sweetheart redux

here is sweetheart #4, put out in May 1994. Enjoy. xox princess robin

No matter what, it seems, the holidays are cataclysmic. people are usually surprised when i say that December is my favorite month, but what i love about it is that it's so different, i can expect to drive down the street and see decorations, and when i was in school, it felt like you could sort of just screw around the whole month, and frankly that's how it's felt at my millions of jobs i've held by now, too, like everyone was taking work less seriously and being distracted by decorations and whatnot. in a way, i even like the depression factor of the holidays, because it's almost like sad people are understood when they get particularly agitated by their loneliness in December -- there are special resources, it seems, for depression, in december. but it's also so much pretending for me, and that gets tiring sometimes. there's a famous (famous to me, at least) craft store in Pasadena, where i spent my formative years, called Stats. they have a whole hu...

hello again. i'm putting up some pages from Sweetheart #3 today, put out in November 1993, when i was 14 or so. this one has an interview w/ the lead singer from Bratmobile in it, and lots of misspellings and drama i am sure. you can make the image bigger by clicking on it, by the way. xox robin

last night at a show i ended up speaking with an acquaintance who'd hear of my friend Bill Tunilla, and had even worked with him for awhile. Bill was my mom's best friend my entire life, helping her to function and protecting me from having too much to bear, as far as taking care of her. he was also one of the best people ever, with the type of shitty like that truly kind people end up coming up with, especially with a pretty cut-throat version of capitalism in place the way it is. he owned a used bookstore for years, because he loved books, and wanted people to be able to read books. he would give a book away to a homeless or crazy person if they got their heart set on it. me and mom were really his family. he did so much for me. he died of renal cancer in the bedroom of mom's apartment, this past June, penniless and truly tired of being so sick. he was well known in the used book world, dare i say a bit legendary (for his kindness, and maybe his sloppiness and love...

here's a piece of fiction i wrote a few years ago that never got published. xoxo robin Lunch-Time By Robin Crane Later, for at least a couple years after the surgery, I felt so bitter. And despite the gang of neighborhood cats that often followed behind me on my daily strolls as though I were their giantess captain, and other bizarre examples of enchantment, all I could do was obsess about swallowing poison, or being fucked by so many men I would eventually turn into a doll, and be left in peace in the warmth of a child’s bed, finally safe. All these damning thoughts came after they performed the operation on my heart, but before the operation, it was the fear of dying on the operating table that obsessed me. “Maggie, do you want to go home, or take some extra time for lunch?” my boss asked me. He was standing at the opening in my cubicle, gazing kindly at me, in all probability trying to telegraph the thought: “You Should Believe in God.” It was the day before my...

So, the thing that's kind of annoying about people's status posts on Facebook is that they are so often elusive/coy/vague. i'm guilty of it myself. i'll write something like "the movie made me puke and now i'm in jail" or something like that, leaving everyone to be all, "What happened? what movie? can i post bail?" recently i have been particularly active, and maybe annoyingly so, on my facebook posts because i got my feeling really hurt on facebook and it just really devastated me. I feel the need to share some of what happened. i will try to keep names out of it. it all started with a thread (that is when someone includes a whole bunch of people in a message, so that everyone included can respond) that someone I'd always tried to be a good friend to sent out, inviting people to an event. when people said they couldn't come, she responded with something like "you guys are retards." I have deleted a lot of the exchange an...

Well hello. Here is Sweetheart #2, which came out in May 1993.

I used to do a zine called sweetheart, from 13 to 18, and now that I have a scanner, I thought I'd share a bit of it. Published December 1992.