Rabbit, rabbit and welcome to February. 💌
Today is Imbolc and tomorrow is forecasted to be in the 60°s ’round these parts, which has me excited about spring even though it is currently cold and windy, muddy and icy, and the crows are waltzing across grey, cloudy skies. I can’t expect February to be any other way, it is what it is… But! Brighter days are coming soon, I can just feel it! (And tomorrow’s promise of a 60° day has me giddy!) A new neighbor left a note and a packet of pink bachelor button seeds on my front porch last night, and that bright-spring-flower-seed-surprise-good-neighbor energy is the energy I’m feeling right now. January came and went too quick for my liking, the time-speed where the days start to blur together a little bit. Januarys are usually slower, made for hibernating. But I did not hibernate this January, no I was the crow diving splendid across the milky sky!
Here’s a little bit of what I found myself enjoying last month:
Did y’all hear the good news? Pat is back, baby! And Pigeon Pit has a new album out called “Crazy Arms” that may just be their best one yet. 2025 is shaping up to be a banner year for folk punk and I couldn’t be happier about it. Blast that shit straight into my eardrums! Aside from Friends in Real Life (the new Pat joint) and lots of Pigeon Pit, I’ve also really been enjoying “Möbius Strip Mall” by Rent Strike, “Immoral Compass” by Doom Scroll, and all of Sister Wife Sex Strike‘s newer music, from “Sex Change” to both “Pre-” and “Post-Op”, to the covers album. Doom Scroll and SWSS are coming through KC in March, and I cannot wait. Gonna be a real good time!
But it hasn’t just been folk punk playing outta my speakers. Throwing Muses and IDLES (especially “TANGK” and “Joy as an Act of Resistance”) have been constant streams. A cassette of Twisted Teens’ self-titled was an unexpected treat, offering “Lou Reed meets Parquet Courts” vibes. And I picked up a copy of Faerybabyy‘s “Lucky Star” ep; I just can’t get enough of those 8 songs, Payton’s droney voice against the sparkly, fuzzy, surfy guitars and machinated beats. Having it on ~*~physical media~*~ makes me especially happy as the cassette is glittery! Oh my magpie brain!
I’ve been reading lots. Zines, ofc, and also some graphic novels via the Silver Sprocket subscription I treated myself to last year. Bloody Mary by Nick Winn and Demons: No Romance in Hell by Hyena Hell were two quick comix reads from the subscription that would totally make for the perfect Valentine’s gift for any comix-loving weirdos in yr life. And I’ve been devouring novels, too, although if I’m being honest, 2025 got off to a rough start reading-wise, with back-to-back strike outs. Thankfully, Borne by Jeff VanderMeer has come to my rescue. I’m nearly finished with it and oh reader, I have been absolutely consumed by this novel! To be so utterly consumed by a novel feels like a gift.
(For all the haters out there, a little on those strike outs: Girls Against God proved that women can be edgelords, too. This book didn’t deserve the comparison to Leonoara Carrington that was blurbed on the back cover… Leonora deserves better! And I couldn’t even finish A Court of Thorn and Roses… It gave me nothing: the plot was paper thin and repetitive, there was no character development, no romantic tension, the fae lore felt elementary, page after page where nothing interesting happened… what do people see in this book!? I am utterly confused about the ACOTAR hype. I feel like Michael Bluth around Ann… “her?”)
But I digress… Borne! Borne is tremendous; it is tenderness in the wasteland, spangled with existential pondering and toothsome prose that leaves me sated, a weird, wonderful, terrifying cautionary tale. I love it so much. Thank you, Jeff VanderMeer, for preventing my January reads from being ruined by lesser novels, and to my friend Erica for recommending I read it.
T and I watched “Desperately Seeking Susan” for the first time last night and we were both blown away! The plot was outrageous but somehow felt totally believable and grounded, the shenanigans were next level, the lighting and framing were gorgeous, the scene in the death rocker club where the camera danced and floated around the characters was everything, everyone was beautiful (this is a film made for bi punks!) and everyone looked so fucking cool (very beep beep.) That Susan Seidelman is not regarded as a legend is criminal. This took everything I loved about her Smithereens and turned it up to 11. 5/5 stars on Letterboxd, an entire marinara sauce’s worth of very fresh tomatoes.
What else, what else? Fresh bread, baked by yours truly, including homemade King Cake (Tom found the baby, now he owes me sweets!) Hangouts with friends (always 💗). Margaret Killjoy’s Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff podcast. Getting back into cooking. Cat cuddles. Super Smash Bros. Long walks into town. Snail mail (another perma-fave.) A snail hat. Learning to skateboard. Decorating my 2025 slingshot planner with stickers. Working on my neocities site — if this blog is a community center, the neocities site is my cottage. Deleting social media off my phone, and reverting to the good ol’ days of the old web, when everything was desktop-based and nothing hurt. And, in turn, getting a lot of my attention span back! Oh, and last but not least, Severance s2, which will surely get a paragraph of it’s own if I make a post like this for February.
zine corner
A peek inside the photocopied pages of catmothcrow #2
I published three new zines this month: catmothcrow #2 – Just Another Green-Haired Zinester, thoughts for the new year, and a 2024 recap newsletter that I mailed out to family and friends. cmc#2 is a zine about hair dye: why I’m always dyeing my hair some unnatural hue and why green hair might just be a “zine thing”. It was one of those zines where the words just started pouring outta me, and by the time I was finished writing, what was supposed to be a mini ended up being a full-blown, quarter-sized perzine issue. On the flipside, thoughts is a mini and I made it quick, in 2 days flat! It features my vision board and vibey, 2025 resolutions, and I filmed the creation process for my Youtube channel, which continues to grow swift and organically like a lovely pothos ivy vine. I blinked and somehow my channel is at over 2k subscribers! Woah! That feels massive. If you’re reading this because you’re a viewer of my vids, thanks for tuning in!
I’ve gotta a buncha videos planned for the channel that I’m working on, and a buncha new zines I’m hoping to publish in the next month or two. Last month, I tabled an event at my local library, all about sharing new skills for the new year with our community. I hosted my Zine Club, and I’ve got another Zine Club this month, as well as a Valenzines workshop that I’m putting on with my KC Zine Con crew. Oh! And next month, Maira is interviewing me for the Long Arm Stapler pod (!!!) Cripes, my zine world is busy! But you know I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Anyways, this post has gotten SO LONG, but in a world that feels broken and scary and harsh, it feels nice to list out the little things sparking joy. And if I’m a crow pushing against the heavy wind to dance across the sky, then this is my way of leaving a little shiny trinket gift for you on the fence post.
