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Off Topic: If You’ve Had a Bad Day

I’m having a bad day. It started around… 1am and just is managing to bloom into an awful flower of problems and hurt feelings.

There’s so much going on, and I’m melting into puddles on a regular basis.

It’s so easy to fall into this pit of awful darkness and feel like nothing is right or ever will be right. Nobody cares and people will always be awful.

But here’s the thing – reality doesn’t exist in absolutes. This, too, shall pass.

So instead of wallowing here, trying to keep my head on straight while bemoaning the state of the world, I decided to reach out. In the virtual way, of course.

Shit happens. Frequently. Mean, awful people exist, and quiet, sneaky awful people exist. Things get stressful, and there are times when ‘stressful’ just doesn’t cut it as a descriptor. Sometimes everything goes wrong and you can’t seem to get your act together enough to put up some zine reviews.

Here’s a virtual hug for you.

Whether you’re having a bad day, a good day, a night to remember, or a night to forget, here’s a hug to you.

I care, and I hope you have a good day. Because in the end, even when you feel like you can’t do much, you can usually still spread a little sunshine.

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Sea Green Zines Etsy Shop Closing Soon!

As the chaos of the house move increases, I will be closing the Sea Green Zines Etsy shop from September 1st to September 10th so I can finally pack up my zines and mail stuff. If you want to get in any orders before September, now’s the time to do it!

Remember that September 1st my time is Australian time, so it will be closing sometime during the day on August 31st for US zine friends!

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What’s Happening?

Hello, zine friends!

It’s only eight sleep until my big move, and my brain is pretty mush! (Who knew that mail redirections had to be so complicated. Thanks AusPost.) So what’s happening!

I’ve had the address up for a few days now, but I’ve put the mail redirection in, so it’s all go now! I won’t close the box until next week just to catch anything coming through before the redirection hits, but that’s not far away now, my friends. The redirection lasts for three months, so don’t worry if you’ve sent something and know it won’t arrive this week.

Paper Currency, my beloved project, a zine about zines, is complete! <3 I made the time to put it together, print, and sew all the contributor copies because they have been waiting long enough as it is. I will launch it properly when I'm settled in my new place.

The same goes for Don't Call Me Cupcake 8. 🙂

I think that's it for me now. Please feel free to remind me of anything I may be forgetting! I hope you all are doing well and have a wonderful week ahead!

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Happy Mail Monday – Last Bendigo Edition

Hello, zine friends! I hope you all are doing very well.

Today is my last Happy Mail Monday in my current place of residence. Not my last Monday – but more on all that good stuff in my ‘what’s happening’ post tomorrow. Today is for celebrating the awesome happy mail that has come my way!

The first bit of lovely happy mail is a set of three mini-zines from Graham all the way over in England! These were a trade set up back in International Zine Month. I’m so glad they arrived, as I was a little bit worried they’d get lost in the mail redirect. You can’t tell very well in the picture, but they even arrived in their own mini-zine-sized plastic pocket! I must get myself some of those. What a great way to add a little protection for your zines. I already love the cream-coloured paper, too. I’m eager to check them out.

Thank you, Graham!

Zines from Belgium! This gorgeous zine assortment came from Jessica Maybury who has my favourite Twitter handle ever @codenamewallaby. These zines came as yet another wonderful IZM zine swap. I really need to put out more calls to swap more often because I’m having so much fun with them.

Thank you, Jess!

Last we have a gorgeous assortment of zines that I am so excited about from the one and only Nina from Echo Publishing. Nina and I worked out a trade, and I had the opportunity to pick these five awesome zines from Nina’s awesome catalogue of zines. (Check it out! There are so many!) Of course I had to pick ‘In Movement’ for one because of my current (soon to be ending, thank goodness) moving house woes. I can’t thank Nina enough for this trade, and I look forward to another soon!

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You all know by now how much I absolutely adore mail coming my way – especially zine mail. The happy mail this week were all trades, but expecting the mail doesn’t make it any less lovely. Things have been really rough over the past week, which makes me appreciate not only all the gorgeous mail but the wonderful, supportive comments so nice, too. It’s easy to get distracted by the disco lights of my own pity party, and all this makes things feel so much better.

Thank you all!

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This is Why You Have ‘Rainy Day’ Posts

You work hard, you try to stick to a schedule, and look what happens. You sleep through posting a zine review.

On Wednesday, I said:

Barring any relapse, I will be back tomorrow with a fresh new zine review for you.

Well the relapses came in after that.

I have since read (and been told) this flu is a nasty one with people thinking that they’ve finally gone past it only for it to catch up again. I can attest to that with the massive pile of laundry I’ve accumulated due to ‘breaking’ I don’t know how many fevers.

My temperature has been normal for a couple days, but yesterday I thought, “Oh! I can actually walk. Now I can do all the things!”

Turns out I could do very few of the things and exhausted myself very quickly.

As the title states, this is why you have rainy day posts. This is why you prepare in advance. Just in case you get sick unexpectedly, and the illness hangs around – probably because the illness is making you stressed because you only have 11 more days to pack and clean this pain of a house…

I do have plans for a more consistent next two weeks, but we’ll see what actually happens.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Zine Review: Wildlife of Victoria Vol 1 – Semi-Domesticated Animals

Wildlife of Victoria Vol 1 – Semi-Domesticated Animals
Apples
Twitter: https://twitter.com/celuran@cerulan
celuran@gmail.com

It was bound to happen again sometime, and here we are…

Wildlife of Victoria Vol 1 – Semi-Domesticated Animals is a funny black and white zine featuring two stories: one about bees and one about a goat. There are also some bee facts and recipes to try out thrown into the mix.

With the title being what it is, I expected something like a listing of wildlife encountered or something along the more ‘dry factual’ lines. I was surprised in all the best ways when I realised that, while this does serve as a guidebook of sorts (I had no idea that if you move bees, it has to be more than 5 kilometres away because they know their way home), it’s primarily a funny memoir-style zine about animal encounters.

Before I get carried away, I want to start off with the beginning of this zine, which is very, very sweet. Apples talks about being afraid of meeting new people (I hear you!) and dealing with that fear by seeing them simply as people who haven’t heard the bee-moving story yet.

I thought the concept was a fun and funny (in a good way) way to do things, but I didn’t realise quite how funny until I got into reading about the bees.

And then reading about the goat. Oh, my goodness, that goat.

I struggle to talk about the stories because I enjoyed them so much and don’t want to spoil even the tiniest bit of goodness. The stories are funny on their own, but they are made even funnier for two reasons.

The first comes in having the wisdom of hindsight. I laughed, with empathy, when Apples wondered why they thought a certain move with beehives would be a good idea because it definitely wasn’t.

Right now, typing this, I cannot believe what a stupid idea this is.

Secondly, it’s funnier because Apples has taken tweets made while these things were actually happening and included them in the zine.

I now realise why goats are linked to Satan

Apples also includes recipes, both of which I’d like to try out. But I think what I love most about them is that they are put into the zine when they are mentioned. Even mid-story. Readers might not think one way or another about this, but I really feel like sticking them in like like (as opposed to putting them in their own recipe section or something like that) adds to the ‘chaotic flurry’ that is the feeling when reading about angry bees and even angrier goats. It feels almost like an aesthetic choice to simply put them in as they came up in conversation.

The funniest thing about this zine for me is this: I looked at the back cover before I started reading, and it reads “look forward to vol. 2 where I will talk about chooks”. Now having read the zine, that now takes a hilariously ominous tone.

If you want to have a(n empathic) laugh at tales of semi-domesticated animals, then you are missing out if you don’t check out this zine.