- Baked cupcakes with my mum, and got in touch with my inner child:
- Co-organised and attended the joint Swansea Feminist Network/Swansea Women’s Centre International Women’s Day event
This was a fantastic day – you can read my review of the event at the SFN blog. I bought a knitted womb from one of the SFN girls, and when I showed my mum and auntie they loved mine so much that they asked me to buy them one each too!
Knitted womb!
- Finished building my new website!
Take a look, it’s awesome. Built thanks to the technical wizardry of Waj. www.catherineelms.co.uk
- Took Toby for long walks on the beach, and took my favourite photo of Toby ever:
- Went veggie for a week
A blog post documenting this experience will be posted soon!
- Published the third issue of Pandora Press!
I kinda rushed this issue a little bit so I could get it ready in time for the International Women’s Day, especially the artwork, but overall I’ve had lots of positive comments about it, so maybe I’m being too hard on myself. It’ll be stocked in Marching Stars distro from next week onwards, or you can pick up a copy at any upcoming SFN event.
I have returned from my holiday, a little fatter after too many Sangrias, and a little browner after days of walking in the blazing Spanish sun.
Posing with some of the tat sold in souvenir shops.
The monkeys in Gibraltar trying to climb into our car!
Puerto Banus beach front
I had a good time. I also got some reading done. I won’t go into detail about the holiday because I know that can be a little boring; mostly we explored the touristy parts of the Costa del Sol, ate a lot of good food (including the best steak and onion pie and the best garlic chicken I’ve ever tasted), went swimming, felt embarrassed about my body in front of all the gorgeous super-skinny women my age sunbathing topless on the beaches, met some monkeys on the rock of Gibraltar, learned a tiny bit of Spanish, and read some trashy books (despite my best intentions, I ended up getting drawn into “Still Missing“ by Chevy Stevens).
One major part of the week was the fact that I didn’t take my beloved iPhone with me, and so had no access to the internet. I am an iPhone addict – I do the vast majority of my socialising, organising, and reading there. There was a computer in the resort that you could rent for 15 minutes for an euro, but I’m a tight bastard so fuck that. I also wanted to try going for a week without the internet to see how I would manage, and whether it would encourage me to adopt a more mindful and patient attitude. Here are the findings of my little experiment:
1. I found myself thinking about my activities in terms of how I’d tweet them, e.g. “Best. Garlic. Chicken. Ever. #somesortofwittyhashtag“. Everything I did – all the outings, all the random observations – became pithy 140-character tweets in my mind, and I began itching to share them with the world, no matter how mundane (see this xkcd comic for a similar take on social media). I didn’t even realise that my brain had started working in this way! That’s, uh, quite worrying actually.
2. I put more effort into writing and reading. Usually, I try to do too many things at once – reading with the TV on in the background, with my iPhone close to hand in case something interesting happens. This means that my attention is diverted from the task at hand, and I can’t put enough concentration or effort into whatever it is I’m trying to do. But when I found myself at the poolside with three options – write in my diary, people-watch, or stare into space like a lemming, my diary became a thing of great detail and beauty that commanded my full attention. I managed to get a lot of writing and reading done, by my standards.
3. I couldn’t google things whenever I wanted to. The waiters at our resort had this tendency to only speak to us in Spanish, and make us feel guilty for speaking English; if I’d had my iPhone I could’ve whipped it out and found out the Spanish for “two sangrias please”, or “don’t scowl at me you rude git, you work at a self-promoted English-speaking resort!” (it’s “dos Sangrías por favor”, by the way. Just saved you a trip to google). Without my iPhone, I had to find a Spanish to English dictionary in a shop in the next town along.
4. I couldn’t distract myself when doing briefly boring tasks, like peeing or queuing. Usually I’d be on my iPhone, entertaining myself in this tiny period of time by flicking mindlessly through my various comic apps, or my Twitter timeline. But I had no distractions this week! At first it was difficult, and almost counter-intuitive – I’d reach into my pocket for the iPhone that’s always there, and found nothing but an euro and a rolled-up tissue – but it felt fine after the first two days. It takes me less than 30 seconds to pee, why would I even need to distract myself for such an insignificant amount of time?
5. I slept like a baby every night. I even managed a kip on the red-eye flight home. Usually falling asleep looks like this for me.
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This morning I turned on my computer, a little excited about catching up on my email (because I’m a bit neurotic like that), and a little nervous at how much I might have missed. It turned out to take no time at all to “catch up” – I had 80 emails, most of which were junk, and one email on We Make Zines. I suppose I’m glad that everything ticked over nicely and I didn’t have to chase anything up while I was gone. My good friend Emma also updated Spill the Zines for me, which I’m chuffed about.
I’m going to be fairly absent from social media for another week or so. I’m avoiding Facebook for another week – another Day Zero Project challenge I’m trying to undertake. I’d like to think that when I eventually go back on Facebook, there’ll be a little more activity waiting for me there. I doubt it though. Also, my Twitter account has been hacked so Twitter have suspended access to my account. I’ve emailed the support centre as advised, but they told me that it’ll take a few days to sort out. Damn. Looks like my compulsive-tweeting brain will have a few more days to calm down.
I’ve learned a lot about myself and my habits this week. It’s quite scary, how much I rely on technology to entertain me, and how little I actually get done as a result of this. It’s like I’ve always got one eye on the iPhone, waiting for something interesting to happen. I’m going to make an effort to turn my iPhone and my laptop off more often, because as entertaining as being online might be, it sucks my creative energy and my patience for anything that doesn’t refresh instantly. I want to stay in touch with the calm, thoughtful part of my mind, even if only for a small portion of each day.
On Sunday I went to the London Zine Symposium with my good friend Caitlin (only a 3-hour train journey from Swansea, not bad eh?), where we met fellow zinester Ingrid at the station. We had an awesome day together – great zines were bought, wallets were emptied, expensive London food was consumed, many free papery things were hoarded in our bags. Also, I tried my first ever Krispy Kreme doughnut – ‘strawberries & kreme’.
*drool*
So after I held them up by insisting on finding something to eat first, we arrived at the venue, which was being held in a cool area of east London. There were lots of stalls and interesting people en route to the venue; a far cry from the (fairly) homogenized population of Swansea that I’m used to! Inside, we had a bit of a nose around the stalls, and met with a few cool people there, including Lizzy from Marching Stars, Sophie Koonin, Hodge and the women from Bad Reputation, Tukru and her Vampire Sushi distro, and Emma Jane Falconer. I bought one of Hodge’s gorgeous “An Alphabet of Feminism” posters, which I was chuffed about.
There was a zine library stall, where I donated a few issues of my zine, and a table for free zines and flyers, where I shoved piles of Spill the Zines flyers and issues of my free minizine Twt. When I returned to the table 20 minutes later, they had all been taken! Yay! With hindsight, I should’ve printed out far more flyers… oh well, there’s always next year.
Other highlights of the symposium included: meeting a few lovely zinesters who I’ve either written to, or follow on Twitter (all of whom were lovely), drawing monsters and third-eyes for ourselves at the Interactive Monster Unit (I wore my third eye on my forehead like a twat, whereas Caitlin and Ingrid had the good sense to wear them on their t-shirts), eating yummy food by the catering company “Anarchist Teapot“, browsing through some incredibly well-drawn comic zines, and the gorgeous sunny weather.
I will say that meeting strangers who knew of me through my zines was very scary. I had a few people come up to me (I wasn’t hard to spot with my purple hair) and start chatting, which has never really happened before, so I’m not sure if I handled it well. I always worry that I’ll be a total disappointment in person… but I don’t think I made too much of an idiot of myself in front of anyone… I call that a success!
Afterward we left the symposium, we visited the iconic record store Rough Trade, which, I must embarrassingly admit, I’d never heard of until that day. After picking up loads of the free zines and newspapers available inside, and browsing their awesome stock of vinyls and CDs, we got our picture taken in its infamous photo booth:
I wish I'd pulled more silly faces.
We then went for a coffee and watched the world go by under the verandah. Such a good day. <3
I picked up so many zines on Sunday; I’m still too afraid to look in my purse to inspect the damage. If I had the time, I would’ve done what Caitlin did and reviewed a few of them in this blog post, but sadly I’ve been too busy to read them so far. For the meantime, you can read Caitlin’s post.
Other bits of zine news:
1. I’ve just done an interview about British zines and feminism for a PhD researcher in Warwick, which was a little scary, but turned out to be quite fun. Looking forward to reading the finished thesis.
2. My zine is being stocked at US distro and craft store, Fluxxii! Take a look here.
3. Spill the Zines has been syndicated on http://syndicatedzinereviews.blogspot.com! Hannah and I are now listed as their two of their “staff reviewers”, which I think is rather exciting. Take a look at their archives here.
I’ll be moving back to Wales for good in May, where I have to leave my theology behind, be a proper adult and find a job. *sob* I’m feeling really sad about growing up and leaving university, for a number of reasons. First, I really love my academic work. I spent the first two years of my degree hating theology and wishing I’d chosen something else, but when I got to third year, everything fell into place. I think it was a combination of my depression beginning to clear, feeling less like an academic imposter who’d made her way into university by some fluke, and interesting modules being offered (or should I say, modules being offered that were to my interest). I’ll be so sad to leave it all behind. Look at what I’ve been reading recently for an essay:
Alien Sex - Gerard Loughlin
Such a good book – and Barbarella is on the front cover! (Ok, I know Barbarella is a problematic character from a feminist point of view, but still… she appeals to my inner gay sci-fi geek) There’s a cracking analysis of the Alien films inside there too. <3
Second, I feel as if I’ve only made an effort to be sociable in my third year, when it started to come to an end. Obviously I was full of enthusiasm in the first few weeks of university, but when it became apparent that university was actually quite difficult and I was still the same awkward shy girl from school, I just retreated into myself and gave up. The depression was the main cause of that, sure, which is why I’m feeling more sociable now that I’m almost in the clear. Still, it’s very disheartening to think that I don’t have much to show for those first two years of university. Last night I went out for drinks and Wagamama with some of my classmates and our lecturer, and it just broke my heart to think that I’ll never get to sit by these people and chat to them again; that the next time I will see them will be graduation day, if I see them again at all. (Last night was lovely, but also very difficult… I was very annoyed at myself for being so damn shy and awkward though. Ugh.)
Third, I’m terrified of being an adult and being forced to enter the real world. I can fill my days quite easily reading, writing, and doing crafty things. I dread to think what my life will be like when I’m working 5 days a week, with no energy left in the evenings to do anything other than veg out in front of the TV.
Of course, there are lots of things about university life that I’ll be glad to leave behind – the awkward seminars, co-habiting with other students, constantly feeling mentally exhausted due to writing so many essays, and being broke.
I don’t really feel like a theology graduate… I still feel like I’ve cheated my way to the end of the degree by taking lots of disparate modules that don’t fit together, and not really learning what I’m “supposed” to learn as a theology student. But then, a lot of theology students have said the same thing when I’ve spoken to them about it, so maybe I’m just expecting too much of myself.
There are 6 weeks and 13,000 words between me and my degree at the moment. Once I’ve made some headway with the essays and dissertation, I’m going to start blogging properly, promise. At the moment, my blog is just a messy way of documenting my life, but I’m going to start writing more, because I’m going to start doing more.
As for what comes next, I’m still unsure. To be honest, I’d quite like to spend a few months building myself up, emotionally and physically, by catching up on my reading, taking up some sort of sport, writing more zines, finish recording my album (that project is currently on hiatus due to my partner, the guy in charge of recording this, not having any time at the moment… SO frustrating), play some gigs, and trying to find friends in my hometown. I’m quite keen to throw myself into my music for a few months and seeing where that takes me, even though it’s not really a viable career choice or anything… I know I should be doing something more practical with my time, but meh, life’s too short for such dull things. Caitlin Gwynn and I are looking into setting up a feminist group in Swansea so we can meet some kick-ass women at home and do some campaigning – that’s going to start coming together over the summer, so if there are any Swansea feminists reading this who want to get involved in setting this up, do get in touch!
Spill the Zines is still going strong, and we’re getting lots of visitors every week. I posted my first zine review post there yesterday. However, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of news to report… either that, or people aren’t getting in touch with us enough. Please keep emailing us your zine-related news at spillthezinesukATgmailDOTcom!
Life Update: I bought a typewriter on eBay for £2.99 a few days ago! What an amazing find! I’m currently in the process of restoring her so I can start writing with her. Photos to come soon.
Hank came over this Valentine’s Day weekend. We saw the new film True Grit at the cinema (one of the IMDB Top 250 films, so it counted towards my 101 Things in 1001 Days project), went out for a romantic meal in the city centre, went for a walk along the canal, and cuddled in bed watching You’ve Got Mail. He also bought be a bouquet of purple flowers. Ah, love. <3
But the thing that satisfied me the most this weekend? I just talked and talked and talked. I feel as if so much has happened in the past two months that I’m really needing to find an outlet for all this pent-up frustration and, in some cases, excitement. And sadly, most of those things aren’t suitable for a public discussion, so zines and blog posts are no longer tenable options to drain my brain into! I kept apologizing to Hank for talking so much, but he was a sweetheart and told me that he loved to hear me talk, and it made a change from him talking all the time. :)
We talked about my plans after graduation, my developing friendships, my decaying relationships with other people, the difficulties in my home life, my degree, and my improving mental health. My, my, my, I know. I’m going to allow myself to be selfish a little more often nowadays. I think it’s healthy for women to allow themselves to just get it all out once in a while.
One thing that I needed to talk about was the fact that I almost ran for a position on my Student’s Union exec (something that IS okay to discuss in public!). I had never considered the possibility of running before, because I automatically assumed that I could never do something like that, discounting my abilities without even thinking about it. But recently, I’ve been feeling a lot better about my capabilities, so much so that I thought “Fuck it, why don’t I give it a go and run?” On Thursday, I went to a NUS Women’s Campaign training day in London called “I Will Lead the Way” with three other women from the Women’s Network committee, all of which I didn’t know very well. The workshops were all about leadership training and how to run a campaign. I had a fantastic time, and got on really well with the committee members. I even had a bit of a chat with a few other women there from other universities, which was lovely (but very scary)! This bolstered my self-esteem even more, and made me feel like I should run, not only because I’d give it a good fucking go and throw myself into the role, but also because women are under-represented in our SU exec. What if I ran for the position of President, I thought to myself? How incredible would that be, to have a female President of the SU for the first time in years?! Yeah, my thoughts ran away with me a bit, but still… I wanted to do it, and I wanted to improve my public speaking and leadership skills enough to be a brilliant executive… and that was a fantastic feeling.
As it turns out, the training day actually revealed that I wouldn’t be able to win a place on exec in the elections, as I don’t have a single person to support me on my campaign who isn’t an elected SU officer, or running for a position. If I were to run a successful campaign, I’d need to be campaigning every single day for 2 weeks, from 8am until gone midnight in the student clubs. For that to work, I’d need a campaign manager and a big campaign team to help me put up posters, talk to people in various places, hold up banners, wear my campaign t-shirts and badges, etc. And I don’t have a single person who is in a position to do that for me! That made me very very sad for a little while… but I’m over it now. I’m choosing to evaluate this experience in a positive way – I feel that I want to do something like this, and even though I knew full well that the campaign and the job would be difficult, I was willing to work for it.
So recently I’m feeling more powerful and capable than I have for years. God knows I’m gonna need it to deal with some of the shit that I’m having to deal with recently.
Zine Update: Here. In My Head. #7 / Your Pretty Face is Going Straight to Hell! #14 will be ready in time for the Brighton Zine Fest next weekend, where Miss Tukru will be tabling. If you’re going, do pick up a copy from her! Also, my minizine Twt #3 is finished and printed – if you want a free copy, get in touch!
Music Update: the free download of Gimme a Cure is still available at Bandcamp! Download it and make me a happy lady please!
Ah, the end of term. I am currently in my lovely warm student house, curled up in the front room with a cuppa and a blanket, with my suitcase packed and ready to go home tomorrow. <3 Anyway, as happy as I am to be going home, I have had a really good time this term. Highlights of the term include:
044. Play a gig – COMPLETED!
I did it! Who’dve thought it, eh? To be honest, I wasn’t happy with my performance – I was really nervous, and my hands and legs were shaking so much that my hands kept slipping and I kept making silly mistakes. That’s such an embarrassing thing to admit to, heh. Still, I went up there and played. I have some really messy difficult feelings about that evening in my head – one the one hand, I’m really disappointed in myself for being so badly-rehearsed; on the other hand, I’m really proud that I managed to go through with it, and go through it alone. I went to the gig by myself in a taxi with my big unwieldy stage piano and stand (my flatmate/good friend didn’t want to go for… political reasons, I guess you could call them), I set up and packed down by myself with the sound guy, I mingled and made conversation with strangers by myself, I performed by myself (for only the third time in my life), and I made my way home by myself. That all sounds very basic and obvious, but I can’t tell you how much of a step forward this is for me. I’d usually go with Hank or a similarly chatty and knowledgeable friend, who’d more or less do everything for me – setting up, introducing me to people, etc… but I did it all by myself for the first time in my life. Damn, that was a tough night. And even though I didn’t perform as well as I could have, it was a useful experience in highlighting what it is I need to improve on. I should also add that all the Women’s Network committee members were really nice and complimented me on my performance, which was very helpful and put me at ease – although part of me felt that they were only saying those things to make me feel better, I kinda know that’s probably not true.
Clementine Cannibal wrote a really apt blog post a few days ago about performing live, and how us women need to just get out there and fucking do it. This blog post encouraged me to try to stay positive about this whole experience – yeah, maybe I was a bit mediocre, but at least I tried.
“i know i can’t just hide away until i’m super good and then play in front of people. i need to play in front of people right now. i need to get used to it, so my nervousness doesn’t overtake me and i can concentrate on what i’m doing. it’s really really scary. it’s scary to try. it’s scary to suck. but it’s necessary and important to growth. music isn’t just for people who have had extensive training in it. music is for everyone. the only way to get good at playing is to play. the only way to get good at playing in front of people is to play in front of people.”
Getting to the end of it without any sort of mental breakdown!
Damn. I know this is a completely mundane and everyday thing to celebrate, but I have to stop and acknowledge that this is excellent progress for me. Last winter I was a complete mess – I quit making zines because my self-esteem was at rock bottom, I just about managed to get through the academic work but barely put any effort into it, I almost didn’t go back to university when I was home for Christmas because I never thought I’d make it through the rest of the year. And here I am, a year on – getting solid grades and mostly coping with everything. Yay!
Studying a feminist philosophy module.
I wrote my essay on the norms of feminine appearance, which I’m going to use bits from for a new piece in my next zine! My lecturer said she really enjoyed reading it, but I didn’t get the first I was hoping for, so meh. Still, it was a fun module with some very interesting weekly reading material.
Seeing Melissa Auf der Maur live. (see this entry for more details on the evening!)
My dissertation.
I’m writing about Christian feminism – specifically, whether it’s possible to be a Christian feminist without compromising one or the other to make them fit together. And I’m rather enjoying it. I have a good (professional) relationship with my supervisor, which helps. I told her about my depression, so she’s been really supportive and helpful this term when I’ve seen her. I think the biggest reason that this is a highlight is because throughout the past 2 years of university, I was terrified of doing a dissertation (as mentioned in my previous blog post). Now that I’m in the midst of it all and keeping on top of everything, it feels good.
What my Friday nights look like.
Writing an essay on Pullman’s His Dark Materials.
I haven’t had the grade back yet, but I’m hoping I did quite well, because I really enjoyed writing this, even though it was 6,000 words long! I also read the entire trilogy (all 1000+ pages of it) over the course of 4 days, which is incredible progress for someone who usually takes weeks and weeks to read a book!
Snow! I only fell over once!
The view from the Portland Building.
So far, this academic year has been my best year yet. Not that it’s been perfect, of course – I’ve still had to deal with a lot of shit from people… but I won’t go into that now. It feels as if I’m gradually becoming more stable and independent, and more able to cope with the world. My time is now.
Performing in Escape, Swansea, in 2006. An oldie, but I like it.
If any of you follow me on Twitter (@catherineelms), you will have seen that I had a crappy weekend. Hank and I had one of those “come-on-let’s-be-realistic” conversations on Saturday. I cried a lot. Thank goodness he was over to give me lots of cuddles and supportive advice, or I would’ve been completely lost.
I was upset about a lot of things, most of which are too personal to write about on my blog. But the relevant thing to discuss is this: my music career is at a complete standstill at the moment, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.
As mentioned before, I’m doing everything very cheaply. Hank and his friends are recording/mixing/engineering the album, but they’re so busy with uni work at the moment that they just haven’t got the time to do ANYTHING for me. Hence why there is still no free single yet – Hank’s too busy to mix the songs, and I sure as hell don’t have a clue how to mix songs.
Hank’s friends are the session players of the album, but they’re too busy for studio time at the moment.
Hank edits my photos, but he’s too busy for any editing at the moment.
Hank takes photos of me with his SLR camera, but he’s too busy to even see me at the moment, let alone arrange a photography session.
Hank helps me with website design, but… well, you get the picture. (Thankfully my web developer Saara is still on board, so we’re hoping to finish the website as soon as Hank gets the time to do his side of things.)
So then I thought: well, I’ll start doing some gigs instead. That way I’m still developing myself musically and hopefully gaining a few supporters along the way.
But no. Hank’s friends are my backing band, and they’re too busy to gig. I could come to them in Leeds and make it a little easier for them, but it would be a nightmare to lug around that big heavy piano on the train, and on a bus to the city centre. I wouldn’t want to run the risk of getting it stolen. None of us have cars in uni, so we have to rely on public transport or walking. And even then, they’d still be too busy to gig, let alone meet up for rehearsals.
So then I thought: why don’t I perform solo gigs instead?
And then I realise just how terrifying that thought is. And this is where all my extreme self-doubt, pessimism, and fear floods in and prevents me from taking any action. I’m not a brave little girl any more. Every time I put a finger on a piano key, even in the privacy of an empty house, I am overcome with such a profound feeling of self-hatred that it’s all I can do to stop myself bursting into tears. I’m weak. I’m not in a place right now where I have the emotional stability to perform solo gigs. People will heckle, or ignore me, or accuse me of being ignorant, or mock me for being a poor player… and I just won’t be able to deal with that yet. At least if I was performing with a band of 3 friends behind me, they’d be able to back me up if I got into any difficulty, and they’d bring their own friends to the gig so at least I’d be performing to more than 5 people. When I’m on my own, I’m completely exposed and vulnerable. How many people who know me would make an effort to attend one of my gigs in Nottingham?
In Gorseinon College in 2007, where I first performed my solo compositions. What a brave woman I was.
It breaks my heart to say this, but the only thing I can do at the moment is to muddle my way through my degree, trying to get better emotionally, practice my piano, and write plenty of songs… so when my uni work finishes in early May, I’m ready to take it seriously and throw myself into it all. Even then, things won’t necessarily move as quickly as I’d like, as Hank will still be busy over summer, and I’ll be away from my backing band in Wales… so it’s not exactly a great plan. But it’s the only thing I’ve got at the moment. :(
p.s. Thanks everyone for voting on my poll before. It seems that most people want me to write about feminism and pop culture more than anything else. I’ll see what I can do.
I feel as if I’m in some sort of blogging limbo at the moment. This blog exists as a place for me to keep in touch with my friends/’fans’ and let the world know what I’m doing with my music and zines. But recently I’ve been struggling with this, because to be perfectly honest, I’m not doing anything interesting at the moment. I’m mostly focusing on my degree – I have two 6,000 word essays and a 1,500 word essay to write by the end of term, as well as keeping on top of weekly seminar reading, working on my dissertation, and eventually revising for an exam in January. Boo hiss.
And every now and again, I get frustrated by the fact that few people seem to care that much about me and what I’m up to, the fact that I have very few visitors to my blog and website, etc etc… but then I remember: why would people come here and read about me? I’m not DOING anything! I think it’s significant that my most popular post by far is Ten Favourite iPhone Apps – people don’t seem to be that fussed about how much I enjoyed ice skating with Hank or whatever. They want to read proper, bloggy content. And I’m not providing that right now.
(Prepare yourselves for a very honest post… but would you expect anything else from me? )
It’s so frustrating, having nothing to write about. As I’ve said before, my music projects are done on the cheap. Free recording time, free photography/photo editing (well, unless you count the cost of Hank’s SLR camera), free promotion. And everything is done by friends as favours, or by me. As a result, things don’t get done as efficiently or as effectively as I’d like. I wanted the free single to be out two weeks ago, but as Hank and a fellow sound engineer are mixing it themselves, they’re only doing it when they get a bit of free time. I’m still struggling with a single design – if anyone wants to design it for me in exchange for a big pile of freebies and a bottle of wine, get in touch as that would help me a great deal! (I’ll be handing the CDs out at gigs, plus the two songs will be available to download for free on my MySpace page. I’ll also list them on my website, but obviously I’d have to charge postage costs, as CDs need to be wrapped delicately before being posted.)
I guess there will be people out there who think that it doesn’t seem as if I care about my music – if I want to be successful, I should get out there, right? But the fact of the matter is this: as idealistic as I am, I know that my degree comes first. So I won’t neglect it in favour of gigging, online promotion, etc. Being in my third year and writing a 12,000 word dissertation, I do have a fair amount of work to do. On top of that, I still have depression, which makes everything ten times harder. My brain and body just cannot function at certain times of the day, no matter how hard I try. I’m also hopefully going to start volunteering soon, as an attempt to increase my employability, so that’ll eat away at my time too (ugh, I’m having a major career/future crisis at the moment… but I think a lot of people are).
Basically, if I were to categorize myself as one thing, it would be a songwriter. Out of the many creative pursuits I try my hand at, songwriting has been a constant in my life – I’m fairly good at it, I love doing it, I do it a lot. It’s the way I like to express myself. But I try to do too much. Blog, write, sing, play, design, edit… and the fact of the matter is that while I can do most of them, I can’t do them all that well. I’m still very new to Photoshop, so designing anything takes far too long to do, and I’m still not as neat/efficient as Hank is, so I usually need him to help me out. I have too much of a short attention span to edit photos, as you have to be pretty meticulous to make them look good. I find online promotion rude and tedious, and I’m not very good at it – I hate to be “that person” clogging up people’s news feeds with crap. Other things in my life get in the way of my writing. I am too embarrassed of my playing and singing to do so when there is anyone else in the house, so I have to be content with playing the piano with my headphones in, where no one can hear me. This makes songwriting very difficult, as I can’t sing along! I’m spreading myself too thinly, so to speak.
It’s difficult, because I can’t just say: “fuck this self-promotion bullshit, I’m focusing on writing kick-ass songs, and the rest can sort itself out“. That’s not how it works. That was how I dealt with my songwriting for the first 18 years of my life, and it just meant that once I’d written a song it got filed away in my big green notebook, never seeing the light of day again. I had no means of documenting it, or sharing it with anyone other than my parents (when I was brave enough). I didn’t find that satisfying. Yeah, I could keep doing that – technically, I AM still doing that, because I’m writing new songs all the time, and until this album gets finished, anything else I write gets shoved into my songbook, waiting. But for me, art is a sharing, learning, relational experience. Some of you may think this sounds narcissistic or stupid, but for me, the whole point of creating art is to share it with others -well, certainly when it comes to performance art like songwriting. I want to share my art with others, I want to perform, document my music through album releases, and hopefully provide people with something a little different to your typical girl-with-a-piano fare. But I just don’t have the time, the energy, or the resources to do it properly. I could “hire” people to deal with specific aspects of my music projects while I get on with the important part of writing good songs (e.g. Saara is in charge of my website editing), but I can’t afford to pay people, so working for me is not going to seem that appealing. Plus a volunteering job will be very far down on people’s list of priorities, so my project will inevitably get left by the wayside (which tends to happen when Hank gets busy, as he is now).
And anyway, back to my original point – if I’m not doing anything with my music project, then what the hell am I supposed to write about on my blog? Am I being too hard on myself? Is there any advice anyone can give me on how to move things along quicker?
Sorry about the self-pity. I’m just feeling a little… stagnated, y’know? So I’d like to open up a question to you, dear reader: what would you readers like to see more of on my blog?
NB: this post isn’t a “poor me, buy my stuff” kind of rant. I just want you all to know why I might seem lazy. I’m really not, honest!
I came home to sunny Wales on Good Friday, and have been a busy bee since then. Hank and I have had a lovely week together, and the nice weather has made things even better. We’ve been visiting relatives, including my auntie’s newborn twin babies! They’re lovely, although I felt a bit nervous about them because they’re so small and delicate – I’m always so scared about hurting them or doing something wrong.
Hank and I have spent a lot of time together as a couple, enjoying the spring sunshine – I am in LOVE with this balmy weather! We did a lot of gardening this week at my parents’ house – they’ve got a patch of earth at the bottom of the garden which we have claimed as ours, and spent a few days weeding it and putting in new plants that Hank’s mum gave us. It’s now full of lovely green things, such as mint, lavender (blue and purple), rosemary, marjoram, lupins, bluebells, tulips, dwarf daffodils, and a few other pretty plants that I can’t remember. When they all flower in a few weeks, I’ll take a photo and show you all. :) We’ve spent a lot of time eating, reading, gardening and talking al fresco. I also helped him with his Bonsai trees for the first time, which was quite enjoyable.
Hank looking happy with his Bonsai trees
Hank and I went to Swansea with his sister Victoria, and we had a great time at Eddie Rocket’s Diner, a 50s-style American diner. It’s an awesome place, with 50s decor, American-style hamburgers and shakes, and those coin-operated jukeboxes on the tables! I’m a sucker for kitsch.
Sadly, Hank went back to his university in Leeds yesterday (and his sister is going away tomorrow), so there ends my busy life. Not only that, but the atmosphere in my parents’ house at the moment is awful, for reasons I can’t really discuss on a public blog. Needless to say, I’m feeling kinda low at the moment. I’m trying to immerse myself in the many items on my Easter to-do list as a means of distraction, and am hiding away in my room to escape the negativity downstairs. I’m really looking forward to meeting up with one of my good friends next Saturday though; it’ll be nice to see a friendly face. :)
Zine Update: My zine Here. In My Head. #4 is now being stocked at TWO distros – Marching Stars Distro and Vampire Sushi Distro! I am over the moon about this news. I’ve also done a few trades, and received a few letters. Letters always make me so happy. <3 Speaking of zines, I have a question for everyone: I’d like to start reviewing zines, as I love writing reviews, and don’t know of more than three blogs that review zines. What does everyone think of this idea? If I start a seperate blog for zine reviews, would this be a good thing, or would I be treading on some people’s turf, so to speak?
101 Things Update: I failed my challenge to wear make-up once a week – I don’t think I’ve put anything other than tinted lip balm on for at least two weeks. I set myself that challenge as a way of improving my self-esteem slightly – if I make an effort with my appearance, I do tend to feel better about myself for a while. However, putting on make-up seems like too much of an effort when the people I’m with don’t wear any make-up, and don’t care if I’m wearing any (like Hank, his male friends, and his sister). Ah well, it wasn’t much of a goal anyway, and I don’t feel at all bad about failing that one.
I forgot that I set myself the challenge of going a day a month without using my laptop or my TV, and so I failed it this month. I’ve gone quite a few days without my laptop, but it’s the TV part that’s difficult. How tragic is my life that I can’t go one day without a TV? I guess it was quite a hard challenge. Nevertheless, I’ll try to go a day without laptop and TV every month from now on, and I won’t beat myself up if I can’t do it. I’m actually writing a piece about television for the next issue of my zine, so keep your eyes open for that.
I also watched Trainspotting for the first time last week, and as it is at #153 on the IMDB Top 250 Movies, it’s going down on my 101 Things list. Although I loved the movie, I felt so bleak afterwards that I had to watch something cheery before I went to bed. I settled on Bill Bailey’s Tinselworm, because he always makes me laugh.
This is the first zine I’ve written in seven months, and I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. This zine features the following pieces:
1. The Importance of Friendships
2. Sister Blister (on jealousy and feminism)
3. Twenty Things (10 things that cheer me up, and 10 things that don’t)
4. The Implications of Casual Sexism
5. Creativity and Happiness
¼ sized, 40 pages, £1.00 (free postage in the UK)
WordPress won’t let me put a “Buy Now” button here, so if you’d like to buy a copy my Paypal address is blatant_blitheAThotmail.co.uk!
In the past fortnight, I’ve been quite absorbed in zines – I finished off all the writing for my zine, and spent four afternoons putting it together. Then came the best part of the zine-making process – getting the flat sheets printed at the university Print Shop. I love seeing how my zine turns out through the photocopier, and as usual, it turned out really well. I love the Print Shop; I don’t know how I’ll manage without it when I graduate!
I went through my “zines” folder in my email account a few days ago and found that I had sent my zines out to five different US distros for consideration last November and hadn’t heard anything from them, despite having asked them to let me know when the zines arrived. I emailed two of the distros the other day and said that I assumed that they didn’t like my zines, and could they give me some feedback. I got a short email back from one distro a few hours later telling me that my zines had girl-hate in them and she couldn’t stock them as it would reflect badly on her distro. Although I kinda knew that that would be the problem with my zines (and in a way, I should be glad that girl-hate was the only serious problem of the zine), it still upset me. Sometimes I worry that this girl-hate thing has given me a bad reputation in the zine world. I mean, it’s just so anti-feminist and arrogant, to hate other women and judge them because of the way they dress, and to think that you’re in a way better than other women. I feel so guilty and ashamed about it all; I regret wasting so many years envying other women, and I really regret writing about it in my zine. I got upset on the phone to Hank, and he told me that I could’ve written worse things. I guess that’s true, and I have read a few zines which were far more hateful than mine, but I’m not sure it excuses my actions.
I just… I know that it was a terrible way to think, but I can understand why I thought that way. Most of the women I met in my teenage years had that tendency to judge other women, and I think I accepted it as normal. Girl-hate and jealousy was a part of my everyday life from the age of about 12 onwards, and although I knew that it was unhealthy, in a way I still accepted it as a normal part of being a young woman. I thought the only way to overcome girl-hate was to become happy enough with myself that I wouldn’t need to be jealous of other women. But I don’t think it works that way. Jealousy is such a pervasive force in our society that I think it will take years of work to eradicate it (and even then, it’ll never disappear completely). But I am working on it, and things are getting better for me. I’ve written about these feelings in my zine if you want to read more of my thoughts on the issue.
I’ve been feeling quite lonely recently. For this whole month, all I’ve done is work in the library, attend my lectures, go food shopping, and stay in my bedroom. My close friend has been ill and swamped with essay work, and the Women’s Network has been on an unofficial hiatus due to Student Union elections (which half the committee were involved in), the NUS Women’s Campaign conference, and general essay deadline stress. I haven’t done anything exciting for weeks! Thankfully I’m going home for Easter on 1st April, so things will be a bit more eventful for me then. I’ll get to spend my first week off with Hank and some of his friends, which is going to be awesome, since we haven’t seen each other for 6 weeks. I’m also looking forward to getting some Easter eggs and having a nice Easter lunch with Hank’s family. Sadly, Hank will be going back to Leeds after my first week off, so I’ll have the next two weeks of my holiday without him. At least I’ll have my family to spend time with while I’m at home, so I won’t be alone really.
101 Things Update: I failed 2 challenges – to practice the piano and bass 4 times a week. I’ve been really busy this week with essay work and procrastination – sadly my procrastination did not involve playing any musical instruments, but mostly involved reading crap on the internet and dying my hair. So it goes.
I did complete one challenge – to grow flowers in my garden! I planted some bulbs last autumn and they have grown – I have daffodils and tulips growing! Unfortunately, there is some Japanese Knotweed growing back in my garden, and I’m very scared that it will kill my pretty flowers. I’m going to attack it with weed killer before I go home.
Feminist musician, zinester, and activist. I write a perzine called Here. In My Head., edit a feminist comp-zine called Pandora Press, and edit zine review blog Spill the Zines. I'm also the media offer of the Swansea Feminist Network, and occasional write for various feminist publications.
On this blog I document my life and goings on, often with a feminist slant. I love hearing from my readers, so please leave comments and share your stories!
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