peace

I was asked to send 60 zines to Zine Monger in London, and the one who runs it updated the website to reflect my contribution.

http://zinemonger.blogspot.com/

Sexuality as hidden. A sensitive and unfussy account of this zinester's experience both of growing up and growing up queer. Early role models are remembered and there's thoughtful stuff on self-identification, being out and not out to friends etc. Great. (10 grammes. 30 in stock)

Functionally Ill #5. Latest in this excellent series of zines recounting Laura-Marie's journey through the public mental health system, and her experiences as a person diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Laura-Marie has an excellent, clear writing style. An impeccably level-headed reminder that anybody can get ill. (10 grammes. 30 in stock)

http://hello-amber.blogspot.com/2009/11/fight-boredom-with-sylvia-amelia-and.html

Functionally Ill robotmadATgmail.com
I recently received the first four issues Laura-Marie's zines as part of a trade and they kept me occupied during several days worth of bus and subway trips to and from school and downtown. She writes about being diagnosed with bipolar and her subsequent dealings with the county mental health programs. Her stories are laid out in a very bare-bones manner, describing every detail from the decorations on the walls of her therapist's cubicle to the random thoughts that came to mind during meetings and wait times. She writes very descriptive accounts of her own feelings during episodes of depression and mania and includes a few transcripts of the voices she hears. I thought these transcriptions were one of the most interesting parts, because they reminded me of voices that I often heard as a child (though they mostly faded away as I got older). I really get the feeling from these zines that she wants to help out other people dealing with mental health issues as well - the way she writes is just so simple yet detailed, it's almost as if you could have her holding your hand through your own ordeals. I reviewed a zine by Laura-Marie in the past as well, called Sexuality As Hidden. Both titles are highly recommended.

Amber's great.

Here's my announcement for my new zine!

I have a new zine out, Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine #45. It features autobiographical material on an annulment, walks, moving, jobs. There are three dreams. There are lots of poems. And there are book reviews and zines reviews of just about everything I read during the months I was collecting prose and poetry for the zine.

It's digest-sized and 32 pages, very text heavy.

I would love to trade with you. Please email me at gmail dot com (robotmad) so we can swap addresses.

a. People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blog and replace any question that they dislike with a new, original question.

b. Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.


1. What are your nicknames?
Well, people over the years have called me LMT. My mom calls me Marie or Punk. My dad calls me Punk. Erik has tons of names for me. We're big on names around here. Here are some of Kitty's--Gurgley Hurgle, Mr Gigglins, Carpet Lion, Longster, Monkey Dog.

2. How do you style your hair?
I comb it, and then I put part of it in a barrette.

3. What's new in your life right now?
"Love is what fills life constantly with newness." --Amma

4. How many colors are you wearing now?
gray, blue, white--is white a color?

5. Are you an introvert or extrovert?
introvert who loves people a whole lot

6. What was the last book you read?
Finished? Tipping the Velvet. Read words in? Love Medicine.

7. Do you nap a lot?
no

8. If the person you secretly like is already taken, what would you do?
pine

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
Hmm.

10. What was the last thing you ate today?
banana bread

11. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
It depends on how ready you mean.

12. What websites do you visit daily?
gmail, yahoo!, lj, facebook, blogger

13. What classes are you taking right now? And if you're not in school anymore, what's your job?
I score standardized tests.

14. Do you like to clean?
no

15. What do you want for Christmas?
world peace

16. What are you doing right now?
thinking about turning on the heater

17. Who was your childhood idol?
I idolized teachers. Current idols: John Dobson, Morrissey, John Linnell, Harriet Vane, Lord Peter Wimsey

18. What would you do if you see $100 lying on the ground?
pick it up, go out to Indian food

19. What is your dream car?
I dream of having no car.

20. Tell me something good.
Um, um.... I'm healthy and I have things to look forward to.

I tag siegeengine, haleth, h_thur, dramaticus, dumpstermouse, nwzw, i_nvr_say_nvr, and katbrows.

Dear friends,

A new issue of functionally ill: adventures with mental health is out. It's about seeing a new therapist: what she's like, how we interact, what works for me, and what doesn't. Themes are how we present ourselves, communication, trust, and therapy's efficacy. It's text heavy, quarter size, 28 pages, and features cover art by artist Bryan Babylon. It's free or trade. Thanks for supporting my projects, and good wishes to everybody!

Laura-Marie

Dear friends,

I have a new zine out, Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine #44. It's a perzine with poems and includes lots of book and zine reviews, some small essays about the Hindu religion I do, and a guest essay by my friend Ann about growing up with a mentally ill mother in the '50s. Most of you are already on the mailing list, but let me know if you're not and want one.

Laura-Marie

tagged by peoplevsme

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good... but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to.

Red Right Ankle -- The Decemberists
Two-Headed Boy -- Neutral Milk Hotel
Bizarre Love Triangle -- New Order
Warm Lonely Planet -- The Mountain Goats
Dear Mr Supercomputer -- Sufjan Stevens
Psycho Killer -- Talking Heads
She's An Angel -- They Might Be Giants

Let's see. I tag dumpstermouse, the_ogre, h_thur, i_nvr_say_nvr, mandypoet, treesandmagma, siegeengine.

Happy spring to all.

I was interviewed about my mental health zine functionally ill. I feel very happy about how it turned out and would love if you would read it.

http://thingstodowhilewaiting.blogspot.com/2008/04/everyone-is-unusual-in-their-own-way.html

Laura-Marie

Hi, friends. I have two new zines. The first is Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine #43. It features lots of poems, reviews of all the books I read during the past six months, some recipes (broccoli soup, coffee cake, various cookies), and an open letter by my Australian friend Jo about punk and art communities.

The other zine is my mental health zine functionally ill #3. This one's quarter size. It's made up of small vignettes on identifying, control, pills, psychiatrists, Somatherapy, DBT, and The Icarus Project. Probably the most attractive thing about this issue is a transcription of my voices. That's also what makes me feel most vulnerable, so the print run is slightly smaller because less people are getting it.

But any of you who want it can have it because I like and trust all of you. If you're interested and not sure you're on the list, please comment and make sure I have your address. Or just email me at my gmail account: robotmad.

If you'd like to know what I'm up to, please check my blog. http://dangerouscompassions.blogspot.com/

In short, I'm doing very well. I've become more social and feel more supported and loved than ever. I belong to a women's writers group that's improved my quality of life. Things with Erik are great. We have no plans to move soon--staying in Sacramento for the time being (though I don't know how I'll survive another Central Valley summer).

I hope all of you are doing really well too. Thanks for supporting me and my projects.

love,
Laura-Marie

This is my third time being tagged with the little known things meme. I'm flattered. I was tagged this time by the_ogre. I'll try to think of all new facts.

"List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself. Tag seven people to do the same. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag 'whoever wants to do it' OR ELSE YOU FAIL."

1. I live in an apartment complex that's right behind a Dairy Queen. I've been to the Dairy Queen three times. Each time was when a friend from out of town was visiting.

2. I'm in a women's writers group. Right now there are three members. Last meeting we wrote poetry imitations and talked about writing by hand vs writing on the computer. I brought coffee cake.

3. I make zines--zines are homemade magazines. They can look like pamphlets. I've been making zines for 18 years. I have many zinester friends all over the world, and we form a community.

4. I collect postcards. However, collecting stuff takes up too much room. I kind of want to quit. Anyone want a portion of my collection?

5. I do a religion called Vedanta. It's a Hindu religion. I work at the bookstore and sing in the choir. When I think about where I want to move, I think about whether there's a Vedanta center nearby.

6. I pace when I talk on the phone. It drives Kitty nuts.

7. The tape player and radio in my truck are broken. Occasionally I turn on the radio to check. Yep, still broken.


haleth :)
katster
mandypoet
tetrakatus
treesandmagma
dramaticus
siegeengine

This is just to say that I'm working on issue 43 of Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine. So far it features a long open letter about anarchism and community by my friend Jo, and an essay that was originally a letter about my cat. It features book reviews about Moominbooks and all the various things I've been reading, as well as poems about apples, Halloween, and the names of non-existent children. I'm guessing it will be out toward the end of January.

As for functionally ill, I started an issue 3 months ago and stalled out when nothing seemed new or interesting anymore. Also, I transcribed some of my voices, which I thought was a great idea, but since then I feel embarrassed about anyone knowing what my voices say, so I'm having the same problem I recently had with my sex blog, which is vulnerability leading to a great need for privacy. If I do make a functionally ill number 3, it will probably be quarter size and not as good as issues 1 and 2, and who wants that? So I'm at a loss, and I'm sorry to subject you to the introspective mess that is my thoughts about functionally ill issue 3. Maybe I'll go look at what I have and get sudden inspiration about how to pull it all together into a unified and likable whole.

Thanks for supporting me and my projects.

I really mean that,
Laura-Marie

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users as of 9/30/07. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but didn't finish, and underline what you watched the movie of but didn't actually read.



Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina--This was my favorite novel for a long time.
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick--I skipped a few pages in the middle.
Ulysses--God, I hate this book.
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and prejudice--I listened to a Jane Austen book on tape a few months ago, but I can't remember which one....
Jane Eyre--Loved it.
A tale of two cities
The brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies--My husband read it and talked about it so much that I should be considered an honorary reader.
War and peace--Loved the peace--war was boring.
Vanity fair
The time traveler's wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The kite runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's pendulum
Middlemarch--I've started Middlemarch twice.
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath--Had to read this in high school.
The poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984--This one too.
Angels and demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses--Got most of the way through--then my brother nearly killed himself on a go-cart and I stopped reading for a while.
Sense and sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the lighthouse--Brilliant.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles--I've read all of Hardy's novels and all his poems too (not all his short stories).
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The Prince
The sound and the fury
Angela's ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people's history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners--Taught it.
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved--No, but I taught Sula.
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed--Husband read this and talked about it for months.
Cloud atlas
The Confusion
Lolita--Brilliant--I think of it often.
Persuasion
Northanger abbey
The catcher in the rye
On the road
The hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values--This is the other book I was reading when my brother got into his go-cart accident.
The Aeneid
Watership Down--Best book about rabbits I've ever read.
Gravity's rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The three musketeers

A new issue of ELM is done, number 42. It includes lots of book reviews, a longer piece on an attempted visit to my cousin in prison, a fabulous recipe for pumpkin pancakes, and all my poem-material from the last couple months that's worth reading. Super-specially included and I am so excited about three pieces by Erik, two fiction and one real memory.

Expect it in a week or two if you're on the list, and contact me if you're not on the list and want to be.

Thanks for supporting me and my zine,
Laura-Marie

I was tagged with a little-known things meme, and I will comply.

1. I used to have a brick collection (and still very much like bricks).
2. My parents met as fieldworkers picking tomatoes in Lompoc, CA. (Is that really about me? I consider it part of my history.)
3. I was very opposed to marriage for a few years after my first failed.
4. I have a good memory for conversations.
5. I've been on lithium: I got the shakes and my hair fell out at a faster-than-usual speed.
6. My favorite poet (other than Erik and my best friend E and myself and maybe a couple other friends) is Wallace Stevens.
7. I have a food journal blog (it's new).
8. I like to suck on rocks. (Really. Real rocks. I don't count this as food on my food journal blog.)
9. I hate celery passionately.
10. I failed Algebra II / Trig in high school. More than once....

Thank you for reading the ten little-known things about me.

love,
Laura-Marie

Today I made another run--very small--of a cook zine from January 2005 called What We Eat. Let me know if you're interested in getting a copy. It features a grocery bag cover and lots of recipes. The food's vegetarian except for a couple recipes that involve tuna fish. It's pretty no-frills (text heavy--no pictures at all) and was originally made as a double birthday present for my best friend and my brother. The first run was just 10 copies.

That's lots of trivia, in case there's ever a Jeopardy! category called Laura-Marie's Zines....

I also made another run of functionally ill #1. However, any of you who would be interested already have it.

I know I always say this, but thanks for supporting me and my projects.

love,
Laura-Marie

Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine #41 is finished. I'm in the middle of putting some into envelopes to send to friends, zine friends, and selected family members. Inside are poems, little essays, two bad dreams, a list, a recipe, and strange sentences in italics that comment on the text or just hang there like voices. The cover is pretty, and as always it's free.

Thanks for your continued support of my projects.

Laura-Marie

Dear friends,

Please read this interview with me, done by Fire House Zine. You could learn about me--for example, about my zine philosophies.

http://www.thefirehousezine.com/lauramarietaylor.htm

Thank you,
Laura-Marie

edit: Fire House Zine changed its name to Zine Arcade. Here is the proper link.

http://www.zinearcade.com/lauramarietaylor.htm

Hi, friends. Here's the announcement for my new zine.... Of course, if any of you want it, you don't have to explain why.

love to you,
Laura-Marie

***

Functionally ill #2 is the latest installment in my examination of mental illness from within and without. A long essay "problems with mental illness" discusses the construction of mental illness, stigma, and the words we use to talk about it. There's a detailed description of my trip to the psychiatrist: our fears beforehand, the questions he asked (including, "Who's the president of the United States?"), the prescription of medication, and conflict. Shorter pieces discuss my feelings and choices about medication, a helpful support group Erik and I attended and what happened there, more about what mania is like and how it can make me super-productive or delirious, and the first bi-polar person I ever knew, who threatened to kill my friend Jenny. A poem about suicide graces the back cover. I'll paste its ending.

Not killing myself
exhausts me.
It’s like a swim that never ends,
a long push through
pain to the place where
you’re allowed to die of natural causes.

Free or trade, 20 pages, digest sized, text heavy.

If you would like a copy, please email me at robotmad at gmail dot com, explaining in a sentence or two why you're interested, with your complete mailing address.

Functionally ill #2 should be done within two weeks. Last night Erik read a draft, and we like it.

It looks like the new issue will be 20 pages again, just as text heavy. There's a long essay "problems with mental health" which is abstract and has a large scope. There's an account of the first bi-polar person I ever knew, who threatened to kill my friend Jenny at UCSB. There's a long account of seeing the psychiatrist and getting diagnosed by him. I talk more about how mania feels, a support group I attended, and there's something about medication.

As always, it will be available by trade and free by request. Thanks for supporting my writing stuffs.

love,
Laura-Marie

I have a new zine out today, Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine #40. It's a free perzine, and this one has more poems than usual, but you can also find book reviews, short essays, and interesting quotes. The primary theme of this issue is marriage: I discuss my reasons for being opposed to it as an institution and then talk about how much I enjoy mine despite, what Erik's useful for, how we joke about divorce, and some of the love poems are about him. Other topics include turning 30, sex, what kinds of art I enjoy, prostitution, and how I feel about nuts. It features a gorgeous cover by my friend Apolina Green. Free or trade, so let me know if you'd like one: 32 pages, digest-sized, text heavy. I'll paste a representative poem.


the proof that you’re an asshole

The proof that you’re an asshole
is in the pudding that tastes like
the tears I cry when we get
off the phone.

I tell everyone I’m charmed,
but in reality,
I’m like a baby on the train tracks.
Someone needs to protect the innocent
who can’t take care of herself.

List all the ways I’ve failed.
Take my photo down from your
office wall. It wasn’t even good
while it lasted, but you’re the one
whose idea it was to pin
all your dreams to an inadequate whore.