There is never a better time to face your demons than on your bike in a snowstorm. When my friend Derek Sitter once spoke about facing demons, coming off prescription medication for anxiety in some hotel in Texas, I couldn't relate to
It's in the moments you feel like total shit and are circling the drain the demons show up. Not when you're strong.
It's in this moment, on the bike, in the snow storm, the watermelon has fallen out of busted saddle bags and the bills took all the money in the bank that you just start hating. Hating myself. Hating poverty. Hating any friend who did me wrong. Hating the cars and the world and the life. There's the soul of an old Russian prostitute that speaks up during these times, "Please car! Strike me down! Take me away from this hell on earth!"
But as I'm riding, ill-equiped pants become more soaked and filthy from road scum flinging off my tires sans mudguards, I'm writing. And I'm in my head not rooting myself on. Not saying things are going to get better. Not even telling myself, this is my life

Three years ago, summertime, my car broke down and I borrowed my bosses car to teach zines to an art camp in Salem. Back home I juggled riding my bike to my nonprofit job and finishing the publishing, binding and sending off the compilation zine. In the end my job suffered and the zines weren't sent in time. There was a point in all of this when I realized the river I was swimming against was contributing to spiritual annihilation. This wasn't satisfying. This was fucking hard-ass work. It was a fucking struggle.
But now, in the winter, heading to my sisters to hopefully toss my clothes in the drier, I realize it wasn't spiritual annihilation as much as it was a painful shedding of something that no longer served me.

Joel and I were talking about heroin and there was this moment where we both became quiet in thought.
"I get it, you know. The life is hard and happiness seems to come so seldom. Sometimes you get so fed up of trying so hard to feel ok that you just want to feel ok, right then. You can't wait anymore."

Nothin' goods ever gonna happen to you when you deserve it. Nothin' bad's gonna happen when you deserve it. The best thing I've discovered so far in making life work is just to keep with and take the hard times with the easy times. Likely, you'll probably sit on a bad deed for a few years until it sprouts a thorny bush. Bad deeds are the kind you find yourself making excuses foe. The regrets. A man without regrets is a man who doesn't judge himself to harshly and let's the things in life come and go. A man without regrets is a free man and one to love and receive love as he comes across it.

Townes Van Zandt sounded like one of these men. He sounded like a heartbreaker but he never kept anything he couldn't take care of so he didn't take nothing that nobody wasn't offering.

Cascadia

Series of sketches from the movie with quotes

the Q & A after.

The bioregion

My experience with it

When you tie yourself to a land base

There is anti-depressants in the water. Those of us that take pills, they pass right through, in out pee and they go away with the toilet and they go to the river and goes into the earth and into the salmon and the salmon are eating more because of this. And I've started peeing outside. I hate what I'm doing to this earth. I hate myself.

Miscarriage

Take the sharp thing, barbed wire, strung across the land. The wildness will take it back, it will take time, but it will smooth the artificial borders. Be it the wildness inside of us that takes over us and brings it down or even when we are gone, the wildness will overcome. It is only in us that heralds the civilized, we are keepers of the holy shrine, the gold cow. The universe conspires against these laws and seeks always to restore order. Mel spoke to me about having her humanity stripped. Derek Jensen spoke of being welcomes into the forest after he told some tree taggers to fuck off.
When we use our powers for the wildness we are always doing good.

What a privilege it is to step outside and feel your humanity be stripped away. Shoe and Tail addresses what it is to be human. To have your humanness stripped away like dry bark from the Juniper Tree.

There's a part in the night when you forget the cold. Around the pallet fire with guitar out. When the neighbor asks to bum a cigarette and brings over a ukelele and harpsichord. We're trying to play Tonight, You Belong to Me, from the jerk but no one knows how to play the chords, or use the harpsichord. We get a few chords out, then fumble in the dark for the keys, for the words. And we forget it's cold.

My zines are miscarriages. This is a little dramatic.

At Joels's house - after the Super Bowl Game. I'm exhausted, but Joel has promised that I am to meet his brother Tony. Joel has built a fire and brought me a PBR in a wine glass. I am waiting. Joel goes in to get his brother. "He's coming. He's upset the 49ers won so he is playing a video game to try and beat the Ravens."

A fresh stump on the river trail, I stop my run and sit by it, count the rings. The tree has 26 rings. Same as me.

Bury grief, plant a seed.

Words Dahlia has made up:
Pierma: Uncut fruit. Fruit that has been uncut.
Ochopina: bath water that children can drink
Parkenna: Syd's poop
Bybea: Josie's poop
Paluda: both up and down



Before we ran from the cops Gary and I were drinking at Mcmenamins. I started telling him how Dad's the reason why I self-esteem issues. Gary cuts me off, "You're an adult now. You can't blame Dad anymore." And I say. "You're right. Ok."

Mom and Dad

We're in the Badlands, the bottoms of our pants dusty with the dry road we've kicked up. I tell me Mom, "There was this time, when I was a kid, and I went to church by myself and the priest started talking about why you should dress up when you go to church. And I told her how I've been fantasizing a scenario where I go up, as a little kid, while the priest is talking and say, 'GOD DOESN'T CARE WHAT WE LOOK LIKE!' And then I hope I get kicked out and I'll go out screaming, 'LOOK GOD! THEY ARE KICKING ME OUT!'" And Mom says, something she has been saying with more frequency, "this makes me feel bad I might've not have been a good parent."

And I tell her, "hell no, Mom. God thinks you've done an amazing job."

Dad is asking me when I last prayed and I told him I prayed yesterday. I caught Clyde, my favorite finch, the one with the broken leg and I held him in my hands until he stopped vibrating. Finches seem to vibrate when they are scared. It is faster than shaking, which is why I call it vibrating. When Clyde stopped vibrating I opened my hands and he stayed there and we looked in each others eyes for a long while and I was breathing really deep and he stayed calm too. Dad asked me if I started it off, "Dear Heavenly Father," and I said, "Of course not." And he asked what I was saying to God and I told Dad I didn't say anything, I just became very quiet inside, and very connected to the universe and into my body. It was a sacred moment. 

Dad told me this really great moment Jesus did when he forgave everyones sins and I told him a really great moment I thought Jesus did was turn over all the tables in the temple when those people opened a marketplace. 

Dad asked me why people dressed weird and why they have piercings and tattoos when it means they can't good jobs and narrow their opportunities in the world. I told him it's because they don't want to have dull jobs. And he said, but what if someone wants to be a scientist and I said, so let them be a scientist. And then I told him when you have tattoos and piercings it kind of keeps you away from having square jobs. 

I refrain from pointing at any one reason for things. I refrain from one definition or interpretation. But sometimes I think, it's very possible, children were put on this earth to challenge their parents and parents were put on this earth to challenge their children. 

Q: I've been reading Show & Tell since about four issues back and I've noticed a lot of change in what you're doing and how you articulate your ideas. Do you feel like a different person from the person who wrote the first one?

Show and Tell was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular. 

I'm happy you have seen changes in my articulation. I'm curious at what it sounds like from someone who doesn't know me or isn't me. 

Early on I was hoping to convey what a zine was to my community by following a formula: hand drawn cover + one-of-a-kind embellishment + personal essay + comic + DIY thing. It's like playing Billy and Alicia Hermanny's "Best-Game-Ever." The formula is there, you just need a good binding method for maximum points. 

In some ways I feel like a different person. My frontal lobe is fully developed, theoretically. I've been on medication for a few years for depression, something I've never discussed in my zines out of shame. Other ways, I feel the same. I'm constantly trying to make sense of the weird cycles I go through in order to break out of them.

Q: I really like reading about Bend in your zines. What's Bend like these days? What's an average day like in Bend for you?

That's sweet of you to say. Bend is in wintertime. There is no such thing as an average day for me - Each is typically unrecognizable from all the others. I do clean my house often. Today I burned the debris in the yard: cones and needles. I was in a really sensitive mood and was crying and wanted to be alone. Rinnah texted to say she was playing on the community radio and to listen, so I did, and I wrote a letter to my friend Anna in Eugene and got a call from Laura who said she was feeling weird too. Then I went to the post office. I helped set-up for a grand opening of nonprofit community grocery store but I couldn't stay for the party. So I went to this German filmed called Barbara at the Tin Pan Theater, this little 28-seater indie cinema where I work sometimes. I also work three jobs but they are kind of diverse and hard to explain. 

Q: You're close to Portland. How would you say it compares to Bend?

Only when I'm listening to Greg Ashley in Hanna's car do I feel ok. I am scared to death of Portland. It makes me edgy. And very sweaty. But sometimes it's ok. It's where the good shows are, sometimes it's worth it. Then I drive back through the mountains through the reservation and feel home again. 

Q: Have you thought at all of moving there?

Any good artist in Bend worth their mettle has moved to Portland. Because Portland is where real artists live. I'd be scared as shit to move there. I'm a truly shy person in strange situations and would take a devastating amount of time to be OK. I've never felt strong enough to be up to the challenge. That said, when I do gather the strength, I will try to be far far away where people don't speak English as well. 

Q: Who are some Bend artists you're into?

All my silly friends. Alicia Renner for her garment design work through Howl. Rinnah Henderson for her singing voice (who is accepting an au pair job in Poland and leaving soon). Kasey was a main component in the documentary Occupied Cascadia doing interviews with activists. Joel Sousa who plays accordion at the Alzheimer's residencies as well as around the backyard infernos. Cari is an alchemist and writer who started an artist collective/retail space in an old machine shop. Laura Walker and Heather Kennedy as part of our little zine community here. Larry and His Flask who are often on tour. I am very impressed with all my little friends, I love them so much.

Q: The new issue is the winter issue. How is winter circa February 2013 treating you?

Depends on the day. Yesterday the sun came out and I laid in the park and breathed in the air and watched a Dad teach his son how to ride without training wheels (if he fell it would be in the soft dry grass) and I was grateful to have made it this far, so grateful to be in my body and be me. And today I am cold and sensitive and nothing feels ok. When Joel is around I feel better about the season. Sometimes I get romantic and read Russian novels, drink coffee and don't smile at anyone. 

Q: There's a lot about the seasons in your zines. What would you say is your favorite season?

SUMMER. Because then I can sleep outside, not wear shoes, ride my bike anywhere, grow things, pick mullein and yarrow for tea, jump in the river with no clothes, etc. etc.

Q: Finally, what other projects are you working on? What can we expect from you?

I have this Erotica zine I am working on. There are a handful of us, all anonymous, writing short stories, submitting illustrations and photographs and shared within a community of contributors by invitation. I also have this French zine I want to be in Montreal and France. Since I've inherited finches publishing some field notes and illustrations on their quirks. My friend Hailee is in Phoenix doing an eagle observation and I wanted to use her same method. I've wanted to do a strictly photograph zine about Joel. He really fascinates me. Most days I think he'll disappear forever so I try to capture him when I can.

Plus, the same Show & Tell/Shoe & Tail, gleanings and wanderings and silly drawings. 

The sense of isolation I spoke of before

The sense of isolation I spoke of before has intensified. It has become easier to stay in at nights and avoid contact with the outside. Today, on a calculated whim I decided to test a world which had before today been only a fiction.
For a few years now bouquets have set on my windowsills, continuously refreshed and similar bouquets have found themselves on the midnight stoop of many of my friends. This is because of a specific dumpster down the street from my house where the flower-shop tosses the partially aging bouquets. Over the years there have been roses, lilies, bird of paradise, tulips, carnations, baby's breath lily of the valley. In the winter season there is sometimes partial garland. Sunflower more common in the summer.
Only in the last few months have I developed a story around the people who work in this shop. Based on a single visit to verify there were no sunflowers, I found the operators were frail looking women in their sixties. Without taking much more into account

I fall in flakes, like a croissant. Where ever there is start my fingernails continue to pick pick pick, until pieces flake off.

There's nowhere to go where things are ok.