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[urbpan]

Happy Spring Equinox to you all!

And to my south of the border friends(the equatorial border, that is), I suppose it should be Happy Autumnal Equinox. cottonmanifesto, the step-daughter, and I spent the actual day itself at the Boston Zine Fair. I should write more about that, perhaps I will later; suffice it to say, I kept low expectations and we all enjoyed ourselves. I came home with more zines than I left with, as usual.



Two days ago I saw my first warbler of the year, a black-and-white. Alexis has been seeing grackles, artemii is reporting on many spring signs around her, and today's gray skies are no match for the optimistic belief that yes indeed, this is it, it is Spring, dammit. Oh sure, it may snow again, but the migrations have started, the clock is soon to leap forward, and there's no going back to Winter.

I was searching my lj archives for something or other, and came across a post wherein I complained about going for my first below 50 degree bike commute of the year. Poor baby. We reached 50 yesterday, for the first time in the year, I believe, and only Alexis got to experience it, thanks to nicotine. It's amazing that every year I complain about it getting colder. I resolved mid winter to stop complaining about it, at least to stop complaining at work where complaint is the common currency of small talk. I'm sure I haven't kept to it--I simply dislike being cold so much.

"Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it." It makes me happy to think that we will buck that trend, and actually move to some place where complaining about the weather will be an indulgence, not a safety valve for the sanity. It's still years off, but knowing that we can do it, that it is coming, that helps.

Oh, I'd also like to welcome brush_rat, my big brother in real life, to lj. I'm very sorry for your suck ass work situation, but as I told you before, I'm not worried about you. I always look up to you, and I know you'll work your way back. Don't stop writing and cartooning!!

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Re: Yay for Spring!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I intend to put out a pretty comprehensive trading card set. We brought a set of oh, 18 or 20 different cards. These were all repeats except for the "frog" card, owing to the fact that my address and email address have changed, and Alexis had to go and change all the cards' texts and reprint them. She also provided new photographs for the house sparrow and leopard slug cards.

The fair was less busy than other times, although apparently they got more people on Saturday. There was empty table space on Sunday but not on Saturday. I saw fewer familiar faces than usual, too. Rachelle's trans-person stalker made a brief appearance at the end, Rich Mackin's lynch mob was there in small force (3 or 4), and his old sidekick Rosie was the organizer, along with a couple other folks.

There were workshops, which I guess were pretty cool. The step-daughter made a printing block (of a squirrel!) and three handpuppets. We brought food, and there was one table with cake and cookies--otherwise the food thing was a bust.

There were some people from pretty far afield: Toronto, New Jersey, and Portland Oregon. I learned of the "Black and Green" or perhaps "Green and Black" movement of anti-authoritarian radical environmentalists (I think). I discussed eating bugs with one fellow, and heard of eating catfish from the Potomoc from his companion, a young Polish woman whose speaking voice was identical to Bjork's.

There were at least 4 or 5 distros there, which (along with the preponderance of distro promos on the zine_scene community) makes me wonder if there isn't an unhealthy ratio of distros to zinesters (or worse, distros to readers).