The Male Hysteric

I ordered some zines and was thinking hey I should make a zine but was at a loss of what to make and my husband suggested I make one on how to deSpotify, which would probably be a good idea because it's actually a pretty complex topic. Spotify both maintains a music library and facilitates music discovery, and maintaining a library by yourself is not easy in itself but music discovery since Spotify has been made more difficult by Spotify killing off alternatives. So it would probably be useful, even though I guess I am not entirely deSpotified myself (I am on a big family plan with friends and acquaintances, but rarely use it).

Otherwise when it comes to actual devices, apparently there was a big snit with the Innioasis Y1 community. The guy who developed the app that drastically simplified things (I could not get the original alternative, MTKClient to work, because I'm Not Good At Computer) was kicked out of the Reddit community because he was harassing people and I'm not really sure where to go from there. I have been using my Snowsky Echo Mini more often now even though the Y1 is clearly a more versatile device, but what am I going to do if I can't actually maintain the Y1? It makes me wonder if I should get one of the more upscale devices like a HiBy R4 or whatever even though they're basically phones, just because this is kinda nuts. I don't know. Apparently the chip shortage is going to make DAPs, especially low price ones, harder to get. Snowsky is releasing a new player, the Disc, that I'm not really that hyped about but we'll see. I wish they would just put bookmarking and playlists on the Echo Mini, that would fix most of my problems.

I guess I'm feeling kind of gross because I feel like I'm between projects, but not really.

I am Looking At The Novel, being the science fiction novel I've been working on for two years, and think the first few chapters need a heavy revision. So I have been trying to do that, but being on the computer, it's hard, and I'm just... not feeling it? And I'm not sure if I need to pause or need to muscle through it. My insane thought was to make a draft where I just took the passages I really liked, in some kind of opposite kill-your-darlings, and try to weave a narrative through that way, because this piece is really supposed to be running on vibes, so selecting the bestest vibes first from the old draft may be the way to go. Or maybe I should just do normal editing. I don't know. I feel kind of nuts looking at this thing, which is making me wonder if I should just chicken scratch at dirt for a new project that I want to do but isn't formed enough to really start writing.

I also had this insane idea of making a zine of excerpts of notes I've sent to my therapist, which in my case are extremely prolific. I mean it's my writing so I can do what I want with it, right? But as I was starting to compile some stuff it just felt really hard, even if the excerpts I was working with weren't super significant. I was at a local group to write and in the middle of it I was just like, "wow, what the fuck am I doing, this is insane," and had to get up and leave. But maybe it would be worth it to do? I don't know.

There is a zinefest at the end of June so I did want to bring something more substantial than my minizine for trades, but this might... not be it.

So I was starting to make a minizine and it's about making websites and I'm realizing that I should probably have like, my own website, blog, email address on here and it's just making me think... if I put that shit in print... that will mean that I am making a commitment to these usernames, identities, etc? And that just feels... real scary! It's honestly making me wonder if I should change some stuff around. I don't know. I am no good at names, and I don't know what to call myself for this one.

Then again for a little minizine I probably shouldn't be having an existential crisis about it, and because I will have the master copies I should just be able to change the addresses if I really need to update it, right? Ugh.

I may know who I am, but what to call myself is an entirely different question. That one, I don't know. Ugh.

Well, today I was at therapy and we were figuring out our schedule for the next month or so, and I realized that my next appointment is on US election day, so that's terrifying.

I've finished reading all 10 novels for this year, but I do not have a write up for them yet, I am working on it. Right now my thoughts are, I am not sure if I'm going to read any more novels this year. Probably, because there's still two months left, but also I feel like I have a lot of non-fiction and short readings to catch up on, so maybe not. Next year, I'm thinking of maybe going for twelve novels?

I saw a production of a play version of Frankenstein and it makes me very curious about the version that Mary Shelley saw before she did her rewrites. It also makes me wonder if I should hurry up and make my own interpretation because it does seem new compared to most interpretations.

I am also maybe starting to get into zines? If I find any interesting ones online I may post them here, though a linklist for online zines seems like something I'd put on my static site. I have been thinking of making my own, but it may not end up a zine. It's something about how moderation on the internet is the secret sauce that holds everything together and people don't realize it and it's why we can't have nice things and why we can't seem to "go back" to a simpler internet. But it may be too long or meandering to make a proper zine, I don't know.

I am also, well, still working on the same science fiction novel. Who knows how that will go.