being nice, real & weird.

I am feeling really refreshed. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I went to bed at 8pm last night (to wake up at 3am), but also a lot to do with Austin Zine Fest this past weekend and a fresh perspective on life and living.

Austin Zine Fest was awesome. I got to chat with a lot of new people and a lot of burgeoning friends. KB & I made zines on demand to people, which basically just meant that we made a zine about pumpkin products and bananagrams. I laughed a lot more than I have in a while. It was eye-opening, exciting, and exhilarating, especially since the event was truly a DIY, radical space. There were some messed up things being said about women "self-objectifying" themselves by this "feminist" zine and they were respectfully called out and asked to check their thinking. I learned a little more about anarchism, and I think I'm going to try to start going to the Anarchism Study Group that meets every Sunday.

It is just hard to live in the regular world where everyone is restricting their own thinking and imagining because they are concerned with their image, or the way they think the world is. We all have different realities. It has been draining to interact with so many normative people at my job and feel stuck in terms of job mobility and social satisfaction. I feel like I am from outer space because everyone else seems FINE with being normative sometimes. It's hard to remember that I have access to such an incredible community of radical thinking, caring, nice people right down the road! Being socially anxious has prevented me from reaching out to them in the past. But, these are people who really support each other and I'm so glad to be feeling revitalized by their positive energy. I hope I contributed to that feeling to others, in the same ways they contributed to my well-being.

Anyhow, I spent like $40 on copying zines for the Fest and made like $60 over the weekend. So that's incredible news that will pay my electric bill.

I've been working a lot the past two weeks but after Wednesday, I will be working only part-time again. It's not enough for me to live on which is sad. I don't want to work two jobs because the hours I work would force me to sleep in 4 hour intervals if I took on another job. It would be great to get something full-time, whatever it is, so I can worry less about work and spend more time enjoying the nice things about life. It's been a long time since I've been able to do that.

It is silly, but I went "Christmas shopping" yesterday and got Sarah some nice things that she's been wanting but didn't want to spend money on. I got my sister great gifts, too. And my dog a new collar. That's it! No excess, just taking advantage of sales to get people I care about nice items.

Starting to read Crime and Punishment see ya!