Saturday, December 18, 2010

#23: Table at a zine fest.

This item is officially in progress! This week I registered as an exhibitor at the Chicago Zine Fest. I went to it at the last minute by myself last year, and dragged a girl I had know for five minutes at my hostel with me to the zine reading. The zine fest itself was great, I bought a bunch of great zines, and traded for even more, saw an old friend from my days living in Grand Rapids, went to workshops and got delicious cheap Indian food. Yums.

So, I'm really excited to be tabling this year! The zine fest is March 25th & 26th and I can't wait. I even put my name in to read at the zine reading on the 25th (they choose randomly from the people who volunteer). This will be my second time tabling at a zine fest, I did Wolverzine at U of M a number of years ago, but there were very few actual zinesters themselves there, it was mostly crafts with a few distros. I'm stoked. And excited to have something push me back into the zine community, which I've been pretty absent from the last few years. Even when I have made zines, I haven't really put them out there. The last two issues of Checkered Past I never even officially "released" or promoted anywhere, mostly just giving them out to friends and family. I have two zines I want to finish before the fest, so I gotta get my butt in gear!

For more info: chicagozinefest.org

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

#78: Get rid of at least 10 more items of clothing.

Completed 9.17.10

Okay, so, for my whole life I've basically been a pack rat. I think this runs in the family. My grandma on my mother's side was pretty much a hoarder, but a really neat hoarder. Her basement was always full of shelves full of neatly organized, useless things. Piles of paper, boxes of baby food jars, things like that. She was creative and found interesting ways to use otherwise useless things, so she thought there was a use for everything. And would often give people things that she thought they could use. Like when she gave me a couple hundred envelopes which were all sealed shut.

My mom and I both have a bit of that trait, but not to such an extreme. I also attach emotions and memories to objects, so it's hard for me to get rid of things for that reason. Add to this, I've always been a messy person, and it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I actually kept my rooms clean enough to be able to walk around them. Growing up, the floors in my bedrooms were always covered, with only a walkway from the door to the bed.

So, getting rid of anything, especially clothes, has never been a strength of mine. I always think that I will wear it, some day. Things really turned around for me when I started watching A&E's show, Hoarders. Watching that show made me so scared of turning out like those people, with junk and garbage piled throughout their entire house. That's basically what my room looked like growing up, so I fear that I'm capable of it. Once I started watching that show, I was motivated to go through my belongings with a much more critical eye. Plus, during the commercial breaks, I would often get up and clean. I donated a couple bags of stuff, mostly clothes, when I moved to Escanaba. And then when we moved from Esky to Ypsi, packing was a chance to donate of bunch of stuff I didn't want to take with me. I donated 15 items of clothing, plus a couple boxes of random odds'n'ends. Hurray! And in the process of unpacking, I've filled up another box of things to donate. Now I just gotta get around to getting it out of the house. :]