I met Lilly and Marc at the Portland train station with our bikes. We were taking theAmtrak Cascade so that we could just put our bikes on the hangers on the train. We got one of the sets of four seats where they are facing eachother. Amtrak put some random guy in the 4th seat as we yammered on about zines. At one point he asked us what zines were and where we were going. I pulled a bunch of them out of my bag. He actually read Doris 26 on the ride.
We didn’t really have much of a plan for when we got into Seattle. Lilly’s friend was out of town and she was going to stay with a a friend of a friend… who was in the middle of finals week. I could stay with my friend Shane but he lived like, across some water and on the other side of some mountains and Marc had no idea where he was staying but was going to meet with a friend.
We got into Seattle and decided to at least find the Richard Hugo House where ZAPP is located. Well, it’s on top of Capitol Hill and for some reason my pannier weighed down bike was having issues with skipping gears. annoying and making me lag behind everyone. We got to Hugo House to find that ZAPP was closed so we headed out to get some food and beer. Well, we rode down a huge hill knowing that we were going the wrong direction and had to ride back up the hill.
We parked ourselves at the Red Wood where we bought several pitchers of beer (Hogaarden pitchers for only $13!) because they wouldn’t take food orders because they were busy. I sent a text to Wrdnrd to see if I could stay with her if it was just me and not our wacky bike entourage. She and her partner obliged which was awesome because she is totally someone I have wanted to spend more time with. They showed up during our 3rd pitcher and Marc’s friend showed up. Lilly had to take off to her host’s house. Marc insisted on singing Kareoke so we set our looking for a kareoke bar.
Found the bar and I drank another beer and stood outside with Wrdnrd talking zine geekery… and just regular geekery. Some dudes came up asking us what time it was stalling us just long enough to tell us what American Indian tribe or tribes made up their lineage pulling huge strands of what they called Flax, which I knew wasn’t really American flax. I knew where this was gong. One guy gave Wrdnrd a stylized rose made of of it with a braid and a knot. The proceeded to show us how they are made. The inevitable asking for money came next so I gave them some change.
"Flax Rose"
We took the bus back to Wrdnrd’s and I crashed seeing as I had been up sice 5 and it was past midnight. I had a whole day of zine librarian to deal with the next day.
Alex Wrekk 
I love reading zines on the train, for some reason it really amuses me that the suits sneer as if I’m some sort of dangerous anarchist! I suppose it’s a bit sad that their preconceptions mean they’re missing out though! John Lydon once said punk went downhill when it was only punks going to shows, I guess with the world of zines we also have to make sure we don’t spent too much time preaching to the choir!
Damn, I forgot to summerise! Hell I can’t even spell the word!
i like reading zines on the train. I was sort of stoked that the random stranger picked on up and and started reading. good for him!