Not-stagram 16th-22nd Aug
L: Hello! I’m back baby! Now instead of feeling overwhelmed and retreating in on myself in response to work/life stresses, I’m wildly procrastinating from all the work I have to do! You’re welcome!
L: Our big news! We have a new addition to our household! This is Simba/Boba* and he is about 1 year old and we’ve taken him in because his previous owner wasn’t able to look after him anymore. We’d been talking about getting a cat in September, and then we heard Boba needed a new home and well, he looks so much like my old cat Meg and we just knew he belonged with us. He’s super shy, and very sensitive to all the new sounds of his new home, but he’s very sweet and affectionate and playful. He’s just staying in the conservatory at the moment to get used to being here before we slowly introduce him to the rest of the house. In the meantime we’re frantically reading about cats, researching cat food and litter (omg he’s going to be so pampered, abi’s ordered trials of every fancy sustainable cat food brand she can find), and finding a vet so he can have his vaccinations and get neutered. Abi and I are taking turns having panics, the first night we were just sitting side by side on the sofa being like ‘Do you think he’s ok? I just want him to be ok.’ I just got up from the computer to check he wasn’t too hot in a panic. So that’s where we are.
A: I literally didn’t sleep all last night because my brain would not shut down because of my constant panic and desire to check he was ok. I think I’m feeling a little bit more chill now - he certainly seems a lot happier and he had lots of cuddles with me at 5am this morning. I am going to spoil him rotten.
A: I’d been feeling a bit crap so Lili persuaded me to go to dunfermline for a date. We went to 1703 to check out their vegan menu, which was pretty good for a non-vegan place. We both had the same chicken burger which was more like a schnitzel (and could have done with some saurkraut and mayo!) but was overall pretty tasty. We also got very day drunk on their amazing cocktails which are worth visiting for and then ended up have a great convo and buying some comics in Little Shop of Heroes comic book store. We finished off by heading to 269 for cake and bothering Judith. It was really nice to get out and enjoy some time together doing things we love, it’s been hard recently finding time off together so it felt like a proper date/treat!
L: Yes, despite this photo making it look like this is a slider-size burger, it was actually pretty substantial! And I was so excited to finally visit Little Shop of Heroes and would strongly recommend a visit for anyone nearby (it’s worth getting the train from Edinburgh imho) - super LGBTQIA+ positive, amazing selection, great friendly chat, loads of cool comics adjacent stuff as well, including rpgs, tarot and LUMBERJANES MERCH!!
L: I headed into Edinburgh because I’d heard from the central librarian’s that there were a load of zines in the zine library that had arrived over lockdown and because I got a message from Rachel from Tiny Tech Zines in Los Angeles, the traditional lands of the Tongva, Tataviam, and Chumash peoples – including the Gabrieleño, Fernandeño, and Ventureño; members of the Takic and Chumashan language families; and other Indigenous peoples who made their homes in and around Tovaangar [1]. They were visiting Edinburgh for a month and was reaching out to zine-y folks! Brian and Oli (from EZL) and I meet up with them at Portobello and we hung out by the beach and opened some zines that had arrived over the pan d and it was like Zine Librarian Christmas, and so nice to share the experience with another zinester!
L: In Edinburgh I also had my first ever Boba Tea (and saw Sofie Hagen which was a whole thing, totally freaked out, hid behind the bubble tea place for like… twenty minutes). And then I got a bagel and frickles from Bross Bagels. Abi is really into completing Happy Cow at the moment so I had to take 9 photos.
A: Yes, I am addicted to completing Happy Cow… by which I mean getting the most points possible on happy cow (the vegan tripadvisor). I even made a zine about it which will go out in our next patreon!
L: Last but not least, I feel like I wanna share some of the cool stuff that’s come my way this week. First up is this book of rituals from Yarrow Magdalena, who I met in their garden through a mutual zine-friend who was visiting (and who I also met in person for the first time) Jade who writes Scorpio Moon zines and it was so lovely chatting about all sorts, such a joy. I’ve been on-and-off autopilot recently because of burn out/overwhelm, but it’s punctuated by these Good Moments TM. Anyway I was grateful to recieve this book of simple and radical practices. I’ve been reading one of my supervisors books about habit, and routine, and social change, and just, IDK its percolating. Next up I ordered this anthology of radical critical disability justice zines from the 90s because Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha mentioned them in their book ‘Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice’. I don’t normally read older zines, just because I’ve never really had access to them or I’ve never sought them out, but recently I have been through anthologies like this, and radical community archiving projects and its super interesting. LASTLY, I was super excited to find out about the first riso studio opening in the Highlands called Isle of Riso, and they send out this cute sample pack with colour charts and some beautiful prints. I can’t fault Sunday’s Print at Good Press in Glasgow, but I’m always on the lookout for more Northern-ly stuff, and tbh recently I’ve been riso-printing more than enough to go around.
