treasure: things I got in the mail today

I'm really into zines at the moment. I think it's my friend Bridget who got me thinking about them - she ran a zine festival in Hobart last year that I wish I could have attended... I'm still not sure why they made Hobart so far away from Armidale, but I guess that's out of my hands.

Still, zines. Bridget sent me some way back in 2011 when I lived in Canada, a few that she made and a few others which are super cute. Since then, I have being quietly working on my collection - each time I have visited Melbourne recently I've gone to town at The Sticky Institute on Degraves/Flinders (it's under ground, which only serves to make me love it more). Polyester Books on Brunswick St in Fitzroy also sells zines, although I always forget to visit when I'm there. I am particularly of the feminist zine persuasion, but have come to realise that I'm pretty much down with all the zines, given that zines are really about creating an outlet for your own voice that doesn't have to follow anyone's rules. Also, there's the aesthetics of the thing - Photocopying and cut'n'pasting are what it's all about, and I love it. Christina Lee wrote this article about zines and about Sticky, if you require more information.

Today I got my latest lump of zines from Take Care zine distro who are based in Sydney and list their catalogue online to purchase from. I like to share my money around - so I order stuff online from them. My favourite is that no matter what happens, I always end up with a few extra zines I didn't order (this time it was because one of the zines I selected had run out).

My new favourite zine is now officially this one.

She writes about being on a disability pension because of depression, and has chosen to document as much of this as humanly possible through zines. I think it's such a great outlet that she has provided for herself, a beautiful aesthetic and sense of truth rings through the writing. This is the great thing - because zines can be anything, there's zines like hers with lots of little stories about her life, but other zines are all hand drawn pictures or cartoons, or photographs in a collage. It feels real and authentic to read, and just magical, basically.

This zine from berti evan is only small but manages to communicate such a lot about this person's mother and how big a part of her life cookbooks were... I love it. I love that these ideas can come from people, ideas I never would have had.

In conclusion, yay zines! And also, yay mail! I am going to start sending mail again very soon, to all of the everybody... if you'd like some mail from me, let me know. I'll put ya on my list.

secret: I ain't scared of no podcast

so I think I'm really back this time - I decided to mix it up and make a tiny 5 minute podcast.



what do you think? I think that doesn't really sound like my voice, so can someone tell me if it actually does?

hope you like it, everybody.

treasure: families

i am a lucky enough girl to have plenty of families. there are the families we are born into, and the families we make for ourselves. i've spent the past 6 weeks immersed in family.  'tis the season for family, Christmas and New Years', and man oh man did we win at it.

i hereby provide exhibit a: photographic evidence.

 

 

Thanks to Karin, Mitch & Mark for borrowed photography

exhibit b: stories and contemplation

it was just the right amount of fun and downtime, and my love for all these people only grew in the time i was lucky enough to spend with them. it was the first time in probably 2 years that me and the whistler gang had all been together, looking each other in the eye instead of over Skype, or on Facebook and Instagram. i think the main thing i noticed was just how much we appreciated each other, and just how much of a family we were.

when you're in whistler, you're in the thick of things- part of what i loved about that was you tend to live in the 'right now' of your life, without too much thought past the next payday. it's a kind of freedom you don't tend to get for a long time in your life, and should be whole-heartedly enjoyed. what i never did a lot of at the time was to appreciate what long-lasting friendships i was setting up with every potluck dinner, every day on the mountain, every night out dancing at Bill's, every moment dressed up in costume. this is the stuff true love is made of; people who are on your wavelength, who agree with you (and disagree with you too), who laugh with you and commiserate with you and fill your days up with company.

when you leave whistler, and go your separate ways, you suddenly realise how lovely that all was, with the pang of retrospective contemplation and a realisation that Other People (people that haven't been to whis) do not think it's ok to have a double caesar for breakfast on your days off.

meeting up again 2 years later for the wedding of kate and phill was just a wonderful choice. it made me realise how we have all grown and changed, but miraculously we're all still awesome in slightly different ways. the world outside of whistler has been bearing down on us and we've all risen to the challenge. we're all proud of each other the way family is, and fiercely so. we all partied and wore the shit out of our dragon onesies (an awesome purchase and another wonderful choice), drank double caesars for breakfast and ate eggs benny, a Karin Rofors speciality. we re-lived some of the best bits of whistler, but it was really about us being together. and together we were. in cars, on beaches, in planes and on trains, in houses, in tents, in hammocks, on decks, in marquees, on dance floors, in limousines, in vans, in tow trucks, in beds, in cabins, on SkyDeck, on Facebook and Instagram.

we were everywhere in our togetherness.

now, we are apart again. it's a little bit sad, but truthfully the together part was so much fun and so powerful in its ability to make me feel both grounded and filled with helium excitement that i can't feel too sad for too long.

i think life is about the people you miss as a flipside of togetherness. there are always people to miss - it's the life of a traveller, and we all love to travel. it's the people that you meet that make you who you are, and these people are all parts of me, in their sticky happy fizzy ways.

sending you love, dragon and non-dragon friends. all of the love.

do you even know how much i love you?

Friday Feminism: ALL the ideas

Hey lovelies!

I started on Friday Feminism last year in September as it became a topic I wanted to expand upon more and more. I had some great feedback which I really appreciated, and so of course I plan to continue with it this year. There are all sorts of ideas bubbling about in my brain, and while I haven't got a post on one of them ready for today, I thought I'd share with you the sorts of things I want to investigate more this year, as that will probably set the tone of my blog posts.

So here's a list, which I may or may not adhere to. I make no promises, except that there will be words on Fridays, and they will be about feminism. Also, some of these might be podcasts... or even vlogs... just for the sake of experimentin'.

• women's groups, feminist groups, female friendship
• zines & zine culture, including riot grrl zines, my zine making, the zines of others (maybe zine reviews, even)
• acts of feminist rebellion
• women I admire vs women who confuse me
• more in the 'your body is your body' series, looking at body positivity, labels like fat and skinny and healthy and fit and curvy and all of the things
• feminist fashion
• intersectionality with a bit of a discussion on what kind of feminist I am
• sexuality and a bit of gender studies theory dabbling
• my favourite books written by women, as well as ones I've been meaning to read
• Bechdel-testing movies and TV shows
• imagining a feminist utopia and trying to figure out what might help to get us there
• feminism in social media- trolling and fighting in the comments section

There's a few meaty topics there, but boy oh boy I am excited to give this list a red-hot go.

Anything you'd like me to discuss? Just let me know in the comments.

Let's do this!