ new years eve at my bar (professors pub.) friday morning i'm getting picked up by katie's mom to go back to dayton and get mani-pedis with the rest of the bridal party (i never ever imagined myself saying such a thing), then the rehearsal dinner is that night and the wedding the next day. it will be one busy week, that's for sure!

how was your christmas?

are you making new years resolutions? i think i'm going to finally start working on a list of general life goals (5 year, 10 year, etc.) not just this coming year's.

everyone have a safe holiday!

how does it feel?

2009-12-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

this is what i keep doing instead of studying/writing papers:

kathleen hanna, one of my idols.

decisions

2009-12-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

as much as i like to let things happen and not worry about the future, i guess i have to decide soon what i want to do post-graduation/once my lease here is up.

current options:
1) start a girl-run punk house here in kent with skyla.
-requires finding 1-2 other ladies with similar interests and goals, as well as a house where we could get away with bands playing and having at least one cat.

2) move to toronto with my sister.
-she mentioned this being a possibility, as they're opening a new ritz-carlton there and she could just transfer. requires figuring out the logistics of moving to canada in the first place.

3) move to portland with alyssa.
-we know people we could crash with til we found a place. still, very far away. very scary.

4) teach english as a second language in another country (i.e. china)
-my friend joe is doing this currently, and has told me before he could help me do the same. with just my english degree. requires leaving jango (scarier than leaving the country!)

5) move to columbus by myself.
-something i've been thinking about doing for awhile.

6) move in with my grandparents in north olmsted.
-they offered this awhile ago. while i'd be saving lots of money, i'd basically be stuck in north olmsted with my grandparents 24/7 until i got a car. kind of the last option.

the prospect of starting up a house is kind of #1 on my list right now, even if it means staying in kent another year. on one hand i'm itching to move away, on the other i do like it here. i like my friends and my job. and i like the idea of working to build a better community (as our house would ideally do a bit more than shows, such as riot grrrl meetings, workshops/skill shares, zine readings, lots of art, potlucks, etc.)

i have to decide by february, though, as that's when skyla needs to know. i know no one else can decide for me but, does anyone have any thoughts/good points to make on the subject?

[x-posted to facebook]

pants

2009-12-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

just finished this sketch of skyla (my roommate) and i, for my next zine:

figured i'd post before i cut it up to paste in said zine (which is coming along great already! i think i have all of the writing done. kyle asked me earlier if this zine has a theme and "keepin it posi" and "hope" were the two closest things i could think of.)

i told you your dreams would come true

2009-12-11T08:51:00.000-08:00

this song fits my mood today perfectly.

last night we DJed at 157 lounge with evan evolution and mike filly.

i took a nap beforehand and poor glenna was outside my door

knocking for about 20 minutes because i'd shut my phone on silent in

my sleep, apparently. even though we were late it went really well

and we maybe got offered a pretty sweet DJ gig that has been a

secret dream for the two of us since we started doing this, even if

it's a silly dream.

then today kevin and i taught poetry for the last time. last week i

was stupid and drank the night before so i was really sick when we

taught. too sick to even teach, actually. we thought that was our

last day, but thankfully someone shined a light down and forgave me

for my irresponsibility, and we got to go in again today. the 7th

graders gave us a standing ovation, many of them from on top of

their chairs. the 4th graders wrote us letters and wrote poems

(about us/to us.) i am so proud of all of them, and so thankful

they've been a part of my life.

where you been darling, darling?

we've been holding this moment for you.

i told you your dreams would come true.

stupid things crushes make you write

2009-12-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

punch drunk

she said it was like that scene from "punch drunk love"

after she watched you and i saying our goodnight-goodbyes.

and bye-bye. and bye-bye? you stupid motherfucker.

she meant it to comfort, as though to say you must

be thinking the same as you walked yourself home--

you stupid motherfucker-- because you hadn't seized

an opportunity to be with me after the bar had closed.

what she didn't realize was that she was describing me,

always, around you-- tongue tripping on words, stomach

churning days after the fact over what i did or did not say,

certain i managed to make a fool out of myself once again.

punch drunk love.

punch drunk fool.

and bye-bye.

writing songs

2009-12-01T17:13:00.001-08:00

i feel like every time i go to write a song, i pick a really sad sounding starting chord. and yet i'm trying to write really upbeat things! this is a problem.

my callouses disappearing because i haven't played my guitar in months is also a problem.

sometimes i feel really self-defeating, like i'll never be good at playing guitar. i'm kind of convinced i'll always need someone else to play the songs i write because i just can't seem to execute them well myself. maybe i should've stuck to getting better at bass before picking up guitar or something.

i just wanna be in a band again(!!!)

it's only 2:30

2009-11-30T11:29:00.001-08:00

today i've done all of this:

+breakfast at wild goat's with thishi

+bought dark grey sweater tights, a black hoodie, a grey flannel & other grey tights

+drank a pumpkin spice latte

+obtained my first kent free library card

+fell in love with the kent free library

+checked out three books via the self-checkout (what!)

+made more copies of issues 11-13 of my zine

+ate thanksgiving leftovers

+listened to lots and lots of halo fauna

the books i took out are "birds of america" by lorrie moore-- after richard read some of it in class last week, i had to check it out--, "female chauvinist pigs: women and the rise of raunch culture" by ariel levy-- glenna suggested this quite some time ago, finally getting around to it-- and "when i knew" edited by robert trachtenberg-- saw it on the shelf and it looked like a fun read about coming to terms with being queer. i had to write down the titles of other books i saw that i wanted to check out because i know i am a slow reader and probably won't even get through the three books i DID take out in the two weeks i have them. at least i can renew stuff online.

please recommend books to me!! i know there are a bunch listed in some zines that i want to get around to, but i'd love to hear your suggestions, too. authors in general, or just a single book. whatever you like!

i can't believe i did all of that already today! who knew getting up early could be so rewarding? ha. i am going to need a nap soon though, i can feel it.

with the rest of my day i think i am going to nap, clean my room, start reading one of these books, and write up a list of winter goals/rules for myself. i'm gonna try to read a lot of books and spend only a certain amount of time per day on the internet (especially on facebook) and drink lots of tea and finish another zine. also, stop eating dairy entirely.

what have you done so far today?

break

2009-11-30T03:35:00.000-08:00

i sold about fifteen zines this weekend between the ghengis con small press conference and the american war cd release at the soggy dog house. it feels a little weird knowing so many people who know me in real life are reading/are going to read/have read this issue. it may be even more personal than any issue before.

tomorrow (today!) i'm having breakfast with thishi at wild goat's. i am pretty excited for this. and then i have to mail out maybe ten packages of zines. might stop and get my library card while i'm right there, too.

i bought a fabulous new winter coat at unique on black friday. i also got a swanky electric blue suitcase (that makes a set with this other red on i have, because they have the same thing printed on the front), a totally preppy golf sweater, a nice pair of grey dress pants, a western-style floral button down, a houndstooth mini skirt and some kids books to cut pictures out of and use in zines. i know, i know...shopping on black friday. but it was all at a thrift store so that's different, right?

i also bought two pairs of glasses off of zennioptical.com. i can't wait to be able to see clearly. i never realized how blurry things were until the doctor put those test glasses on me. i got brown buddy holly frames and these smaller lime green frames with rhinestones. i'm worried they won't look right, but my sister said i can totally pull them off.

how was your thanksgiving/break?

turn it on turn it on turn it on

2009-11-29T20:18:00.000-08:00

it's a "dig me out" kinda night. this song makes me wanna dance around my room alone.

today we cooked & ate:

2009-11-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

turkey breast (well, i did not); green bean casserole; AMAZING mac&cheese with smoked gouda & cheddar & swiss & asiago & parmesan (my stomach hates me); corn pudding; vegan shepherd's pie; butternut squash soup; stuffing; cranberry sauce; mashed sweet potatoes. and there are two untouched pumpkin pies.

this was all for four people. ridiculous, and delicious.

happy t'anksgrubbin.

tomorrow i am going to go to some vintage stores & thrift stores around cleveland (since i'm here) and then see the play "ouroboros" at the liminis (theater my mom works at.)

saturday i'm tabling at ghengis con with lora from greenlight, then seeing the american war cd release show at the soggy dog house (annabel, reverse the curse, richard wehrenwolf, asinine and some others are playing, i believe.) i'll probably show up with leftover shepherd's pie and some zines.

hope your holiday weekend treats you well. what did you do? did you cook? what did you make? i hope next year maybe i can make everything meat & dairy free (maybe even egg free if i ever decide to make that jump.)

2009-11-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

i hate that the loneliness is keeping me from the happiness.

i was doing so well a week ago. now i feel pathetic.

2009-11-22T19:05:00.000-08:00

i got some long overdue grant money back from the school, to be spent on long overdue needs:

-getting the cat fixed (she's driving me crazy at the moment, writhing around in heat, yowling all night when i'm trying to sleep), getting her shots and flea drops.

-getting myself some glasses. might go to wal-mart for the exam and prescription tomorrow, then order some cool, cheap frames from zenni optical.

-paying my cellphone bill, rent and netflix bill.

-more tattoos (ok, not a need AT ALL, but i wantz.)

hot knees

2009-11-21T14:05:00.001-08:00

it's really strange to think that come next friday, i won't have an obligation to go to hot knees. my friday nights are just friday nights again. last night was a total bust. most of our friends left by 1:30. we closed with "one more time" and i hugged glenna as she cried, assuring her we'll move on to bigger and better things. when i faded the song out and everyone clapped, the club owners just instantly turned on the lights, didn't even give us a chance for an encore, like they wanted to be rid of us and all the "weird" indie kids as badly as i've been wanting to be done with it.

i tried not to be emotional at hot knees. instead i let myself be angry that no one was there, that when we arrived at 10 there wasn't even a table or soundboard or anything set up for us. not even "keep on livin" cheered me up (it usually never fails.) when i got home, i started crying so hard. i watched "shortbus" and cried more, then fell asleep watching "hedwig and the angry inch" (it was a john cameron mitchell kinda night, i suppose.)

i know it may seem kind of silly, to be crying and so upset, but hot knees has been a part of our lives every week for the past year and a half. while i'm relieved to not have to deal with the stress, it was still our baby, our project, and a huge huge HUGE part of our lives. and we know it was a huge part of a lot of people's lives, but it just hasn't been the same since the green room closed down. maybe we should have just accepted it was over then, but we had some good nights at the robinhood, too.

so thanks to everyone who ever supported us, and to those who came out last night.

we're still unsure about a serious finale. last night just felt so wrong. but we'll be djing at 157 lounge on water street in kent on december 10th with evan evolution and mike filly. it's for evan's birthday. it should be a good time.

today anthony called me to invite me down to food not bombs. i should have gone, but i'm just feeling so down. i got zines from maranda (the "telegram ma'am" split with "your pretty face is going straight to hell" that i ordered, plus she threw in the "telegram ma'am" winter survival zine she just made. its arrival seemed like perfect timing, really.) i think i'm either going to work on my zine, watch "crumb" on netflix, or make a t-shirt purse out of my old le tigre shirt that is so small it looks like it was made for a five year old.

tonight

2009-11-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

tonight might be the final hot knees. there's a chance we'll do one more, but we're not sure yet, and it wouldn't be for about two weeks. everyone's asking why why why, but i feel like it should be obvious. maybe not. i guess the stress of a weekly event just got to me after a year and a half of doing it, and glenna doesn't want to continue without me. we're still gonna dj and do other events, but i'm coming up on my last semester at kent and i can't really mess around.

i'm going to mostly play hot knees "classics" tonight, or songs i played at the very first one. it's gonna be upstairs at the 'hood, so we might face some sound problems (cuz we always seem to up there) but it should be fun. little bummed i'm missing the annabel/pswingset show as i've been listening to annabel nonstop lately and have been dying to see them again, but i think they're playing next saturday at the soggy dog for the american war release show, so that will be a good time.

this entry probably wasn't thought provoking or creative or inspiring. sorry.

i want

2009-11-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

i want a queer grrrl revolution.

i know we exist, the queer grrrls. the ones who don't believe in gender binaries, who don't believe we must be either this or that. i feel like so many girls who have read my zine come to me saying this is the same way they feel too, but not being completely to one side of the sexual spectrum is just such a confusing being! i've been talking with a new friend in kent about it via facebook messages lately (we're switching to real letters soon. i can't wait.)

i don't want my queerness to be invisible. i don't want everyone to judge me, say "but you still date boys!" i don't want boys i date to invalidate my queer identity. just because there's potential for a man in my life doesn't mean i don't still have these feelings; it doesn't mean this is the end-all-be-all and i won't ever be with anyone else-- let alone a woman-- again.

i say i don't want these things for myself, but what i mean is i don't want them for any of my queer friends/any queer person. i want us to start talking about what being queer means to us, creating a dialogue, not keeping ourselves closeted. this is who we are! why shouldn't we be proud of that?

i also say a queer grrrl revolution because it is mostly other women i have met who identify this way, but of course i would gladly link arms with the queer bois too.

just something that's been on my mind a lot these past few days. i guess now it's time i start my walk in the rain to work, go serve some beers.

letters & posi punx & happiness

2009-11-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

thishi and i have been writing letters-- electronic, but letters, real communication. she says quitting facebook is a great idea, encourages me to do it, while everyone else keeps coming up with other solutions. "just delete people you don't talk to!"; "just moderate your usage!" because, dear god forbid i consider doing such a thing and how will they EVER contact me? because, ya know, there wasn't a world before facebook or anything.

i've been thinking so much about verbal communication lately. truly expressing oneself. i get worried about these things being lost in a fast track world of status updates. i know i've gotten sucked into it too (hello, twitter!), and that's why i want to take a step back. and i know writing in this blog isn't verbal but i think it's a step in another direction. i am starting off by just limiting how much time i spend on such websites daily, but i think the less and less i use them, the more and more inclined i will be to just delete them. if anything, i will miss facebook for the photos (as thishi mentioned it's the one thing she misses, i realized i would, too.)

i started off thinking this was going to be a poem about letters with thishi but...alas.

we got to see the posters the students over at glyphix have made to go with the peace stanzas our students have written. holy SHIT these posters look awesome!!! i cannot wait for everyone to see them. i want a copy of each them to hang on the big empty wall to my right.

go figure, my favorite, in a design sense, turned out to be one of my student's poems, from a prompt i taught. it used typewriter font and the poem was in this big heart surrounded by all these faces. i can't even describe how awesome this poster was. and then...guess what? i look at who designed it and it was my pal, andy (drummer of annabel, one of the bands i linked to in my last entry)! that made me so excited. my second favorite poster also happened to be a poem from my 4th grade class, but it was a prompt nikki taught them, not us.

seriously, guys, these posters are amazing. there are going to be greeting cards and maybe postcard booklets too. we're gonna take over the world with peace (poems.)

i made a playlist out of all the bands i've been listening to plus some similarly styled bands that i haven't given much listen to. i think the entire playlist consists of albums and EPs by: lemuria, the sidekicks, annabel, latterman, halo fauna, hop along queen ansleis!, american war, andy cook, no target audience, the ergs!, best friends forever, p.s. eliot, asinine, mountain asleep, bridge & tunnel, pheramones, o pioneers!!!!, richard wehrenwolf, reverse the curse, underdogs of nipomo, slingshot dakota, thousandaires, and one tin armor song.

i just put it on shuffle on my ipod as i walk around and i never really get sick of it. it's about fifteen hours worth of music. i've been discovering amazing songs that have otherwise been sitting, never listened to, on my computer, since i never got around to listening to halo fauna or the ergs or latterman. how have i been missing out on a lot of these bands?

this mix is so good. so uplifting. you should probably listen to all of these bands. no, not probably. you should. quite a few of them are local/from ohio, too. up the posi punx!

i am so happy.

so happy.

yowza

2009-11-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

i posted this on my zine livejournal. i meant to just update that i'm already writing a bunch for the next issue, but it turned into this really long thing. maybe you'd like to read it, maybe not:

i haven't even sent out any copies of the new zine yet and already i'm getting positive reactions about it just being. i gave copies to richard, andy and sarah at the "think tank for human beings in general" release party (a poetry chapbook richard wrote with his friend jordan. you should get a copy, seriously. it's $3, which you can paypal to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com. or email him and work something out) but i haven't heard a response from any of them yet. richard said in an email that he was reading it currently, and writing me a letter. i'm kind of hoping he hands said-letter to me in our fiction writing class today. though getting one in the mail (even if we have class together & he lives only a 15 minute bike ride or so away) would be fun, too. i'm just anxious to see what he has to say! my respect for richard has grown so much over this semester, and that might end up in my next zine a bit.

ah, yes, my next zine.

i can't believe i'm already thinking about it, let alone WORKING on it, with how long it took to complete this one. i guess that's how it worked last time 'round, too. it took me six months or so to complete MCK #11, and then i went and turned #12 out in about a month's time. once you get goin, you just can't stop sometimes, right?

yesterday i was silly and i slept from about 8 PM-11 PM. fell asleep after reading a short story my fiction writing professor wrote/self-published. i felt really honored when he gave me a copy of it. he even said he'd printed it, then forgotten it at home, so he turned around on his bike just to get it (yes, he travels to campus on a bike. how could this guy NOT be my hero?) the story made me cry. it's kind of strange when that boundary of professor and student gets broken and you become people as opposed to teacher/student. not bad strange! i love it. few professors have taken the chance to really cross that line with me, and i really appreciate it when they do. i think ted, my writing prof, and i became closer the second i broke down crying during one of our conferences earlier this semester. i felt pretty mortified, but he almost looked relieved, like here was someone so consumed with their writing, so passionate about it, and so frustrated with it that it brought them to tears. i've taken basically every creative writing course kent state has to offer now (actually, not basically. i have, indeed) and i have seen how few people really care. so many people take these classes as filler, or just for fun, or for an easy A. while that's fine and i totally understand, it's also really frustrating because i'm taking them because i feel compelled to. because i love writing. because i am considering going to graduate school for it. because it's my minor (since, unfortunately, kent doesn't offer a writing major. thus why i got stuck with english.) so i can only imagine, as a professor of one of these courses, how important moments like that- a student crying over their work- can be.

when ted handed me his short story he told me a bit about it. he was giving it to me because i have a tough time writing fiction. i pretty much end up writing non-fiction/memoirs (what a surprise, with my background in perzines!) he said how this story was generally comprised of truth. that he fictionalized what job the main character had, a few other things. but the heartbreak was real. the conversation about the new lowes shopping center was real. he sorta played around it like, "well, what is truth, anyway?" but i knew when i read it, i could tell this was his truth. and the fact that ted lyons is a human being and not just my professor hit really hard. how do we forget these things?! of course he is a human being! of course he has experienced heartache and death and longing and life in general.

i really hope he will be my friend and that we can write each other letters after all of this. i'm giving him a copy of my latest zine in class today, which makes me pretty nervous since i talk about things like being queer and masturbation and sexual abuse in it, but i hope he'll like it. i've brought in examples from zines like "doris" for presentations in class before, and have been trying to pinpoint the difference between the writing in zines and "regular" fiction and/or non-fiction writing. i kind of got the idea this semester that i might even like to go into studying the non-fiction literature of zines in graduate school, if i can find a school/program that would work with that, and maybe one day i could teach a course somewhere on the topic, using my own personal archive of zines since who knows if they'll even really be accessible that far along in the future (i sure hope so!!)

anyway. i was talking about how i took that silly nap. well, after waking up at 11 PM and realizing the grave mistake i'd made to nap so late in the evening, i decided to make the most out of it. i ended cleaning both of my typewriters, fixing the 'n' key on the one that kept sticking, and trying to fix the other that hasn't worked since i bought it (it won't grip the paper when i insert it. i found a troubleshooting guide that says the platen- a.k.a. the roller- might just be too old and needs a good sanding, so i'm going to try that later if i get the chance.) then i wrote fifteen pages (already quarter-size, that is) for issue fourteen on my now smoothly running smith-corona. FIFTEEN PAGES?! that's insane! i stayed up all night. i haven't slept yet. during my french class this morning i wrote about five more pages in my journal about teaching poetry. that piece isn't even done yet. me thinks issue fourteen might end up being pretty long.

i suppose i should go finish my short story for class, though. it has to be near complete & copied by 2:15. i'm also going to copy two pages from the latest "doris" to handout to the class, because cindy made a little comic about writing that i think everyone might find interesting.

this entry is so long! you see, i just can't seem to stop writing. since last friday, i feel so happy and hopeful about everything, and like i could just talk for hours about how great the world can be. i know that will probably wear off soon, when the weather finally catches up with the season and i've got to wear my big winter coat and moonboots again. at least i learned last winter how much more bearable the ohio winter is when your toes aren't freezing the whole time. i have that to look forward to again.

i've been listening to these bands on a steady rotation. you should too:
http://www.myspace.com/lemuria
http://www.myspace.com/annabelrock
http://www.myspace.com/sidekicks

future cat lady

2009-11-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

(photo by katherine case)

i am a cat lady in the making

there is a failure

in communication

between miss

jango wiggles

scuzzbaby and i.

she cries outside

of skyla's bedroom

door. she cries at

her food dish. she

cries at her litterbox.

what? i ask her,

as though she can

respond in a language

i will understand.

what do you want?

i once purchased

a 'cats for dummies'

style pamphlet at

dave's supermarket.

i saw it while

standing in line, an

impulsive buy.

i was sold on the

cover's promise

to teach me how

to understand

the things my cat

is trying to say to me.

if only i had read it.

productivity

2009-11-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

ciara's zine says the phrase "being productive" is "potentially capitalistic and loaded." maybe she's right, but i feel productivity is the fitting word lately. over the past week i've written several letters, taught poetry to three classes, finished a zine, read poetry & short stories by friends/professors/classmates, done the dishes, watched "pink flamingos", started a new zine, danced & sang loudly with friends in a packed basement while lemuria and the sidekicks played, got a tattoo, fought off a cold, read the latest "doris" and ciara's zine, "love letters to monsters" #2. these things feel pretty productive to me.

what have you been doing? how are you feeling? have you taken some time for yourself? have you written a letter lately?

i finally got my hedwig tattoo

2009-11-15T14:45:00.000-08:00

people keep asking if that means

i got that owl from harry potter,

but do i really seem like that kind

of girl, i wonder? no, this is a face

broken in half, with mismatching eyes.

eric told me it's very "art nouveau."

the day after is always the most

agonizing. you never realize how often

people grab, hit, or run into your left

arm until each time they do causes you

to crouch over in pain and scream:

god dammit stop doing that!

even if it's one of your best friends

who forgot, or doesn't have a tattoo

yet to know what that feels like.

i cannot wait for the scabs, dark

and bold lines that look like they

were drawn with a sharpie, to peel

away and reveal what will be

on my body for life.

my grandfather looked at me at his

birthday dinner and said, you have

a small gem by your lip, a ring in

your nose and now this tattoo. you

like body modification, don't you?

i'd never thought of it that way. i just

like having art with me at all times.

i'm glad he hasn't noticed my gaged ears.

wrote this late last night. probably will get edited tons but i felt like sharing.

drawerings

2009-11-15T02:52:00.000-08:00

got a new drawing (of the lovely amanda palmer), plus better versions of the last two i posted:

motor city kitty #13

2009-11-15T02:37:00.001-08:00

i have a new zine out!

if you don't know, i write and self-publish a zine called "motor city kitty." it's a perzine a.k.a. personal zine. (it is not named after the cat pictured above. that is jango, whom i tend to mention a lot in my zine. the zine was named after a cat my dad had when i was little.)

this is issue #13:

it took me nearly a year to make a new zine so i'm feelin pretty proud of this right now. it's 32 pages long, quarter-sized, all written on a typewriter and pasted together by hand. it mostly discusses gender, identity, being queer, summer romances, writing letters, and making/having goals. plus there are some of the illustrations from this blog in it.

here are the first two pages, as an example:

if you'd like a copy, leave a comment or email me (motorcity_kitty@yahoo.com.) i forgot to put it on the actual zine, but they're $1 (to cover copy costs & postage.) or you can donate more than that if you'd like. i also still have copies of issues 11 & 12 (which are ALSO sold at marchingstars.co.uk and youreinsanehoney.com.) those are $1 each, too.

buzz

2009-11-15T01:50:00.001-08:00

this weekend has been so inspiring already.

friday morning i taught my 4th & 7th graders for the first time in quite awhile (alyssa and i went in on halloween, but i hadn't been there for two weeks before that, and we didn't go last week either.) after that i went to the weekly luna negra meeting, where lexi and i discussed how we'd like the magazine to be designed which got me really pumped. that night, i saw lemuria, black wine & the sidekicks at the soggy dog house in lakewood (pretty much one of my favorite places ever now.) as soon as i walked in i was greeted by so many smiling faces and hugs. i hadn't felt so in place like that in such a long time. i stood right up front for lemuria's set and sang & danced my little heart out. we also stopped by tower 2012 to see new creases, which wasn't as inviting but new creases were still great. and after THAT i went to hot knees (the weekly indie dance night i co-run in kent.) there was a show going on upstairs so i watched some of that. i finally got to see american war, and hopped around with rachael and glenna when they played "the paper people."

i walked back with brett, erika, hannah and ally til we reached the girls' house, then i walked the rest of the way down lake to my apartment. i find i keep making this walk every friday. sometimes it is scary, but usually i just put on my headphones and look up at the sky. it's quite calming and lovely.

today i woke up determined to finish my zine. i hadn't made an issue since last december. i finished it, took it to kinko's and made a few copies before heading over to richard and jordan's poetry reading/chapbook release at standing rock art gallery on water street. i gave rich, andy and sarah copies of my zine, then realized later as i ate my dinner and looked it over that there was a rather large typo on the second to last page. guess i'll fix that in future copies.

before work i got to read "think tank for human beings in general" (rich & jordan's chapbook) and then wrote this five minutes before my shift at the pub started:

i don't want to stamp this
time card. i want to sit
at the window booth at
professors-- the one
to the right, with the
bicycle tire sculpture
hanging above-- and write
poetry because i finished
reading richard and jordan's
chapbook; and yesterday
i couldn't stop smiling
at the flying koi fish
that looked like stained
glass. kade made it out
of tissue paper, plastic
googley eyes, a 2-liter
pop bottle and gold foil
for wings. he wrote in
his poem for class:
a purple triangle
and a blue square.
you don't realize it
but they're both shapes.
3 and 31,117 are no
different from each other,
they're both numbers.
he is ten years old.

i think i'm going to make a poetry compilation zine. after making the luna negra mini zine and reading this chapbook and reading my friends' poetry blogs, i'm really feelin that idea. so send me some poems! (motorcity_kitty@yahoo.com.)

i hope tomorrow is as inspiring and full of creation & love as the past two days. i'll most likely spend it writing, and reading the package of zines i ordered from papertraildistro.com that arrived today.

haven't posted any drawings in awhile

2009-10-20T10:37:00.001-07:00

here's one i did quite awhile ago and never got around to posting:

and here's one i did today:

sorry for the poor quality pics. used photobooth cuz i was too lazy to put batteries in my camera, and i don't have photoshop on my new comp to edit with yet. you get the idea.

50th

2009-10-14T01:30:00.001-07:00

this week, i'm taking a poetry workshop with this year's winner of the tom wick poetry prize, edward micus. we've been given two different prompts thus far. the first, which we worked on a bit during monday's session, brought me to tears. i could only think of this past weekend, talking to my uncle on the phone for the first time in years, and so on. i couldn't do it. the second prompt, which is thankfully the one i needed to bring in copies of, was to write a single sentence poem over eight lines (and not just one word per line.) this past weekend was still fresh in mind, but i think i was able to channel it a little better, instead of just breaking down in tears. here's what i'll be turning in (if i don't revise anymore between now and 9:30 AM or so)

50th

you'd think we'd found gold, the way we
scattered to grasp hold of all of the marbles a child
must have spilt across lorain road, but my eyes
had welled at the sight of a yellowing 11x17 print
of my father cradling me in 1990, his curling hair wrapping
up onto my chin like a dark slug crawling across my face,
and my sister, she saw the glass glimmer on the sidewalk
and knew its cold green would soothe me.

i really liked this exercise. i've actually written a few this way. for example:

he says that explains
something about you, how
you're always guarded,
choose your words wisely
and i reply yes,
i know, us queer girls,
we've all got daddy issues,
right?

that wasn't quite appropriate for this workshop (as edward seems to be pushing for writing musically and lots of imagery and what not, straying away from abstractions.) i like it, though, even if i'm not turning it in for critique.

so...wait...what? i'm writing again?

for maaa

2009-10-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

verbalization

mother i wish to apologize
for ever scorning you,
for swearing, calling you bitch,
making you cry. i was thinking
of the house on damon avenue,
wondering if my old bedroom
is still pink and so bright
behind its boarded windows.
and i realized you always tried
your best to make me comfortable,
that you had not ever had to
handle a fourteen year old girl
who wanted nothing more than
your love- more than bubblegum walls
and zebra carpeting and that
sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band cd.

they used to say how much
i looked like my father. at his wake
they huddled around me, reached
out arms as though my similar
features were a way to touch him
one last time. i can't tell if it's
because i've grown or because
he's been gone for ten years, but
i have trouble finding him
in my own face. i see your eyes,
the same beauty that's caused you
trouble since you were in college,
that's caused boys to fall in love
with you then abhor you when you
did not know how to return it,
the same way i cursed you for not
knowing how to show you loved me.

mother i wish to apologize
for now i know how much it can take
to say these things, how scary words
and verbalizing emotions can be
when they want to spit it all back,
or not believe, or swear at you,
call you bitch, make you cry. now
i wonder if you close those eyes
you gave me and feel like a tiny doll
floating through a massive void, your
body becoming one with the air
that surrounds you-- you cannot part
your lips to express just what
that sensation is like and any hand
that lays itself upon you feels
like that of a giant. did i scare you,
mother, the way the boys who claimed
to love you did? i promise mine was true,
and i wish you'll believe me.
i am truly your daughter

how have i missed you?

2009-10-08T21:28:00.001-07:00

little izzy, who i thought was a boy the first day we taught, and felt awful the next week when i saw her polka dot knee socks. all freckles and glasses and adorable. she sits in the farthest corner, the one desk tucked against the wall by itself, not part of a row. she never shares, never talks, and hides her paper with her elbow if i pass by as she writes.

i finally got the chance to read over what my students have been writing today. i don't know how i've taught three weeks and haven't truly read their poems yet. when i got to izzy's, i was surprised by how neat the handwriting was, and then more-so by the lines she wrote:

i am from the sweet taste of candied ginger, from the black coffee every morning.
i am from the blues and blacks of sitting at my bedroom window when everyone else sleeps.
i am from baltimore in early spring when the air is cold and wet and seafood is fresh.
i am from max's sudden death and driving to the hospital in the late afternoon.
i am from my father and his quiet mornings, pencil to paper, ideas flow from my head.
i am from my music and my parents' hatred for it, loud and (?) with deep meaning.
i am from days spent on a swing in the park and the mexican restaurant only a few blocks from my house.
i am from all the hours spent on my horse and the fear that i hide.

and the next week:

i want to see max one last time,
even though i know i would cry.
i want to live with my best friend,
no matter how small her house is.
i want an i-tunes set up all to myself.
i want time to stand still
so i can read between the lines.
i want just five more minutes.
i want to never want more.

izzy! how have i missed you? how have i not heard your voice until now?

i know i can't play favorites, but you can't help but be especially intrigued in certain students, especially when they write so beautifully and honestly. i know i probably shouldn't be posting this on my public blog but...i just felt really inspired by her, this girl who is probably ten years younger than me. it is an amazing feeling.

gimme just a little bit, a little bit of motivation

2009-10-05T11:08:00.001-07:00

one day i'll get back to drawing and writing. i've been too busy. that is a sad thing to say.

for him

2009-08-31T17:21:00.000-07:00

i did not know you well at all, but you were always very sweet, and i know you touched so many of my friends' lives. you were a beautiful person, and will be missed. my love goes out to all who are grieving right now. i want to hug you all.

r.i.p. (rest in pissed-offness) by bikini kill

i can't say everything about it
in just one single song
i can't put how i feel in a package
to sell it back to everyone

but wait
there's another boy genius
who's fucking gone

i hope the food tastes better in heaven
i know there's lots of rad queer boys up there
i hope that every time that they talk to you
they know that they're lucky to be your friend

cuz look
there's another boy genius
who's fucking gone

i wouldn't be so fucking mad
so fucking pissed off
if it wasn't so fucking wrong
it's so fucking wrong
it's not fair not fair not fair not fair not fair

no one said life was easy
yea, no one said, no one said
that nothings supposed to happen, right?
no, no one told me anything
to prepare for fucking this

there's another boy genius
who's fucking gone
don't tell me it don't matter
don't tell me it don't matter
don't tell me i've had three days
to get over it
it won't go away
it just won't go away

one more from today

2009-08-28T01:06:00.001-07:00

i realized today, while doing this drawing, that i've been pretty much avoiding drawing realistic, open eyes. i just couldn't get it right here, nor the mouth. but i kind of like pretending that that's just my "style."

this is also from the series for the zine. i'm super excited about it, even if it's gonna be way personal and revealing for myself. though, i suppose my zines always are.

a few things

2009-08-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

my friend lauren and her kitten, tennessee. didn't come out how i wanted, but lauren loved it, copied it and now has it hanging on her fridge.

two pieces from a series i am starting to go with the next zine i am making.

don't blame it on your shadow

2009-08-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

i bought a new sketchbook the other day, because the one i've been drawing in was really meant for watercolors i think (i painted over the cover once so i'm not sure) and thus the ink bled a lot. the first half of that book was also full of badly made collages from freshman year of college or so. i wanted a fresh start.

sadly, i drew this awesome pic of my friend danarama, inked it, and then when i went to erase the pencil, the ink smeared! which never happened with the same pen in my older sketchbook so i'm assuming it has something to do with the paper type. any suggestions for non-smearing fine point ink pens to get?

anyway, here's the pic of dan, with a little touching up in photoshop so you can't see all of the ink smears:

i think i'd like to do similar style portraits of lots of my friends, so that may become the focus of this project.

poetry (edited)

2009-08-18T02:29:00.000-07:00

once upon a time, my main art of choice was poetry. however, i developed a habit of only writing for classes/when given a specific exercise, and now that i've taken nearly every poetry writing course kent state has to offer, i don't really know how to get back into writing. i haven't written a poem since last september- nearly a year- and i find that really scary. but tonight i wrote four. i think i like three of them.

i know this blog started as a way to share my visual art project, but why not share other art i make, too? (funny, this reminds me of the way i treat new notebooks. oh! this one will be for zine writing. and this one will be for poetry. and this one will be for my senior seminar on modernist english literature. but none of them end up dedicated solely to one thing.)

this will probably go through many many many edits over the next year or so- like all of my poems do- and i may hate it come morning, but i'm just so excited to have written something again, and i sort of amused myself with it. please feel free to give honest critiques.

queer means love

mother gave me a button last summer
when i was dating a girl that said
it’s okay, it’s only love.
i knew it was her way of saying
“i love you and i always knew
you’d be a dyke.”

father asked me a few months
before he died if i ever thought
about girls. i was honest,
said i’d kissed one.
i think he was drunk.
i was barely thirteen.

they probably suspected it ever since
i repeatedly declared “i’m a boy!”
as a young child, playing with plastic
dinosaurs and keeping my hair short.
really, i just wanted to be different
from my sister.

[those who saw the original post also saw there were three more stanzas to this poem. but after a bit of time i decided it maybe got to rant-like and away from the whole parent-daughter theme i was going for. i think it ends alright at this point. i hope others agree.]

i don't wanna be sad again

2009-08-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

so i don't know why i thought i'd have the time to draw a picture every day for the rest of the summer, and why i didn't think about the fact i'd be moving very soon after i started this project (thus being rather busy for a few days.)

it is now august 15th. i haven't done a drawing since july 30th, and this is it:

it's a little janky as it was done by very dim light while DJing that night. it's based off of a picture of my friend britt shotgunning a PBR- if you can't tell what's going on there. glenna said i should've made it so she was biting into a big chicken thigh. i might redo it just to try that out.

i did another drawing that night but i didn't like it.

i also inked the kiss kiss drawing from the last post:

i hope to get back to drawing soon. annie and i are supposed to have a sketching date sometime in the near future. summer's nearly over but this project can span beyond that, right?

kiss kiss

2009-07-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

i am a little spooked as i was wondering today, as i did this following drawing, "where did this talent suddenly come from?" i've always drawn but it has never turned out the way i've wanted. these past few days everything is turning out even BETTER than i expected. well guess what? there was an eclipse on the 22nd- the same day i started this project. coincidence? i am not sure!

i can't decide if i should ink this entirely or not. i'm afraid of it losing some of it's quality if i do, but it's also gonna smudge and rub away in my sketchbook if i don't. there are a few things that need erased in this version, that have now been erased. so- to ink or not to ink?

sarah warning

2009-07-27T18:47:00.001-07:00

photo of some cute girl i know in a puppy suit + inspiration from fawn gehweiler = today's drawing. i also tried drawing she-ra, since i plan on getting a she-ra tattoo soon, but that didn't turn out so well.

busy

2009-07-27T09:38:00.001-07:00

so i'm three days behind. will get to work on that soon. this week is my moving week so things might be hectic. way to stick to plans, bri.

hello cleveland: this is scum and noise

2009-07-24T03:16:00.001-07:00

in the summer of 2006, i spent nearly all of my time either talking to or hanging out with alex and johnny. we mostly spent our time looking at their fellow classmates on myspace and laughing, or checking who had a higher number of profile views (i often won, but i'd had my page longer), but at some point we managed to make a zine called "hello cleveland: this is scum and noise." it was kind of cool. we had britt take photos of us for the cover of it. this is based on one of them.

i really miss alex and johnny and our zine.

self criticism: johnny's arm (far right) got really fucked up when i was inking it. oh vwell.

oh hai

2009-07-22T06:37:00.003-07:00

i can't sleep so i turned on my crocodiles EP and did another drawing:

another self-portrait because i'm apparently egotistical (or i just know my own face best so why not attempt it in several different forms?) not quite right/the way i wanted, but a good start, i think. a little photoshopping for the color/contrast since my camera won't take a picture that looks like the real thing.

and for those who care, it's based on this photo:

summer art project, day one

2009-07-22T04:42:00.001-07:00

summer is half over and i've not really done much with my time. mostly, i've laid in bed, sleeping through half- if not 3/4- of the day. i attended bonnaroo and berea fest. those were fun, but only a few days long each. i've started bartending, which is also fun, but i only do that once a week.

summer is half over and i'm feeling pretty unfulfilled.

i was browsing a ton of artwork online tonight, gathering ideas for tattoos [on that note: i found the most amazing typewriter tattoo and cannot wait to have it done.] after several hours of saving a ton of beautiful artwork (by the likes of deth p. sun, irana douer, jennifer davis, fawn gehweiler and junko mizuno) i decided i should probably start drawing again.

back story time: as a child, i spent all of my free time drawing. okay, maybe not all, but definitely the majority. when other kids were playing hopscotch on the playground during recess, i was propped against the school's outer brick walls with a sketchbook. when other kids were drawing potato-shaped people with sticks for arms and legs, i was drawing full bodies and faces. i decided to try out for the cleveland school of the arts for visual arts in fifth grade (entering sixth grade.) i drew up a portfolio and went to the audition, where we were instructed to draw this still life in front of us. there was a statue of mary and some cleaning products, i remember. i set to drawing the entire scene. halfway through, i looked over to see the guy beside me- who was a few grades ahead of me, for sure- focusing on one of the comet cleaning cans. i knew i'd effed up. when i turned in my finished audition piece, the art teacher sat and went over it and my portfolio with me. he told me i drew my eyes too close together, showing me that there should be the width of one eye between the two. i got really discouraged after this audition. while i still doodled and drew cartoons, i never went on to be the great artist i thought i was going to be.

i can't help but wonder if it's too late in the game for me to hone in on my artistic talents, at the age of twenty three. it seems most of the people i know who are really great artists have a natural knack for it, and have had that knack forever.

still, i'd like to try and get better. i don't expect to ever be amazing, but somewhat decent?

which brings me to the point of this entire post: i've decided to start a summer art project for myself. every day for the rest of summer (and probably beyond that) i plan to complete at least one drawing, whether it's my own idea or a replica of someone else's work for practice. then i thought- hey! all my friends have blogs. why not blog about my summer art project? so here i am. here you are. here we are.

today's piece:

this is a self-portrait in the style of junko mizuno's lovely ladies. it's certainly not perfect, but an alright start.

see you kids tomorrow (er, soon, at least.)