(no subject)

something that's really lovely about the birthday this year in particular is it's the first time i'm free of [nondayjob] obligations to others....

since i think... literally forever? certinally since college.

i've always had something I owed people. late illustration projects i eventually did get around to. the webcomic for a while (owing it to the publisher). commissions way back in the day. freelance design to make money between jobs early on. art favors to formerly close people. i cannot emphasize enough how much of a low-grade constant worry that was in the back of a head for decades. not helped by the fact i used to be incredibly bad at judging and turning down projects.

and man, that class of obligations-to-others really stressed me out in a bad way. sometime about two or three years ago (when i started combining my to-do list and journal together -- i think it was right around when i committed to finishing FALKE with JD* ) i made a point to slowly start closing out projects without constantly saying yes to new ones. took a long long while, but three years later i can pretty confidently say i don't owe anything art-wise. future obligations will be things i would have done anyway (eg yearly tellius secret santa) and reasonably spaced out.

i honestly didn't think i'd ever get here. (much like how i honestly didn't think i'd live to 34.)

feels nice. dang underrated skill, finally mastering the ability to say no.


( *genuinely lovely experience working with JD; the stressful part was the timing lining up with unanticipated major eye surgeries.)

(no subject)

THIS is why i wanted to pick up my to-reads list again so badly; i find the weirdest coolest rabbit-holes...

so i started reading "When Technocultures Collide" because i think it's the book that this post about blind phreakers came from, and I'm quite interested in the thematic and practical connections between computer hobbyists and disabled folks.

the book itself could be better written (it's academic-heavy enough for my tastes i'm skimming through large chunks), but i cracked up at this throw-away line with an unrelated guy bitching about zines going mainstream; seems like this is one of those evergreen pieces of wank.

Although cultural critics like Hal Niedzviecki (2004: 120) are quick to cry sell-out or, more urbanely, note the spread of the virus of conformity by a variety of means when zines go glossy (imitations and intimations—however paradoxical—of the mainstream), Infiltration went posthumously to self-published book form.

but it's in a chapter about another dude -Ninjalicious- who spent good chunks of a decade in a hospital (ayyyy i see you dude), and going urban-exploring in renovated wings, and eventually wrote a reasonably famous series of zines about the experience. apparently he's the godfather of urban exploring in general, wrote *the* manual for it, and even though he's since passed away, there's a cool as hell personal site still online in his honor??

love hearing about people on the margins like this.

(no subject)

i don't want to do the thing where you .. up and grab a term that has potentially wider cultural/historical/etc contexts than what's really being gleamed from me, personally in this short-lived narrow experienced moment -  but privately, dirt-work resonated as a term (that the trickster book uses) for creative/spiritual-adjacent work that has real use in exorcising [$something] either individually or culturally.

because i was talking with the Muse the other day and like - oftentimes i feel out of place both in dead dove nsfw/sfw art circles because my overall art/creative work can wildly swing to one rating or the other without warning and doesn't really fit into either fully. i don't want it to, either, it'd be constructing a false box when a lot of my energy is spent ripping up boxes that i feel are abstractly placed around me either unintentionally or semi-intentionally.

and he was asking how i felt afterwards, drawing different kinds of things -

and with dead dove specifically i've always (like for decades) had the mental image of me just vomiting up shit and immediately feeling relieved. frankly i could draw even tender loving nsfw (doesn't have to be quote unquote "nasty") and it's the same. it's freeing in the sense i always feel temporarily lighter after drawing nsfw/dead dove work - unburdened, unbound, unrestricted, like i can breathe again. dirt-work made me think of that mental image specifically. the necessity of unclean not-allowed work.

frankly it was a very recent paradigm shift for me realizing that it didn't always make other people the same way (and sometimes straight up the opposite). sometimes i need a break from the intensity though, which is when i'll casually draw a handful of sfw pieces - but then i start to feel suffocated if i spend too long away from dead dove/nsfw art. like the boxes start coming back, the fucking assumptions.

and there was a lot, a lot of words in the trickster book about dirt-work and creative artwork (in particular obscene artwork and how it's in some contexts has taken a place of a similar release valve for modern society in comparison to much older historical rituals).

personally would like to be able to draw sfw with a little more nuance and strangely a similar passionate (freeing) intensity but for life - that it deserves, we talked about that too. seeing the beautiful mundanity of life through different eyes, while still also having that drive to sit down and show it to others, versus just passively enjoying it. it's the drive that's the hard part to keep. we have some ideas of feeling that out a little more thoroughly.

but idk i just had Feelings about (modern?) dirt-work and creating and how so very necessary it is for some.

> see also: tangentially relevant things idk?