The OblivionSpin Occasionally

 Volume 1 Issue 4 featured 100 truths, one of the suggested fall activities, scattered throughout the zine. Due to copying, cutting, pasting and everything else, some are missing, obscured, faded or otherwise difficult to read.  Here's the full list.  100 truths 1. My name is met 2. It’s my initials 3. And a small play off my older sister being mel 4. Making sure my next legal name has the same initials was more important to me than anything else when choosing a name 5. I always assume most facts about myself are obvious 6. I have a difficult time conceptualizing that anyone would dislike me 7. (I am either conceited or oblivious) 8. I have an overwhelming fondness of marshmallows 9. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch 10. Und der grosser Fehler, den ich gemacht hab’, war nicht in Deutschland zu studieren 11. I am convinced not submitting that scholarship application in 11th grade was what split my life onto this path 12. I think life is meaningless ...

I am only finishing up the 3rd issue now, so I guess I cannot confidently say I have a "way" or "method" of making the zines yet. Hell, even starting a sentence with "usually" seems a little odd, because again, the zine is just starting to take its first wibbly wobbly steps. So let's go with a semi scientific classification and say that early experiments suggest-  the first thing I do when I start an issue is make a big dumb document for all the content. If not multiple documents within a folder.  I pick and choose and cut a lot before I even make my first print out. Then I make a print out and do some laying out by hand. Then I go back to the computer. Then I go back to the scissors and glue stick.  then it's a mystery. I end up with weird blank pages due to layouts, sometimes I can pull in more content or collab for a spread. But when you have just one stray blank page what do you do with it? no idea. I did this.  I just started typing double spa...

Issue 3 has erupted across my living room floor. Erupted. And this is my favorite thing about the Oh Es Oh so far, it simply erupts. It comes into being the same way I draw a circle on paper, off kilter near circles whisping around and around until a confident darker circle emerges.  Issue 3 wobbled into being with the idea of time.  Time. Time like grains of sand. Sand in a Sieve.  Beaches I've been to. Painful memories. Diary entries.  Late summer diary entries. One of each from the last 8 years- because the journal purge of 2012 (which I swore never to commit again) makes that the mark of making marks. But what day did I write an entry and not miss a year? Because I didn't start journaling "daily" again until 2015 and even then some days I draw or novel or blog or... August 22nd. And what happened on August 22, 2012? [Spoilers] A squirrel died.  Rodents. The passage of time. Memory Tourist part 8 was about cheese in a maze... Passage of time. Rust. Rodents ...

As I sit in the corner of my living room where I would put a papasan chair if had one, black nail polish chipped on my pointer finger from pulling staples, printer slowly grumbling away, I'm struck that I owe an apology. Dear people who make full-size zines, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the times I sassed about how much more exciting half sized zines were. Sorry I sassed about stapling instead of string. Sorry for sassing about formatting on the computer. I never sassed to your face, and the sass was always in good fun- because there are SO MANY THINGS you CAN do with a zine. But good fucking gravy- I get it now. Full-size zines are no joke. Now, please excuse me while I get back to jamming these guys into my too small stapler and dreaming up ways to make issue 3 more difficult on myself.

I sent out some 22 copies of the first issue of The Oblivionspin Occasionally on Monday. Just 5 days ago, although it seems like 50. The interest and support has been overwhelming, even though only one person besides myself has seen it yet. I'm fiddling with content for the second issue, really hoping people enjoy the first, and I already ran into a major issue. My life is not lighthearted. Anecdotes I thought would be charming need content warnings. I'm quarantining upsetting conversations to companion minizines. Sitting here anxiously wondering what planned features I need to scrap. I am the creator, editor, marketing, distribution and everything for this teeny tiny magazine. Any expectations people have for it so far are purely based on their perception of my personality. It isn't a question of who this project is for- nah that's easy- people who are interested in what I have to say, people who see what I do online and like what they see. I've just got ...