2003-01-23 - 6:34 p.m.
New places brought new perspectives, but now I am back in New York where the frigid winter weather has done quick work to try to wipe those feelings from my memory. My shoulders feel permanently hunched from fending off wind and cold.
I have been wonering about my need to document and share my life- make the private public as it where- though zines, jounrnals, online diaries. It comes from an idea I have (which is not mine alone) that if I am able to communicate with others about my daily life and what it looks and feels like, and they to me about theirs, we will feel less isolated, less alone, and morea ble to work together and have empathy for each other.
But does staring at a screen or sending photocopied pages through the post really do that? Yes and no. Both and and more.
I picked up an amazing zine by my friend Krissy while I was in Portland called Paper Crush #2 "Going Home". Krissy's thoughts and questions about place and people seem to mirror those I have been having lately. Central to her zine, and to my life lately, is this question: How long do you wait to find out if the place you are in is the place that will help you live up to your potential, or do you just "bloom where you are planted", as they say?
On this note about zines, I would like to mention I have a new one out. It is my personal/political zine Indulgence, the eigth issue. It has a letter press and linolium block printed cover, and is bound in two sections, containting essays examining my family background and how it effects my sense of my self and my racial, gender, class and sexual identity, reflections on the intersections between place, physical location and personal/emotional location and more. It's $3 postage paid and if you are interested, please email me.
Also, if you want Krissy's zine, drop her a line at ponyboypress@yahoo.com for details.
