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.

[Monstress Zine]

una crow, writer/publisher, kalamazoo, michigan

1. Where do you currently live? What neighborhood?
toronto, bloorcourt

2. What brought you to your current city? Apartment?
i came here for grad school and because toronto was a city. i moved to my new place because the old house i was living in was beginning to fall apart like the house of usher. the new place also has laundry in my apartment.

3. Would you move to another city if the opportunity came? Why or why not?
yes. i like cities and i'm getting tired of toronto.

4. What’s been your favorite place to travel to and why?
lately, i've really been enjoying going to van buren state park to go to the beach at lake michigan in the summer. i like camping there in the mass camping area with all the other people and all the ford F150s. i like the little community in the woods and playing in the water. but really, i like any good long roadtrip and it doesn't matter so much where i'm going to. coming into chicago beneath the sears tower's sauron eye is always great.

5. Please share an interesting experience of either traveling or moving.
some friends and i took a pilgrimage to see robosaurus at lancaster raceway outside buffalo, new york. it was one of those hot fall days where the temperature changes drastically as soon as the sun goes down. they ran all the day's races before robosaurus would come out and i got colder and colder. but it was totally worth it to see robosaurus rip cars in half and then set them on fire in the dark. i also liked how he plugged mighty taco, a local restaurant chain, by saying the cars were as tasty and crunchy as a mighty taco.

[Amy]

1. Seattle, Washington, USA, near the University.

2. My mom left her small town in New Jersey to go to California for grad school. Then she moved from San Diego to Seattle for her post doc. My dad got his phD in Physics at the University of Washington.

3. No. I love it here. It doesn't rain as much as everyone thinks it does. It's soundly liberal, and... well, Seattle has had the highest number of donations to NaNoWriMo for several years running. It's full of art like things and is pretty green. And it's close to the mountains.

4. ...probably the mainland of Greece. We went last year. There are some pretty cool untouristed little towns along there, and you get a lot more driving on the windy roads than you do in the touristy areas. Once we had to stop for a herd of goats.

5. We were in Venice, Italy (my mom saves up frequent flyer miles) in Spring 2008. A waiter in a resteraunt stopped to talk about the presidential elections with us. He was very pro Obama, and it was just pretty cool to see how everyone was following it.

[DruglessxF]

Yo, I'll take the challenge:

I am Doug "Drugless" Taylor, 28 years old, paralegal/student, and grew up around few places-- about a half dozen locales scattered around the Wasatch Front in Utah and a few places and cities in Northern Virginia.

1. Where do you currently live? What neighborhood?

I live in Portland, Oregon in the Piedmont Neighborhood. Major crossroad is NE Rosa Parks and MLK out on the corner. Our house is falling apart. Several old trees have cracked the foundation in several places and whenever it rains like a bastard, there is a slow moving river that runs through our basement. Too bad for me, 'cos that's where I live. The place is known as "The House of Many Pleasures". This name is perhaps an overstatement.... Originally settled by gothic pioneers from Southern California, the house was below code when the occupation began 8 years ago. In the time since, it has only fallen worse. Damage, filth, broken appliances, accumulation of people's things that used to live there. There is an unspoken truce between us and the landlord (whom I have never met): "Pay the rent on time, don't ever complain about a damn thing. In return, I will never, ever, ever come over, and your monthly rent will be cheaper than car insurance" especially once the place is packed full of strange and colorful characters dressed in all black.

2. What brought you to your current city?

I came to Portland because my hometown broke my heart for the last time. We broke up -- Provo, Utah and I -- and I began seeing Portland, Oregon on a steady basis. However, it was an open relationship; Portland is polyamorous, and it also took some time to move my stuff out of my ex's. However, I moved here because my flesh and blood boyfriend has been living here for quite some time, and is the de facto captain and sole original inhabitant of the "House of Many Pleasures".

3. Would you move to another city if the opportunity came? Why or why not?

I am aiming towards law school. This has required a large lifestyle change on my part. No more trainhopping to see hardcore bands, no more Greyhound rides out of boredom, no more not knowing or caring whether or not it is Saturday. Turning on school has meant turning down the blaring bohemian rhapsody radio, or at least so I can still hear the alarm to get up for my 7 a.m. class. I'm most of the way through community college now, and I will transferring soon to a four year college for a bachelor's degree. I suppose I will move to most any city that I end up getting into. However, I would rather stay here in Portland for as long as I can. Ideal projection would be Reed College for a Philosophy degree, and then up to Lewis & Clark or UC Berkeley for law school.

4. What’s been your favorite place to travel to and why?

I've been to about thirty of the states and fourteen countries, but I'm remembering Thailand right now. Not Bangkok so much, but much more of the countryside where I went. My partner's mother lived in Korat and we went to visit. There was an uncle that was a Thai army officer that took us out to his little cottage where we had a bangup party with about a dozen people. There was also a group of workers that had been laying bricks across the street at a separate residence, and they began singing together around a campfire, some songs in Thai, some in English. "Fools Rush In" was one, and I sang along in postmodern glee -- it was just like home. I remembered all of my friends at that moment, for we too had spent rounds by the campfire, all singing along together. I had left them far behind, and they may as well have been across the street, found in faces of people I had never met.

I have never returned, but I would love to go back, or maybe somewhere else I've never been. My favorite place to go is over the horizon.

5. Please share an interesting experience of either traveling or moving.

One time I was trying to move back to my hometown by bicycle. I rode from San José, California headed towards Utah. I had four loaded panniers, an alice pack, and some other assorted crap. Although I had abandoned most of my stuff, I still had packed too heavy. The mountains were killing me, and it took two days to get to Tahoe from Sacramento when it really shouldn't have. I rode alone, camping mostly alongside the road in secret spots so as to not get fucked with by cops and other assholes, and to avoid paying for a motel or anything like that. I loved it to death, and I would love to go on a long bike trip like that again. Next time, I'm only bringing food, water, and some extra clothes-- and maybe a friend to confess secrets to. I've never really needed more than that.

[The East Village Inky]

HEy eric! you contribute to me, I contribute to you. Beautiful.

1. Where do you currently live? What neighborhood?
boerum hill brookln

2. What brought you to your current city? Apartment?
desire to find my husband's fame and fortune, and get out of our theatrical rut in chicago / apt is because I was pregnant w/ our second child and had to admit, we couldn't hack it much longer in our 340 square foot apt on east 9th st in the East Village. My mother in law was constantly calling us with real estate listings, which was a real pain in the ass, but when she called us about the place we live now it was an unseasonably warm day in November, and we thought, oh why not, let's take a little excursion. This place seemed so huge at the time. I have now lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else in my life.

3. Would you move to another city if the opportunity came? Why or why not?
Temporarily. I love to travel, especially when I have an artistic assignment, but I love NY! I'd love to live in Southeast Asia or Mexico for a couple of years. Who knows? maybe I'd found out I'm not as dependent on NYC as I think.

4. What’s been your favorite place to travel to and why?
Southeast Asia. The food. The beauty of the cultures and land. The friendly inhabitants and fellow travelers. Even the not so friendly inhabitants and fellow travelers wound up in my second book, No Touch Monkey. The low low cost of travel. The cool little huts where you can stay, with a squat toilet and orchids growing out of the walls, geckos on the ceiling. Oh, and I loved bathing by mandi, dipping plastic saucepans of water from a big urn, and throwing them all over myself.

5. Please share an interesting experience of either traveling or moving.
regret that I must now help that second child print out illustrations for a report on the Norse gods. I will refer you to No Touch Monkey. Or this, complete w/ photo
http://whogoslavia.blogspot.com/2007/04/sremski-karlovci-serbia.html

[Jillian McGrath]

Jillian, 20, Barista, Portsmouth, RI
1. I currently live in Providence, RI in the Smith Hill neighborhood.
2. Providence was the first place I ever had a place of my own. I love this city. Ive done a bit of traveling and lived in Florida for a year, but hated it. So I'm back in Providence for the time being, with the intention of settling into a full time job in order to save up money. Yikes, responsibility! I found this little one bedroom house, like a little cottage, that I share with my partner. Its about 5 minutes from downtown in a neighborhood I never expected to live in, but I really love it here.
3. I would definitely move to another city if a really great opportunity came up, without a doubt. I love learning about new cities and towns and being on the move. Its nice having lots of places that feel like home.
4. My favorite place that I've ever traveled to would have to be Carrboro, NC. Its such a quaint and cozy little town with an amazing community and lots of beautiful places to explore. I'm also really fond of Pittsburgh and Toronto. And pretty much anywhere in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
5. I was living in Providence in an apartment with 3 guys, no heat, no job, dealing with the end of a really terrible relationship and struggling with my mental health. No fun. A year prior, I had met this fella who lived in Tallahassee, FL, when I booked a show for him in Providence. We kept in contact through letters and phone calls and emails and became quite close. One night, while I was likely complaining about how shitty everything was, he jokingly offered to open his home to me. Yeah right, like I'd ever move to FL and live with this guy that I hadnt spent more than 5 days with in person. A month later, I was packing up my last belongings and boarding a plane to Jacksonville, where he was waiting to pick me up. A year and a half and 6 living arrangements later, we still live together.

[Stephanee Tollett]

Stephanee
Age 25
Occupation: Clerical
Raised in: Greenwood, Indiana, Greens Fork, Indiana, Virginia Beach, VA

1.) Right now, I'm living with my parents in Greens Fork, Indiana. (Separation will do that to you...) There arent neighborhoods in Greens Fork because there are only 10 blocks in the town.

2.) I was married for 3 years. We decided to separate. In June of this year, my brother was injured in Afghanistan. My mom went to D.C. to take care of him while he was in the hospital and now while he's in a wheel chair. So, moving in with my dad and little brother seemed to make sense so I could help take care of them. As far as being in Greens Fork, both my mother and father are from this tiny farming town. So, we moved back when Dad's parents were in poor health and we never left.
3.) If i was only thinking of myself, I would move to Paris in a heartbeat. The creative vibe there is so strong. And I have a deep-seated need for that kind of independence and freedom.
4.) Since june, I have been to D.C. 5 times. I love traveling there. There is so much to see and do. I love the feeling of freedom in the city.
5.) As a child, we moved around a lot. I was never in the same place for more than 2 years at a time. It's hard to put down roots in that situation. So, we just rooted to each other. I believe thats why we are still so close now.

Hopefully my answers are interesting enough for your time. I cant wait to see the zine.

[lauramarie]

Hi, I'm Laura-Marie, 33, score standardized tests, was raised in Santa Maria, California, which is between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo

1. Where do you currently live? What neighborhood?
I live in Sacramento, California, in the neighborhood known as Arden Arcade. We've lived here for five and a half years. Other places I've lived in addition to Sacramento and Santa Maria are Lompoc, downtown Goleta, Irvine for grad school, Tustin, and a small mining town called Rovana, all in California.

2. What brought you to your current city? Apartment?
My husband Erik and I lived near Bishop, California, a small town inland, and we went on long daytrips sometimes. Sacramento was one of our favorite places to visit. It was as close as we could get to the San Francisco Bay Area and afford the rent. Our current apartment we were drawn to because it seemed quiet, was within our budget, was close to my Hindu church and somewhat close to Trader Joe's, and there were some nice mourning doves out front.

3. Would you move to another city if the opportunity came? Why or why not?
We have seriously considered Portland, Oregon and Berkeley or anywhere in the SF Bay Area. We have also considered moving back to where I come from so I could be closer to my parents and old friends. There are some great things about Sacramento, but I never intended to stay here for more than a couple years.

4. What’s been your favorite place to travel to and why?
Erik and I went on a camping trip through Utah and into Colorado where we stayed at Rocky Mountain National Park for a while. This last summer I went on a roadtrip with my parents to Colorado (to see my brother's wedding) and Missouri (to visit my grandma, who I hadn't seen in more than 10 years). That was really hard to endure but worth it. I have actually not traveled too much. I went to Mexico for an afternoon back when I lived in Orange County.

5. Please share an interesting experience of either traveling or moving.
Erik and I drove to Goblin Valley in Utah to camp for a night. The campground was abandoned, and the wind was furious. We lay in our sleeping bags, the wind lashing at our tent and bending it inward so it almost touched our faces. It felt like being attacked by demons. We got spooked and threw our tent and sleeping bags in the trunk and drove all night to our next destination.

[Eric Nelson]

Hey all! Thank you so much for all of your responses! All of them have been wonderful. I can only take a few more responses as I don't want this to get totally out of hand in terms of size. If you haven't responded yet, please do!

eric

[Eric Nelson]

Okey dokey, I'm closing this off guys, thanks again. I'll be in touch with all of you once they're printed to get mailing addresses or bring them to a festival near you if I'm heading that way soon.-eric