sugarplum fairy sugarplum fairy

I laid out a new zine yesterday.  We have a whole saga with our printer at home--it doesn't print well, despite all the effort Ming has put into it.  (New toner, new drum, test page prints perfectly...)

So when I want to make a zine, I put the file on a flash drive.  We go to an office store to print out the file, then I cut and paste, then I have to take that back to an office store to make a machinable original, and then I take it to L&K, which is a nice local printshop we enjoy supporting.

That's just the printing--there's the writing beforehand and making art or asking friends for art.  Then after the printing, we collate, fold, Ming makes holes, and I bind it with string.  Then I give it to people or mail it out.  Yeah, it's a labor of love, and I do love it all. 

But when I write a ton, it makes a bottleneck because I don't do the other activities equally as much.  So yesterday, getting Ming's help to lay this out was great. 

I had an additional step because I'd printed out my file, but I use openoffice, so I save the file as a PDF to print from a thumb drive, but it doesn't translate 100% right, and the stuff I printed was too big.  So I had to shrink almost everything.  That delayed me a couple weeks, which caused more of a traffic jam.  Well, I'm working on it.

The store was hot and stuffy.  I was having trouble focusing.  I was on my third day of sleep deprivation and feeling scattered and crazier than usual.  Wasn't sure my decision making was all that great.  But Ming stood there patiently and did stuff for me, very generous and kind.  Then he paid for the copies and bought three pens I wanted and some tape.

Our friend told us KFC has vegan chicken, but we went and they said no.  I think only a few stores are trying it out.  I have an allergy attack.  I should go back to bed.

I hope you're having sweet dreams.  Maybe visions of sugarplums are dancing in your head.