March 21. I’ve left the house twice since then. Once I tried walking around the block and once to finally get a Covid-19 test. I don’t have much to say about this time just yet. But I took this picture out the window. After the test, I asked to be driven around the long way home, just to get to see a little more.
Me in actual 80’s and me hosting an 80’s themed murder mystery today.
Things I have from then: buttons, cowlicks, a sense of who am becoming. Thinking about what I would want to tell those younger versions of me, the things that little person needed to hear.
Related: I sure would love that sweatshirt today!
Whew. What an amazing whirlwind of a weekend! Helping 12 teens copy and sell their zines (and buttons and original music and comics) while also slinging my own zines was quite a task. Definitely couldn’t have done it without my co-adult-facilitator and my kid’s Aunt.
There was so much love in the room all weekend and so much joy. I’m pretty sure most of us bought and traded as many zines as we sold, ha. I’m so glad that we got to participate. Now that they know what to expect, I’m sure they will have even more ideas for next year.
The veteran zine-makers were so gracious and encouraging. I think the most magical times were when browsing parents intuitively left their kiddos with us to make zines (on the stage behind us) while they browsed. Truly a wonderful weekend. I’m both exhausted and energized.
This weekend is the Philly Zine Fest. I will be slinging my own zines and volumes 1-2 of Peppermint Alley Press AND in addition, this will be the debut zine fest for the Philly Teen Zine Collective. They have been busily making zines for months, both on their own and in our group.
Pauline and I have been making zines with the classes that we facilitate for a long time and of course we’ve been taking kids to Zine Fests for longer than that. But after reading First Rule of Punk by Celia Perez, the zine idea really took off. I’m hoping they have a lot of fun this weekend and we are so grateful to the Philly Zine Fest for hosting our group!
When they put up this wall, I can see them adding the wire mesh and slapping on extra thick concrete and saying “this fucker is never coming down. You’d have to have a big mother fucking sledge hammer for this one.”
