Fresh Notebook, ‘Zines, & New Kaiju Fans

It’s always funny to me how when I start a new notebook or planner, it’s like all the polish I’ve cultivated in the previous notebook goes completely to crap. My handwriting becomes super sloppy. I can’t figure out which pen to use (and the paper doesn’t respond the same way to the ink, so what looked good in the last notebook, like, totally doesn’t in the new one). Systems that were once functional and intuitive are thrown into chaos, and with it the way I think about my weeks and months ahead.

My brain and my notebook systems are intricately linked. Removing a method of visualizing the future immediately causes something of a panic that I’ll lose dates and times I need to remember. While some problems are solved (Yay! No more making spreads!), some new ones are created: Where do I put my to-do lists? Where do I figure out meal planning? What about habit tracking? What about journaling my days?

Anyway, all that to say, I’ve picked up a new notebook planner and I’m still settling in. Why step back from the bullet journaling, you ask? In part, the move was motivated by the fact that my bullet journal had morphed into this outward-facing thing where I’d think about how it’d look on Instagram before whether it’d be useful or helpful to me. Appearance became paramount. I also found that the way I was using it had changed as I’ve embraced some other task-oriented apps, so writing out to-do lists wasn’t as prominent.

It’s also in part motivated by LAZINESS. I used to think of being lazy as one of my major character flaws, but now middle-aged (GULP) I’m starting to realize it may be one of my more inventive strengths. I like streamlining things, removing obstacles to getting basic tasks done, keeping things functional and simple. I don’t want to think that hard about what I put in my planner. I just want to use it to keep myself informed. I want to journal in it a bit. I want to utilize it, not design it. Function before form, you know what I mean? I was finding that the aesthetics were beginning to make it too difficult to come to the notebook in the first place, and then I’d get behind, and then I wouldn’t want to get back to it, because #behind. It was becoming a problem, and appointments and other important details were beginning to slip through the cracks.

So I picked up this planner from MochiThings, and I’m in the new adjustment phase of making it look neat and tidy. We’re…not there yet. But I’m getting back into post-it notes, which I enjoy immensely. And this has also opened up my previous bujo for using it more as an idea catch-all notebook, which I’m also enjoying.

In addition to changing out to a new notebook, I’ve also been dealing with A PLAGUE HOUSE. Thing 2 got RSV (he was okay, but had a majorly junky/grungy cough), and then just as that was resolving, it seems to have either shifted into a separate bacterial infection or he caught something else, because he’s had a moderate fever and a hacking, dry cough (we’re still working on remembering to cover out mouths…20% of the time… 80% we’re aiming straight at people’s faces…). Then Thing 1 got a low fever (otherwise, just a bit sniffly), and I’ve had something low-grade all this past week and weekend, which is just now 95% gone.

All this to say, there hasn’t been much writing going on at Chez Slater these past two weeks. I’ve been relieving the creative energy build-up by falling into a J. Thaddeus Toad-like mania: ‘zine-mania!

I’ve been toying with the idea of using the zine format to put together some pretty little books of short stories, and I started playing in earnest this weekend with an adaptation of “Tower’s End”. This is the rough (rough) mock-up I was trying this weekend, with a note that the colors are horribly off because my printer is insisting it’s almost out of ink, even though I CAN TELL IT’S NOT, but there’s more ink on order.

I need to make it a double-mini-book, actually, to fit the whole story, but I’m just so charmed by it! I even illustrated it IN WORD because I’m a masochist. Also, I find it hilarious for a writer is illustrating her own work in a word processor, because of course I am. Also, it’s delightfully reminiscent of using Microsoft Paint in Ye Olde Dayes to make medieval city maps. I like the limiting element of having only basic shapes and basic colors to play with, which brings out a different type of creativity in me. I’m enjoying it immensely.

I figure I’ll print a small run of them (20 or so) and hand them out sporadically at cons when someone asks what I’ve written, or if someone wants a copy of a full story after a reading, or using it as a business-card alternative, because it’s so stinking cute! And if they want to pass it on to someone else, so much the better! I may also start an Etsy shop where folks could buy individual story zines if so motivated, but that’s a few steps ahead of where I’m at currently.

I’m also baking bread, which is giving me serious #pandemic vibes, but I’m trying a bread machine potato bread and white-bean white bread bake-off, so we’ll see how it goes. Oh! And we’ve started the 2023 season of Alone, which is a family favorite in the house–and this lot of contestants seem incredibly skilled, so we’ll see how it goes!

We also watched Godzilla vs. Kong this weekend with the boys! (Mild spoilers ahead.) I tell you, this was such a bizarre stretch for me, because I was such a coward as a kid, I NEVER watched PG-13 movies before I was almost 13. But Thing 2 (3.5yo) saw a clip of Godzilla and became absolutely ENAMORED. He begged us to watch it, and as I recalled, it wasn’t too scary or gory, so we hemmed and hawed and finally said OK. We’ll try it. We gave them a safe word (“potato” in case you’re wondering) and told them if it got to scary for either of them at any point, just say “potato” and the movie will go off without any questions asked and we’ll watch something else. Turns out, they loved it! The talking between adults was the hardest part, because they got suuuuuuper bored, but the battle scenes were punctuated by Thing 1’s laughing howls of delight and Thing 2’s shouts of “YEAH! YEAH!” It’s funny, I think when Andy and I saw it, we were mostly struck by how terrible the plot is and how bad the dialogue is, but watching it with the boys, it struck me that: OH. This isn’t an adult movie. It’s a kid movie. With kickass graphics.

I mean, the scene when Mecha Godzilla is kneeing Godzilla in the gut over and over? Yeah, my boys were shriek-laughing in delight. When Godzilla and Kong team up against him? My 9yo almost burst into joyous tears: “They’re gonna be friends now, Mom! They’re gonna be friends!” Even when that weird dragon monster in the middle-world gets its head ripped off and green guts go flying, all I heard was the boys going, “AW COOL! GROSS!” *eye-roll* So, yeah. That happened. And so far, no nightmares, so that’s good.

Keep healthy, folks. Hang in there!