annoyed
I know this isn’t the greatest way to start an entry, but let’s start by making a list of everything that I’m annoyed by:
1. Eric left for his river trip yesterday. We talked on Saturday, and I made him promise me that he would call me on Sunday before they traveled to the put-in spot and cell phone reception would be spotty. I sent him a text on Sunday to remind him again to call me, at which point he responded and said that he would and that instead of getting off the river on Wednesday, he wasn’t going to be getting off the river until Saturday, which means I’ll probably go until Saturday without talking to him. And of course, he never called me all day on Sunday. I cannot describe how frustrated that makes me.
2. Zine symposium stuff, as always. This weekend I spent at least six hours on zine stuff including making copies of flyers and handbills for our upcoming event, taking them to the women of color zine fest and representing PZS while I was there, going on an epic 9-mile urban hike to staple flyers to poles for the event, and catching up on the spreadsheet of invoices as well as clearing up payments and managing the waitlist. As far as I know, no one else has done anything zine-related all week. We’re supposed to have a meeting today, but already people are backing out and complaining that they might be ‘too tired’ or ‘too busy’ to come.
3. I have a ton of chores to do before I leave for my month-long trip, and it is so overwhelming. My house is a wreck- zine stuff everywhere, papers on every surface, crusty crap stuck to my kitchen table, sticky stuff on the floors (I really need to mop), plus my car needs some serious help. But the idea of actually doing these things makes me stressed out and annoyed.
4. The writing workshop that I was supposed to attend this upcoming weekend was cancelled because not enough people signed up. In addition, when I signed up for the workshop, they charged me the wrong amount of money and then tried to bill me again for more money. And now they won’t refund my money until after the workshop was supposed to take place, which means I won’t get it until after I get back from my trip.
Not sure if writing all that made me less or more annoyed, but there you have it. I had an OK weekend. I’m trying to get used to spending lots of time alone now that Eric is effectively MIA for the next week. I want to finish the split zine that Kirsten and I started while I still have some time. On Saturday I went on a zine-y adventure down to Portland State University for the women of color zine fest. It was good but definitely not well-attended. I felt bad for them. They seemed REALLY happy to see me when I got there. After reading a bunch of zines I got there, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I, as a person of privilege, can help mitigate some of the problems that we face here in Portland, especially around diversity.
Everyone thinks that Portland is such a progressive place, but the zines I read painted a much different picture—blatant racism and judgement in a variety of ways. It’s hard to know what to do or how to help. Slavery is still happening, just in a different way. We are still feeling the effects from this part of our history, even if we think we have moved past it. We haven’t. It wasn’t that long ago. And if you look at what’s happening today in America, you can see the direct effects of it everywhere. I stand on the shoulders of so many privileged people—I am "white" (actually a quarter Japanese), upper middle class, educated, etc. Why have I been able to graduate from college, get a "good" job, and completely support myself? Partly because of what I have done to make that happen, of course, but a lot of it is privilege. I haven’t had to overcome anything. My parents paved the way for me.
More to say about that, but that’s enough for now. I am trying to tie up all the loose ends of everything before I head back to the east coast for my month-long adventure. It’s going to be intense and hopefully fun, but I know I’m going to miss Portland a lot. I’m worried about the zine symposium—that things will fall apart after I leave and nothing will get done. But hopefully that won’t happen. And hopefully I’ve overestimating my importance to the structure of the event.
Ugh, OK. I’ve been watching a bunch of political documentaries on Netflix that have kind of blown my mind. Looking for recommendations? The Island President and Benazir Bhutto are good. I also watched a documentary on Fela Kuti that was kind of interesting even if I really didn’t like the way they portrayed women in the piece.
Time to get back to work.