✹ greetings! ✹

hello from -checks calendar- uh, oops! early mid august! what the actual fuck is time? i hope everyone is hanging in there. if you haven’t thought about palestine today, consider sharing or donating to this gofundme! i have a friend coordinating with this family to help raise funds.

✹ name change ✹

i’ve spent the last month-ish trying out the name elliott and i’ve decided i wanna keep it. yes, i chose it because of elliott smith lol. but i am gonna go ahead and say my friend of 15 years, petra, christened me elliott when she offered it as a suggestion that she intuitively knew i’d be considering. i still have the elliott smith hoodie she gave me when i visited her in 2011, when we both lived on the other side of the country. our mutual love of elliott smith’s music has always been a big presence in our friendship. this is all to say, it feels GOOD and RIGHT. i’ve been considering a name change for a couple years now and tbh the terrifying amount of places my name exists on the internet, combined with the fact that i have a back catalog of 50+ zines with the name ‘alyssa’ on them, made me almost not wanna do it. but fuck it, let’s fuckin’ goooo lol. i don’t consider alyssa a dead name, i just feel like i’m outgrowing it. crossing my fingers this lil switch doesn’t lead to too much confusion. maybe i’ll make a mini zine about it.

✹ oly punk rock flea market ✹

next market is sunday, september 8th! naomi and i closed applications earlier than intended because we have like 20 spaces available and 50 applicants lol. pretty good problem to have. we’ll be selecting vendors soon. i have literally made no inventory to prepare yet lmao. you can sign up for the mailing list on the site if you wanna be in the loop about this.

flyer featuring a barbed wire border & drawing of a moth. text reads, “oly punk rock flea market. september 8th, 12-4pm. cheap! weird! art! clothes! ceramics! at friendship hall (220 union ave SE). masks (KN95 or N95) required + provided, ADA accessible, air purification by clean air oly.”

✹ shop ✹

sticker featuring white on black line art instructional drawings of a person putting on a respirator mask. text in center of sticker reads, “we keep us safe.”

i have a new sticker in the shop! most of the drawing i’ve been doing lately has been for flyers, but this idea popped into my head and i’m glad i drew it. i’ve always loved instructional illustrations? i dunno why.

✹ art show ✹

a pile of gig photos.

lantern records asked me if i’d like to showcase some gig photos, since their august artist had to drop. i agreed and scrambled to get some stuff together! this might be my first solo show ever in olympia? i’m excited! it feels weird to sell concert photos because they exclusively feature people, and i’ve never done it for this reason. i’ve settled on making all the photos pay-what-you-want and i’m gonna recoup the toner and donate the rest to crips for esims for gaza. the oldest photo i’ll be showing is from 2010, the newest are from this year.

vaguely related, but shoutout to lantern records for being open so diners can play an olympia tour date this month on the 31st! :)

flyer with a photo of people crowd surfing. text reads, “live music at lantern records! dirty laundry & kaleb baize. bonus art opening! gig photos by elliott giannini.”

✹ clean air oly ✹

i added a new portable purifier to the library recently, so people can reserve it for doctor’s appointments and the like! i’ve seen criticism from folks who are too disabled to attend events about clean air orgs, so this is me trying to be a part of the solution.

it’s been a pretty rough week for covid conscious folks, with the mask ban passing in nassau county. some people who spoke out against the ban were arrested from the court room immediately after it passed. it is of course intentionally vaguely worded, and it gives police the power to decide whether or not someone is wearing a mask for medical reasons or for CRIME. masked folks can face a $1,000 fine and jail time just for minding their own fucking business. you can read the exact wording here.

if you’re not into fascism, please keep these bans on your radar. if you care about stopping cop cities, you should care about this wild overreach. if you’re anti-zionist, guess what? this ban rose directly out of pro-palestinian protest, in an attempt to quell them. these bans effectively criminalize being disabled in public. pls care! whew! anyway!

✹✹✹

vacation was nice. getting to hang out with fellow DIY lifers was a definite highlight for me!! corvallis is cute and pretty olympia-adjacent. i also saw about a million starfish on the coast and i got to sit on the beach in the sun (even tho walking in sand makes me sooo tiredddd).

i’ve been taking it easy and spending a lot of time in the garden. so far my only noticeable HRT side effect is being really irritable, so i’ve been doing a fair amount of rage gardening. cannot recommend it highly enough.

✹ some songs ✹

i listened to the new why? album on repeat for a week, lots of earworms on there. here are some songs for you.

✹ tiny victories ✹

• i recently attended a masked karaoke night my friend organized and it fucking ruled. when i figure out how to not run out of breath while belting bangers from high school, it’s over for you bitches.

• naomi and i repaired my fence this month so hopefully the deer will stop eating my tomato plants. wtf, deer?

• i’ve been drawing a lot just for fun recently

• i scheduled a tattoo for next month (that i’m considering gender affirming care)- gonna get a foxglove on my tummy/sternum in lieu of top surgery. it’ll be the first tattoo i’ve paid real money for in years lol

• i finally ate a homemade waffle after wanting one since like 2019???

• new standing skating date with friends! i <3 rollerblading!

• bees and wasps in my garden doing this:

a great golden digger wasp peering out from inside the petals of a hot pink dahlia flower in my garden.

signing off! thank you for reading!!