cheer

Well, today work started up again. My summer of leisure is over. Hmm, it's "i before e except after c, unless it says ay as in neighbor or weigh." But leisure breaks the rules. Maybe it used to be pronounced lay-sure.

So I'm done with work for a week--today I trained and qualified. Scoring starts next Thursday. I feel light.

I'm wearing tie dye today for the first time in years. It's cheerful.

yellow-billed magpie

by photographer Ashok Khosla

These are the birds that we like just about the most that visit us here at our apartment complex. We call them sky clowns. You should see them with their wings all spread out in all their black, white, and blue glory. Yellow-billed ones live here. The black-billed ones are elsewhere.

royal mail

Last night we had a poetry fest--I emailed Erik mp3s I made of myself reading poems, and we listened to them, some Rumi poems and "The Moon and the Yew Tree." It was fun. I have been stressed out, so fun is a rare and wondrous thing.

I scanned some new Royal Mail stamps, and I learned a funny thing. The background of the actual stamps says "Royal Mail" over and over again but that can't be seen on the scan. I guess that's the whole point, the anti-counterfeit. But in the scan you can see the perforated ovals.

bikes

This is a postcard that came from MM this summer.

Kingdom of Survival

Tonight we went to the movies. We saw Kingdom of Survival, which is a totally unmemorable and undescriptive title! But the movie's great. It's a documentary with lots of disturbing archival footage (the violence had me averting my eyes). The star is Noam Chomsky. A gripe I have is lack of women--the intellectuals interviewed were all men with the exception of one, who was interviewed along with her husband. Anyway, the viewer is presented with an array of very appealing ideas. You should see this movie. We were lucky that AK Press founder Ramsey Kanaan was in attendance and did a Q&A afterward. But it's past our bedtime now. Goodnight, friends.

pesto

We got some awesome vegan pesto that tastes maximum pesto good. We had it on spaghetti. It's Rising Sun Farms.

crafty

Tonight Erik took me to the craft store for baby pink embroidery thread for binding the latest functionally ill. I ended up buying a piece of dark blue textured cardstock as well, and I made three small booklets out of it using pale blue paper for the insides. One I bound with burgundy embroidery thread, and two I bound with white string. I like to use booklets like this for writing long letters.

And other than talking on the phone with my bestie, that was the main excitement of my day.

reception and meal

Yesterday we went to an art opening, an art show at the SMUD building called Iconic Sacramento. The art is fantastic--it's a brilliant show. And the strawberries were pretty good. The water was called smart water, and Erik said it came from a smart glacier.

Erik's best friend T is one of the three featured artists, and we hung around with him and his family. Afterward we all went out to dinner at a brew pub called Hoppy's. I got a veggie burger--I was bewildered when they asked how I wanted it cooked. I just couldn't believe they were giving me options as if it were meat. So I said yes to the first option given to me: medium well. That was a mistake, as they cooked the hell out of it. But it was still okay.

knish

While back frozen knishes were on sale at Whole Foods and we had never had one before so we bought one, and today I decided to try it. Here is the empty wrapper for you to see. Wow, it was good. At first we were like, "What is this?" It's a kind of dumpling? It's like an empanada? It's like a turnover but round. And they are very delicious. Ours had potato in it and a little spinach. Smelled oniony and tasted salty. Very good.

the mail that came while I was away

1. birthday present from my best friend A
2. poems from Don Wentworth
3. something from a prisoner wanting to be penpals
4. something from the same prisoner wanting to be penpals
5. something from a different prisoner wanting to talk about the zines I sent and a strange poem
6. postcard from S in Portland
7. postcard from H in Oakland <--loved it
8. zines from someone in Brooklyn
9. zines from someone in Wales
10. birthday card from church friend M
11. letter from one of my most loyal penpals R in England
12. zines from someone in Edinburgh
13. letter from new mad penpal J in Maryland
14. zines from K in Denver
15. something big from juniperbug
16. zines from DJ Frederick

Most of these I haven't opened yet. Most of the zines are for me to review--I have a new zine review blog!

http://lauramarieszinereviews.blogspot.com/

back

I'm home from a week away--sorry about the silence. I got a lot of mail while I was gone and plan to blog about it tomorrow. Night, friends.

paper cuts

I was interviewed for this Sac News & Review article on the Sacramento zine scene.

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/paper-cuts/content?oid=3688447

yesterday's adventures in paper

East Bay Depot For Creative Reuse is a shop in Oakland where you can buy tons of junk for really cheap. For example, I bought some postcards that depict a painting called Tiger Toilet. I bought a class portrait of an elementary school class from 1932. I bought a piece of paper printed with alphabet pictures and some pale pink Japanese envelopes. I bought all kinds of other paper junk, like a poster of Van Gogh's Starry Night folded in quarters. I thought I'd write letters on it. I got a lot of paper junk for $2.18.



Urban Ore is a huge warehouse in Berkeley that has all kinds of junk. This junk is bigger, like doors and windows and furniture. But there are books and paper things too. I looked at photos for a long time, like people's snapshots, all in a drawer. I ended up finding some beautiful letterpress printed Christmas cards and a few other paper things, like this. It's heavier cardboard than a postcard--I don't know what the term is for it, but I'm sure there's a term.

East Bay Depot For Creative Reuse

Today we went to Berkeley and Oakland for tons of fun. We went to junk shops and I loved it. I will tell you about it tomorrow. Night night, everyone.

sadness

Today I made some curried cauliflower soup. It wasn't so great.

tomato-related

Guess what Erik's doing today? Picking tomatoes. They're pesticide-free heirloom tomatoes. He's supposed to be done at 3. It's only 93 degrees out there.

I bought this salsa called 5 chiles salsa that's really hot. Tears ran down my face as I ate it with chips. Then I gave up and just ate the chips.

army of owls

Today I got a bizarre postcard from Poland from someone who tells me a town was recently invaded by an army of owls? "They are everywhere you do and don't look." And he's going to a castle "seeking a bloom of a fern at night that grants you wishes." I absolutely love it but have no idea how this person got my address. But they provide a return address, so I will write them back for sure.

15 minutes

I'm mentioned on page two of this article in Time, if you can believe that.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2091194-1,00.html

Laura-Marie's zine reviews

I started a new zine review blog! Send me your zine for review.

http://lauramarieszinereviews.blogspot.com/

broke my promise

Rather than blogging about my day at the SF Zine Fest, I decided to make a zine about it. So I'm doing that.

haha!

Someone's asking for an iPhone on freecycle.

food news

1. I started some lentils to sprout two days ago, and they're sprouting! They are our favorite thing to put on salads. And good in sandwiches too. We hadn't made any in a long time, like half a year. Somehow we got out of the habit.

2. I bought some broccoli soup at Grocery Outlet and was concerned it'd just taste like pureed broccoli like the sweet potato soup we bought tasted just like pureed sweet potatoes. Anyway, the broccoli soup is pretty good but so salty. Usually I am a salt-loving person, but this is a bit much.

3. Also I bought some hummus at Grocery Outlet that is basil pesto flavor and it really does taste like hummus and pesto at the same time. How strange. And how strange that I didn't anticipate this.

promise

Today was San Francisco Zine Fest. I am too sleepy to think, so I will report on it tomorrow. Night, friends.

log

Here's Erik's picture from the book at the top of Pyramid Peak, which he hiked to yesterday.

Judith Butler quote

"Thus, we sometimes cling to the terms that pain us because at a minimum, they offer us some form of social and discursive existence"

Judith Butler, Excitable Speech