100 Things.

1. Learn how to sing well (or at least decent)
2. Play the guitar on the street corner.
3. Drink wine with Adam Gnade on an old couch on the rooftop of a squatter house during a new moon and light bottle rockets.
4. Go to Burning Man.
5. Get a tattoo of "So it's Goes" on the birthday of Kurt Vonnegut with Heather and "This too shall pass.
6. Go on tour with Larry and His Flask in Canada and write a travel log/comic book during the experience.
7. Make my own dress (and have it be nice enough to wear all the time).  
8. Grow a vegetable and herb garden.  
9. Feel like I am truly at home
10. Live in a tree fort in the Redwood Forest.
11. Dance in a street performing dance team or be part of a mob dance.
12. Go on a road trip with my little brother.
13. Have a limousine pick up my grandma and whole family and take us to the Old Spaghetti Factory.
14. Own my own little craft shop.
15. Have my art hung in a gallery and have an artist reception with wine and cheese.
16. Work in my own studio.
17. Host an amazing themed party like Amy Sedaris does where no one brings a 12 pack.
18. Sing and play on the guitar, "Hall Filled Up Like a Lake" by Liz Pappademas to baby Dahlia.
19. Experience true peace of mind.
20. Go camping with my Dad.
21. Kick my addiction to salt.
22. Take yoga regularly.
23. Discover Northern Oregon on foot.
24. Speak French decently.
25. Go to Art School.
26. Visit Sarajevo, Bosnia.
27. Create something I am unquestionably proud of.
28. Do a project of some kind with Nicole Georges.
29. Finish the installation piece with Mike Chastain (if he would only contact me...)
30. Through a psychic, speak with Jay Rowan about how he is doing and what he needs all of us in the world to do to make the world as if he never left.
31. Interview JD Salinger.
32. Produce a radio documentary like they have on This American Life or Destination DIY.
33. Create a "peace center."
34. Be cool enough to be interviewed by Terry Gross.
35. Have my artwork hung at Townshend's Tea.
36. Hang out with Randi Hobbs.
37. Visit the South and stay for an extended time with a family.
38. Use Couchsurfers.net for travels.
39. Work on an organic farm for the World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farms.  
40. Be ok with crying at Disney films and showing my sensitivity.
41. Cure myself of peeing while running.
42. Always be flexible.
43. Go a year without gossiping.
44. Have a wedding.
45. Do something illegal and get arrested for something that benefit of animals or the enviroment.
46. Ride my bike across the country.
47. Roundhouse kick someone in the face.
48. Work at a record store.
49. Makeout with someone from Ireland.
50. Go to a strip club.
51. Be totally comfortable with sex.
52. Go to therapy.
53. Winter camping with Kevin.
54. Have coffee with Rider Strong.
55. Give away everything I own.
56. Tell someone off for a good reason.
57. Paint a mural.
58. Meet a stranger and for some reason or another end up at their house and fall asleep in their bed and be able to experience their life and fully indulge in it without shame or embarrassment.
59. Let someone take care of me for once and feel totally ok with that.
60. Grow old gracefully.
61. Have my place of living be exactly the way I want it (architecturally, colors, furniture, everything, perfect).
62. Know for sure if this world will be around in twenty years and based on that knowledge consider whether or not to have kids.
63. (groan) Go to school and get a degree in an art field.
64. Live in Portland.
65. Be in the instigator of an international zine exchange/swap regarding the daily activities of one certain week. Have everyone write theirs and send them abroad!
66. Have a mass shrine making for Dio De Los Muertos where a mob gets together donating a bunch of knick knack craft scraps and everyone makes a small shrine to honor someone who died. Then display the shrines in a public place with candles burning for every one.  
67. Create a real homepage on Dreamweaver (learn Dreamweaver).
68. Learn how to operate Illustrator.
69. Own a really nice camera and take millions of pictures with it.
70. Grow & make my own tea.
71. Do something with my sister.
72. Host an underground dinner (Episode 12).
73. Host a Sunday morning This American Life listening Breakfast party.
74. Live in a commune.
75. Make money doing what I like.
76. Work in a (real) café.
77. Grow long hair.
78. Be a part of a performance art piece. 
79. Visit Nevenka in Chile. 
80. Go on a train ride across the United States during Autumn. 
81. Brew my own beer. 
82. Be a part of a child's life from beginning until (my) end. 
83. Lay in a field by myself and watch a solar eclipse.
84. Contribute my skills to benefit the Fat Revolution and the Queer Movement. 
85. Never skydive or bungie jump.
86. Be a core volunteer at the Portland Zine Smposium and host a workshop.
87. Legally hyphenate my mothers maiden into my last name.
88. Write a children's book.
89. Do a tarot card or palm reading for someone famous.
90. Go to an opera again with my grandfather. 
91. Embellish furniture & clothing.
92. Join a knitting group.
93. Stay at a Bed & Breakfast in wine country.
94. Get a back rub by Gerard Butler.
95. Acquire breast implants (not really - I'm just running out of things to write).
96. Make my own FOUND magazine.
97. Write a cook book.
98. Arrange it so the Imperial March is played at my funeral.
99. Own a nice cat that I find at Humane Society or simply find and have it live a very long time just like Snowball.
100. Celebrate St. Patricks Day in Boston.

Dear Scott #18

Dear Scott,

Sorry I haven't written in awhile.

I was looking at colleges online the other day - looking at finanical aid options, comparing graphic art programs for different schools in Oregon, assessing costs of tuition, assessing professor skills and the seriousness of the programs.

I looked at Reed, Pacfic NW College of Art, Portland Community, COCC, Lewis & Clark.

I want to go to school because I want to know how to work Illustrator and have the ability to take my medium of illustration to a marketable level.

But I just can't, Scott and you know why?

I just can't imagine sitting on my ass for eight to ten fucking hours a day listening to someone talk, or in front of a computer or at a desk just reading. Sitting on my ass all day destroying my dream of doing something amazing and doing something so boring and being instituinalized and all that goddamn phony bullshit.

Of course I looked at the awesome Reed package concept where learning is something almost Montessorian but Christ Almighty, Scott! You have to read all day and write long papers and you have to be a goddamn genius to go to that school!

People like us - the man is always putting down. I mean, you! How can you sit on your ass for eight years learning how to be a doctor. It's bullshit!

I already ruin the creative process by forcing myself to give birth to my zine four times a year. All the editting and detail oriented this and that when I just want to experience my own life instead of write about it!

This zine takes so long and it is so hard to put together... I have to try and draw so well... nobody even cares.

Sorry - I don't like pitying myself. Pity Party.

Shabop Shalom --- Devendra Banhart

Kevin once got me out of rut by giving me a PBR

My imaginary therapist

I just asked my imaginary therapist if she could write me a prescription for an anti-anxiety.
She lowered her clip-board of all the notes she taken about me for the past 23-years.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" she asked.
I don't know.
All I know is that I'm tired of feeling like I want to scream obscenities at everyone for the most minor of blunders. I am exhausted to the point of fury at the feeling that I want to punch holes in the walls and the faces and the unimportant trifles which crop up.
"Since when did I lose my ability to brush things off?" I ask.
My imaginary therapist consults at her notes.
"It's been ... a couple years now ..." she says, analyzing the data.
She has my anxiety attacks in different degrees lined graphed in her notes - an awesome Excel feature she discovered years ago which has helped her practice.
"Before the bursts of anger you always dealt with your problems with downright and simple depression. It seems as though you've been fighting extra hard these past few years ... fighting instead of standing down, but then you've also been holding a lot of that back ..."
"Is it God? Am I fighting God?"
"You haven't been fighting God until recently. You feel like you've gained so much control over your life in the past year that you've been trying to thwart God ..."
"But I know God doesn't exist."
"Yes, I know, but the concept of God still remains - you are trying to kick holes in the sky - you want control of nature and fate and the steering wheel of your entire destiny in your own hands and any exstentialist must admit, that's just not completely possible."
I sulk for a bit.
"I just feel like I really need those anti-anxieties. My heart wouldn't hurt as much. I could come home and relax instead of worry."
"Have you tried smoking weed? I could get you a medical marijuana card."
"No, thanks..."
There is a pause.
"You do know, in your heart, really, what you have to do, right? I don't have to tell you, do I?"
Pause.
"No, you don't have to tell me."
"For Christsakes then Rachel, FUCKING DO IT. Why do you keep putting it off?! You don't even have to wait until your next project is finished, JUST DO IT. No one cares about your deadlines but you, it's all made up! The whole universe and all the rules! You made it up in your head and can just as easily change it! You don't have to change the universe, it's already yours - you just SNAP and you're there. You are fighting God but you ARE GOD! ABDICATE AND BE YOUR OWN KING!"
The time is up and she stands.
"See you next time?"
"Yeah."

Introduction

Welcome, Autumn.

Two in the morning I walk outside and there has to an Eskimo word for what the snow is doing right now. It's sparkling but in the most subtle way. A glint here and there caught out of the corner of my eye - nothing deliberate. Penstla I have learned is the word for the idea of snow, astrila is the word for snow sparkling with starlight - what is happening is a combination of those two.
Already snow. I feel late in bringing this zine out.
Things happen.
The Portland Zine Symposium was in July, shortly after the publishing of my last zine. I went to John Issacs screen printing workshop, participated in a hugging exercise, hosted an honesty booth where people just took what they wanted and left cash, met some true badasses of the industry (including Theo Ellsworth: see mini zine: D-List Celebrity Magazine),  ate a lot of free of bagels with hummus and was practically steamed alive in the humidity.
Snowball died in the middle of September. There is a story in here about that. A little cedar chest with her ashes sits high above the motley of the house between two Jesus hands. My family got together for a memorial and I was able to loosen the tight thread wrapped around my heart.
Bendfilm happened in the beginning of October: two weeks of putting together awards for indie film winners - spray painting porcelain figurines, staring at a computer, sketching out pictures, being practically unknowable to Kevin.
So.
I've been taking baths, pulling Sark in with me - a glass of wine and I force myself to sit there for an hour. I burn candles now and wear boots to keep my feet warm - prepared for sudden fall time gusts. The purple in my hair is gone, and I am on a tea drinking rhythm which involves green tea in the morning, mate in the afternoon, and chamomile at night. I will survive.
Stories in this zine include: a comic section regarding my weekly trips to Costco, a quip about a Craiglists ad, a mix for my friend Jessica's baby Dahlia, the story of how I met Stephen Baldwin, and a comic about Kevin though I will try to fit more an before this goes to print ...

Now friend, grab a blanket and get in your reading chair for 15 minutes plus of a concentrated batch of solid Rachel Lee-Carman material.

(if you want to see something that makes you smile go to jonsiandalex.com and go to recipes...)

http://www.mendosa.com/snow.html

An article that sucks.

"No," is Jaman's response to my lengthy story-telling question:
"While on tour do you ever feel void of home ... ( I trail off unable to find the words). Example: ever since I moved out of my parents house I've never quite felt at home whereever I am, it's like I am always restless - moving things around, turning circles all the time. I have never since felt there was a place for me. Do you feel that way when you are living in the bus, on the road, not settling?"

The difference between Jamin and I is that he has found home.
Home is this band, Larry and His Flask - his family - and everything he needs is there.

There was this time I read Jamin's palm, he has a fate line which shoots right through the head line and the heart line right between the Jupiter and the Saturn mounds.
This is a rare thing.
The line indicated to me at the time years and years ago that Jamin would find his "place," surpassing doubts in love and head issues.
In the present, with his simple answer, Jamin tells me this was a destiny fufilled. He had found his home, place, heart, the philosophers stone, the alchemists ultimate goal. I don't know what the word is exactly but while I am still looking Jamin, eating homemade chili at my house next to Dall, perusing the Source, has found it.

More Scott Hanson

Possible Central Oregon colloquilism up for submission in mainstream speech:
Scott Hanson: verb or noun

I don't need to go to get a degree in graphic design, I'll just Scott Hanson it until I make it!

A polluted version of the American dream whereas in the American Dream you go to school, work hard and then get the job of your dreams you just work hard and try to get the job of your dreams.

At first I wanted to go to med-school but then I dedided why not be a Scott Hanson and go right into my own private practice?

Some people go to culinary school, I just Scott Hansoned and now I'm executive chef at a resort!

In a act of Scott Hanson some level of deceipt is required, e.g. not discussing education but focusing on work experience or the opinion of quality references.

A royal Scott Hanson: getting a really sweet job with the lowest possible credentials (and perhaps under the lowest but evading the issue during the interview)

I pulled off a royal Scott Hanson to get this job! When they asked about my education I let a chicken out of my briefcase!