Elise Matthesen

 If I have goofed up communication with you lately around BPAL, I offer huge apologies and it's definitely my fault.

(If there's other communication I have dropped the ball on, please do poke me about it? I am made of facepalm lately.)

 There is much rejoicing chez nous, for lo! I have found the Extremely Safe Place where I put two things I was supposed to mail to people.

There will be a meal break, and then I will address the matter of addressing the matter, as it were. Or as it is, now that I've found it. I'd make a joke about verb tenses here, but I never was that good at them.

Anyhow, whew! And yay!

Onward.

LionessElise, what are you doing?
When I put my model railroading stuff, and my underground comix up for sale starting the year before last, I joked that I was cleaning my house and having a Very Slow Rummage Sale by putting anything that was in my way up on eBay. I kept doing it, and I'm doing more of it, because it turns out I enjoy paying bills more than I enjoy dusting all this stuff.

So are you really selling your library of books, magazines, and comics? 
That and more. A lot of queer history stuff,  LGBTQIA2S+ ephemera, some art, a bunch of perfume oils (BPAL has long been known as trading cards for goth girls), the odd bit of fashion here and there, Cirque de Soleil things, magazines and books related to science fiction, gothic fashion, tattooing, pagan and occult lore, and some things that don't fit in any particular category. Anything that a performance artist / slam poet / small-time journalist / musician / rabble-rouser / activist / Festie / SCAdian / SF fan / SF writer / Hugo winner / apahacker and zine writer / and so forth might have accumulated over the decades is something that might be here in what Lois McMaster Bujold once looked at and said "It really IS the attics of Vorkosigan House."

OK, but really, why are you doing this? Is something wrong?
You mean more than the usual stuff? Have you looked around lately?

No, I meant is there something wrong that you all of a sudden need money for? 
This household has always been well-supplied with disabilities and chronic medical conditions, and has picked up a few more lately. I don't know that we'll have to alter our living situation, but we might. Just in case, selling some things off will make us more metaphorically flexible. It seems prudent to do that when I can enjoy people going ooh and ahh and writing me thank-you notes on eBay for it, rather than try to do it in a hurry under a deadline with a lot of other logistics to handle at the same time. And there are people I help out when I can, and it's never bad to have a little extra for that.

Can I do anything to help?
Yep! See if you know anybody (including yourself) who might want any of these things. The higher ticket stuff is going on eBay. There will be things listed on this Dreamwidth journal that are bargains or stuff I am feeling like doing the easy way. I've already started that with a bunch of perfume. If you really want to do a big thing, buy some of the Leslie Feinberg stuff and donate it to a museum or archive or give it to someone doing work on the issues today.

So what's available? What do you have that I might want?

comics, queer history,  and sex-positive magazines and memorabilia and it's all stuff under $10

eBay - a lot of LGBTQIA2S+ history and memorabilia, some science fiction and fantasy, and I'm about to release another wave of comics and music-related stuff

perfume - mostly Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, Nocturne Alchemy, and other indies

...and much more to come.

Thank you SO MUCH for spreading the word and for shopping. I would love for these things to end up with people they are useful to.

(If you want to check out my art jewelry, it's in my Etsy shop. Spreading the word about that would be lovely, too! Or just leave me an encouraging word here. Those are always very much appreciated.)

Progress report: The pricey* things are going up on eBay, and the not-pricey things are getting ready to go into a post here on Dreamwidth for $3, $5, and $10 books. Those are things I hope will be useful bargains for people. Also, I'm going to do some bundles of queer-press-from-a-particular-year stuff, because last year people got some of those for gifts. Giving someone a sampling of what the queer press was in the year of their birth is not why I accumulated all those magazines/papers/etc, but it sure is an awesome way for me to let go of them. Expect to see some additional links in here very soon.

More progress: I just added a bundle of 5 issues of off our backs**, which has a ton of National Women's Studies Association reporting, especially on issues of racism, classism, and accusations of reverse racism within the Association. There's some Michigan Womyn's Festival coverage, and a three page Marilyn Frye piece on "Do you have to be a lesbian to be a feminist?" Also lots of Dykes To Watch Out For full-page comics in these issues. (See content notes, as one is damaged.) And some reviews of science fiction. Vintage 1987 and 1990 newsjournals!  Also, I just added a press packet for the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, in case anyone needs to know what their marketing materials looked like in 1997. Sold!

Ongoing thanks: 
Perfume people, you are AWESOME. Keep sending your friends!
Celia Lake mentioned me in her newsletter and linked to this. Much gratitude!

* pricey, in this case, means $15 and up. On eBay there's a cutoff below which I am just exhausting myself packing things for not much. If I'm going to do that, it's more fun to do it here. :-)

** and now that you know about off our backs, a prime locus for lesbian feminist discourse of the day, you also know why the lesbian sexuality magazine that came along a little while later was called On Our Backs. Which I have copies of to put up in the Valentine's Month smut/erotica list.

 When sadness, grief, anger, and lifelong major depression intersect, some days are unpleasant cactus gardens of spiky despair.

(I'm going to apply some workbench time, which almost always improves almost anything. But being motivated to go from this chair to that one is a lot of work right now.)

If you could remind me of some good thing in the world, or something good or sweet you saw or did, or some memory of us together or hope for being so in the future, it would be a great kindness, if you have the oomph to spare for it.

(Given past experience as a guide, I will get through this, but today everything feels at least temporarily insurmountable and made of despair.)

Tell me something good? Please? If you can?

In the Liavek shared world of stories, the innkeepers had a series of three prayers. The books are hiding and I cannot look it up, nor does the net disclose this wisdom to me, search as I may. 
Is this correct?

1. May these events not involve thy servant.

2. May these events not cost thy servant money.

3. May these events leave no trace in thy servant's memory.

 E: *wakes up*
*goes into the living room and sits down at keyboard of electric piano*
*noodles around with a tune until it sounds like what I was singing in my dream just now*
*considers for a moment*

E: What the fuck was I doing singing in G minor anyway? 
*amused snort*

E: *plays thing again*
*considers*
*shifts it up a whole step*
*pulls out phone*
*contemplates the severe lack of charge in phone battery*
*hits =record= anyway and puts phone on piano*
*plays thing in A minor*

E: Huh.
A minor, F, G, E minor, then F again.
Must have been singing (vocal improv in the dream) for a good fifteen minutes there.
That was kind of satisfying., actually. 
*sighs*
Nice to see Feldman again, too.
*thinks* 
Y'know, I don't think he actually ever heard me singing. In life, I mean.

E: *plays a little more, then turns off keyboard*
 
E: I should check that Dean (Magraw) is still alive, though.
*pause*
Probably fine.
*shrugs*
Gonna check, though.

   *.  *.  *

Just another morning at Lindenhaus.

(I did check Dean's website, and he has a gig tonight, so he's probably fine.)

God, I need tea.

*wanders off in search of tea*

And how is your morning, or afternoon, or other part of your day?

 There is now a press packet for the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival for 1997 in the Very Slow Rummage Sale, in case someone is doing some writing about that, or just wants memorabilia. 


If I get lucky and find those Lilith Fair temporary tattoos, those will be fun to put up too. We shall see.

 For anyone interested in scents, or in ecosystems, or in whether resources are being treated in ways that will deplete them or sttempt to sustain them, there's a perfume house that's now doing oud as sustainably as they can. Meaning that they have an oud plantation. Their name is Fragrance du Bois, which makes sense.

I put the LuckyScent link in there rather than the direct link to the perfume house, but that's because I'm a $5 sample perfume shopper rather than a take a flyer on a $200+ bottle perfume shopper. Your scent acquisition mileage may vary.

As a bunch of you know, I use scent for pain management. Since I am doing pretty much all of my socializing and gathering online, I have fewer precautions and protocols at present, seeing as how it's pretty difficult to bring scent into someone else's vicinity online. This is very handy for me, as I do not currently need to think ahead about fragrance sensitivity of whoever I'm going to be around, lest I infringe on their access needs.

Anyhow, if you are interested in oud, there's sustainable oud out there. We'll see how they do with it.

 Cavafy, as done by choir and orchestra and Laurie Anderson.


Years ago, I saw Laurie Anderson in Moby-Dick, at the Spoleto festival in Charleston. 
At this point, I should pretty much just assume that it's going to be some kind of revelatory experience for me.
That's the way to bet, anyhow.

If you like this sort of thing too, here you go.
I'll be over here shivering with deep delight for a while.


(Dang. I miss John Brantner liek woah. Never did get to talk Cavafy with him. Or listen to him read Cafavy.)