January feels, simultaneously, like the beginning of the year… and a moment of reflection and contemplation before the year’s true start come spring… and part of an endless continuum that stretches on and on. I’m trying to cultivate the feeling that this image of rabbits that I found on tumblr gives me: a silk-soft, cozy warmth, a sleep ripe for dreaming. Hibernation. But, that being said, somehow my calendar has already filled up for January. Time stops for no mouse!
When I reset my altar at the start of the month, I drew a card from my favorite deck (the Slow Holler tarot) to represent my year: the 9 of Vessels, or Cups. Lets fucking go! 9, my lucky number, in a year of 9s (I’ll spend most of 2026 as a 36-year-old, a multiple of 9.) How lucky, how wonderful! The 9 of Cups is one of those cards that is just so darn good, like The Star or The Sun. A card for all your wishes coming true. The Slow Holler pictures it as teetering islands of teacups and mugs floating, hands-free. The more traditional Rider-Waite-Smith shows a real pleasant fellow looking pretty damn pleased with themselves sitting in front of the cups arched around them on a blue table. There is so much abundance, so much to feel grateful for, but that also means there are a whole lotta plates to keep spinning! I’m eager to see what joys are brought into my life in the coming months. I’ve been thinking about what it would mean for my wishes to come true, and accepting that many of them (all of them) require assiduity, activation, movement. How can I balance the exertion required to make good shit happen with the need for contemplation and hibernation? I feel like I’ve been navigating that topic for a few years now.
Maybe 2026 will be a year for truly discovering, navigating, and embracing balance.
Here is some of what I’ll be up to this month:
⋆｡°✩ Zine Club— Our monthly meet-up continues to thrive at Stray Cat Film Center. In December, we met in the theatre and Andrew played a rip from a Japanese VHS featuring clips of punk concerts and a how-to-draw Pokemon video made for kids. It made for a really lively, silly vibe to the space. During show-n-tell, we talked about witchy zines, shared our favorite movie witches, and I learned about a very cool, new-to-me, local-lit-newspaper project. This month, we’ll meet in the theatre again and the show-n-tell theme will be SPACE (the final frontier!)
⋆｡°✩ Alt Collective — the inaugural Alternative Collective KC market is happening later this month at Sk8bar and I’ll be there, tabling with my zines, stickers, stationary, hats, and jewels. The event will also feature a clothing swap and live music. I’m excited to be a part of it!
⋆｡°✩ A big ol’ shop update — A few days after Alt Collective, there’ll be a shop drop here on catmothcrow.com, featuring snail hats, and one-of-a-kind jewels (charmy necklaces and keychains), and copies of Mail Snails, the accordion zine that I made in the latest episode of Roll for Zine (which is streaming now on Youtube and the Internet Archive, in case you missed it!) I’m especially excited about the snail hats. I wore my sample hat all last summer, and it has become a staple in my wardrobe. Imposter syndrome kept me from putting them up for sale any sooner, but if 2026 is about making dreams come true, then part of that might be letting middle-school-era Dayna’s wish to become a fashion designer come to life through a (relatively low stakes) merch drop. Get your snail hat, and stylishly embrace snail energy!
⋆｡°✩ Snail Mail Society — I just got an email from the Postal Service that I both completely expected but still feel pretty annoyed about: P.O. Box prices are increasing yet again. However, unlike previous years, this time around I’m lucky enough to have supporters whose patronage of my art is helping cover the cost of keeping my Box open. Thank you, thank you, thank you to every member of my Snail Mail Society. Words cannot even begin to describe how grateful I am for your support! 💗 As a tiny token of my appreciation, and as a way of celebrating the launch of the aforementioned snail hats, I’m going to be drawing one SMS member’s name on Monday, January 19th and mailing them a snail hat for free. And all my other patrons will be getting a promo code for 20% off the hats!
If you’re not currently a part of my Snail Mail Society, now — before 1/19 — is really a great time to join! If you’ve supported other artists or zinesters on Patreon or Ko-Fi, it’s pretty similar (choose a tier, pay monthly or annually, get cool perks) but everything is hosted here at catmothcrow, instead of being on a different network.
All SMS members get a monthly print newsletter — the catmothcrow chronicle. Over the past seven months, newsletter topics have included: musings on snail energy, a jogging playlist, the history of getting “gold stars” for achievements, my thoughts on Pride celebrations, a Summer bingo card to fight off summertime SADness, musings about the state of the world and holding space for both chaos and calm, a vacation diary about a trip to Boston, musings about busy-ness and projects (a perpetual topic for me, it seems!), dispatches from KC Zine Con #10, spooky season plans, a cookie recipe, my favorite media from 2025, and an ode to the Kill Bill films. In addition to the newsletter, higher tiers also get perks like a monthly playlist, behind-the-scenes blogs, and an exclusive monthly mini (which, this year, will be dedicated to a film review project! Snails, I’ll tell y’all more about this when I post January’s chronicle preview on the 15th.) This year, I’m also going to be scanning and uploading some of my older, out-of-print zines as a perk for the Star tier.
Starting the SMS was the best decision I made for my art practice last year, and I’m excited to see it grow in 2026. You’re invited: come along for the ride! 🐌 Only time will tell if I manage to juggle all the plates (… cups … projects) that this year has in store for me, but at the end of the day, the Snail Mail Society makes it all the more possible.
