Itty Bitty Beans

I’ve heard about Mini-Zine March a couple of years ago but I never did it. The reason is that making 31 zines in 31 days sounds a hell of a lot more intensive than making 12 zines in one year (as I did in 2022 as part of That Monthly Zine Project and found it too intensive as it is).

Even though it’s mini-zines we’re talking about, I still find it difficult. I don’t know why, but whenever I plan or am in the process of making a mini-zine, I get a bit of a headache.

As I said in this post, I’m always on the hunt for new zine ideas. Today, while searching for a zinester who may have written a list of prompts for Mini-Zine March, I came across Nyx’s Sea Green Zines website. For those of you just joining us, I’ve been in touch with Nyx for several years now and have had my zines featured on her videos of Happy Mail Monday. I follow her blog and enjoy her posts regularly. So coming across not one but two posts on her blog featuring a list of no less than 50 zine ideas EACH was an absolute treat!

So they may or may not apply to Mini-Zine March, but they sure helped me plump up my own zine-ideas list. Of course, not all 100 ideas applied to me personally (and there were many that I already made as zines) so I made note of the ones that appeal to me the most.

1. Take a day/week off the internet and document your thoughts: Once upon a time, I think it was around 2012 or 2013, I did just that. I took about two weeks off the internet and it was one of my most enriching and exciting times of my life! Doing it today may be harder because a. I work in an office and we literally cannot function without the internet, and b. I need Whatsapp at the very least for school-related issues for my kid. So I can’t COMPLETELY disconnect. But if I do come across a week of freedom from the web, I would love to write a zine about that.
2. Your very mild superpower: It would either have to do with parenting or with sleeping, I guess. I definitely sleep like a champ.
3. Play tourist in your town/spotlight on your hometown: It would be super sweet to write a zine about Jerusalem, the places I like to go to, the places I pass by regularly, my favorite spots, etc.
4. Go through any childhood papers/art you have: Being a hoarder since early childhood made it so I got a fuckton of material for such a zine. I’ll need to see if my mom still has my drawings from when I was a kid. I know she kept many of them for years.
5. One thing you learned for each year of life you’ve lived: Although I would probably not remember every year of the 40 I’ve lived, I’m sure this would make for a very interesting zine with the years I do remember.
6. Explore generators online: Aside from the zine idea generator, there seem to be quite a few more, as Nyx mentions “Vampire Name Generator”, “Shakespear insult generator”. It will make for a silly and funny zine. I do love those!
7. Go random article surfing on Wikipedia: I do that without even being prompted. I mostly enjoy the gory ones – articles about diseases, articles about medieval torture methods or capital punishment, serial killers or other crime stories, etc. Writing a zine about it might be cool.
8. Your collection: I got so many collections and stories to do with collections, why not compile them into a zine?
9. Interview someone: I got the idea of interviewing my kid, maybe come up with a Kids-Say-the-Darnest-Things-style zine. And another idea was a parenting zine. So I thought maybe I should make a second issue of Ima Badass and write a zine about my parenting experiences in the past six years since my daughter was a newborn, and include an interview with her.

Speaking of zine ideas, with all the ideas I came across throughout my zine-making years, I never came across an idea or an actual zine that was a split-zine with a pet. As far as I know, I’m the only zinester who made such a zine (issue 5 of PMS Perzine, split-zine with my dog, Diamond, who wrote a zine called Life’s a Bitch and so Am I! A Canine Zine). Maybe I’m the only zinester who has a dog who can write? Ha-Ha!

Anyway, here’s an idea for you: Write a split-zine with your pet, and then contact me to tell me about it and trade with me.

Will I use any of the above ideas for a couple of mini-zines this month? Maybe. Will I make a timetable for March? Definitely!

There are also other ways to celebrate Mini-Zine March. Instead of making them, you can read them, you can review them, you can trade them, whatever… So whatever I choose to do this month, I’ll try to take it easy, just the way that mini-zines intended.

Peace, love and easy-zines

Psyched About Recycling

When I moved back to Israel in summer of 2006, I was shocked at how little infrastructure there was for recycling. There were some containers for paper and cardboard scattered around, and there was the “michzurit” for plastic bottles. The rest was tossed in bigass green dumpsters we Israelis call “frogs”.

Since I had just landed from Canada, where recycling was easy and pretty much became the norm in our daily lives, it was super weird and at times really hard for me to throw to the garbage many items that I was so used to stowing in the green recycling basket we had at home.

I still tried to recycle what I could. I collected paper to throw out into the paper container. I saved plastic bottles and carried large bags of them to the michzurit every other day. I kept doing that when I moved to Jerusalem, moved in with my boyfriend, married him and then had his child. We saved up plastic bottles and never threw them to the garbage… That was until Jerusalem municipality did away with the michzurit!

I was furious and I knew that other people were too because it seemed as if the media was trying to explain the removal of these green cages by saying ridiculous things like: “Yeah, you can throw plastic bottles in the garbage. City workers will sort them and transfer them to recycling facilities.” A flat-out lie, obviously. Nobody in their right mind, not even convicts who are sentenced to community service will agree to drown in piles of filth at landfills to sort the recyclable plastic from the rest of the garbage. No fucking way. I bet these cons would rather ride the lightening than go dumpster-diving.

At that point, I had to get used to throwing plastic bottles to the garbage. That was just as weird and difficult as it was for me back in 2006.

A few years ago, I noticed more recycling containers popping up in various cities around Israel (not including Jerusalem) and I was happy to find a few next to my parents’ house in Be’er Sheva. This was a move in the right direction but I wished they had those in Jerusalem too.

And just last night, I realized my wish came true! My daughter recently came home from school with an activity booklet in her backpack that teaches kids how to recycle. I love Deddy, the mascot ginger cat! It totally fits because it’s usually cats that hang around the garbage dumps.

I spent my evening skimming the booklet. I read that there are newly installed containers in various areas around the city to be used for recyclable items. It describes the containers – orange, blue, purple, grey and green – and what items go where. Orange is for plastic, thick cardboard and metal. Blue is for paper (in Jerusalem, they kept the grey paper containers, so we have no blue one). Purple is for glass. And green is for regular garbage. I spotted a few next to my daughter’s school earlier this week.

The booklet also stated that there are some products that include on their label the kind of container where they should be disposed. I found it on the plastic bag of the bread, on the cream cheese box and on the milk carton. I was bursting with joy every time I spotted it on the labels.

When my husband came home, I proudly announced “We are starting to recycle!” And showed him the booklet.

This too will take some getting used to. I caught myself several times almost throwing something out and then said “oh right!” and put it on the counter where there is now a small collection of items for recycling. I found myself fishing items out of the garbage, as well, while cursing under my breath.

Sadly, plastic plates, cups and cutlery cannot be recycled. The booklet said that we can’t put these in the orange container and it’s best to just avoid buying these one-time-use items altogether. That’s perfectly fine by us. We never buy or use them anyway. “Use just once and destroy”. Yeah right! Use it once and destroy the fucking planet.

When my daughter had her birthday party at home, we bought one-time-use plates and spoons made of wood. They cost a lot but it was worth it for the planet.

So here are the things my family and I do to be the proverbial “part of the solution”:

1. Recycle the items and product that can be recycled, using the new containers.
2. Avoid plastic plates and cutlery as much as possible and encourage our extended family to do the same.
3. Opt for sustainable and degradable products whenever available (such as degradable garbage bags)
4. For me: I started using cloth pads about 14 years ago. The amount of garbage I produce was drastically reduced as a result. So I’ll just keep on using the cloth pads until I hit menopause. I also used cloth baby wipes back when my kid was still in diapers.
5. Pass it on to our kid, teach her and encourage her to recycle, and teach her about sustainable menstrual products when the time comes. She already saw some of my more colorful cloth pads and got all excited about them. She actually asked me to buy her some. She’s six! LOL! So I told her I’ll buy her some pretty ones when she’s 12. She literally shrieked with glee at that promise.

Unfortunately, there are still no options for compost in Jerusalem. There may be other Israeli cities that have the brown containers for organic waste. I think Tel Aviv may have those. I sincerely hope these brown containers will start to pop up in Jerusalem soon.

I’m also trying to find sustainable options for the office. First, I’ll start by purchasing the biodegradable toilet paper from our supplier. It’s a bit more expensive than the regular one, so I may have to get the green light from my boss first.

Since we have a lot of clients, our worst issue is that we rely heavily on plastic and cardboard cups and spoons for our clients’ coffee break. I’ll need to speak to my boss about switching to wood or buy more glass or plexiglass mugs or any kind of reusable options. I wouldn’t mind washing the dishes every morning. My coworker already does the dishes every once in a while. And our cleaner is a good sport. If I ask him to clean something, he does it. So I think we can manage reusable kitchen supplies.

We should also look into biodegradable garbage bags, and set up a can in our office to be used as the recycling bin. I’m up to the task of taking the recycle bags to the containers, even if they’re far.

If you have any other tips or advice on recycling or waste reduction, I’d love to hear it.

Peace, love and let’s go Jerusalem, get with the environmentally-friendly program!

Schöne Sonne

It’s only February but Israel tends to have those bouts of springy/summery weather here and there, even in the height of winter. This week is one of them. Today is 18 degrees and sunny. Next week, it might actually get as high as 21. Just looking at the forecast made me thoroughly happy.

The fact that the weather affects my mood is nothing new to me. But today, I also realized it also affects my sense of inspiration and the will to get some shit done, even at the office.

In terms of inspiration, I am bursting with the urge to write a zine! I wish I could be in my zine room right now, excitedly typing away at my typewriter and decorating pages with a bunch of random doodles or graphics. Unfortunately, I’m still at the office, and once I leave, I need to tend to some family-related things which will take up the rest of my evening. I hope that once I do find the time to escape into my zine room, my inspiration will still be there.

Maybe I can use my free Thursday to get some stuff on paper… I’m considering a new issue of End of Words. I haven’t written one in years, but since it’s a short Post-Its zine, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to get it done.

I also want to work on an outline of another installment of The Daily H newsletter. I was initially planning on leaving that for after Passover, but like I said, inspiration abounds and I can’t contain it!

There’s also the Zine Idea Generator that I still can’t get over how fucking awesome it is! I’m scared about dwelling there for too long because I’ll be overwhelmed with ideas for zines. That overwhelmness coupled with the increased bursting-at-the-seams level of inspiration caused by the wonderful weather we’re having will be too much for me to bear and I’ll just collapse into a black hole until I can get my energy under control.

That’s besides the fact that my list of zine ideas in my notebook keeps growing, and I just impulse-bought a new notebook because that’s what writers like me do.

So you see, I’m like dying here! Eek!

Peace, love and notebooks forever

ReZinerate

A couple of weeks ago, I completed my Monthly Zine Project December zine. That I had a chance to use my zine room once again was a treat in and of itself.

Seeing as I have the entire 2022 collection, I digitized all the zines and posted them up for download on my Ko-Fi shop. It’s the entire collection, all 12 zines – that is 10 small zines and two quarter-page size ones from International Zine Month and ZineWriMo – for a measly 12 bucks. And there are no insane transatlantic shipping charges because it’s all digital. You can check it out here!

So MoZiPro 2022 was relatively intense. Making 12 zines a year, even if small ones is a bit much for me. I’m happy that I tried it out and actually succeeded in completing the challenge, but I don’t think I’d want to do it again. However, I did check out the prompts for the 2023 challenge because I’m always on the hunt for new zine ideas. These are the prompts for this year:

Some of these do look pretty intriguing so I might give them a shot later on this year. But the one that really gave me a jolt is the December prompt.

Zine Idea Generator?! What is that and why have I never heard of it? And what were you fellow zinesters thinking not letting me in on that shit? If I could reach through the screen, I’d grab you by the shoulders and shake you until your neck snapped.

So you can bet I wasted no time checking it out. And since I’m not a selfish zinester like you, I’ll share the link here. It basically works on a simple formula as follows:

“Make a [type of zine] zine that [what it does] [what it’s about].”

So for example, just now I went back to it and it generated the idea: “Make a trash zine that complicates lies you’ve told”. And every time you click on “generate new zine idea” it does just that. The combinations seem endless!

I already started making a list of possible zine ideas before I found out about the generator. Now that I found it, I added a couple more ideas to the list. For example, one of the zine ideas I got from the generator is a collage zine that catalogs my favorite things about personal mythology. So there’s a lot going on there, and I would rather divide it up into two zines. I love the idea of a collage zine, but I don’t know if I want it to have a specific topic. Then there’s this thing I’ve never heard of before called “personal mythology.” I checked it out on Wikipedia and damn does it sound fucking rad! I’d love to make a zine about that, but definitely not a collage one. If I were to make a personal mythology zine, you can bet your ass it would be as text-heavy as a dictionary. It’s such an open-ended topic and I have so much to say about it, I can’t limit myself to pictures and graphics.

Here are my thoughts about the other prompts:

January – Ghost zine: Not much to say about that.
February – Photo Diary of 24 Hours: If this is another 24-hour zine thing, I won’t be able to pull it off.
March – Guilty Pleasure: In one of my previous zines I wrote “anybody who takes pleasure from feeling guilty is a masochist”. I’m proud of all my pleasures!
April – Top 5 zine: Already did such a zine. In May 2022, I changed the MoZiPro prompt to “Lists” and in that zine, I put a whole bunch of lists including some top-5 ones.
May – A Story without Words: OK, first of all, I already made a “silent issue” of my perzine a few years ago. Second of all, I’m a text-heavy zinester and making the silent issue was hard as fuck. Not doing it again.
June – Space: I could write about my feelings about the moon, but that’s about it.
July – International Zine Month Zine: I made one back in 2018. It was fun. Maybe I’ll do it again.
August – Wholesome Smut: No. Just no.
September – My Private Guide to: Sleeping? I don’t know…
October – Obsessions: Any zinester who ever wrote perzines and DIDN’T include their obsessions flat-out lied in their zine. I already wrote my fingers off about my obsessions, thank you very much.
November – Small art: As opposed to bigass art? Whatever.
December – FUCKING ZINE GENERATOR!!!!

What about you? Will you be participating in MoZiPro 2023? What prompts pique your interest? What ideas do you have in your zine idea list?

Peace, love and “Make a high-as-fuck zine that fucks up song lyrics”.

Blasting Bolts of Steel

Welp! This month was a complete waste of brain cells. January usually is, but this one was a special kind of primo bullshit.

The entire month, I’ve been trying to find a suitable Monday where I can go to the pool for my weekly workout, but I didn’t, and my membership just expired. The first week, I was on my period. The next, it was too cold. The following one, it was raining. The one after that, the weather is perfect, I’m not bleeding, but I’m sick as fuck.

That’s right! Me! Sick! AS FUCK! And I’m flabbergasted about it because I rarely ever contract the kind of viruses that are “going around”. You know, the ones that people say: “Yeah, my dad had it last week, my aunt and her husband have it, and my neighbor’s dog’s second cousin twice removed too… it’s going around”.

I’m not complaining. Generally, I have a pretty strong immune system. I can have a bunch of sick people around, all with the going-around virus, and I’d be perfectly fine. Thank the goddess. The worse I ever get is some allergy symptoms, maybe the initial signs of a cold, runny nose, sneezing my head off. But that happens no more than once or twice a year, for no more than two or three days. And I’m still fully-functional.

But not this time. This time, my immune system, even with the extra ammo of the flu shot and the Covid shot I got earlier on this month, didn’t stand a chance against the virus that blitzkrieged its way through my system.

It started on Thursday, two weeks ago. When I started sneezing, I thought “Great. Another allergy flare up.” On Friday it evolved to include a dry cough. By Saturday, I was running a fever. I was in Be’er Sheva for the weekend, and my dad is the kind of guy who has so many pills, he might as well run a pharmacy. He gave me some cold meds to bring down the fever.

I couldn’t fall asleep because the cough got worse when I lied down. My nose was running like hell, and every time I sat up, the motherfucker leaked like a faucet. I called in sick on Sunday and Monday. Most of the symptoms ran out of juice by Tuesday, so I decided to go back to work, even if the ultimate symptom of this whole ordeal was just starting to gain momentum – headache.

There is no more debilitating, paralyzing or incapacitating pain than a headache. But I felt stupid calling in sick and telling my boss I can’t come in because of a headache. What am I, a baby? Can’t I just take a pain pill and get over myself? Please!

So I took a day pill from my dad’s stash and went to work. I was smart enough to ask my coworker to come in a little earlier so I can leave sooner. And even smarter when I decided to take a cab back home instead of the bus. I was feeling nauseous, dizzy and drowsy, and I doubt I would manage to get on a bus without passing the fuck out.

The next day, Wednesday, like an idiot, I took two Dexamol instead of the pill I took the day before. I know from experience that Dexamol is stronger than most meds, but my headache was blasting nukes left and right and I clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Though the pain was numbed, I was so dizzy, I couldn’t even stand up. My coworker came in that day to find me smeared halfway to comatose on the office chair. I confessed to her that I literally did nothing. Marked no clients down, changed no signs, hardly took any calls, and wrote zero emails.

“You should have called in sick,” she said. I was going to argue the stupidity of the headache excuse, but then she added: “You can’t function at work, so that doesn’t help us. And you’re not getting your rest so you’re not helping yourself. Go home and stay there until you get better.”

So I didn’t go to work on Thursday. The headache kept going strong all through the weekend, but I refused to take any more pain pills. After the effect it had on me on Wednesday, I wanted nothing to do with them. I discovered that the only good painkiller is the damn song!

On Friday, my in-laws suddenly became doctors and prescribed a whole bunch of things I should try. My mother-in-law suggested a witch’s cure of slices of lemon pressed to my forehead with a bandage.

“Great idea,” I said “And then, the lemons will drip into my eyes and it’ll burn so much it’ll make me forget all about my headache.” Yes, headaches make me a sarcastic mean-old bitch.

My husband’s brother-in-law suggested Advil.

“NO MORE DRUGS!” I protested. But he insisted that Advil will not have the same side-effects that Dexamol had. And since my being a fucking idiot has been firmly established by then, I decided to give it a shot, and immediately regretted it. Dizziness and nausea galore. I was ready to hunt for a dealer, because weed would be the only painkiller that would have the polar opposite effect of the pharma-drugs. Ganja would make me happy and hungry instead of angry and nauseous.

I went to work on Sunday and felt fine most of the time. But then yesterday, all hell broke loose and I was paralyzed with pain again. That evening I had my husband drive me to the emergency clinic, where they deduced I may be suffering from sinusitis. They administered a shot of Voltaren (in my ass, so at that point, both my head and my ass hurt), and prescribed antibiotics.

I’m cool with antibiotics. Those fuckers rarely make me feel as if I OD’ed on Percocet.

I am now at work, sitting half-assly on my office chair because that shot still hurts. But my head doesn’t! At least nowhere near as much as it used to. I hope this means the end of it. Because seriously, I spent the past two weeks not writing, not cooking, not exercising, not drawing, not getting any sexy time with my husband, not taking proper care of my kid (and being forced to push her away every time she wanted a hug because I didn’t want to infect her, and that just tore my heart right the fuck out my chest), basically not living my life. I started to get depressed by the whole thing. I wanted to cry when I saw pictures of me from a couple of months ago, when I felt a-ok, smiling a blissfully ignorant smile, having no idea the pain that was in store for me this winter.

I seriously hope that the pain won’t return once I’m done with the antibiotics. I need my sexy time with my husband. And goddammit, I need to hug my kid!

*Sigh*

I wasn’t planning on writing such a long rant about my health, but if you made it this far, here’s a treat: The positive note!

My zines were featured on Sea Green Zines‘ Happy Mail Monday once again! And this time, I had the whole episode to myself. I feel so honored and flattered by all the amazing compliments Silver Nyx dished out about my zines on this video! Check it out here.

Peace, love and take it away Judas Priest: “This is the PAINKILLAAAAA!”

A Year to Zine

I planned to write a new year’s resolutions post, but plans are meant to blow up in your face, and now we’re two days into 2023 and I posted nothing.

Not that I have any resolutions to speak of. I thought it’ll come to me as I’m writing this. See if it works…

There’s the December 2022 MoZiPro zine that I still didn’t finish, and the 2023 PMS Mess catalog that I still didn’t update. I’ll continue it the next time I’ll get to use my zine room, hopefully this Thursday morning. But that’s not a resolution. That’s just something I need to do that I’m just procrastinating on… so maybe it is a resolution after all.

I used to be so productive a few years back. For 2019, I had a huge list of resolutions to get through, and at the end of that year, I wrote a review post about how I managed to get everything done. That included a separate list of zine-related resolutions, which I also managed to get through, almost to the end.

These days, I don’t really find myself with too much to do outside of my routine. Go to work, pick up my kid, go to courses, go to the pool, house chores, weekend, repeat… and that’s it. My to-do lists never change. My husband and I don’t go out much. Finding a sitter is hard. Staying awake long enough to enjoy our date is harder. Doing anything at all during winter is hardest. It sucks that the new year starts just when winter gets its sadistic momentum into high gear. I know for a fact that if the weather was warmer and more manageable, I’d be far more inspired and motivated to try some new things. Step out of my comfort zone and explore the unconventional. And if I’m feeling particularly brave, explore the unknown as well.

But alas. Winter got its nails into the air, slicing it with ripping winds. It got its fangs into the sun, sucking it dry of any warmth. And got its grip around my neck, choking the inspiration and motivation right the fuck out of me.

But I do have my zine room. And aside from all the wonderful zine and music stuff it features, it also has a space heater. That’s an important feature when my fingers need to work as well as the myotonia will let them, and if it’s cold as fuck, my fingers refuse to function. At all. So, yeah, space heater is on, and I can get some shit done even in winter 2023. All I know is that any list I make needs to be pretty open-ended so that if I don’t get the shit done, I won’t be so hard on myself. Stress is definitely not something I want to add to my list this year.

So this list is more of a zine-related to-do list rather than a resolutions list.

1. Trades: I’ve seriously had it with this lack of zines to read. I need to get out of my state of paralyzing shyness and offer some damn trades. I don’t even remember the last time I had a new zine to read and it pisses me off.
2. The Daily H: I want to make a new issue of my newsletter. I enjoyed making it so much in November and went branching out in all directions with ideas about what to write about next. I’m trying to pace myself because I don’t want to end up making two dozen fucking newsletters a year, because burnout is real and it happens to me when I get too excited about something and allow it to consume me like a glorious blaze. But yes, I will make another issue once I decide it’s safe. Maybe I’ll also design a flyer for it.
3. International Zine Month: This past year, the list came a little late and it upset me quite a bit. I even started making my own list of activities for the month, when finally, the list was published. I think that this year, I simply won’t wait for it and actually make my own list. I’ll use activities from previous years’ lists and include my own spin on things. Should be interesting!
4. ZineWriMo: Silver Nyx tends to come up with the neatest ideas for activities, so in this case, I won’t make my own list. But I do find myself tweaking it a little bit anyway so it can fit my schedule. I wonder what will be in the list for this year.
5. MoZiPro December 2022 zine: Fuck it, I’ll add it to the list just so I can have a couple more things to cross off.
6. Update my catalog for 2023.
7. Ko-Fi shop: I’ll eventually have to update my Ko-Fi shop accordingly.
8. Ko-Fi shop flyer: I want to design a new flyer for my Ko-Fi shop. Maybe I’ll use some computer programs this time.
9. Zine/Bake ideas notebook: Brainstorm for ideas about zines a bit more often than twice a year.
10. Hebrew typewriter: I promised to buy one for my kid once she learns how to write. She’s getting there so I should start looking for one. It might enrich her zine-making experience.

Peace, love and mini zinester is the cutest zinester

December Days Off

I had both Sunday and Monday off work. After the holiday week from hell that I’ve had, I damn well earned it. These two days off were very necessary and kicked much ass. It rained pretty much the entire time, so I stayed home. Thor was swinging his mighty hammer and my dog was losing her mind because of the thunders that made the house rattle. I managed to get some extra sleep in the morning hours, and staying bundled up in my bigass heavy winter blanket was fucking heaven. Also, my husband got released from quarantine on Sunday, and we celebrated with a wild night of romance. I think we both had some pent-up frustration caused by this terrible week, so the release needed to be violent. I’m still sore but it felt amazing!

On these two free days, I finally got a chance to use my zine room! I managed to write, layout and complete my MoZiPro August zine that I’ve been putting off for far too long. Here is the cover.

I LOVE my zine room. I had such a blast working there these past two days and I can’t wait to use it again. On the first day, I had my stereo playing, I lit the silver candle, as well as the scented oil diffuser. The scent of vanilla spread throughout the house and remained for an extra day or so, so that I didn’t have to light it again.

This is what my work desk looked like on the second day after laying out my zine. Keep in mind that this is just a small 16-page MoZiPro zine. Imagine what this desk will look like after laying out a full-length 50- or 60-page quarter-page-size zine during International Zine Month or ZineWriMo!

In this picture, you can see the silver candle and my scented oil diffuser, slightly used. Rose Madder is sitting off to the back to give me a bit of space to lay out the zine, pieces of paper, my pen, my glue stick, my scissors, my black construction paper – all the tools need to lose track of time.

And lose track of time I did! At some point, my phone buzzed to remind me to give my dog her meds. That reminder is set to go off at 14:00.

“What?!” I exclaimed. “It’s already fucking two? No!”

I can’t wait to get a chance to use my lovely room again.

Going over the list of things I wanted to accomplish in December, I realized I accomplished almost all of them. I’m very proud of myself, I must say. The only things I have left to do are to complete my MoZiPro zine for December (the prompt is “Magic”), and design an updated version of my PMS Mess! catalog for 2023 including all the new zines I have in my repertoire and that are available for download on Ko-Fi. There still are a few days left in December so I just might manage to get it done.

Peace, love and yes, that’s pomegranate juice

My Zine Room

Amongst all the shit that this Hanukkah holiday brought forth – namely my husband catching Covid, my father-in-law catching it as well, being unable to hug my husband, being unable to see my parents for fear of infecting them too – one is hard-pressed to spot the silver lining.

But it’s there, and I spotted it. Presenting my completed zine room! It’s been my dream for so long and I didn’t think this dream would ever come true considering just how confined our living quarters are.

It’s finally all set up, so let me give your the exclusive grand tour… however grand a tour of an 8-meters-square room can be. Come on in!

As you come in to the room, you can see my work station. My blue desk, with the office chair my husband brought from work (before Covid struck), and a bedside table underneath the desk where I store some of my zine material. The rest of the material is stored in the drawers of the blue desk. You can also see the new rug I bought. It sure makes this room much cozier. A bigass Kurt Cobain poster I’ve had for ages found a perfect spot on the right wall of the room. My easel is tucked in the space between the desk and the right wall. There is a small window at the very top, but I decided to cut it out of the picture because it ruins the whole aesthetic. The window is ugly and the screen is dirty as fuck. I think it hasn’t been cleaned since this house was built. Also, because this room is practically a cellar, the window gives on another cellar with bars on the ceiling, manhole-style. Just gross and totally unnecessary in my opinion. Once I find a decent curtain, I will do my best to hide this eyesore.

Where the magic happens! My work desk is set up with my typewriter (Rose Madder is the star of the show!), my zine/bake ideas notebook, a penholder on the right, a ceramic scented-oil diffuser with oil bottles on the left, next to a scented candle and a plastic plant. The oils I have are vanilla, peach, and grapefruit. My favorite is vanilla! Also, I love my plastic plant. My kid saw it and loved it too and asked me to buy one for her room too, so I did. On the far right of the desk, you can see the corner of a fabric bag where I store my drawing class materials. I didn’t find a better place for it, and I suppose that once I get down to actual zinestering, I’ll temporarily move that bag to the dinner table where it’s been before.

The cork-board above my work station is divided in half between me and my husband. My husband’s side (on the left, not pictured) contains mostly a bunch of concert tickets and festival wristbands that my husband went to (some of them we went to together, the rest were before we met). There’s a couple of pictures – me and my husband in a photobooth, a picture of my in-laws’ deceased dog and one of my daughter as a baby. My side (on the right, pictured above) contains my zine wall of fame! This is only a small portion of my favorite zines, so if you don’t see yours over there does not mean I don’t love it. It’s just that lack of space is a recurring theme in my house. I will most likely add the list of prompts in upcoming zine months (International Zine Month and ZineWriMo). These lists will hang off the bottom of the cork-board.

On the left side, next to the cork-board, there is a picture of me with Angela Gossow. I don’t have any posters of my favorite metal bands so this is the best I could do for now. Underneath it is a small poster I got from the Boston Zine Fest I went to in 2015.

The music section of my zine room features four guitars (my husband’s acoustic and orange electric, plus my classical and Melissa – my white Fender Strat). There is a small amp somewhere in that room, but since I don’t play anymore, it’s irrelevant (and unfortunate, I know). You can also see my tape deck, on the desk under my husband’s acoustic. It plays both cassettes and CDs, and also has a USB port and an AUX port if I want to plug in my player. You can see part of our CD collection in the corner on the right. We cleared a bunch of space there mostly of CDs my husband never listens to and is not interested in, all of which Doom Metal records. Neither of us really digs that particular genre. Too boring. And yes, that is indeed Rosie the Pothead Riveter’s picture that you see hanging there. Weed Can Do It! I’m planning on replacing this picture with my rendition of Salvador Dali’s “Meditative Rose” once I finish painting it. That project is kicking my ass.

On the opposite wall, right next to the door, there is of course my riot grrrl/zine display bookshelf, which I forgot to take a picture of because I’m an idiot. I’ll post an update to this post later on, with the picture, once I de-idiotize myself.

This room also includes a bunch of stuff not at all related to zines, art or music – my husband’s shoe-rack, a chest containing a bunch of electronic stuff as well as some of our winter gear, scarves, tuques, and gloves, a small spiral heater, a hardware toolbox, a hand-held portable vacuum, a bag of dogfood and a bag of catfood.

So that’s my room! And that’s the silver lining for this shitty fucking time. Once my husband comes out of quarantine, and my antigen tests keep coming up negative, I will enter this room and get zinestering. I need to finish my MoZiPro zines and my zine room will serve as the perfect setting to get me inspired and revved up.

Peace, love and all of you are invited to join me in my zine room and get creative together!

UPDATE (21.12.2022)

And here is my riot grrrl/zine display bookshelf in all its messy glory!

The top shelf has copies of all the zines I made, organized by size and mostly also in chronological order. The second shelf has all the zines I got in trades, organized by alphabetical order in separate box-dividers or whatever they’re called. The third shelf has all my past notebooks, diaries and high school agendas. And the bottom shelf has my binders of a bunch of boring stuff like credit card statements and salary slips. At the very top of this wonderful bookcase is my riot grrrl dollhead and my collection of flags. I get a flag from every country I go to. So there’s the two countries I lived in, Israel and Canada. I also got a Quebec flag. And the countries I visited so far are United States, France, Poland, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Italy and Spain. I’ve also been to Belgium but I never managed to find a flag from that country. I also have a Pride flag, of course!

Roombastic!

This past weekend was yet another weekend we spent organizing shit. I cleared out from my kid’s room some toys and furniture that we didn’t need and that my kid didn’t want anymore, then moved the chest and the LOL dollhouse around to make space for a desk. We started browsing online for a decent, not too big, not too small, not too expensive work desk for my kid, but then found a perfect one in my in-law’s storage basement! Lucky for us, we didn’t spend a penny and the desk fit her room perfectly! She did her homework and painted a couple of pictures on her new desk for the first time on Friday. So my kid’s room is officially completed! I love it so much, I wish I were a kid and this would be my room.

But now, I CAN make another room in the house my own! The room that used to be many other things in the past – a TV room, a computer room, a guitar room, a storage room – is set to become my ZINESTERING ROOM! Fuck yeah! I’m super excited about it. I went over my list of wishes for such a room and realized some things will have to be changed or deleted completely due to lack of space. It’s a tiny room, and there is only so much I can work with.

1. A pull-out sofa: Defintely no space for that. Instead, in my in-law’s bigass storage cellar, we also found my old desk that was spray-painted blue. It doesn’t look as good as my kid’s desk. It’s chipped in a few places and the color lost its vibrancy, but it would serve its purpose just fine.
2. An executive chair: My husband found an unused one in his office. It looks rad!
3. A rug: A must-have. I can’t stand ceramic floors, especially not in winter. And I’m sure it would make the room far more cosy and colorful if I manage to find a purple carpet.
4. Purple curtains: There’s barely a window to speak of in that room, but maybe I can hang some other fabric thing.
5. Wall decor: I won’t paint the walls because it will make the room look smaller. White walls are fine. But I still want some posters of favorite bands and stuff. There’s also a bigass cork-board in that room. I want to make that one into my zine wall of fame.
6. Riot Grrrl Zine Display Library: Already in there, nicely organized.
7. A small cupboard for zine and art material: No space for that. The only chest is a broken one containing a bunch of electronic stuff that we couldn’t find space for, and the only cupboard is actually my husband’s shoe-rack. I can either put my zine tools on my desk or leave it in the living room cupboard where it’s always been. I’ll also put my paint material somewhere in that room. The canvas stand is there already.
8. Audio tools: All set up. My CDs are in the room. I moved in our tape/CD deck which also has an AUX port to plug in my phone. Killer!
9. Guitar and amp: There are four guitars hanging on the wall. They’re nice, so I’ll just leave them there. The only reason we have an amp in that room is because we have nowhere else to put it. Also, I haven’t played in so long, I can’t play at all anymore. So a guitar and an amp are no longer necessary.
10. Scented candles and oils: For sure going in there as soon as the rest is set up and I’m ready to get my zine on.
11. A sign for the door: Just made it! I’m pretty happy with it. I hope my husband will get a chance to print it for me today.

I’m really excited to see what this room will look like once it’s all set up! I also wonder if it will inspire me to make more zines or art, thus putting the room to good use.

Peace, love and Interior Design kicks ass

ZineWriMo 2022 – Day 29 and 30

Day 29: Looking forward
Today, I finally completed my mixed media stream of consciousness zine! It’s messy and funny and dark and unclear and confusing and brilliant. I’m very happy about the end result! It’s made with cardboard, paper, strings, clippings from a magazine, acrylic paint, Washi tape, pen, markers, charcoal pencils, a couple of dry petals, and this colorful fabric paper thingy. I’m not exactly sure what it is. But I used as many materials as I could come up with and I like the way it looks. The text is all over the place, means nothing and everything as a good stream of consciousness should be.
More to today’s prompt, as I said before, I can’t really think so far ahead regarding zine plans and stuff. I only have two months of the year that I devote especially for zine-making (July and November). But I do have some plans for December, zine-related or not:
1. Post office day: I set an appointment at the post office for Thursday, December 1. I hope to send out zines to my zine friends for trades, as well as a batch to Quimby’s that I was supposed to send a couple months ago but never got around to it.
2. Hanukkah bakes: This year, I really want to try making American-style doughnuts. I have a recipe I’ve been dying to try and I really hope I can find the right time. If my daughter has a few days off on Hanukkah, it would make for a perfect activity to do together.
3. Chag Habanot: The Holiday of Girls. This is a holiday within a holiday. It takes place on the 1st of Tevet which is like the 6th or 7th candle of Hanukkah. We never celebrated it in my family, and my in-laws never heard about it either, but I’m really trying to make it a part of our Hanukkah tradition. Last year was the first time we celebrated it and it was terrific! I really hope we get to do it again this year.
4. Further house plans: I want to get a work desk for my daughter’s room so she can have a place to do her homework. I also want to reorganize the room we currently use as a storage room and see if I can make enough space to set it up as my dream zine-making studio. That requires some maneuvering and creativity, and of course time, but I really hope it will get done in December. Maybe if I have my zine-making room, it will inspire me to make more than two zines a year!

Day 30: ZineWriMo Wrap-Up:
I’m a little swamped today seeing as it’s the end of the month and there’s accounting stuff to take care of and all those dull and tedious thingies. But I still want to write this wrap-up, and here it is!
I love love love ZineWriMo! I had such a good time with working the prompts, working on my zine, getting in touch with zinesters (though not many, but still), doing a bunch of new things (like writing a newsletter or making a mixed-media zine), and just spreading a bunch of zine-joy to counteract the rolling mountains of shit that the universe likes to sling at us sometimes.
Here’s what I accomplished this month:
1. On the first week:
– Shared photos of my zine-world, zine-making space, my typewriter and my zine ideas notebook
– Made a small post-its zine about ZineWriMo
2. On the second week:
– Researched the topic of women and misogyny in the metal scene for the main article of my zine. The discovery of all these facts and bands and issues was profound and enlightening for me. When the mere fact of writing a zine teaches me so much about the topic, it makes the writing experience that much more exciting!
– Designed a badass cover for the zine
– Organized my zine material and my whole bookshelf at home
– Bought a new pair of scissors
– Bought some more zine material for my daughter and made a zine-making kit for her
3. On the third week:
– Completed the writing part of my zine, including the Twigz segment, a collage and a bunch of graphics
– Visited ZineWiki again
– Started working on the layout of my zine
4. On the fourth week:
– Completed my zine earlier than planned
– Made a perzine-style life newsletter, and loved it so much I’m seriously considering making that a regular thing. Long live The Daily H!
– Completed my daughter’s photobook for the year and sent it to print
– Unveiled the cover of my new zine – Raise Your Horns! issue 2
5. The last two days:
– Completed my mixed-media stream of consciousness zine
– Made a list of future plans for my zinester life, as well as holiday plans for December (Hanukkah and Chag Habanot)
– Wrote a final wrap-up of the month, which you’re reading right now!

Today, I’m also making a list of people and addresses I need to send zines to. I’m making a list for each one of them of what zines I need to send. They’re not all the same as interests vary.

If you want to share some of your ZinWriMo creations with me, I would be more than willing to trade! And if you just want to read some of my zines and have nothing to trade for them except for money, you can download them from my Ko-Fi website for no more than 1 or 2 bucks. My Ko-Fi shop now also includes the brand spanking new issue of Raise Your Horns! Enjoy!

Peace, love and hit me up people, don’t be shy, I want ALL of your zines!