The waiting has finally paid off

About 12 years ago, it seemed that my life had reached a dead end: I was both mentally and physically in such a crap state that I had to quit my studies, I was surrounded by Other People’s Drama (and a bit of my own), I was broke, unemployed, had zero prospects and no sleep. I felt completely stuck in all areas of my life and desperately needed help getting unstuck.

I was fortunate enough to find a fantastic therapist, who said a lot of helpful things, but the concept that made the biggest impact was that sometimes, things are not what they are, but what they stand for. And that as soon as you find out what it is they stand for, you can let go and find whatever it is you need elsewhere.

Around the same time, while surfing the internet(s) during one of my many sleepless nights, I stumbled upon the blog of a woman who was around my age. She wrote about her life, her dreams, and how she was working towards getting into some school somewhere. I wondered what could be so special about a school that would make a person do a double major while also working two jobs. Here in the Netherlands, especially in the Humanities, you usually just apply to the program you want to get into, little to no hoop jumping required.

Curious as I am, I looked it up. The more I read about the place, the more I understood why it was so important to her. It was beautiful. The buildings. The weather. And on top of that, it was a highly esteemed university. Strangely enough, it reminded me of my first high school. How, when I visited, I KNEW that I wanted to go there. I felt welcomed, it was a place I desperately wanted to belong to. This university gave off the same vibe.

For a second, I thought about how my life might have been different, if I’d gone to a university like that instead of the place I actually went to. I put going to that university on my list of wonderful, unattainable things, next to “win a Nobel prize” (highly unlikely) and “pet a unicorn” (mythical magical being not often seen in modern times).

Fast forward to last September. During one of my – fortunately less frequent – sleepless nights, I got lost on my university’s website while trying to find a teacher’s email address. I didn’t find it, but I did find something else. Something I spent the next few months thinking about, crying over, being terrified of. Because sometimes, things are not what they are, but what they stand for.

At some point I decided. Because sometimes things really are what they are. So this summer, I’m going to Berkeley.

Clark Cat, projects and OMGsomeonereviewedmyzine!!1!eleventy!

In my last post I wrote about the waiting and the stuck and the s*ck. One of the things I was waiting for, was for this gentleman named Clark (Clark Cat! Best. Name. Ever. Y/Y?)

to recover from a serious bout of cat flu (which in Dutch literally translates as “cat sneeze disease”) and be able to be adopted and come live with me. Which he now does. Yay!

In projects-related news:

- My entry for the 2013 Sketchbook Project has been digitised and is viewable here. It is quite different from last year’s project, but still recognisable as my work. Or at least, I think so. This book is also going on tour, check out the tour dates here.

- I’ve also participated in The Scenarios of… Series. Participants got an email with the following prompt: “You wake up to find that everything in your home is gone. Your clothes, furniture, pictures – even the nails they were hanging on, have all mysteriously vanished. You wander room to room before encountering one object – you’re surprised it’s the one thing remaining because it’s not of great value, but it has a special significance only you would know about.” The instructions were to put yourself in that scenario and to take a photo that captures your response. All the different responses (some with explanations) can be seen here. It’s really interesting to see how people interpret the same prompt in a different way and to see what (kind of) things are important to people.

- Remember The Summer? *cue everbody going “How could we forget? You only whined about it being ~the bane of your existence~ for a year or so!”* Foggybottom Press did a zine review of it! The review, which is both lovely and also my first zine review EVER and flail and yay and happyness and Snoopy dance, can be found here. Foggybottom Press publishes the great perzine &Octopus (find it here on Etsy), which reads like a letter from a friend and has cute drawings to boot! I know, I know, I’m really bad at promoting and reviewing, but get &Octopus anyway. Because I say so.

Waiting makes you old

For some reason, I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Complete, coherent, structured stories and blogposts just materialise while I’m rinsing some fancy conditioner out of my hair. Unfortunately, I still haven’t found a way to record my thoughts while I’m actually IN the shower, so (not unlike those brilliant, world changing epiphanies that strike me 3 seconds before falling asleep that I’m never able to remember when I wake up) those wonderful, fully developed blogposts are more often than not three quarters forgotten by the time I’m wrapping a towel around my hair. What follows are the remains of one of those magical blogposts, because the subject matter is relevant to my life right now and I want to post it to either elaborate on or refer to at some later point. So, here we go:

I was in the shower, thinking about how destructive waiting is and how much waiting I’ve been doing recently. Being someone who is always trying to get to something or get to somewhere, you could say that I am always waiting for things to be finished (zines, essays, exams) and dates to arrive (graduations, shows from favorite bands, the new RuPaul episode), but that to me is different: they’re either happy things that I’m anticipating or there is clearly an active element of working towards things where I do have (some) influence on the process (write faster!).

The kind of waiting I’ve been, I’m tempted to say suffering from in the last few Idon’tevenknowhowlongs has been the draining kind of waiting. [While I'm thinking all this, a song by my favorite Belgian musician Daan pops up in my head in which he sings "I'm not waiting, waiting makes you old". I haven't thought of this song in at least 6 years. Welcome to my brain.]

Amongst other things, in the last 6 months I’ve been waiting for grades, for people to email me back, for paperwork, for permissions, for letters promised that never arrived, for information, for medical results, for me to stop feeling so miserable, for my studies to finally stop s*cking, for my new neighbour finally to buy some damn headphones (for the record: he did! It took him a year, but he did! Everybody rejoice!), for me to know where I’m at, for me to be able to make some decisions and for my life to finally start going forward again. Because all this waiting just makes my general existence feel very stagnant, like I’m on stand by. It’s getting pretty old. And so am I.

The Sketchbook Project 2013

Last year I participated in The Sketchbook Project for the first time and wrote a couple of posts about the process. Despite claiming that I wasn’t going to use words, I did end up using quite a bit of them. While that did work out nicely in the end, I do want to break free(r) of my tendency to (over)explain my, well, everything really. That is why I decided to go for a photo log this year.

As usual, I only started physically working on it 4 days before the deadline. I don’t know why I always take so much time to actually start doing things, but I’m quite sure somedoctor somewhere has thought of a nice name for it. Something like Exaggerated General Postponal Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EGPD-NOS).

For those thinking “Oh shut the f*ck up LP and stop making unfunny DSM-V “jokes”! We know your obsessive compulsive *ss took pictures of the process! Show us the pictures! Nao!” and for all the other people who enjoy looking at my pictures and reading the sometimes-even-funny capitons: here be pictures!

Happy 2013!

I know, I know, we’re almost half way through the month already, but it’s still January, so new years wishes still count. If 2012 was an awesome year for you, I hope 2013 continues to be awesome. If 2012 was kinda blegh, I hope that 2013 turns out significantly more awesome. And if 2012 completely sucked, then I hope that 2013 will be immeasurably more awesome.

As you might have noticed, I’ve been absent for a while. Besides finally finishing The Summer zine I didn’t do any writing or other projects and while the internet break felt good, not doing anything non-university related was most definitely NOT a good idea. Especially since, and unfortunately there’s no way to write this without sounding like the huge privileged asshole I am, this third semester turned out even more of a disappointment than the first two. Yes, I didn’t think it was possible either.

I’m not going to go further into the exact why’s and how’s right now, because it is all majorly upsetting. I am just now back at a point at which continuing to pursue my studies does not feel like the most useless and frustrating thing ever and I’m afraid that if I make a detailled lists of Reasons Why My Studies S*ck And Why I REALLY Don’t Want To Be There Anymore, I will just go “F*ck that sh*t!” and never return. Which would be a perfectly fine decision if I had something else to do and/or somewhere else to go, but I don’t. And voluntarily dropping out of university into unemployment is just not a good idea. Especially not at 37.

Because (and we’re moving onto a happier note!) despite sounding like an emo high schooler who ~duzn’t lyk skool~, I did turn 37 on the 18th of December. I celebrated by buying deodorant. And shimmery tights. And green contact lenses. Which I proceeded to wear to the department’s Christmas Drinks. I was also wearing false lashes, a crapton of make up/glitter, glittery mega high heels and this Margiela for H&M dress

Picture stolen from the internets.

The people in the know (like my teacher JL, who is not only a great teacher, but also an awesome human being and one of the 4 reasons I haven’t dropped out yet) thought I looked very stylish, the rest of them were probably wondering what that 6 foot 1 glittery raccoon dressed in a bag was doing at their Christmas function. I was glad that my friend Schildpad was also there and also very glittery!

In further happier news: it’s 3 days before the deadline and guess who’s only just started on her entry for The Sketchbook Project 2013? Yup, me! Thankfully I’m doing a photo log this year, the photo’s are all shot and printed, so all I have to do is… the rest. *goes to work*

The Summer zine is here!

First, a song:

Click and enjoy! (For more of The Copy Scams (who are awesome and also on tour in England right now) go here)

With that out of the way, here it is, the eternal work in progress, the bane of my existence, The Summer zine:

It’s 32 pages, A5, text and pictures, and the first 35 copies have a lovely red cover and come with a LogPoes button. It is available for 2 euros + shipping depending on wherever you are (NL 1 euro, EU 2,55 euro, rest of the world 2,85 euro) here in my brand new Etsy shop (which also has a couple of my other zines) or, for the non-Etsy peeps, by emailing me at LogPoes@gmail.com. Zine trades are also welcome of course!

On hiatus

The people who also read my Dutch blog already know this, but for the people who don’t: due to long lingering feelings of general displacement, my studies and a very frustrating and timeconsuming information gathering process on the basis of which I need to make decisions (this semester!) which will influence the rest of my studies/my future career, I have decided to cut down drastically on my online presence. I will definitely be back, I just don’t know when/how soon that will be.

LP’s excellent staycation – Day 62

Today is the last day of LP’s excellent staycation. I’ve managed to do a great deal of things I wanted to do, but I’ve also been dealing with a lot of frustration regarding my life in general and things-I’m-not-willing-to-discuss-in-public (yet? ever?) specifically.

During my staycation I’ve been able to identify that about 70% of the frustration is me being frustrated over being frustrated, which isn’t helpful in any way, which in turn makes me, you guessed it, more frustrated. It isn’t a constant thing, it comes and goes, but today was particularly bad. The fact that I had to do my taxes and (as usual) couldn’t remember in which drawer I’d put all my relevant paperwork didn’t help.

I eventually did manage do find everything though, so I don’t have to worry about it again until next year. To reward myself for such a daunting task and to mark the semi-official end of my staycation I had made dinner plans Outside The House. On my way there I saw a rainbow and took a picture of it.

As you can see in the upper picture, it looks very faint, it was more visible IRL. Back home, I uploaded it to Picnic-replacement Picmonkey and fiddled around with it, which resulted in the picture on the bottom.

Sometimes you’ve got to adjust the contrast to see the rainbow.

LP’s excellent staycation – Day 60

So, that introduction thing. It went… well, I guess? The kids thought I was funny and one 22 year old guessed that I was… 22. Which is three years younger than how old peeps thought I was last year, which means that a) that Biafine stuff REALLY WORKS!1!eleventy! and b) the difference between 1 1/2 hours of sleep (at my own introduction last year) or 9 hours of sleep the night before is three whole years. It also means that I’m going to recommend the department to implement mandatory eye exams for all students, because I really, really do not look 22. Or 25 even. I really don’t.

Potential visual impairments aside, the group was really nice and asked questions about the program and potential difficulties they might encounter and nobody asked me where they could find beer, so I’m quite sure they’re going to do fine.

It was also great to have a chance to see/talk to my teachers from last year, especially since I’ll only see two of them again this semester. JL, who had recommended me for the job apparently, said she was sad that she didn’t get to teach me this semester, which made me go all gooey inside, because SRSLY HOW CUTE IS THAT!?!? I know. And yes, I know I sound like a 14 year old with a teacher crush and I don’t care. She really is the awesomest ever. *draws little hearts on her notebook with JL in them*

LP’s excellent staycation – Day 58

So tomorrow I’ll be expected to introduce a group of 15 first year students to our department. Apparently I’m also supposed to tell them where they can find beer, but as my friend Kouw said: “If you can’t find your own beer, you do not belong in university”, so I’m not going to do that. And also because I’m biased against (especially teen) drinking. There, I’ve said it.

Anyway, as to not scare the people too much, I’ve decided to straighten my hair and wear a long sleeved cardigan and I’ll try to tone down my obnoxious personality a little. That way they only have to deal with me being as old as their mom and the fact that I wear stompy boots underneath a dress. I will of course update in detail how things went. I’ll take notes. Hell, I might even take pictures!