To end January on a brilliant note, the new PMS Perzine is now out! Purple Moon Spawn is the new name of my zine, but it’s still the same zine, so the issue numbers continue where they left off. This is issue 15.
It’s 32 pages of a bunch of different things. It includes a stream of consciousness piece, a short fiction story, a look back at 2018 and plans for 2019, discussions about the moon and the stars and all the wonderful celestial unfathomables that be, and more.
Writing this zine came with a degree of difficulty. I think the most difficult zine I wrote to date is Ima Badass. But this difficulty was different.
Ima Badass was emotionally difficult because of the sensitive subject matter – being a mother while being an artivist and a zinester and finding a healthy and manageable balance between the two.
Issue 15 of PMS Perzine was physically difficult. Working the morning shifts, followed by a bunch of appointments and errands during the afternoons, house chores and childcare in the evenings, and short nights cut even shorter by the time it takes me to fall asleep – all these elements made for a very tired badass. This past Tuesday, I complained to my husband about how “this day just doesn’t want to end!”
Being tired out of my wits is not a good state to be zinestering. Inspiration is impossible to come by, ideas about what kind of elements to include in the zine quickly run dry, and many things I tried to write or create ended up in the wastebasket because they sucked. The 32 pages I did manage to add were the ones that I found to be the best ones out of the many others I tried.
I fell into the trap that people keep talking about – how we measure our worth by our productivity. I never measured myself according to what I create, but I think this past month proved otherwise. I pushed myself to near-exhaustion, trying to cram a bunch of activities, plans, chores and errands into a short amount of time, so much so that the very activity that I’m supposed to enjoy (making a zine) became a chore in itself!
I hate this feeling.
And so, as a method of self-care, I decided to space it out a little. One thing per month. Next month, I’ll be focussing on my Canadian passport application. This contributes to the amount of stress in my life to a point where I’m losing all my hair. I ought to charge the Canadian government for my hair extensions, for real!
The month after that… I don’t know. I’ll see when I get there.
But I am not making any (full-length) zines until the right time comes, most likely International Zine Month, when I can thoroughly enjoy it as I did with my other zines.
I consider this “Purple Moon” spawned. Off to the dark side I move.
Peace, love and set the snooze for 14 hours
Get messy and follow the bleeder: Like my page, PMS Mess!
