greetings

i hope you’re all hanging in there. i’m reporting from the last day of my break, and thankfully i got some real rest this month. i had a lot of people check on me and bring me treats, which was extremely heartwarming. i did some work in my garden, spent basically all my time at home, and tried to stay away from my phone. it served me well. i forget that when my brain has idle time, i feel infinitely more creative. and when i’m not preoccupied with my phone, i feel so much more present in my body (which is kind of a mixed bag with chronic pain lol. prolly a net positive tho!).

new in the shop

i recently added lots of new stickers to the shop :) i also made a new zine this month to spread the gospel of freakscene.diy! those zines are in my shop as well as available to read/print for free at dodiy.org/free. freak zines are currently on their way to patrons! i just dropped ‘em in the mail today.

upcoming events

i’ll be tabling olympia zine fest (may 31st) & seattle zine fest (july 20th) this year! both events are masks required :)

do diy dot org

i finally sent out a nudge to all the usa listings on the site using my new newsletter service (beehiiv) and made all the edits requested so far. 50-something outta 233 ain’t bad. as a result, dodiy.org is more up to date than it’s been in years! and that feels really good. now is a great time to use it to book a tour :)

volunteer opportunities

my time off highlighted the fact that my schedule is hella unsustainable, so i’m working on making some changes! i’ll be taking a big step back from mask bloc (did i mention i made them a cute lil website?)

i’m looking for folks who wanna help with clean air oly, specifically folks who can store purifiers and coordinate pick ups and drop offs (my hope is to rotate that job on a monthly basis so i can get a break here and there).

are you interested in olympia zine fest and wanna have a lil job to do there?? i’m looking for at least 8 people to do shifts handing out masks. it’s may 31st, 11am-4pm. i have a couple folks tentatively, but if you’re totally certain you’re down to sit at a table with masks for an hour or two, please PLEASE hit me up! i’m really stressing about this one (i need folks for the friday library kickoff and decay after party too, but the tabling expo is the big one).

if for some reason you’re a masochist that enjoys sending emails, i could use help doing outreach for do diy.

some photos

a new portion of the newsletter, perhaps! being on IG hurts my brain, but i need to share photos~

some songs

i had too many songs so i made a playlist!!!

my listening habits of late have been: discover album i enjoy, play it into the ground for a week, rinse and repeat. here’s some standout tracks i did this to in april:

dog is goob by 100 watt horse is such a great album. this was on repeat for a week before mj lenderman bumped it out of rotation. and fool’s errand by sunflecks came before that!

bud tapes released a couple singles this month that deserve some attention. i’m excited there’s a new project from nathan tucker & tim howe (first rodeo), i also really enjoyed moon song by floating clouds. i’ve been going through community records and disposable america’s catalogs respectively recently. i also saw shermy play this month (pictured in some photos) and thoroughly it! see also: aforementioned playlist.

discovered this band via a playlist that tuck from gender reveal made. thanks tuck!

tiny victories

• finally cancelled my spotify subscription (switched to tidal, also working on getting a server going so i can use plex to listen to all the music i physically own on my computer! insert old man yells at cloud meme.)

• did the impossible task i’ve been stalled out on for almost a year (closing second home’s bank account, rip).

• i have two sketches left to do for the greeting card line i got hired for, still combatting that anxiety/imposter syndrome!!

• did a lot of really useful reflection about Why I’m Like This in my free time, very stoked about my new therapist and their approach to my workaholic tendencies. maybe i’m not destined to periodically burn out into infinity??

• i’ve been staying on top of the secret garden (unused alley easement behind our lot) and by that i mean doing battle with invasive blackberries and preparing to sheet mulch.

• scooped up some more native plants to add to our yard via native plant salvage (v cool oly nonprofit)

• truly too many victories to list this month, it’s been amazing to feel less bogged down with responsibilities of my own making and i’m trying to remember that feeling. gonna try to keep it in mind when i find myself jumping to agree to responsibilities out of a desire to be useful. i don’t always have to be the guy!

i hope spring is treating everyone well, and you’re doing the best you can despite The Horrors. extend some grace today. shit’s fucked but we have each other <3