MY YEAR IN LISTS - PART ONE?

i didn't like 2009, the overall feeling i get looking back at the last 12 months is.. "maybe tomorrow". sort of waiting for something good to happen. once this mysterious thing happens, everything's fine. but it never did. i don't know what it was, or what i was expecting. i've just been crawling through the days, what a fucking waste of time. i'm hoping 2010 will be better and it'll give me (and carl) a break. sure, a lot of it is my own fault, my precious apathy but.. yeah, let's not dwell on it.

i've been reading 'everyone' else's memories of their 2009 on my google reader and i kept thinking, i'm not gonna do it cos there's nothing worth remembering about this year, but to be honest, it had it's moments. if i ignore the good moments, that'll waste them. so here's a short list of things i did like about 2009.

Tukru, originally uploaded by emmajanefalconer.

♥ ZINE FESTS. hanging out with awesome zine folk. i tabled at brighton zinefest, london zine symposium, alternative press fair (august edition) and southampton craft & zine fest + two crafty deaf cat nights down the road in rochester. four times out of six, i/we sold quite a few things and it felt good to share things with the kids. i did also really enjoy hanging out with people afterwards. got to meet alex wrekk of brainzine, who was lovely, and it was generally nice to talk about zines with people who knew who the fuck i was talking about. highlights of my year.

♥ STARTING VAMPIRE SUSHI DISTRO. it started better than i dared to expect :) i'm loving it, though i do feel bad about getting so behind and unorganized in the past month & a half. i'm sorry if you've ordered something and haven't got it yet. i'm gonna get myself in gear this weekend and hopefully get things in the post on saturday. well, what i can at least. and generally get the zine stuff proper organized. we're getting rid of some unnecessary shit, taking stuff to the dump on saturday so i'll have space to make a little distro corner, or something.

♥ MEETING SINIKKA IN THE FLESH. i've actually known her for years on the internet. well, we've had mutual acquaintances and i remember seeing her around, and being lj friends (no idea how we met though) but we lost contact for a while and i guess we started properly talking at the beginning of the year when i found her on lj by accident. or did she find me? who knows.. anyway, she was on holiday in london with her dad and she came down to see me one tuesday. it was so nice to be able to just hang out with someone and talk about all the stuff (mental shit, queerness, harry potter..) with someone in the flesh, and in finnish. i wish we could do it all the time..

♥ EMMA GIVING ME THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER. my darling blythe doll, winifred edith bloom. she still doesn't have hair, i haven't even touched her scalp in months. but she's got two pretty wigs and some clothes and i love her. i'd been wanting one for years, but had given up on the wish ages ago because i'm stingy and would not spend that much on a doll. but emma had a spare one she'd been meaning to customize for ages but never got around to it, so she thought she'd give her to me! carl was a bit annoyed, cos he usually gets the best present ever medal. but it's pretty fucking hard to beat a blythe doll.

which house??, originally uploaded by tukrulovesyou.

♥ GOING TO PLATFORM 9 3/4 WITH MAREN. she's actually a new friend via internet. i found her amazing blog sometime in the spring and well, fell in love with it her. and her. she's so lovely. she was on holiday in london with her friend caro around my birthday so i went up to meet her the day before my birthday. again, good times. nerding about dolls and harry potter and stuff. i wish i could hang out with her all the time too!

♥ MEETING KORINNA, MY ZINE HERO. korinna was really the person who got me into zines to start with. i found her on facebook one day and when she added me back she said she was in ireland and was going to be in london the next week, wanna meet up? so yeah, she came down to chatham, we sat in a pub sipping on strawberry beer and i gave her all my zines. i think i also convinced her to get back into zines, cos she's just made a new one, roots of hope. i'm gonna be adding them to the distro very soon. i bought some without reading it first, that's how much she is one of my fave zinesters ever, cos i'm well cautious.

christmas crafty deaf cat, originally uploaded by tukrulovesyou.

♥ CRAFTY DEAF CATS. my friends zara (on left) & sara (not pictured) decided to start doing little craft fairs at a local coffee bar, and there's been two so far and it's been really lovely. the first time i sold quite a bit, and the second time hardly any (though that's probs cos it was really cold so no one really came..) but my favourite part is just hanging out with the girls. they're lovely ladies and i should see them all more. also, i get to wear the amazing headware zara makes and pretend their mine for a couple of hours.

♥ MAKING A SPLIT WITH MARANDA. i've always wanted to do a split zine and this year i did! even though i'm not 100% happy with my side because i had to rush it a little.

beautiful-feet, originally uploaded by tukrulovesyou.

♥ CARL. always. though we've had more hard times this year than before, what with me being all crazy, and bad news. but i won't get to it. we've been together for five years now and i love him lots.

i might make a list of things, you know songs etc i liked about this year but i can never remember the first six months and it all gets muddled and the last six months are more vivid in my memory. so who knows. can i be bothered? probably not. hence the question mark.