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Latest Posts by somegrayleaves - Page 3
I’m sick of just trying to get through things.
I want to enjoy things. I want to look forward to things instead of just dreading being tired and in pain.
Disabled and chronically ill people are allowed to enjoy things and do things they like (if they’re able) while still being sick and disabled. Yes, even if they aren’t employed. Hope this helps.
So you want to print and distribute a free zine...
I wanted to throw together a short tutorial on how I print zines using this excellent COVID safety zine by @newlevant as an example.
Printing
First make sure you are clicking on the printable file. When you open it, it should look slightly jumbled. I always look for seeing the front cover and the back cover on the same page.
Then click "print" (usually a printer icon) and open "more settings".
The key things people tend to get wrong when they try printing zines is they forget to make sure that it is double sided and flips on the short edge. If you tried printing one and it came out looking wonky, make sure to check this.
Also, it will make your life infinitely easier if you use the collate option should you have it available to you.
Fit to printable area is a helpful setting to have on if you're printing zines who use a different paper standard than you. This zine didn't for me but I leave this on out of habit.
When you've got this all set up - print as many copies as you want to assemble.
Assembling
When you get them out of the printer they'll look like this. Just a big old stack. I highly recommend parsing out each individual copy before you try assembling any. I have made that mistake before.
This is how I stack mine.
I like to leave the cover side up as it makes for a clearer division as I'm assembling.
As you're flipping through these to parse and stack them, check them over for any issues with printing. I ran out of printer toner on the first three so I'm glad I checked.
Imperfections are fine but you're looking for anything that makes critical information unreadable.
To assemble a copy, get them lined up by tapping them on the table along a short and a long edge.
Both hands is a lot easier but I was trying to take a picture lol
Then fold them hamburger style and smooth down the spine as best you can. If you have a bone folder or similar use that.
Again, let go of perfection. We are looking for good enough here. Minor errors here should not make info unreadable so don't sweat the small stuff.
I recommend doing all your folding in one go to prevent errors. Or at least it really helps me.
Now it's time to staple. You will see my fancy stapler in the background - you do not require it and I would not recommend it. Unhinging a normal stapler is way easier to use in my opinion and this one gets jammed fairly easy. Use what you've got.
If you don't have staples, but you do have sewing supplies - check out this tutorial for a way to bind it with thread.
If you have no staples and no thread, you don't have to staple every zine. Smaller ones (~5 pages or less) do fine with no staple. They can be a little tougher for some people to use and don't hold up as well being taken in and out of places so I would consider that when thinking of where to leave them. They're still well worth printing and putting out.
This zine is small enough that one staple in the center should be enough to keep it together.
I opted to staple in two places - one about an inch in from either edge - mostly out of habit. It does add a little stability and will make them a little better for putting in Little Free Libraries and other places where they'll be removed and placed back.
Here is my partner looking over the zines to make sure my stapling didn't cut off any important information in each copy. It's a little tedious but it's pretty important. A quick flip through can mean the difference between someone getting the info you want them to have or not.
And here's the finished product
I made 15. I'm pretty privileged and have been making zines for over a decade now so it's almost like knitting or crochet for me. Feel free to make fewer copies or just one for yourself. It still counts.
I will stick some in each car and my bag. I have some medical appointments coming up so I will for sure be leaving some of these in the waiting room.
I'm also going to keep an eye out for Little Free Libraries and other place where people are looking for something to read. I might also toss some on the tables of a coffee shop I pop into sometimes (masked, take out only) and the library to pick up books (also masked).
I tend not to give them to specific people, even people I know, because people are way more open to information they've picked up themself than something it feels like someone is pressuring them to read. But if people bring it up in conversation, I'll be sure to offer a copy to anyone who is interested.
Hope this is helpful!
Go out there and print!
being disabled will really have you thinking/saying things like “yeah i’m not really THAT disabled. as long as i take my meds twice a day (and as needed), eat and drink exactly the right things, keep the perfect balance of being active and resting, the weather is stable, and nothing unexpected happens AT ALL… i’m totally FINE! i probably should not even call myself disabled at this point because i’m doing so well!”
if you don’t want to call yourself disabled, that’s fine and it is your choice! but if you’re only “fine” or “doing really well” when a bunch of different variables are all lined up perfectly, then maybe you are not fine actually. just a thought!
gentle reminder that it's not too late to get into the habit of wearing masks again 😷
i love you visible brushstrokes. i love you glue warped scrapbook pages. i love you awkward poems. i love you junk journal with faded receipts. i love you poorly composed journal layout. I love you unintentionally blurry photographs. i love you asymmetrical beading. i love you curling freeform crochet. i love you fingerprints on pottery. i love you reused materials. i love you improvised instruments. i love you mistakes. i love you bravery to make it anyway. i love you creativity that hasn't been wiped clean of every drop of humanity and sanitized and commodified.
a thorough inventory of the public spaces in which you are allowed to stand but people will start to get upset if you sit down
The beauty of living in a walkable city is that when you feel sad you can just walk and walk and walk till you stumble upon a place that makes you feel better
Moss and lichen inspired repairs on my jacket. Some of my oldest and newest work lives on this thing.
Water Lilies painted by Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)
Saw this on Facebook and if I see one more post like this that weaponizes the Paralympics I am going to punch my own face :)
The Paralympic athletes are INCREDIBLE, there is absolutely no doubt about that.
AND- do you know how many disabled people grieve and cry over all of the things that are no longer possible because of their disability? It’s not a matter of positive thinking or making excuses. Leave disabled people alone and stop pretending anything is possible if you just have ✨the indomitable human spirit✨
And PLEASE for the love of gods, stop putting pressure on disabled people to be your inspiration porn. ESPECIALLY when the pressure is in order to make our suffering more palatable for you.
I promise if I could positive think my legs into working I would not be struggling so much :)
[ID: black and White Photo of a left shoulder & left knee amputee biking with sports suit and helmet on a stadium track. It's captioned "if it's important to you, you'll find a way!! if not, you'll find an excuse!! ... See more /END ID]
A Conversation with Richard Siken by Thomas Hobohm
Cold Eruptions 'Stop bottling up all of your feelings. Please—I'm here—tell me everything you have on your mind.' get the hd wallpaper?⭐ — Twitter | Prints | Ko-Fi | Patreon
Shoes by Philips Shoes
c. 1925-1935
The National Museum of Norway
have a meme from grad school that i don't remember making
Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life
i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create
Illustrations for Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of Waves | Shiosai | 潮騒, by Lâm Tùng Nguyễn.
I can’t express how important it is to have hobbies in your 20s. To have something you enjoy and look forward to after long work days, tough conversations, and pressures in the real world. You need something to pour into like you’re a child again. The world is expectant, in a rush, focused on outcome. But with a hobby, you can take your time, make it your own, show it to no one, be bad at it, and do it for pure enjoyment without worrying how it will turn out. We desperately need the space to experiment without emphasis on the final product. We need emphasis on the process. Hobbies can teach us how to get back to that space.
journal of an ordinary grief, mahmoud darwish
Contrast
Hey. You know what they taught me in my environmental studies classes, about how to work in this field and be able to keep doing it without burning out and crashing? And also about how to get the general public to care about what we do?
Ragebait isn't actually a very good strategy. Hope is. Showing people it's possible to make a difference is. Imagining a better future is. I think other movements need to learn this.
For years the strategy was to show people horrible things so they'd be angry and want to do something, but it turns out it's really easy to cross the line into them thinking 'oh god it's all horrible and we're doomed' at which point they get paralyzed with hopelessness. So that's not the recommended strategy anymore and instead we try to connect climate issues with things people care about and show them how they can help in concrete, achievable ways. Anyways, I'm still in this field three years later and I don't feel crushing despair about it so I guess it's working. Y'all should join me. Put down the images of sad polar bears and other assorted horrors; pick up something hopeful and useful instead.
(Long post, sorry y'all)
A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.
In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.
She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.
Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.
After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:
DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.
Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!
So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.
Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.
At the end of August, the blanket was done!
I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)
She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it.
She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.
And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.
Five stars, absolutely worth it!
(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)
Spectrum of overwhelm, now in triangle form due to popular demand
[Image description: A triangle chart titled, ‘Spectrum of Overwhelm.’ The three points are ‘404 Error,’ showing a person with an empty thought bubble; ‘wet beast,’ showing a person sweating and sobbing; and ‘rage beast’ showing a person clenching their fists in an outline of orange fire. The peak is the ‘404 error’ vertex, and the inside of the triangle here is coloured beige and labelled, ‘shutdown.’ The lower half is labelled ‘meltdown’ and is red on the rage beast side and blue on the wet beast side. \End description]