letter to my shadow readership

i’ve been writing this blog now for three & a half years. it has remained annoyingly formless in all that time–just a compendium of whatever random shit is on my mind on a given day. i guess it could be considered a “mom blog” now, but only because ramona is probably not too far from my thoughts most of the time.

i expected motherhood to change me, but it’s been a bigger change than i anticipated. there’s so much stuff i cared about before i had a kid that i simply don’t have time for anymore. mostly stuff that could be filed under the “petty disagreements” label. i still have my opinions about things, but i don’t really have the patience for arguing about it anymore. i still get comments here sometimes about years-old entries on various contentious political subjects, where people are like, “you’re a disgusting excuse for a human & a terrible mother if you feel this way.” happens kind of a lot, actually. well, i guess i’m a terrible mother because i do still find 20-year-old anarchists who think their right to a vegan sandwich in county lock-up is cause for a national fundraising/letter-writing campaign really myopic & selfish & embarrassing. & yet ramona is alive & happy. funny how my opinion on the subject doesn’t really seem to be impacting her. nor is it radically changing the behavior of obnoxious 20-year-old anarchists.

i sill form opinions about things. i’ve got all kinds of opinions on the hot button topics of the day, from the latest iteration of MWMF protests to the indiegogo campaigns of certain musicians. but then i weigh he funny-to-drama quotient & it’s usually just not worth discussing it. all that will happen is that people who agree with me will say, “yeah, seriously,” & people who don’t will try to pick a fight. the fight won’t change my mind & it won’t change theirs. it will just annoy me & deplete my finite emotional resources. given the choice between arguing with some knucklehead on he internet & reading ramona a story, i would really prefer to read to ramona.

the thing i find surprising though is that not all parents feel this way. even parents of teeny babies! i only have a baby & don’t know how i would feel if i had, say, a seven-year-old. maybe i would have more energy for petty internet arguments if my kid was at school for seven hours a day? but it turns out that some parents are bored enough by their babies that they try to fill their days by behaving childishly online. i guess i get it. someone who likes children might not be that excited about the baby years. i am finding it much more engaging than i’d expected to, but different strokes for different folks. it’s also true that becoming a parent doesn’t change your fundamental nature. if you’re just an insecure asshole, no amount of babies will change that.

i was informed recently that there’s a little group of new moms that has been inernet-stalking me & being all judgmental about what i put on the internet. i don’t know if they’ve been perusing facebook or my blog or what, & i don’ know what exactly they are judging, considering that i feel like i haven’t said much in the last six months in any forum other than, “man, ramona is cute! also, over-sized infant headbands are the worst thing ever.”

either way, i just feel sad for their babies. i myself was raised by a petty, vindictive person who was only happy when she was tearing someone else down. that’s not a fun way for a kid to grow up, even on those rare occasions when the kid is not the victim of the tearing down.

i also kind of feel bad for the moms! clearly i have my opinions about parenting topics (vaccines, solid foods, MP3 hook-ups on strollers), but i am confident enough in my momming abilities & interested enough in my baby that i haven’t felt the need to seek out moms i don’t like simply in order to criticize them.

i also feel bad for ramona. she is sill an innocent baby with no clue that he world is full of benignly shitty people. i wish it was a lesson she wasn’t going to have to learn someday, because i wish people would sop being benignly shitty. but when even grown women with sweet new babies to look after count “being an asshole on the internet” as one of their favorite pasttimes, i don’t have much faith in the next generation. i have plenty experience in growing a thick skin–because come on. it’s not like i wasn’t aware that a certain segment of my devoted readership wasn’t comprised of assholes just looking for some reason to hate on me. this is far from my first rodeo. i just thought it was more in the vein of, say, zinesters i once argued with six years ago, or bitter ex-girlfriends of jared’s or something. you know, the kind of crap i have dealt with so many times before. so, while having a baby has expanded my perspective in so many different ways, it has also expanded my reach to a whole new segment of bored assholes. i didn’t see that coming!

in closing, if you are one of these hater moms & you’ve actually read through to the end, you probably dislike me more than ever now & won’t really listen to this sincere advice. but i will offer it anyway. ask yourself, if this really how you want to spend your baby’s fleeting babyhood? hating on some other random mom you don’t even really know, on the internet? does judging me really make you feel truly better about yourself & your own momming? even if your baby is napping right now, or with another caregiver, or maybe just kind of a jerk & you’re trying to develop other interests to justify spending less time with him/her, isn’t there something else you could be doing? maybe try reading a book, or sign up for a netflix account. sometimes when i’m cranky, i like to scrub my sink really thoroughly with baking soda & vinegar. it always makes me feel a little better. if you are reading this just so you can feel morally superior to me in some way (as a mom, as a zinester, as a person who has dated jared, whatever), ask yourself if that’s the kind of behavior that befits the morally superior. because it definitely doesn’t make me feel bad about myself.

& also? look at this baby:

doesn’t that make you want to go spend some quality time with your own baby? or cat, or typewriter, or sweet & low packet collection, or whatever it is that matters to you? quit acting like an idiot, get off the internet, & go do it.

feel free to hate me

just came off a nine-hour shift taking care of ramona. i shouldn’t complain. i now don’t need to do a lick of baby work (aside from putting away her laundry & pumping & washing bottles &…) until tomorrow at around 11am. because jared takes her in the evenings, she sleeps through the night, & jared wrangles her in the mornings. i know i’m lucky to have a partner that actually co-parents. i know i’m lucky to have a partner, full stop, really. (not because i’m such a horrible loser, but because i am trying to respect single parents. they are amazing.)

ramona is at an age where she is really fun when you’re in the mood for it. she’s engaged, she can be really funny, she’s unbearably cute. bu she also requires CONSTANT ATTENTION. if you attempt to put her down for a minute so you can, say, hydrate yourself or wash allergens out of your eyes, you are clearly a monster who will be punished with crying. she also sometimes reacts to her bottle with bursts of interest interspersed with an arched back & hysterical screaming. i’ve figured out that this usually means she’s over-tired (most of her annoying behavior can be traced to over-tiredness), but it’s still hard to deal with. because then she’s too hysterical to sleep, & even if she does sleep, she’ll be awake in fifteen minutes because she’s hungry.

yeah. so after my nine-hour baby shift, my brain is fried. all i can think about is going to bed. but i had the bright idea to wash he bedding because i was sick over he weekend, & the bed needs to be remade before i can get into it. & of course i couldn’t do it while i was taking care of ramona because she cried & screamed unless she was being held.

i made my zine just in the nick of time. i don’t think it would have happened if i’d waited even one more week. putting issue #2 together is going to be a real trick.

random stuff i’ve been thinking about:

* people are talking about how it’s the ten-year anniversary of the last episode of “buffy the vampire slayer” or the fifteenth anniversary of the “seinfeld” finale. really? what kind of a sick, sad world do we live in where people know when a TV show aired fifteen years ago? i don’t even remember who i was dating fifteen years ago.

* word on the street is that the way to spread he word about new zines you may have made is on tumblr. really? i’m 33. almost 34. i used to have a semi-secret tumblr, but i kept falling down these awful rabbit holes where i would look up & realize i spent three hours reading about some girl who thinks she’s “trans fat” (ie, a fat person trapped in a thin person’s body). obviously i don’t have time to waste like that now that i have a baby, plus the entire nature of tumblr (re-posting internet soundbites that other people posted first) is anathema to me. i once ended a friendship with someone because she quoted people too often. okay, & also she was a manipulative weirdo, but that was of a piece with the quoting (ie, “let me manipulate you into thinking i’m smart by quoting smart things other people have said”).

* it’s weird that you kind of have to have a social networking platform (facebook, tumblr, twitter, etc) in order to sell zines. i mean, obviously you don’t. i’m selling plenty & i’m not on tumblr or twitter. but people have suggested it, which is weird enough.

* sometimes i wonder what it would be like if jared & i had another baby. maybe we would learn that parenting isn’t as demanding as we though because we would just go ahead & let the baby cry? i mean, what choice do you have sometimes when you have more than one kid?

* all the parents of two-year-olds who don’t yet sleep through the night are reading this & saying, “YOU think parenting is demanding? fuck you fuck you fuck you & your nine-hour shifts!” sorry.

* ramona is going on a play date tomorrow. i’m already hoping that it consists of her being cute for ten minutes so the other parent will say, “aw, she’s so cute!” & then she’ll fall asleep. but maybe i’ll feel recharged & ready for baby shenanigans by the time he play date rolls around.

* i’m taking care of two foster kittens, i don’t know if i mentioned it here. no need to worry about a foster fail (ie, we adopt them) with these two. the one with the good personality is an orange tabby. i have a weird vendetta against orange tabbies. the one with the cute coloring has a rotten personality. by my standards. basically, he’s too playful. i don’t like that. the orange one is really lazy. that’s how cats should be. also the cute one tries to nurse on the orange one (they’re brothers) & i find it deeply disturbing. they’re going back to the humane society on sunday. hopefully our next foster will be a lazy female cow cat & i’ll adopt her & name her clawdia.

* the T on my computer only works half the time. it’s SUPER annoying.

* jared finished putting away ramona’s laundry while i wrote this. !!! boyfriend of he week!!!

* once, right after ramona was born, jared tried to praise me by calling me “mom of the week”. i was like, “of the week? wow. way to set the bar low.” he was like, “no, it’s a big accomplishment because you’ve only been a mom for two weeks,” but i was not buying it.

* an example of how sometimes i’m kind of a shitty person but i’m trying to own my shittiness by just admitting it: recently i was talking with someone i don’t really know at all & we were talking about zines. & she was, like, explaining to me what zines are. & then she started explaining what a distro is. & i was like, “i know, i make zines. & um, i used to run a distro.” & she was like, “really? wow! that’s so great!” & i just wanted to say, “i can’t believe you don’t know who i am.” i think that A LOT in reference to zine stuff.

suff i wish i’d known before i had a baby

i am getting ready o start writing “ella funt” #2, which will cover all the excitement of being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, being put on hospital bed rest, being induced, having a premature baby in the NICU, etc. it’s making me think a lot about all the stuff i wish i would have known before all that stuff happened. despite having gone to midwifery school & read like every book about pregnancy EVER, there was a lot of stuff i simply didn’t know. i had never even been in a hospital labor & delivery ward. i had a tour/pre-registration appointment scheduled…but ramona was born too early. when i called to cancel, they were like, “okay, do you need to reschedule?” & i was like, “um, no, my baby is already born.”

#1: i wish i had known that not every hospital can handle any degree of prematurity. obviously i didn’t even think about this when i was pregnant because i wasn’t planning to have a premature baby. especially not one that was so premature, she required advanced neonatal care. i had hoped to give birth at lawrence memorial hospital, five minutes from my house, with all kinds of amenities like birth tubs. my biggest concern was that LMH partners with this weird disney-owned company that tries to sell new parents expensive newborn portrait packages. but it turns out, their NICU can’t handle babies born before 34 weeks, & ramona was born at 32 weeks (technically–see #2). so i had to give birth at overland park regional medical center in suburban kansas city–40 minutes away.

#2: only completed weeks count toward gestational age. to be precise, ramona’s gestational age when she was born was 32 weeks, 6 days, 23 hours, & 37 minutes. surely we could fudge that 23 minutes, right? & say she was born at 33 weeks? especially because she was probably conceived a few days earlier than what’s typical? (they counted her conception as 14 days after my last period, but i know for a fact that she was conceived at 11 or 12 days after because i was obsessively tracking ovulation.) but no: because i hadn’t technically completed that last week, she was marked as a 32-week-old preemie. & when it comes to premature babies, a single week makes a big difference. i know someone who gave birth to premature twins two weeks before ramona was born…but she was 35 weeks pregnant when they were born. they were in the NICU for less than a week. ramona, on the other hand, was in the NICU for 24 days–& she was super-healthy from the get-go. her apgars were 8 & 9. she was only one a ventilator for one day, & she never had any spells of low oxygen saturation or bradycardia. doesn’t matter. she was a 32-week preemie.

#3: if you are diagnosed with pre-eclampsia at 28 weeks, prepare yourself. you will almost certainly be having a premature baby. i was completely in denial about this. i kept hearing stories about women with pre-e giving birth at 37 weeks, 38 weeks, even 41 weeks! nice healthy full-term numbers with nice healthy full-term babies. i clung to those stories, not accounting for the fact that those women were diagnosed with pre-e at like 36 weeks…37 weeks…40 weeks. they didn’t get sick until their babies were already mostly cooked. i got sick kind of way early by pre-eclampsia standards. i never had a prayer of making it to term, but ramona was several months old before i finally accepted that fact.

#4: a cesarean scar will continue to twinge for months. i had no clue about this. obviously i knew that a cesarean was major surgery, & i was in no hurry to have one. but induction was taking forever & i couldn’t do it with my magnesium headache (see #5). i thought i would be in a lot of pain for a while & eventually it would go away & i would have a scar, the end. but this is some harry potter shit. whoever heard of a scar that hurts? & maybe i’m crazy, but i feel like it’s extra twinge-y when i am anxious or sad. or when voldemort is near me. apparently this is all normal though.

#5: magnesium is the worst stuff in the world. i had never even heard of a magnesium drip before i was put on one. it’s not a normal part of the birth experience. it’s reserved for those of us lucky enough to be pre-eclamptic (because it helps prevent stroke) &/or giving birth to premature babies (because it can help prevent the baby from having a brain bleed).

a lot of moms i’ve talked to have never even heard of this. one openly scoffed at me when i mentioned the horrors of the magnesium drip. the nurses warned me, “sometimes the magnesium can cause a headache,” but i was in no way prepared. it caused the worst headache i have ever had in my life. & i was fortunate enough to be put on magnesium THREE SEPARATE TIMES. once on the night i was transferred, because they though i was going to give birth that night & they wanted to prevent a brain bleed, especially because i hadn’t had time to process he steroid shots yet. once two days later, when they actually scheduled the OR for a cesarean because my labs looked so bad. & then once again when they finally induced me. & the best part is that they wouldn’t give me anything for the headache when i was in labor because “we don’t know if it’s the magnesium causing he headache or the high blood pressure & we don’t want to mask symptoms that could be signs of stroke.” it wasn’t until i was crying & vomiting from pain (headache pain only–labor was like being licked by kittens in comparison, i’m not even kidding) that they gave me a fioricet, but by that point, it was too late & i was literally begging for a cesarean. ugh.

#6: a pink baby is a good thing, but a hot pink baby might have jaundice. i didn’t know! i thought jaundice turned the baby’s skin sallow. in retrospect, ramona was literally as red as a lobster fresh out of the pot, & i was like, “oh, she’s so pink & healthy!” yeah, because she had jaundice. luckily, she only needed phototherapy for three days. she recovered much more quickly than they had anticipated.

#7: when you’re first starting out making milk, even a few drops is a huge achievement. people freak out because they aren’t gushing like geysers an hour after giving birth. at five days post-partum, i delivered a vial containing ten milliliters of milk to the NICU & all the lactation consultants lost their shit. “you’re making enough milk to feed triplets!” they said. & i have indeed gone on to pump about fifty ounces of milk a day–about twice as much as ramona needs. there’s a woman just outside kansas city that has been taking all my extra milk, so i actually am feeding more than one baby. from humble beginnings…i didn’t know what to expect with milk production. if someone had asked, i probably would have said hat i expected to be able to pump at least an ounce (thirty milliliters) within 24 hours of giving birth. had the lactation consultants not set me straight with their effusive praise, i probably would have been really concerned & anxious, which actually could have affected my supply.

#8: newborns are noisy. all their grunting & snuffling doesn’t necessarily mean anything. they’ll cry when they need you. granted, i figured this one out fairly quickly, but it would have been nice to know in advance.

#9: just because a baby LIKES a pacifier doesn’t mean it NEEDS a pacifier. & not letting it have a pacifier means you don’t have to wean it off the paci later. ’nuff said. i stopped giving ramona a pacifier pretty quickly (they started her on it in the NICU without consulting us, & i didn’t think to object) because she had poor mouth strength (like all newborns) & it was more trouble than it was worth stuffing the thing back in every time it fell out. now she simply has no interest. she’d rather chew on her burp cloth, which is fine with me!

#10: all those post-birth painkillers they give you can really fuck you up. i remember almost nothing about ramona’s first few weeks because i was stoned out of my gourd on morphine & percocet. i mean, it was kind of cool, but i also really fucked with my emotional equilibrium. one of the worst parts about it was that i didn’t really have the energy to speak at a normal volume, so i just went around muttering all the time, & people would be like, “what? i didn’t hear you,” & i never had the energy to repeat myself.

ella funt #1 is officially released!

my new zine is officially ready to roll! it’s called “ella funt” & it’s about the whole situation in which i had a baby. specifically, it addresses: how my partner & i decided to have a kid, our struggles with trying to get pregnant, all the hinjinks around being informed that i wasn’t pregnant when actually i was, pregnancy topics like weight gain & gender preference, & it ends with being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia & having to start high-risk maternity care. the second issue will pick up where this one leaves off.

it’s forty quarter-sized pages & pretty text-heavy–more than 10,000 words. the text is broken up with little fabric swatches left over from the quilt i made for ramona while i was pregnant:

the covers are made out of fabric. i selected an interesting elephant fabric for the front & a bright solid for inside. they are sewn together to create a pocket in the book, & four photos relevant to the contents of the zine are tucked inside:

the title is printed on cardstock & zigzag stitched to the cover:

i’m not sure how long it has taken me to make each copy. a long time. it’s a little shocking to me that i have undertaken a project like this when i have a five-month-old baby, but…maybe my nesting instincts kicked in a little late & have taken a weird turn? jared set up a craft table for me so i can work without making the rest of the house a complete mess:

so, how to order? due to the ridiculous amounts of time & expense involved in making these things, they are priced at $4 each. if you want to kick in a little extra because…i don’t know, because you’ve read my zines before & you like them, or you read my blog & you like me, or you just think this looks like a cool project that you want to spend money on, feel free. when i mailed pre-orders today, i discovered that postage on these babies is actually three times as much as i’d budgeted for when i set the price (they cost me over $2 each to mail…$7 to the UK…) because they’re too thick to be mailed at the letter rate. i’m chalking it up to a lesson learned, & i will simplify the production elements when i make issue #2, but any extra generosity people want to show would be much appreciated. to actually cover my costs (buying fabric, paying for photocopies, postage, etc), i’d need to charge like $6 or $7 each, for reference. we can call it a sliding scale: $4 to $10? but no pressure. $4 is totally fine.

so $4 to $10 per copy. i accept paypal at learningtoleaveapapertrail@hotmail.com. if you send the payment as a gift, paypal won’t take fees & i’ll get the full amount. just make sure to include your address in the message. or you can send cash or check to:
ciara xyerra
307 e. 8th st.
lawrence KS 66044

run a distro, or a zine shop, or some other zine distribution project? wholesale copies are available for $2 each. i ask that you order a minimum of five copies.

i plan to do mailings once a week, on mondays. any questions? leave ‘em in the comments. & here’s a bonus photo of ramona helping with the covers:

ps–are you a mom who makes zines? i would love to hear from you! get in touch!

welcome to my zine sweatshop

jared set up a craft table for me the other day.

looking at this, i am wondering how the fuck i thought i was going to be able to do all my zine work at, like, the kitchen table. i also decided to use “the right tools for the job,” & i went out & bought a rotary cutter, cutting mat, & fabric ruler. my original plan had been to just use scissors & a paper pattern. thanks GOD i came to my senses. sure, those tools cost a little bit of money, but i got almost all my fabric cut last night while jared wrangled ramona. it still took me like three hours (& it’s not even done), but i can’t even begin to imagine how long it would have taken if i was toiling away with a pair of fucking scissors.

suffice to say, finishing this project is going to take a lot of time & a lot of work. my goal for sunday was to complete a sample zine, just to make sure everything looked okay, & so i could get a sense of what each step of the process entailed.

i did it. but you know how long this one zine took me? FOUR HOURS. that includes all the time it took me to stop & tend to ramona’s various needs. she was so accommodating last week when i was editing! she was giving me solid two- & three-hour naps twice a day! she was going to bed at 9:30pm with nary a complaint! but as soon as i moved on to the part of the zine process that is more labor-intensive & involves elements that are much less comfortable for me (i’m not that experienced with sewing), she went on nap strike. she’s only been napping for about an hour a day–all day–for the last several days.

i don’t know what her problem is. i thought maybe she was having teething pain, so i gave her some baby ibuprofen yesterday. it seemed to help a little. it’s also been well over 80 degrees in lawrence & we have yet to install our air conditioners for the year (plus i tend not to run them unless it’s at least 90 degrees & it hasn’t gotten quite that hot). so i thought maybe she was too hot. i gave her a cool bath, which she LOVED, & i let her splash & kick in the tub for like half an hour. then i gave her another half hour of naked butt time to just roll around on the table. she did nap after that…but only for 45 minutes.

she’s still sleeping pretty well at night though, so i won’t complain too much. last night was her first night sleeping unswaddled. she woke up two hours earlier than usual, but luckily, so did jared, so it wasn’t really a big deal.

anyway, i totally have my one-person zine sweatshop going. goals for today: collate the paper part of the zine, pin the pocket seam on all the elephant fabric, & iron the elephant fabric. if that sounds modest, bear in mind that i’ve already worked on it for two hours this morning & am probably only about a quarter of the way done. & i do have other stuff i need to do, like laundry. & attending to a baby’s many needs.

i talked to jared & asked him to give me as much baby-free time as he can spare to work on my zine this week. hopefully pre-orders will go out in the mail on monday. i’ll probably still be putting in a couple hours of day on this thing for the entire month of may, but hey. all the covers of “love letters to monsters” #2 were hand-colored & that certainly wasn’t done in a day. it’s nice to have a creative project.

it’s less nice to have a screaming baby, which i also have right now, so away i go! oh, ps–she’s five months old today:

kind of a far cry from this, eh?:

bedtime strike

jared & i tried something different yesterday. we divide our baby care into shifts: jared takes ramona in the morning until he has to start getting ready for school (usually between 10am & 11am), which gives me a few hours to have breakfast & coffee, pump, get some stuff done that is harder to do when caring for a baby, get my head screwed on straight for the day, etc. then i take over & he goes to school. he usually comes home in time to start making dinner at 6:30pm. i try to time everything so that ramona is clean, fed, & happy by the time we have dinner so she can just hang out without needing anything from either of us. after dinner, jared takes over–usually somewhere between 7pm & 8pm. if it’s bath night, he gives her a bath, & he puts her to bed. on the very rare occasions she wakes up in the night, jared tends to her. (but i still get up in the middle of the night every night to pump, so it’s not all sleepytime goodness for me.)

but yesterday, jared said he was tired of putting her to bed every night & he floated the idea of trading shifts on weekends: he takes her all day, & i take over when he starts making dinner & am responsible for putting her to bed. i pounced on this idea for two reasons:

1) i thought it would give him a little taste of what i do all day during the week. i mean, i am responsible for a baby for like nine hours a day, everyday. it’s a lot of work. i imagined him crawling to me on his hands & knees at 6:30pm & gasping, “oh my god…i don’t know how you do this everyday…you’re a goddess…i could never do what you do…”.

2) i figured, how hard is it to put ramona to bed? i put her down for naps every single day & it’s a snap. wait until she’s acting sleepy (ie, being pretty quiet, not kicking, just looking at me), put her in a fresh diaper, stick a bottle in her mouth, & within a couple of minutes, she’s out like a tiny little light. surely it would go the same way for bedtime, right? especially if i’m giving her a bath first–baths always tucker her out.

so, jared & ramona had an exciting day of hanging out together. they went to a yard sale, they stopped by the baby consignment store because we decided ramona is finally old enough for an umbrella stroller (& it’s soon to be wicked hot in kansas–way too hot to be wearing a baby all over town), they wandered around the farmer’s market, they went to the library book sale at the fairgrounds…it wasn’t a replica of an average ramona/mommy day because i am hardcore about ramona’s nap schedule & usually won’t take her out somewhere if she’s acting sleepy. my theory is: good naps during the day = good sleep at night, & a happy baby through it all. i also work like a dog while ramona is napping. jared spent ramona’s naps napping himself, or laying on the couch reading “the new yorker”. maybe he imagines that this is what i do, but in fact, i am usually racing around doing laundry, washing dishes, working on writing projects, paying bills, pumping, washing bottles, etc etc etc. i wound up just washing bottles for him all day because i can’t stand it when ramona is out of clean bottles & screaming for food.

meanwhile, i spent the day working feverishly on my new zine. i decided to change things up: instead of being enclosed in a bag, each zine will have a fabric cover. i spent like an hour at the fabric store examining different fabrics, trying to decide what i liked & how i would use it. i finally settled on a print that was OF COURSE the most expensive fabric in the store. well, maybe there were some really luxe leathers or something that cost more, but i probably chose the most expensive printed cotton. so much so that when i asked for ten yards (yeah…i need a LOT of fabric for this, & it will entail a LOT of sewing because i can’t stand the idea of just cutting out a square & slapping it on there; each cover has a backing fabric & everything will be seamed & hemmed…you’ll see), the counter girl said, “do you know how much it costs? because it’s REALLY expensive.” i don’t even want to talk about the cost per yard. i felt like i was on “project runway”.

anyway, i bought my fabrics, took them home, prepped them for cutting, copyedited my zine one more time, made the master, made masters of all the other elements that will be photocopied, rushed to the copy shop, was frustrated by the incredibly slow-moving copy shop employee who wouldn’t let me use two machines simultaneously (“in case other customers come in”–no other customers came in), cut everything that needed to be cut, etc etc etc. it took HOURS to do everything. i used my last half hour of baby-free time to race around trying to clean the house, because it was somehow a fucking disaster area. that’s the thing about a small house: it doesn’t take much clutter for the mess to start seeming overwhelming.

then i took over with ramona. who went down for a nap at 6:30pm. i almost broke out into hives. usually ramona is UP from her last nap of the day no later than 6pm, so she’s good & tried & ready for bedtime at a reasonable hour like 9:30pm. i was imagining her sleeping until like 8pm, & then wanting to party until midnight…so i intentionally went into the bedroom “to read”. i did read, but i also know that ramona is more sensitive to noise now & i hoped she would wake up before sleeping too long so that she’d be ready to go to bed sooner. & it worked! she woke up & was all happy to see me.

i gave her a bath while jared put the finishing touches on dinner (homemade ravioli! wow!). she started acting sleepy–being all still & quiet–while we ate. as soon as we were done, i put her in a fresh diaper & a sleep sack. i took her into the bedroom & gave her a bottle & read her stories.

& then…she woke up. with a vengeance. this baby was ready to party. i gave her some time to hang out in her bouncy chair playing with her toys, but when she started getting scream-y in that over-tired baby way, i knew i had to move. on went a fresh diaper & a swaddle, in went a fresh bottle…& ramona commenced the screaming. & the screaming. & the screaming.

she doesn’t scream like that during the day! we have entire ten-hour stretches together where she doesn’t even CRY! i sat with her in the glider, i bounced her on the exercise ball, i read her stories, i gave her a bottle, i swaddled her, i unswaddled her, i laid her in her crib…but all she did was scream. at one point, i laid her on the table & she started smiling & giggling & it hit me: i think this baby was trying to avoid bedtime! she naps easily during the day because she knows she’ll be sleeping for a few hours & then it’s back to party time. but she did NOT want to go to bed. it’s crazy to me that she’s old enough to know to understand the concept of bedtime enough to try to fight it.

after HOURS of this, i asked jared, “i am seriously asking, what am i doing wrong?” he said, “well, she likes to be rocked.” this, while i was rocking her in the glider while she screamed like she was being murdered. i burst into tears. jared took her from me, walked her around the room a few times, & i’m not kidding, she was asleep in under five minutes.

i worked on getting my sobbing under control, & jared was like, “you did the hard part! it’s really easy to put a baby to sleep when someone else has already dealt with the three hours of screaming that precede bedtime.” but i was left feeling like a terrible mother, a terrible partner…you know, just an all-around failure. i had wanted jared to come to me in a state of wonder for my amazing parenting skills, & instead, i was reduced to tears when i tried to do what he does every night. (though jared’s mom insists that baby screams just affect moms more than they affect dads. oh, i was also dealing with all of this & a plugged duct, which is really painful. it KILLED to hold ramona to my chest or cross my arm over my chest to pat her back, which i’m sure was depleting me of a lot of the patience required to handle her crying.)

anyway, the little beast is awake & demanding breakfast, so off i go.

zine breakthrough!

why didn’t anyone ever tell me how easy it is to make a zine on a computer? i spent the last few days revising my new zine, which will be called “ella funt”. sarah rose, of “tazewell’s favorite eccentric” gave me exhaustive & incredibly helpful editorial feedback on the draft. i didn’t incorporate all of her suggestions, but i used most of them & they really helped me clean up the writing, restructure the flow, & make it pretty much as close to perfect as zine writing can really be. i don’t doubt that i spent more time editing this thing than some people spend on their actual books (judging by how shitty a lot of books are).

then i downloaded some nice fonts into my word program, including a typewriter font that is nearly identical to the way my typewriter looks. i know, i know–it’s bad enough to make a zine on a computer, but then to employ a typewriter font? that’s straight up poser bullshit (channeling 1999 here–i think that was around the last time anyone used the word “poser” sincerely). i switched the whole thing over into the typewriter font & it looked fucking gorgeous.

i also found an interesting rubber stamp-style font for “chapter headings” or whatever you want to call them. the whole zine is one long narrative & it probably didn’t need to be broken into sections, but it might be a little more fun & readable that way. i still have a set of rubber stamps i bought back in 1997, but it’s time-consuming to work with them & there are two main reasons i am using a computer to make this zine:

1) it’s quieter. my typewriter is electric, but it’s still pretty noisy. ramona is, of course, a NICU baby, so noise doesn’t bother her too much, but she is becoming more & more sensitive to it as she gets older. if she’s sleeping fitfully, small things like a person coughing in the next room will wake her up. it’s probably better not to chance a typewriter.

2) it’s faster. one a really good day, ramona will nap for maybe four hours while i’m on a ten-hour “shift” with her (split into two or three naps). this sounds like a lot, but in that four hours, i’m trying to cram all my personal care stuff, like brushing my teeth & eating lunch, pumping, washing bottles, putting away laundry, paying bills, keeping up with current events, phone calls, etc etc etc. it doesn’t leave huge amounts of time for big, messy projects. if i make a mistake doing computer layout, i can just delete it & fix it. with a typewriter, i have to get out the wite-out, wait for it to dry, type over it, etc etc…everything is more complicated.

sure, there’s a certain authenticity to the extra work involved in using a typewriter, but i have a baby now. that’s a whole different kind of authentic.

this morning, i went through my draft & marked the different sections & came up with titles for them. then i downloaded a quarter-page template into open office. i had to edit it a little because it had black borders, but i changed them to white & started pasting my draft in. undoubtedly there was a less laborious way to do this, but i am new at making zines on the computer, so i was cutting & pasting paragraph by paragraph to make sure everything fit properly, & then i added page numbers to each individual page. i blocked out a place for visual interest every few pages & sat back & admired my handiwork. it seriously looks stunning & it’s just text! i love it.

but what to put in the spaces i left for images? i got all kinds of suggestions. photos of ramona were a popular one, but this zine is about struggling to get pregnant & the first part of my pregnancy, before ramona was born. it didn’t seem to fit thematically. & i didn’t really have other photos that related to the text that i could drop in instead. some people suggested using images from the ramona quimby books, since i named ramona after ramona quimby & the named “ella funt” is a reference to ramona quimby’s stuffed elephant toy. but i’m hoping to make this zine a series & i want there to be visual consistency going forward & there just aren’t enough images from the ramona books for me to keep using them for like six issues or whatever. the obvious choice would be to draw something that relates to the text, but i’m not a great artist. i’m okay, but i’m really not visually-inclined at all & am not imaginative enough to come up with especially clever ideas.

i was getting pretty frustrated because this visual part is the part i’ve always hated most about making zines (there was a reason why the first four issues of “a renegade’s handbook to love & sabotage” were text-only, maybe with a few photobooth pictures scattered it), & it’s all that’s standing between me & a finished zine. jared was making dinner & i decided ramona could probably use a snack too before we sat down to eat.

i was sitting on the couch giving her a bottle when i came up with the solution: remember that quilt i started making for ramona last summer? before i even knew if she was ramona or if she was iggy? i decided to use the fabrics from that & paste a square into each of the spaces i left & an image of ella funt from the ramona books super-imposed over it & photocopy that. then i will make a little fabric bag for each zine with the title & issue number printed on a piece of cardstock sewn to the front. the zine inside the bag won’t have a traditional cover. there will be a band around instead (& it will be stapled, obviously).

making the bags is going to be pretty time-consuming, but i think it’ll look really pretty & special, which is what i want for the zine. & obviously running a sewing machine is going to be as loud as using a typewriter, so i may only be able to work on it on weekends when jared takes ramona on outings, but i like to sew & i got pretty fast at it while i was making that quilt. it’s all kinds of a throwback, eh? remember in like 2002 when everyone did something special like this with their zines? (or so it seemed.) i think this will be really fun!

i’m happy to accept pre-orders. $4 to learningtoleaveapapertrail@hotmail.com or ciara xyerra, 307 e. 8th st., lawrence KS, 66044. if you send it via paypal, try to send it as a gift so they don’t take fees. i’m aiming to have it ready to go no later than may 30th, but now that i know what i want to do, i might be able to finish it as soon as this weekend. i’m going out first thing tomorrow morning to pick up more fabric, & jared can usually be counted on to do extra baby care on the weekends because he’s not spending all day at school, leaving me with extra time to work on this thing. i’m excited!