I feel queer....

Could anyone recommend me some good queer zines/blogs/books?

Lately I've seen it pop up in zines and blogs I've read and I feel quite drawn to it as an idea. I don't know if it is something I'd want to identify as, cos it seems to be something beyond labels, but I think it could help me with some of the crap I've been feeling and thinking lately.

I just don't feel like anything lately, I don't feel "feminine" or particularly "masculine." I don't know if I'm attracted to men or women, or just people? I've always found the sexuality bit confusing, and hard to talk about because I am going out with a guy so everyone just assumes I am heterosexual and if I ever bring it up I feel like I have to justify having a boyfriend or people just don't believe me.

But more and more lately I have stopped feeling "girly." I didn't feel very girly before really, when I was little I dressed in tracksuits, played football and absolutely hated dresses. As I got older I would dress more "femininely" but I have never been interested in things all these 'other women' are supposed to gossip about and enjoy.

That's never ever bovered me, I never felt like I was missing out or that I should try and fit in, but I dunno, lately I've felt like a massive fraud when I'm around other people. When I'm with Dan, I just feel like me. But when I'm with say a group of girls I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb, I have no idea what they are talking about, I don't look or dress like them...but I also feel like I don't have the same mannerisms as them, something more fundemental.

I've also never ever felt attractive, well, not in a physical way. Say I went out to a pub wearing a pretty dress I would feel horribly self-conscious, like people would look at me and think "why on earth is she dressed like that?" I don't really know how to explain it, but I feel like a fraud when I try and act like a girl, but I have absolutely no desire to act like a boy.


I guess really it doesn't matter, I can just be me, but for the last few months I feel like a stranger in my own body. I don't feel like I can be sexy and attractive, but I don't feel like I can get on my bike in a pair of shorts with unshaved legs and not give a damn.

Headache

I haven't had a headache for such a long time...but I've had a really horrible one for the last two days. I was saying to Dan just on Monday how much I am enjoying not having headaches anymore. Damn.

Work is going really badly too. I have lost all interest in it, and no matter how much work I do no one notices. And to top it all off nicely, this awful man keeps harrassing and bordering on bullying me. But I really don't know what to do, even though I have been here nearly three years I'm still just a temp, so if I complained they don't have to do anything and could sack me and brush it all under the carpet if they want to.

I hate that 8 hours of my life every day is spent/wasted here.

I really want that to change, and I'm trying to write up a business plan for an absolutely amazing business idea, it's just when I get home I am so drained and fed up from this job I can't bear to do anything.

In other news...I'm seriously considering respraying my bike sunshine yellow and getting all nice tan leather accessories. I just don't know how to go about respraying a bike...

picture by mjm

Cycling!

As much as I absolutely love riding my bike and anything to do with cycling I hate hate how male dominated it is. Not just cycling as a sport, but how many other male cyclists I see cutting me up on the roads of the elitist bike shops that treat girls like idiots.

I went to Toyko Fixed the other day and there was a gang of guys all standing in a huddle looking at some bike part. I was looking at the locks and no one thought to ask if I needed any help, and when I chose one it took me about 5 minutes to get their attention to pay for it. Then the guy who sold it to me just grunted at me to put my card in the machine and shoved it in a bag. A male customer came in at the same time and they all flocked to him offering help and talking to him about bikes.

When I got the lock back home it was too big to fit on my bike and when I was trying to get it off I a bit snapped off, so I'm going to have to attempt to take it back. I can't wait.

Urgh, and on the wall they had a calander with bikes of half naked Japanese girls straddling bikes in such practical locations as bath tubs. I guess that explains quite a bit.

Zines!

Spring is here! I know it sounds lame but I feel happier already. When the sun is shining I don't want to be cramped up inside and I feel like I can do anything! I know soon enough I will be complaining about being too hot, I think the thing I actually like suspense, knowing every day it will get a bit warmer and the days a bit longer.

So today seems like a good day to have my zine all done and finished!

 

 So there it is. I finished it once in October, then loads of crap happened and nothing in the zine seemed relevant so I ripped it up and started again. I really really got back into the idea of making zines while making this issue and I'm planning the next one already. I finally feel like I have something to say again.

This issue is mainly about cycling, being evicted, tattoos, open relationships, being inspired...there's lots of drawings too. 

If anyone would like to buy a copy or trade let me know in the comments. It will be £1.50 and 50p postage to UK and £1.00 anywhere else.

House!

I've found a place!

Really don't want to jinx it, but I'm just too happy and excited about it not to tell anyone! Here's a little picture of the outside:

It's not actually the whole house, it's split into flats, but it's still bigger than any other flat I've lived at in London! The bay window is where the front room is, and it's huge. Lovely big sofas, a telly, loads of bookshelves...ha, you can tell I haven't lived in a super nice house for a while! And then just behind the bush on the left is the window to my room. It's nice and cosy, just the right size, but the girls were saying that they mostly all sit together in the front room.

The rent is £280 a month...yep, a month! My last place was £617 a month, now I can pay the rent with one weeks wages! It means I won't have to worry about money, I'll be able to do more of the things I want to and perhaps even work a few less hours at my job.

But the best thing is the other people who live there! Two girls who are about a year or two older than me, and they are lovely. It's really nice meeting people who are similar to you. I was gobsmacked when I told them I make zines and they not only knew what they were but said they make them too!

So, just have to get my stuff over there and then hope I pass the credit check with the agency to get on the letting agreement.

So excited!

Girls Get Busy!

I also got a chance to take a photo of mine and Lydia's matching tattoos!

I love having a matching tattoo with such an awesome lady!

Goldsmiths Ladyfest

On Thursday it was the annual Ladyfest week at Goldsmiths and me and Lydia were invited along to the band night to dj, something neither of us could pass up on!

Being the dj is equal parts terrifying and exciting, you get to be in control of what everyone is listening (and hopefully) dancing too, so it's always fun to slip in a few things they might not be expecting and it's a great way to get loads of people to listen to unheard of bands that you love! When I dj at Girl Germs I'm always pretty sure people are going to like the stuff I play, so Kathleen Hanna screaming or Kat Bjelland yelping always go down well. But when your in a room full of people at someone else's event, you're not always so sure what's going to go down well, and it didn't help that it was at Goldsmiths where everyone is far too cool...and that seems to be how it went down, there was a lot of foot tapping and smiles but no one broke out any crazy moves, even to Deceptacon!

Even for the lack of dancing it did seem like people enjoyed our set and we got lots of people asking what the songs were.

But, on to more important things, the bands! First on were the bracelettes who played super fast but were just as cute, kind of like a Japanese Ramones!

 

Then it was Pens who I'd heard a lot about, not all good...but that was definitely proved wrong. They looked cute as a button, like the cast of Sweet Valley High, and they sounded bratty and like they just didn't care in the best way possible. I think the thing I liked most was that they looked like they were having an awesome time and that just made them sound great even though they didn't have the best instruments...I think that's my favourite thing about what seems to be a mini grrrl band revival, it's so inspiring seeing girls forming bands cos they can and want to and not taking themselves too seriously like the endless poser-indie-boy-bands you always see. 

                      

Next up it was Wet Dog. If you don't already, you need to have this band in your life. They were just so amazingly cool, like really blasé and confident, but really bouncy and excited at the same time! By the end of their set I had declared my love for the drummer! They had a really unique sound, jangly and angular, but also fluid with the three vocals and all the in instruments rolling off each other. They are way too heard to describe, I guess you could say they sounded like the Au Pairs, Raincoats and Slits... but just go just listen to them!

 

The last band were Veronica Falls who I think sound like the perfect jangly apocalyptic pop band. Some of the guitar riffs are just absolute perfection. But even though I think they sound wonderful, they just seem to fit the night, either they've taken the aloof hipster thing too far, or they were just bored. They didn't seem to have a clue what Ladyfest was about, or really care. Maybe it was all the boys they have in the band (ha!). Either way, their attitude made me like them a little bit less.  

                      

It was really inspiring to be in a room filled with so many different and awesome ladies (and gents!). I just wished every gig I went to was as good and lady-friendly.

Saved by Zines

 

image by moirabot 

Just lately it's felt like my life has been crumbling away from around me.

January is never a great month, it's cold, it's grey and the thought of a whole new year ahead of me tends to terrify me rather than inspire me (at least in January anyway, all January makes me want to do is sleep). I usually just try and see it through until the 27th which my birthday and then it's February. For me it feels that when I've had my birthday the year begins, I always make a new years resolution list on 1st February.


But this year, by the second week of January I had been evicted and I no longer had a room to hibernate in. I was given a weeks notice by my landlord to move out, so by the time I had realised what was happening I was unpacking my bag of things in Dan's room.

I don't really know why, but where I live, and having somewhere I like living and feel comfortable has been a really important thing for me my whole life. I've always felt if I have a place I can feel safe and have my things around me I can use it as a base to do anything I want to do. And when it all gets too much I can hide myself away in there.

I really enjoy living with Dan and being able to see him everyday, and I am really grateful to Les and Crissi (who own the house) to let me stay there. But that's the thing, I'm staying there rather than living there. And I guess it makes me sound a bit precious, but not having somewhere that I can call my own really started to get to me. Mixed in with what feels like the utter hopelessness of trying to find a new place, I felt like the year was never going to really get started for me.

On the 13th of February it was the alternative press fair and I went along and picked up a few zines from Tukru. When I got home I devoured them all in minutes, just reading words that echoed my own feelings and thoughts written by girls just like me made me feel so much better. It made me so much happier to know that other people were feeling the way I was, and were managing to do something productive and creative with it.

I've been working on the second issue of Pillow Talk for about three years. Yeah, three years. I've finished it about 10 times, but everytime just ripped it up. But suddenly after reading all these amazing zines I was finally inspired enough to finish and feel I had said something worthwhile. And my sudden need for anything zine related has spurred on a few other things, like me and Lydia are making a women and tattoo contribution zine and I travelled down to Brighton to go to the Zine fest there.

So this year will be the year of the zine!

image by sarah mcneil

Home

My parents think I should leave London and move to Cambridge. Get myself a nice job and a nicer little house. When I was walking around Cambridge yesterday the idea seemed so tempting, there were hundreds of people on bikes, cobbled paths, lovely shops and beautiful parks. It would be cheap(er) and I would be near my family.

Sometimes I wonder what I am actually staying in London for. Slowly, I think I am beginning to realise that London isn’t paved with as much gold as I thought it was. I love that there is so much to do here, but surely things happen outside of London.

At the moment I am living in my boyfriends room and will probably end up lodging somewhere, and I work as a temp. I am completely on the fringe. No real home, no real job, and no real money…so I can’t even really afford to do the things London can offer me.

But I can’t leave, I can’t give up that dream that got me out of my smalltown. I can’t leave Dan. As sad as that sounds, but I just can’t. As much as I don’t want to rely on someone else, I want him around. I would be so lonely, so surely that would take away the fun of moving somewhere else.

I want somewhere to feel like home, I’ve moved boroughs just about every year I have been in London so I have never really got to know one. And I left the town I grew up in when I was 8 to an even smaller town, so neither of them felt like home.

I don’t know what I really want or where I want to belong.

Rubbish.

I was forwarded and email today from my landlord, he wants another £600 from us, which I really don't think he's entitled to. So looks like it's going to end up in court or something equally horrific. I'm going to have to go to Citizen's Advice on Monday, which I'm really not looking forward too. Last time they were extremely unhelpful. I imagine I will be leaving there in tears not knowing where esle to turn. If it ends up that I have to pay all of this (on top of the bills and cancellation charges we got for moving out early) I will have spent all of my savings which was meant to be for a deposit. So I'll be back to square one and have to start saving another £1000, I'm only earning £270 a week so that's going to take a while.

And in other happy news, the awesome couple Dan lives with (and I am staying with at the moment) have decided to split up after around 20 years together, so it looks like Dan will have to move as well. It's just so sad, for the longest time I have help them up as my ideal relationship, but even that couldn't last.