Jeans Publishing: Did you know I wrote a book when I was a teenager?

I was a young entrepreneur. When I was 13, in grade 8, before I had internet, I started a publishing campany called Jeans Publishing with my friend Holly and the help of our Mums. We got funding to start our business and began taking on the DIY (do it yourself) circuit around Ontario attending conferences and seimnars on evenings and weekends.  We often set up a booth to talk about what we were doing and where we wanted to go. We though it was important for young people to have their work published, we were tired of people not taking us seriously just because we were youth. So, we did it ourselves. We started a quarterly newsletter called Jeans Material where we published young peoples work and sent it out to out to over 100 subscribers across Canada. Each subscriber paid $5 for a one year subscription and we printed them all ourselves. We were official with our ISSN which allowed the identification of our serial publication. We wrote an anthology of poetry and prose called JEANS and in 1996 I became a Published Canadian Author. Our book launch was at the Preston Library Branch on November 7, 1996 and we sold 81 books that night. One dollar from the sale of each book went to the local womens crisis shelter. This is me presenting the cheque. Don’t laugh at my bangs, there were horrible back then. Jeans was an acronym that stood for Junior Education & Achivement Network System (tongue twister?). I’ve hunted around the internet to find stuff about it but it was so long ago, there’s nothing. (I’m sure newspaper archives exist.) Here’s what I have kicking around the house, most our stuff back at Mum’s tucked away. We were in heaps of papers and it makes…

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When I was in grade school…

When I was in grade school I was part of a skipping team for the Heart & Stroke Foundation. We went around to schools like yours and did crazy tricks like doing a cartweheel in to a double dutch with chinese ropes. We practiced often and had heaps of tricks. We were called the Preston Pump-Ups. We had one routien called 12th Street Rag and the melody got faster and faster and you had to speed up your steps. If you lasted till the end, you were good. I could do it pretty well. I really loved skipping. (photo via laurencephilomene)

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Judge me by the content of my character.

The content. The character. The me. The judge. Judge of content. Character, the judge. The judge of character. The character of content. Content my judge. Of me, my character. * wordplay eye see rad people.

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Omg seriously. Just do it.

Put on some music miss thang, turn it up. Put on the lights and wear something cute. Headband hairpiece helps. Put all the clothes on the bed. Organize the empty hangers. Get the bins to throw stuff in. Put on lipstick. Put your clothes away. It doesn’t reallllllllly take that long. Clean up the other crap you’ve collected and throw shit out. Put clean sheets on the bed. Make bed, lay on top, relax. Look at the cleanness of the place, feel good. Go out and play.

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Empathy.

Can’t focus. Keep thinking of you. Keep thinking about the impact you’ll have on my future. Our connection, your energy, my energy. So cold right now you are.You melt, I taste you. You feel nice on my skin, you feel nice all over me. When will I see you? Feel you. I don’t know. You are moving closer to me every single day. The iceberg.

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all the world’s a reality show

 all the men and women merely content Ok true, not true. Kinda. The world isn’t what it used to be. The way we get and recieve information, what shows are on TV, where the news comes from. We’re all playing in this game of sharing and wanting attention. Pay attention to me, look what I’m doing, look what they are doing. Look, listen, watch, read. Nothing is new but everything is recreated, remixed, revisited, reshared. I’m one to talk, I share hard. I share often because I want you to listen, I want you to care. It’s a never ending life stream. Don’t ever let it end. I want to remember it all. What did I do last week? Lemme check my blog. Maybe one day I will be a reality show. Maybe I am, right here? I love the internet, if not for the internet, would you still know me? Would you care about what I’m doing? Would I know you? Well, I do care and I do want to know what people are doing. It inspires me to see people succeeding. Makes me wanna try harder. Reach higher. There’s a thought for the day.

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