Awaiting an Epiphany

You will always be my home

noreply@blogger.com (Rach) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:46:00 +0000

Despite my considerable experience I still overestimate my capabilities following activity, and I definitely did regarding what I'd be able to do when I got back from Edinburgh. Somehow I managed to lead a life resembling normal for over a week, getting up, getting ready and going out with people nearly every day. It was destroying me at the time but I had some momentum and purpose and a set amount of time to keep going for. When I got home, though, I crashed spectacularly.

And so, yet again, I wasn't able to fulfill the blog-based ambitions I set out last post. It's very frustrating, I imagine more for you reading than for me writing, and I can but apologise once again and keep trying. I'm feeling much better, but am now running off to my adoptive homeland of Wales for a few days... and so the cycle repeats. There will come a plateau, and then, then we'll get something done here.

Best squishes -

Rach xx

England is a bitch

noreply@blogger.com (Rach) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:23:00 +0000

I'm off to Scotland to spend just over a week with my bff Colin, who I haven't seen in forever. Yay! With so many tablets packed to ensure my survival, I feel like a drug smuggler heading over the border...

Anyway, when I'm back, all blog systems are officially go!

Hope to see you then -

Rach xx

On a plain

noreply@blogger.com (Rach) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:06:00 +0000

After receiving a very welcome plug from one of my favourite Manic Street Preachers fansites, Manic Street Mania, I wanted to make a quick update - primarily to say thankyou to them and welcome to anyone new finding their way here!

This blog is alive, and will start looking like it very soon. I really appreciate the patience and understanding I've been extended so far, and wish my efforts to set things into motion weren't so frustrated. The notebook I've kept for scribbling ideas in is looking good, and I'm feeling much more positive about my ability to do this blog justice. Now I just need some energy...

In the meantime, I hope those of you who've kindly bought a copy of Awaiting An Epiphany #1 have enjoyed it. In just under a month I've sold more than 30 zines, which is brilliant. If you don't have a copy yet and would like one, don't panic! There's going to be at least a hundred made in total, so there's plenty of time and supply left :)

Sending you all good thoughts -

Rach xx

Awaiting An Epiphany #1

noreply@blogger.com (Rach) — Sun, 29 May 2011 22:12:00 +0000

This zine has been in the works forever, but this month I was finally well enough and under sufficient time pressure to buckle down and get it made. Back in October 2010, Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers very kindly did a questionnaire for me, and I wanted the zine it would feature in to be ready in time for the band's mini-tour in May, so that I'd be able to give Nicky a copy on the first of the two dates I planned to attend.

Just over two weeks of six-hour alternating work and sleep shifts paid off - I had a zine ready to hand over along with a bag of presents in time for the Llandudno gig on the 18th. When I saw Nicky again after the Wolverhampton gig the next day, he told me the zine 'great' - praise that made my knees rather wobbly!

Awaiting An Epiphany #1 is a 28-page, half-size, black and white photocopied zine with a full colour cover, bound with copper staples. It features pieces about running around after the Manics, trying to raise awareness about M.E. through the local press, extinct animals/the environment, other zines, and an irate eastern European rabbit - as well Nicky's ~exclusive~ questionnaire interview.

You can buy yourself a copy from my Etsy shop for £1 plus postage.

Rach xx

What's in a name?

noreply@blogger.com (Rach) — Thu, 26 May 2011 21:51:00 +0000

I have a tendency to name things after songs. This makes perfect sense to me, though not a sense that I can really explain very well beyond ropey sentiments. Names should come from the heart, and that's where songs hit me. Or perhaps more accurately, that is where they possess me... once a song gets to me it will not go away. It fills my head, I listen to it on loop, I write and make art about it and scrawl its lyrics everywhere in some kind of joyful exorcism.

Awaiting an Epiphany is the latest of my song-children. It comes from a line in the song 'Polar Swelling' by a band called Grammatics. I love Grammatics more than words... expansion on that love is a long, long story, for several other times. For now, suffice to say I live and breathe them. 'Polar Swelling' was one of the first Grammatics songs I ever heard, and so has an extra-special place in my soul. It is one of very few things that got me through five hellish months at university before I dropped out, but has thankfully managed to remain free of ties to memories of that godawful time. It is too beautiful, too transcendent for anything to touch.

The lyric that the name of this blog (and its accompanying shop and zine) is taken from is

"Now I'm the model of relief, awaiting an epiphany."

That line sums up much of the last few years for me, both in terms of smaller situations and the bigger picture. And the last three words are a perfect description of my life now. There is little for me to do but wait for something to change. I can try to live as well as I can in the meantime, to push the boundaries as far as possible. But I have learnt from years of fighting with chronic fatigue syndrome and depression that ultimately, I am not in control. I am not admitting defeat, I am accepting my situation for the time being. There is a definite difference.

This blog-based enterprise is so named, then, for a number of reasons: the love of a band, the strength of a song, the perfection of a lyric, and the literal waiting on an epiphany.

Rach xx

Let's get this party started

noreply@blogger.com (Rach) — Wed, 25 May 2011 21:34:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to Awaiting an Epiphany!

I'm Rach, a 21-year-old drifter from Stoke-on-Trent, England. It's very nice to see you here ^__^

As I suffer from severe depression and myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome) I am unable to do very much at all, and am not in education or work. My life at the moment is one of enforced boredom and loneliness, and starting this blog and Etsy shop is a big step towards trying to change that.

This is my second attempt at getting things going here. I don't want to promise anything for fear of scuppering myself before I've started again, so I won't. I'll just say that I hope this blog will be enjoyable and interactive, something that you will really want to read and participate in.

Thankyou so much for visiting, see you soon -

Rach xx