Zine on Traveling and Moving: Care to Answer Some Questions?

[Eric Nelson]

Hey!

I'm Eric. I'm a zine writer and zine librarian living in Queens, NY. I'm putting together a zine on traveling and moving, since I seem to do a lot of both and want to know why other people do too. I'm asking everyone the same 5 simple questions. Answer as much or little as you care to. Everyone who participates gets a free copy. Thanks in advance for helping a brother out!
Instructions: Please state your first name (or pen name), age, occupation and city(ies) you were raised in.

1. Where do you currently live? What neighborhood?
2. What brought you to your current city? Apartment?
3. Would you move to another city if the opportunity came? Why or why not?
4. What’s been your favorite place to travel to and why?
5. Please share an interesting experience of either traveling or moving.

[Bethany]

Bethany - Glass Head Zine, artist, Fall River Mass., Boulder CO, Orlando FL.
Orlando, downtown
A job for my Mother
Yes. I'd like to disapear.
Drove across country with my Mother at 12. MA to NV to FL. Took a lot of polaroids. Good times.

[kit feral]

Jillian, 19, student, Halifax

1. Halifax, Nova Scotia. Spryfield. One end of it is just kinda far from downtown and boring, the other end is where people get shot.
2. I still live with my parents, so I've been here for something like eleven years. I haven't gotten out yet because housing is super expensive anywhere closer to my university, but with my upcoming loan money, we'll see where that gets me.
3. Maybe. I'd prefer just to move closer to my city, but if I could take my boyfriend and a few other pieces of home, I'd be off to Montreal or Toronto in a flash. I crave something bigger.
4. Ohhh, I have so many. Rome would have to be my ultimate favorite. It's beautiful and friendly and so relaxing. You feel like you've stepped into another time.
5. One time in Paris, my boyfriend and I missed the last bus back to our campsite. So we had to walk about an hour and a half to get back. We were hungry and tired pretty depressed. On the way, I found a cardboard box, and decided to put it over myself and waddle along the sidewalk waving and shrieking at cars. It was too dark to see anyone's reaction, but we liked to think they were very amusing, and that cheered us up immensely.

[kelley]

Kelley, 20, student, St. Louis, Missouri and Lake Elsinore, California

1. Where do you currently live? What neighborhood? San Francisco, California in the Visitacion Valley.
2. What brought you to your current city? Apartment? School brought me to SF, as well as the desire to move onto bigger, and better things. I live in my friend's apartment because of cheap rent, and convenient access to my best friends. :)
3. Would you move to another city if the opportunity came? Why or why not? For now, no. I want to finish my degree at this school, and continue exploring the city until I know most of it's ins and outs. But in the future, I definitely plan to move around.. I love traveling and getting to know new places.
4. What’s been your favorite place to travel to and why? Chicago, Illinois. I went there quite a bit as a child, and it holds many memories for me. I haven't been there in years and hope I can go back soon. I also drove through Colorado and loved the little bit of scenery I got to catch!
5. Please share an interesting experience of either traveling or moving. I moved into my first apartment in May '09 and lived with three foreign exchange students and a southern girl (in SF). I was expecting to have weird experiences with the foreigners, since I barely knew them. But go figure, my friend, the southerner, was the one who was the strangest to live with. She was bitchy, picky and ended up backstabbing me to get me out of the apartment. I ended up in the East Bay (which was so terrible with no car) but am finally back in the city.

[St. Joshua Norton Press]

1. Ypsilanti, Michigan, The United States. The neighborhood is called "Midtown".
2. I moved to Michigan after spending most of my life in Iowa after getting a job here. I moved to my current apartment from the one I first lived in when I moved here because the first apartment was on the edge of nowhere and I could walk to ... K-Mart, whereas my current apartment is a 5/10 minute walk from my local favorite coffeeshop, downtown, the bus stop, good food, my studio space, a library, my PO Box, basically, nearly all the things I'd want to do in town. Besides, instead of having a giant faceless company that owns half of the county as my landlord, I have a nice older couple.
3. I would, but it would take a while. I hate moving with a passion, but love being new places. Those first couple of months when I don't know where anything is so I just wander around getting lost, feeling my brain turning into a sponge and absorbing all this new information, is awesome.
4. Toronto. It's got plenty of the standard stuff I like in an interesting urban area, but what makes it win out is standing at the St. Lawrence Market eating a poppy-seed bagel that I had watched from the moment it was boiled until it got pulled out of the oven. I'm sure other places have things like this, but this is the first place I experienced it.
5. Like I said, I hate moving. It's mostly because not only am I a packrat, pure and simple, but some of my hobbies tend to large heavy items --- I love old computer equipment, and stuff from a decade or two ago isn't really known for being compact and light. And the books, I have way too many books. When I moved from Iowa to Michigan I'd had a couple of almost panic attacks daydreaming that the day I had to leave I'd suddenly open the door of a room I had completely forgotten about and find it packed to the gills with stuff. I had this even after I moved for a while, and now, nearly three years after moving just thinking about this causes my heart to beat faster and me to feel antsy.

[We'll Never Have Paris]

andria alefhi, 38, writer and creator of the lit zine 'We'll Never Have Paris; also an ASL Interpreter. raised in Utica, NY

1. Manhattan, the East Village! word!
2. apartment, absolutely. A good friend pretty much handed me keys to a furnished, large apt for only 1,200/monthly.
3. Only outside of America at this point. I have counted it and I have moved 22 times since college (wanna read the list? donutsathome.blogspot.com)
4. travel, 1996 I hitch-hiked around Ireland and also lived in one place for 2 months. also loved Brazil, 2 weeks, I want to go back to South America.
5. I moved to Portland, OR in 1994 without having even looked it up. I saw one nonspecific photo and had to find Oregon on a map.

[NicoleIntrovert]

Nicole Introvert, 29, Loan auditor for a Credit Union, Richmond, VA

1. Currently my husband and I reside in the suburbs of Richmond, VA in Chesterfield County.
2. Richmond is a hard place to get away from. Some say it has a curse that if you have been here more than 4 years, you will never permanently leave. I've been here since I was 6 with a brief stint at age 19 in Philadelphia. We moved into the suburbs 3 years ago because we wanted more peace & quiet when trying to enjoy ourselves at home. Many apartments in Richmond are overrun by college students with a lack of respect that they share walls with other folks. Ultimately we'd like to be in a rural location.
3. Actually, we are planning on moving to Colorado within a few years. The pace of life in Colorado is much more our style. My husband lived there for about 15 years before locating to Richmond. His parents still live there. Ft. Collins, CO is appealing to us as is Colorado Springs or Boulder. We'd like more options for outdoor hiking and backpacking activities which Richmond doesn't offer. Plus, the microbrews in Colorado are amazing if you are a beer lover.
4. My favorite place has to be Costa Rica. We visited Guanacaste for our honeymoon and had a lovely time. Swinging through the ranforest on a zip line along with the monkeys is an awesome experience. I've done a lot of road trips in the US in my youth. My favorite trip was when i was 17 and took off right after high school ended, a group of friends and i drove from Richmond, VA to Oakland, CA. I learned more about myself on that trip than i had planned. I've driven back and forth from VA to CA twice.
5. During said trip from Richmond to Oakland the car broke down in Ohio. Two men emerged from the bushes on a deserted highway with beers in hand and offered to push the car to the next exit (about 1/4 mile away). Because one of the girls i was travelling with was mad at the driver... she didn't tell anyone she had a AAA card for about 3 hours as we sat at a truck stop twiddling our thumbs.

[St. Joshua Norton Press]

And I'm an idiot for missing the first part of the instructions:

Thomas (of Haiku a Day and Late Night Thinking), 31, Thinker, raised in rural Iowa, lived in Anamosa, Des Moines and Ames Iowa and Ypsilanti Michigan.

[Eric Nelson]

Wow, thank you so much guys! Your responses have been awesome. Me so happy, me want cry.

[Foxy Mudslide]

Foxy Mudslide, 21, Secretary, Lomita, CA

1. I currently reside in my parents' back house, connected to the garage and infested with raccoons and opossums. The pitter-patter of their little wild feet on the rooftop lulls me to sleep most nights. Before me, an ex-biker and entertainer of buck-toothed Women of the Night lived there for many years. Then an old woman with fourteen cats and cancer of the nose. Then a young woman with aids, who past away after a few short weeks of her stay. Now me.

2. After a few years living in Long Beach, I moved back home because I suspected my apartment was neighboring a meth lab. The irony? An actual meth lab was busted two weeks ago, right across the street from my parents' upper-middle class suburban home.

3. Eventually I'd like to move to another city for grad school. I want my own shithole somewhere, with lots of plants and a cat named Cat. Maybe I'll change my name to Holly? Wear diamonds and throw lavish parties?

4. Brazil has been my favorite place to travel. It's the most hospitable country in the world. Can you imagine a place where people eat and laugh all day, then drink coffee and laugh some more? And then kiss you goodnight and give you a soft place to rest your head? I've traveled the bottom portion of the country twice, and I'm confident that it's the friendliest place on earth.

5. My Portuguese is very poor. One time in Brazil, I kept asking for a shit popsicle. I wanted coconut.





Thanks Eric, this was fun. I'd love a copy when you're done!

[W. Alan Fare]

William (though most people know me by my middle name, Alan). Age: 42. Occupation: More and more a desk slave! Grew up in many places. Born in London Ontario, Canada before moving to Cleveland, Ohio at an early age only to end up in Mesa, Arizona at the age of 8. Then on to Oklahoma (after a short stint back in Canada) to stay for a few years. That's when I went to college.

1. I reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not a bad place to live, I'm close to the downtown district and have everything I need right around the corner.
2. I lived here as a kid and it seemed like the place I should take root. I did the travel thing when I was younger, but I guess I call this place home after buying a home and land here and just loving this part of the world.
3. I'd love to move to the east coast, but I can't take the cold these days. I'm doing well here so why would I move?
4. I love to travel, but I don't have the time I had years ago. I can do a couple of days in the states or a week in another country, but it's always feels good to be home.
5. I liked moving when I was younger, but now I'm settled. This is where I belong. My years of of running over the world are over and I hope everyone can find that place.

[kami]

Kami, 45 years old, semi professional lounger, Mount Burr South Australia

Adelaide SA - suburb of Ascot Park

my wife comes from Adelaide so here is where I ended up! in a nice new house in a nice suburb with a teenage daughter... a long way from a country town surrounded by pine trees living in a wood frame house with a backyard toilet.

i would move, i dont think my wife would though!! in fact i know she wouldn't, so here we stay.

Melbourne. its close enough that i can usually get a cheap airfare - a two can flight - lots of great shops, music, books and a great literary scene and plenty of floors to crash on.

travelling across the north island of new zealand in a tiny car, huge cliffs on one side, monstrous ravines on the other... very nerve wracking, not a lot of room on the roads, lots of trucks... arrive at our destination only to be asked why we didn't take the highway!! my uncle had accidently sent us the wrong way.

[Amazing Sunflower]

Chantel G.; 38; currently unemployed; raised mostly in Lafayette and Slidell, Louisiana

1. I currently live in Southeast Portland, Oregon.

2. I moved to Portland less than two months ago from Lawrence, Kansas. My partner was released from prison after 99 months (over 8 years) and could not move to Kansas to live with me. I came here so we could be together.

We are in our current apartment because the parole officer had pre-approved this complex as a place my partner was allowed to live. The guy who lived in the apartment before us died, making the place available for us.

3. I would move to the right city if the opportunity arose. It would have to be a city my partner wanted to live in too. The location could not be colder in the winter than Lawrence, Kansas or hotter than summer in Austin, Texas. I would like to live either closer to my sister or closer to a good friend who lives down South.

I like Portland so far, but I feel like a stereotype for moving here. I would not have chosen to live here. It's already too crowded, and the economy does not seem to be able to support all the educated workers who are already here.

4. It's hard to pick a favorite place I've visited. Some places I've traveled to: NYC; Providence, RI; Philly; Washington, DC; Umatilla, OR; Atlanta, GA; Penang, Malaysia; Denver; Phoenix; Jennings, LA. The places I've liked best have always been the places where I've had the most fun with the people I was visiting. A not so great place can be wonderful if I am with the right people.

5. My partner and I met through the mail. We fell in love, before meeting in person. I took the Greyhound from Lawrence, KS to Ontario, OR. It was a long cold trip. I spent the night in a hotel near the interstate. The next day I took a taxi to the prison. It was hard to look at the concertina wire and tall tall fences and know he was locked up in there. After going through the baloney required of visitors, I was finally allowed into the visiting room. We hugged and it was awesome. We started talking and after about three minutes, I felt as if I had known him my whole life. There were no awkward silences, no uncomfortable pauses. We laughed and laughed. That was January of 2004. Right now he's asleep in the bedroom we share in our new apartment. I couldn't be happier.