Little Books and Zines; July 15 2026

Nothing has made me angrier today than being in the city with air quality ranked ‘worst in the world’, while people insist on using AI to save themselves the burden of independent thought.

AI is destroying the climate. If you use generative AI, you are complicit. That’s the end of it. Even if you don’t care about the future, even if you don’t care about other people, surely you don’t want to be breathing pollution?

But I’m preaching to the choir, most likely. I don’t think anyone’s reading this blog from right to left.

I’m stuck in a coffee shop all day, every day this week. My kid’s in day camp an hour away from my home, so it’s just practical to set myself up somewhere than go home. I pretty much drop the moment I get back; I’m in so much pain by the end of it, and all I’ve done is sit and type. There’s the occasional getting-up-to-leg-stretch, but that doesn’t spare my back anything.

This has me thinking about my health, as you might imagine. Even choking on the air aside, I’m not doing everything I could/should be doing to take care of myself. I keep altering my diet, hoping that will have an impact, but if it is… Well, it’s nothing visible.

I need to develop an exercise routine.

It sucks. Exercise is, more often than not, physically painful. Even when I try to stick to the gentle stuff, it hurts. Last night I fell down a research rabbit hole, and concluded:

I’m trying to do too much, too fast.

I’ve got to start small. Start over. I have an exercise game for this purpose in particular (Nintendo RingFit, bless it. I actually do have fun with that one) and I keep putting off playing because I’d have to start from the beginning in order to get the most out of it. I’m privileged enough to have access to this game, this great resource, and I’m not using it.

My housemates also have a stationery bike, but the seat is incredibly uncomfortable… I actually bought a seat cover for it at one point, but it only helped a little. I have more equipment too – resistance bands, yoga blocks and a mat. I was using those last two for back pain-related physio, but I can branch out.

(That’s a subtle yoga pun.)

I played around with my bands this morning. If I can even get myself doing that consistently, just for 2-5 minutes every morning, I’m calling it a victory.

Anyway – last things! One: my novelette, As Thick as Water, comes out August 10th! Get ready for that – it’s coming in paperback only.

And, I’m also going to be on a panel on July 28th! I’ll be at the Trans Survivors: Zine Showcase, and I encourage you all to sign up to attend!

Hopefully I see you there!