2003-05-04

Time time time passes...

My clarity has been kinda increasing in one way. The salt water I have been drinking (at a rate of 1litre a day) seems to be effective. The large mud sludge that tempered all my thoughts is disappearing. I can turn my head as quick as I want now, and I won't get dizzy. However, my stone-overs are far more severe, which is giving me incentive to cut back even more. I hate feeling stoned basically. I have cut down tremndously, and now get very whacked of a coupla, and I hate that. So now I really don't want to smoke that coupla. I am stony-monie and ready to sleep by about 8.30pm. This makes me no fun for anyone and it is assumed I am no good for night time events.

I still feel completely empty, but have decided pretty much not to do anything. I don't do stuff anymore, I just stay home and try to get a life back. I have a constant feeling of smothering though, and need some space. But I will try to be patient and tolerate smotheration.

On Thursday night I attended the second annual Aero Zed zine launch nite at the Octapod. I had taken a couple of days to get the next Laura Panic ready, and was so pressed for time I had to get Office Works to print, collate and staple it. I have never done that before* and I was a bit anxious about it. Not only anxious about how well they would print it, but how the staff would look at this THING and wonder why anyone would print it. "What is this about?" "Why would you make *these* up?" "I don't get it". I was anticipating understanding looks as I picked them up, thinking the staff would feel sorry for me if they had read any of the zine, as it was a tad overwrought and emotional.

I went to the zine launch with freshly made zines - they were, disturbingly, not folded but given to me flat, in a box. There were about 20 people in the Octapod, and attendence was down on last year. However, Tash Cho made it from Melberg for the second year in a row, she is some kind of FREAK!! It was lovely to see Nerdling zine there (I don't know the name of the girl who makes it), and Paul was there with his suite of zines. Fiona appeared with her lovely zine about altering clothes, Dale and Ali made the superb JUNKIES which is photos of people's junk piles - *swoon*! Ashley and Courtney presented their Girly Boy collaborative affair. There were quite a few people there I didn't know, which isn't that surprising to me, as I have retreated from the zine world over the last couple of years. There was also the fantastic Vox Populous distro, Amelia looking fab with a big table bursting with zines and comics. She has a pal help her out now, and he was quite charming. He does this big sell thing, trying to entice you to buy zines. He was asking me "What kind of zines do you like? What about comics?" and I just said "All of them" but he really wanted me to nominate a genre. Heh, and he asked if I knew Glenn Smith's work. I just pointed to my Tshirt, which had one of his drawings on it, rather than saying I had known him for a billion years and lived with him and stuff. Then someone let this fellow know that I was Kylie Purr and he said "Oh, I feel like I should recognise you or something" and I got shy and left the area. But I did buy a big hella box of zines. THEN the cake came out - I am such a slut for cake. You can get me to do anything for cake, pretty much. Cake, cake, cake!!! So I ate as much cake as I could before I felt hella sick, as I admired the new, sexxxxy Octapod computers with their top-deck keyboards. Before I realised it, Dame and I were sitting on our own just chatting. I said "I think that when we are just sitting in the back chatting, that we should probably go home. Our work here is obviously done". And I left with a big box of zines to read. So far, I have a keen eye for Foto Fraulein and the latest Glitter Shy comic. And I have had to force myself to put down Paul's Bananarana zine "Love, Truth and Honesty" cause it is sooooo goood. I am going to give him the $2 for the compilation CD that goes with it....

* Except for the time I got catPOUNCE #3 printed at a printery in Newtown called El Faro. They were cheap as shit, but not quite the most professional operation. The entry reception area had long been considered unnecessary and was stacked with large slabs of paper that seemed to rise to the ceiling. You kinda just stood at the door, as there was no real way in and the men were all crowded around and it was quite small. There always seemed to be lots of men, and younger boys. Can't remember ever seeing women, but they were Arabs so I imagine the women played a different role in the family. I got 500 copies printed, they forgot the coloured paper for the covers and I just had boxes and boxes of paper. I was going to collate and staple it myself. A couple of years ago when I left Sydney, I finally threw out the last of the boxes of flat, uncollated zines. I estimate I got rid of about 350, and threw away about 150. Back in the day when I thought I would be (zine) queen, and could offload 500 copies and get some money back. Duh.