Zines, Glorious Zines!

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page of Potluck Mania

page from my Potluck Mania zine, Issue 1

Amey and Kittee and I led a workshop about zines at Vida Vegan Con 2013, and it was great fun—both the planning and the execution of—but I wanted to follow up with a very quick post about my process of digital zine creation, because it is so different from the copy-collate-staple method.

Amey has written a really great post about her process, in case you get halfway through this and decide that digital is for the birds. (I wouldn’t blame you if you did.) If you need inspiration, Kittee hosts a Vegan Cook-Zine Museum at PakuPaku that is a true treasure trove of cookzine love.

Onwards! Joanna’s Down and Dirty Digital Zine Creation, intentionally unordered, because you might get to steps 3 or 4 and realize that you really need to rethink step 2…

    • Determine your audience. Knowing who your audience is going to be is going to inform every other decision you make. The zine I would make for my parents and in-laws might be very different from the zine I would make for my blog readers.
    • Zero in on a theme. I know my pal Kittee is somewhere shaking her fist at the use of the word “theme,” but even if your theme is as loose as “20 vegan recipes I like,” you should be able to sum up the contents of your zine in one sentence. It need not be a cookzine, people! One of my favorite digital zines is my friend Jay’s anthology of his website, The Plug.
The Plug, Anthology Volume 1

The Plug, Anthology Volume 1

  • Figure out what your zine will look like.Full-size magazine size? Pocket-size? 24 pages? 36? If you’re comfortable with Photoshop, you may want to design the entire thing yourself—the way that I did the Potluck Mania zines shown here—editing PSDs and then saving as PDFs when they’re done. If you go that route, I recommend purchasing some digital scrapbooking templates to make your project look especially sleek and polished. They were an invaluable resource to me when I was creating Potluck Mania. If you’re not as design-savvy, you may want to skip ahead a couple of steps: choose a publisher, download one of their templates, and cut and paste directly in the template.
    page from Potluck Mania Issue 1

    page from my Potluck Mania Issue 1

  • If you have no idea what you want your zine to look like, a good way to figure this out: Start typing. Writing your zine in a word processing software will give you some idea of exactly how much content you have to work with, and besides, you’ll want one text-only version of your zine for easy editing purposes.
  • Now that you’re getting a feel for what your final product will look like, it’s time to pick a publisher/distributor.1 One of the main advantages to creating your zine digitally, as far as I’m concerned, is that once you’ve finished your project, you are done. There is no need for you to spend big bucks up front to print your zine, or to set up a virtual storefront, or to go to the post office multiple times a week. Online publishers are print-on-demand, and they mail the zine to your customer for you. I use (and really love) Amazon’s createspace. I get monthly payments from Amazon and a yearly tax form, but otherwise, I don’t have to do anything at all. I’ve included a screenshot below of the first page of the project creation process. See that you have the choice between “Guided” and “Expert”? The Guided process makes it easy for literally anyone to create the final digital file. Createspace offers a wide choice of templates which you can just cut and paste your project into.

    Amazon's createspace interface

    Amazon’s createspace interface

That’s it!

Hopefully this has demystified digital zine creation for you, and you are already planning your next zine. If so, I want to hear all about it.

1I know what you might be thinking here: “Hey, Joanna, isn’t the entire point of digital zine creation that you don’t have to publish it? Your customer can just download the file to the device of their choice and never have to bother with a hard copy? ” Yes, totally! That might be a big selling point for you! Personally, I prefer to have physical copies of things, especially cookbooks, so this tutorial addresses publishing. If you don’t want to publish, then you can stop right here.

Vida Vegan Con 2013: The Conference

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blind taste testing during Vegan Battle Royale

blind taste testing during Vegan Battle Royale

Confession time! I’ve been putting off writing about Vida Vegan Con 2013 because I knew that there was a solid chance1 that I would be in tears before I was even halfway finished writing about it.

Let me put the gratitude right up top where it belongs: I feel so grateful to Jess, Janessa, and Michele for all of the hard and thoughtful work they have put into organizing this conference. I have attended a lot of events—many of which had dozens upon dozens of people who were paid to work on them as their full-time jobs—and they were not as successful as Vida Vegan Con. Not even close! These woman are amazing. Ladies, you are my heroes, I want to be you when I grow up.

I don’t want to rehash what has already been said elsewhere by others, so I will start by linking to some of my favorite Vida Vegan Con 2013 recaps:

My VVC2013 highlights:

Joanna, Kittee, Amey lead zine workshop

Joanna, Kittee, Amey lead zine workshop, photo by Amey’s mom!

The zine class with Kittee and Amey. I have a whole separate entry planned about zines, so I will just say that I cherished the time spent planning this class with these weird and wonderful women and having a chance to share our love of zines with others, and I’m glad that we ended up doing this in the Library at the Portland Art Museum, because the setting was right on: small, reverent, intimate, book-focused! So totally perfect.

Sayward, Susan, Dreena, and me at the Privacy Lines and Oversharing panel

Sayward, Susan, Dreena, and me at the Privacy Lines and Oversharing panel, photo borrowed from Sayward

The Privacy Lines & Oversharing Panel with Sayward, Susan, and Dreena. This is a topic which is near and dear to my heart. I have been sharing my life online for 18 years, which is over half my life and all of my adult life. Over the course of time, I’ve drawn and redrawn the boundaries of what I’m comfortable sharing, and I think that the biggest takeaways from the panel—the points all of the panelists agreed on— were: 1) ask permission from the people in your life before sharing their stories or images and 2) only you can define what is right for you, and you need to be prepared to police yourself and possibly even others if it means protecting your privacy (and that of your loved ones).

However, I will say that my most-quoted (or: tweeted) moment from the panel was when I said, off the cuff: “A lifestyle blog without your personal life is just a Tumblr.” I love blogs where people talk about their lives, including—especially!—the messy bits. That is the good stuff! Leave the aspirational blogging to A Beautiful Mess2 and please write about what you’re struggling with, and then send me your URL, because I want to read it, and comment on it, and become friends with you.

Cool, my eyes are already welling up with tears, so let’s just plow right forward onto:

The Body Image and Acceptance panel. I strongly recommend reading Michele’s wrap-up of the panel. This was a powerful discussion, and I will admit that I pretty much sat in the back and let tears stream down my face. Then many of us who were there took that discussion and continued it at our lunch tables with our peers who were unable to attend. And brought it up again later over drinks. I sincerely hope that the discussions continue: in our homes, on our blogs, and in our brains. I know that I have to have serious sit-down conversations with my brain about this issue on a daily basis. The conversations are going better today than they were five years ago, much better than they were ten years ago, and infinitely better than they were when I was 12 years old and I went to Weight Watchers for the first time. I still have a long way to go, and now I have a small person who watches everything I do and takes everything I say way too seriously, and that, my friends, has really upped the ante.

Mo, Kittee, and Amey

Mo, Kittee, and Amey: our hostesses with the mostesses of Vegan Battle Royale

Vegan Battle Royale. Holy moly: Kittee and Amey and Mo outdid themselves with the pub quiz style trivia contest this year. Amey wrote it up, but I just want to add that: I would attend an entire conference which was just this. Seriously. Can someone make that happen?

That wonderful coffee station. There were several of these little coffee stations set up at the conference that had coffee, tea, and then every single thing you could imagine to add to it. I fell in love with it a little bit, no joke.

The next entry I have planned is about zines, and then I plan to wrap this up with a post about the, uh, extra-curricular fun. Did you miss the one about the pre-conference fun?

1 110% chance
2 I love A Beautiful Mess! I also love Martha Stewart Living. I read them religiously. Do I relate to them? Not at all, not even a tiny little bit.

Vida Vegan Con 2013: Pre-Conference Fun in Portland

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Meeting up with friends at Bye and Bye

Meeting up with friends at Bye and Bye

This is the first of a few posts I’ll be writing about my experience attending Vida Vegan Con 2013 in Portland, and I decided that this one should be about the pre-conference fun, because those two days really set the tone for what ended up becoming the theme for the entire week: wonderful conversations with friends over stellar meals and cocktails.

I intentionally planned my trip so that I had a few days before the conference to spend time with friends and visit my favorite Portland haunts, and I’m so glad that I did. Once the conference officially started on Friday, I got swept up in the momentum and just let myself be carried along on the current—which was non-stop for three straight days.

By contrast, I spent my first two days in Portland leisurely walking around the city, eating, drinking, and spending time with dear friends, and it was totally blissful. I didn’t get to spend nearly as much time with any of my friends as I wanted to, but that would have been impossible. There is never enough time.

A few photos:

Vegan Potatoes at Junior's

Vegan Potatoes at Junior’s, favorite breakfast in Portland

hazelnut milk latte and the S.O.S. at Sweetpea

hazelnut milk latte and the S.O.S. at Sweetpea

Michelle, Kim, Kittee!

Michelle, Kim, Kittee!

Check out the hoodies, coats, and scarves on my pals in these pictures! It was in the high 50s/mid 60s and raining for most of my visit to Portland. Anything else would have been strange, although since my primary mode of transportation was by foot—I estimated I walked around 11 miles over the course of two days—I was finding the perpetual drizzling significantly less charming when my clothes and shoes were soaked through and I didn’t have the option of swinging by my house to do a quick change into something warm and dry.

For me, the conference unofficially began on Thursday afternoon when my girl Joni tweeted at me that she was at Hungry Tiger, Too, and was I still at Sweetpea (two blocks away) and did I want to join? Of course I did, so I gathered up my things and headed over to hang out with what I now thing of fondly as my Mississippi crew: Joni, Kelly, Louzilla, Jackie, and Michelle.

Joni at Hungry Tiger, Too

Joni is adorable, even when I commit the ultimate photography sin and take a backlit picture

Here is how I knew that I was amongst my people: as soon as the food arrived, literally every person at the table whipped out her phone or camera to take pictures of the food. So of course, I had to document all the documentation:

Kelly, Michelle, Jackie, and Lou instagramming their hearts out

Kelly, Michelle, Jackie, and Lou Instagramming their hearts out

In her VVC wrapup, Kelly referred to this as the Year of the Instagram, and it was seriously true. At the first VVC, I kept up with what my fellow attendees were doing via Facebook and Twitter. Not this time. If I wanted to know where the action was, I just looked on Instagram.

From here, we walked to the White Owl Social Club, where the first Meet and Greet of VVC 2013 was happening. When we got there, it was already packed to the gills. Vegans as far as the eye could see. I quickly ordered a drink and nabbed a booth in the far corner of the bar, ostensibly so that I could have the best view in the house, but in reality, it’s because my introvert nature shouted: “RETREAT, RETREAT!” Little did I know, but it was really just beginning.

I spent the rest of that very long and crazy night hanging out mostly with the Austin crew: Ross, Marie, Daniel, and Wes, but we also managed to rope in Chelsea, Sayward, and new friend Emily into our fold. A few photos from Thursday night:

mac and cheese burger at White Owl

Marie took this picture of my first bite of a vegan mac and cheese burger at White Owl. This should be my new social media icon, right?

 

Fun at The Sweet Hereafter

And a few hours later, Marie took this photo of us at The Sweet Hereafter

So, yeah. Good times were had. And the conference hadn’t even begun yet…

A Day of Firsts

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Megan, Henry, and Milo at Bouldin Creek Cafe

The pictures in this post are from this past weekend, where we had so much fun hanging out with friends Megan, Mike, Henry, and Zelda.

Yesterday was a day of firsts:

  • Our first time having to take Milo to Urgent Care, which is how we found out about
  • Milo’s first ear infection — in both ears. We think that he had a mild cold last week and that the plane travel just exacerbated it. I am working from home today because I couldn’t bear to leave him, but it became clear after hour one that my worry was completely unnecessary. Now that the ear pain is being treated, he thinks this whole thing is pretty great. Unlimited cartoons! Medicine that tastes like bubble gum! Extra attention from mom and dad!
  • Finally: the first time Milo has posted a PG-13 rated video on the internet.
Henry and Milo

Henry and Milo getting on like gangbusters

Yesterday, Milo used Matt’s phone to post a video of me. A video in which I was lying on the couch in my underwear.

We didn’t find out about it for 5 hours, at which point Matt immediately deleted the video, but then he noticed that Milo had also managed to post it to Twitter. So, I’m guessing that some strangers saw me in my underwear this week. Possibly even you! Really it was no more than they would see if we all went swimming together, but it goes without saying that it’s not something I would have posted of myself.

Milo at Sweet Ritual

Milo enjoying vegan chai ice cream at Sweet Ritual

I freaked out for about 10 minutes. We were sitting in the the Urgent Care clinic waiting room at the time, so it was a very mild freaking out, but still.

Finally, I came around to the realization that: a) I couldn’t do anything about it at this point, and b) Bodies! We all have them!

I have worked very hard the past few years to get to the place where I love my body. Why have I done (am continuing to do, every day) that hard work if not to get to a place where I can say: “Yep, that’s my body!” and just move on? I sat there, in the Urgent Care clinic, and waited for my pulse to slow and the blood to drain out of my face, and I did the best to talk to myself about it and kick my critical inner voice in the ass, and move on.

Zelda eating ice cream

Believe it or not, this was one scoop of chocolate ice cream at Sweet Ritual

Now the remaining issue is: how to talk about it with Milo without making him think that the body is something to be ashamed of? So far, we have taken the approach of: “Don’t post anything to the internet unless Mommy and Daddy say it’s okay,” but eventually we’ll have to have the conversation about what is just for our family and what is for the world at large, and how to differentiate between the two.

I have spent the past week ruminating on all of the conversations I had at Vida Vegan Con, both at the conference and outside of it. Two classes in particular led to some of my most thought-provoking and emotional discussions with friends and peers: Privacy Lines & Oversharing and Body Image Acceptance. And here I am, a week after the conference, dealing with an incident where those two issues intersect. Kids are great about forcing the issues, aren’t they? I can’t wait until he’s a tween and I can tell him this story!

 

Unfollow Is the New Follow

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<3

Will not unfollow: Lauren and Katie Jane

Yesterday, I got back from a week of being in Portland and attending the second Vida Vegan Con. It was such a profoundly inspirational experience that I will need at least a week to process all of the events and conversations before I’m ready to talk about them, but there is one overwhelming impression which I wanted to share with you as soon as possible:

<3

Will not unfollow: PandaCookie, Jess Scone

There are so. many. vegan. bloggers.

Will not unfollow: Sayward

That is pretty much the biggest duh ever, right? I know! Except that when I first went vegan, there were only a handful. Really, I just counted in my mind, and there were fewer than five. (Kittee‘s PakuPaku was one of them!)

<3

Will not unfollow: Mo, Kittee, Amey

Now, a dozen or so years later, there are thousands, and I just spent several days with three hundred of the very best of them, and I can’t get over how different we all are from one another.

<3

Will not unfollow: Kelly

So when I heard in various classes or from a fellow speaker or attendee that she really hates when a blogger she follows engages in a certain activity (likegating, body shaming, inauthentic behavior, presenting yourself as an expert when you’re not, and extreme narcissism were all examples), I couldn’t help but wonder…so why are you still following that blogger?1 You have so many choices! Continuing to read the blog of someone who regularly drives you bonkers is like repeatedly wearing a pair of underwear which always gives you a wedgie. Throw the underwear out. Unfollow the bad blogger.

If you really like the person and hope that they knock it off, you could always come back in few months and check in to see if things have improved. If you hugely respect the person and they’re engaging in activity you find offensive, you could always leave a comment saying why you’re unfollowing. Maybe something along the lines of: “I don’t know if you realize this, but some people find those kinds of words triggering or hurtful, and I’m sad to see you use them. For my own health and sanity, I need to stop following you, but just wanted to reach out and talk to you about it first, because I don’t know if you’re aware of the impact you’re having.”

<3

Will not unfollow: Laura, Isa, LazySmurf

I decided at the conference that for every time I unfollow a blogger for bad behavior, I’m going to go look for a new vegan blog to follow. Maybe one of the conference attendees, or someone who participated in Vegan MoFo last year. I’m especially going to go out of my way to start reading fledgling blogs, and to give those people lots of comments and support so that they keep going. I’m committed to giving someone new a chance instead of hoping that this other person will miraculously change her ways.

Do I think unfollowing is going to make the offenders into better bloggers? No way. I do know that it will make me happier to only participate in that which inspires, challenges, provokes, and excites me.

1 I should say that I know that some people actively enjoy reading blogs they hate, but this is not about that.

See You Soon, Portland!

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portland packing list

I leave for Portland tonight for a few days of friends and favorites before three intense (magical!) Vida Vegan Con days. I can’t wait!

Before leaving, I had intended to share with you some of my favorite Portland haunts, but since the VVCers have been doing “Portland Picks” entries with guest bloggers, that is totally unnecessary. (But if you’re really dying to know my favorites, very little has changed since I wrote about my ideal $40 Portland Day. In fact, I’m planning to do that exact day on Wednesday!)

milo

As excited as I am about this much-needed vacation, I’m also a little anxious, because Matt and Milo will also be having their own little adventure. Two days after I leave for Portland, they’ll be heading off to the East Coast to stay with Matt’s parents for a week, so we’ll be separated for a week and a half. The longest stretch that Milo and I have been apart since he was born was three days. The longest stretch that Matt and I have been apart in the last eight years is six days. I know that I will be missing them both like crazy.

I have been active more active than usual on Instagram lately; I’m “joannavaught” if you’re interested in following me. I have a private account only to prevent spammers from commenting on my pictures, but I authorize all friend requests. I’m in digital marketing, and recently one of my coworkers said to me: “You know, Facebook is out and Instagram is in. None of the kids want to do Facebook anymore because their parents are all on it.” I’m with you, kids!

Texas VegFest and Vida Vegan Con!

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I had a moment this past weekend where I realized that Monday was April 1st, and I almost fell over from disbelief. Honestly, it felt to me as if the fact that it was almost April was the biggest April Fool’s joke of all time.

But here we are, in April, which means that two events which I have been looking forward to for almost a year are now right around the corner.

Holy awesomeness, Texas VegFest is this Saturday! Reading Lazy Smurf and Molly’s chat about VegFest this year only amped up my excitement. (Thank goodness Lazy Smurf asked about tacos; she can be counted on to address the most important questions. Not being facetious. I was totally all: “What is the taco situation?”)

Milo and I will be taking the commuter rail down the fest this year. He is most looking forward to the kids yoga. I am most looking forward to the samples (duh) and hugging a whole lot of people. Will we see you there?

I am also super excited about speaking (again!) at the second Vida Vegan Con in late May, especially since it will be my first time back in Portland since we moved last Spring, and double especially because I will get to see—and in some cases, plan classes with—some of my favorite people in the world. Hot damn!

If you want to attend the conference but have been dragging your feet, I highly recommend locking down that registration now, because there are only a handful of spaces left. The first VVC was such an inspirational event for me. It was my first con, in general, and I had no idea how invigorating it could be to be surrounded by my people for a few days, you know? It made me want to attend conventions for all of my passions, pursuits, and niche interests!

Have you already registered? Let’s meet up!

What classes are you taking? You don’t have to say mine, but you are attending mine, right? They’re going to be a lot of fun. On Saturday, I will be doing a zine class  with my ladies Kittee and Amey (many a Google chat session have already taken place planning this one). Immediately after the zine class, I will be a panelist on the  “Privacy Lines & Oversharing” panel with Sayward, Dreena, and Susan. I spoke on a panel about oversharing at the first blogger conference I ever attended…in 1999.

And for those of you who aren’t planning to attend—this year, at least—I plan to write posts after the conference which go into more detail on those topics.

Hooray for community and hooray for spring. See you soon!

Skillet Biscuits

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On Sunday afternoon, after several hours of intense yard work, I staggered into the kitchen, low blood sugar and ravenous, and there was only one I wanted to eat. Biscuits. Specifically, I wanted biscuits which were crunchy on the bottom but pillowy-soft and flaky inside; biscuits which would hold up under a layer of almond milk gravy, but would be just as good as is, straight out of the oven.

In under an hour, I was blissed out on the couch, freshly showered and savoring the biscuit of my dream.

How did I get there? If you’ve read the title of this post, you already know how I got that crunchy layer: I baked my biscuits in a pre-heated cast iron skillet.

Skillet Biscuits
makes 8 biscuits

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegan shortening
1 cup vegan milk
juice of 1/2 medium-sized lemon
optional: vegan margarine and agave nectar

Preheat oven to 350. Heat a well-seasoned cast iron skillet over medium-low heat on the stove and add 1 teaspoon of shortening to skillet to melt. As it starts to melt, give the skillet a little swirl so that the shortening covers the entire bottom surface. Reduce heat to low.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt. Cut in the shortening using a pastry blender or a fork or two knives, whichever method you like. This doesn’t need to be a crumb; I just do it enough to break the shortening into the flour and evenly distribute.

In a bowl, mix lemon juice into your vegan milk. Then add this mixture to your dry ingredients and stir to incorporate.

Flour your surface liberally and dump the biscuit dough out on it. If your dough is tacky at all, sprinkle it generously with flour.

Flour your hands generously, too, and get your hands in there to start folding. Form the dough into a rectangle; fold in half; flatten out to a rectangle; fold in half again; repeat many times. If dough gets tacky, add more flour. No big whoop. If you’ve never done this before, it’s a lot easier than it sounds. Here is a video of me doing it:

So yeah, after you’ve done that a bunch—I usually do it about 20 times—flatten out to a rectangly shape and then get a drinking glass, dip it in flour, and cut out your biscuits and transfer them to the warm skillet.

Right here is where the eagle-eyed biscuit maker is going to zero in to see if I include a little biscuit secret, and I will, because I’m not one to keep culinary secrets to myself: As much as possible, don’t “wiggle” the glass around, just push it straight down and through the dough. A lot of biscuit pros feel like this is the key to flaky biscuits, so I do it!

With the leftover dough, form a rectangly shape again, do the foldovers a few more times, and then cut some more biscuits. Repeat until all the dough is gone.

Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from oven and place a small dab of margarine on the top of each biscuit, and then drizzle a tiny amount of agave nectar over each biscuit.

Return to the oven and bake for 10 more minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for about five minutes before eating.

Check out this beautiful crunchy bottom! Thanks, cast iron skillet!

Who Loves The Sun?

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Paper Bird at Spider House, Austin, TX

Paper Bird at Spider House, Austin, TX

All pictures in this post are from a very lovely, sunny afternoon that Milo and I recently spent at Spider House with our friends the Shmananie clan, seeing his bestest pal Jude’s uncle do an acoustic set with his band Paper Bird. It was glorious and Paper Bird are so great, and they’re on tour right now! Check them out if they come through your town.

Last month, I had a wellness visit with a new doctor. We discussed some symptoms I’ve been having (exhaustion, increased appetite, difficulty keeping weight off) and the potential causes. I suspected hormonal imbalance. She agreed with hormonal imbalance, but added to the list anemia and B12 deficiency, and sent me off to have extensive lab tests done to find out what we could find out.

Milo at Spider House

Yesterday, I met with her to discuss the results. Hormonal imbalance? Not so much. My iron and B12 numbers were also fine. Really there was only one huge lab result that stuck out:

I was Vitamin D deficient. “Severely deficient,” emphasized my doctor. The healthy range is 50-80. My number? 15. Oof.

pals at Spider House

“But I take a Vitamin D supplement!” I protested.

My doctor explained that only 20% of the necessary Vitamin D can come from a dietary source, and the other 80% needs to come from sunshine.

“But I spend time outside every day!” I said. Every day! In Texas! How much more sun can you possibly need? ITALICS!

My doctor said that with a number as low as mine, I would have needed to be sun-deprived for years.

“I lived in Portland, Oregon for seven years,” I offered.

My doctor raised her eyebrows significantly at this and said: “There you go.”

After sitting there completely dumbfounded for a few seconds, I asked: “How is it possible that no doctor has ever tested my Vitamin D levels before?”

My doctor explained that she graduated med school in 1995, and in the entirety of her med school classes, Vitamin D deficiency was discussed for maybe a total of 10 minutes. Most doctors don’t know to test for it, even though most Americans are at least a little—if not a lot—Vitamin D deficient, due to skin care awareness and the American lifestyle of being “too busy” to get outdoors every day.

friends

She wrote me a prescription for dietary Vitamin D, but she also gave me a more serious prescription: “Sunshine, every day, 15 minutes, no sunscreen. And not just your face and hands. As much of your body as possible…without being scandalous,” she teased. (I love my doctor.) She also pointed me to the website Vitamin D Council as a resource for educating myself. (I really love my doctor.)

When I got home from the appointment, the first thing I did was post this on Facebook. I couldn’t believe that I was just finding out about this now. I urged my Portland friends to learn from my mistake and get out there and get as much sun as possible. I heard from friends and family living all over the country that they were in the same boat as me, and were also climbing their way back to optimal health with heavy doses of sunshine and supplements.

Since my appointment, I keep singing the Velvet Underground song, “Who Loves the Sun?” to myself, in which my brother-in-pastiness Lou Reed sings: “Who loves the sun? / Not everyone.” I’m a hater no more, Lou Reed. Get me some sunshine. Right now.

Monkey Mind

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meditating woman

I wish this were me…but it is so not.
(image found on Google images, was unable to find source, let me know if this is yours and I’ll credit you)

Matt and I have been looking for a church in Austin. We have it narrowed down to two which most closely align with our belief systems: the Unitarian Universalist church and the Quaker church.

I prefer the UU service, because I grew up attending a Protestant church every week, and I find the traditional aspects of of the service (call-and-response, hymns, sermon) comforting, but I really like that Unitarians don’t stick to tradition for tradition’s sake. For instance, at the Superbowl Sunday service, the congregation did a call-response of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” Including the electric guitar solo. It was awesome.

Matt is leaning towards the Quaker church. He went to a Quaker high school and is used to the format of their service, which is to sit in silence together for an hour unless someone is moved to speak. I think this service is beautiful, really. I love the idea of sharing space with people and meditating together every week.

There’s just one little problem: I super suck at free form meditation. I’ve been trying off and on since I was 15 and started reading the Beats and Tom Robbins and decided Zen Buddhism was right for me. (Cringe.) I have never managed to meditate for more than 15 minutes. My Western monkey mind just will not be silenced. I try the practice of having a thought, labeling it “thought,” and moving on, but my thoughts never stop coming, and they never slow down.

For now, Matt and I have decided that rather than choosing one church hastily, we’ll trade off, going to one church one week and another church the other. Yesterday we went to the Quaker church.

Here are some of the the things I remember thinking about during the hour-long service:

  • certain scenes in the movie Ruby Sparks
  • was Paul Dano growing into his looks or did he just look much better when he wasn’t dying his hair black
  • how I felt The Twelve compared to The Passage
  • I can’t read The Twelve before bed anymore because then I have vampire nightmares
  • the song El Shaddai, because we’d passed the El Shaddai temple on the way to church
  • how it would be freeing to have a persona which was you-but-not-you, like Billy Eichner’s in Billy on the Street, because you would be able to give life and voice to this real part of yourself which you weren’t able to on a daily basis
  • but would having a persona eventually lead you to pull more of those characteristics into your daily life, anyway? How do professionals maintain a delineation between person and persona?
  • We Didn’t Start the Fire lyrics
  • this one issue at work
  • which snacks I was going to make when friends came over later
  • totchos?
  • how one of the reasons that bikram didn’t work for me is because the instructor kept telling us that our focal point should be our own eyes in the mirror ahead of us, and staring intently into my own eyes felt masturbatory rather than centering
  • just kidding, the real reason that bikram didn’t work for me was because it was so fucking hot in there
  • how do you figure out which are the pursuits in your life which are challenging and not enjoyable at first, but which may eventually pay off, versus which are just not for you
  • can I think of anything in my adult life which I didn’t like at first but eventually came to love?
  • or is the major benefit of growing older that you come to understand yourself more thoroughly and you can identify much earlier which things are going to be “your things,” whereas when you’re a child, you don’t know yourself yet, so you’re just throwing things at the wall, desperate to find something that will stick
  • for instance, I loved roller derby right away and came home glowing and totally obsessed with it right after the first practice
  • AYATOLLAH’S IN IRAN, RUSSIANS IN AFGHANISTAN
  • but I do want to restart my yoga practice, because I miss yoga, just not bikram
  • Is Milo doing okay in the children’s classroom?
  • Is this going to be over soon?
  • What is Matt thinking about?
  • are we going to play Settlers of Catan
  • various strategies of gameplay for Settlers
  • how that one part of that Parks and Recreation episode was just the best
  • I could make different popcorns for snacks
  • an email from Melissa the day before
  • a conversation I had with Melissa last week
  • another issue at work
  • what do I think they’re doing at the UU service this week
  • Mirah’s The Garden
  • that one dance on So You Think You Can Dance that was choreographed to The Garden, how hot was that?
  • I hope that led to a million record sales for Mirah
  • how most of the bands and musicians I got into last year had female vocalists
  • First Aid Kit
  • Lucius
  • Hospitality
  • Shovels and Rope
  • whether I am more into female vocalists in general than I used to be or whether there is just a surge of female vocalists recording the kind of music I like, or some combination of the two
  • which bands I’m going to see during SXSW
  • how much time, if any, I’ll be able to take off work during SXSW
  • another issue at work
  • “Look what you’ve done to me, oh oh”
  • when Mia Michaels was in Step Up: Revolution and it was tragic
  • Chinese New Year
  • I need to reply to that one email
  • whether or not I took the wet clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer
  • how I need to catch up with Call The Midwife
  • that Man Experiencing Childbirth video we watched on Saturday
  • IS THIS ALMOST OVER?
  • I definitely prefer the UU church.