✷ greetings ✷

wow, it's november somehow! i hope daylight savings isn't kicking your ass too hard. this morning i woke up early as hell and just went with it. i had breakfast, made myself a cup of decaf coffee and took it for a little walk around the block. this is the second time i've done that this week, and it's so healing actually?? if you've been following my new venture into antidepressants, i can definitely feel them making a difference now. pretty cool. they're certainly not a cure-all, but they're a little leg up that makes it easier to reach for helpful behaviors vs behaviors that will dig me deeper into the hole.

tl;dr i'm doing weirdly okay, meanwhile the world is a constant horrorshow which feels wrong not to comment on! free palestine! 

✷ upcoming events ✷

this friday, november 10th: join me at voyeur for a punk gig! new junk city & lightweight are touring through, with stink animal and the bad smells + rat cage providing local support. it's 10 bucks, doors at 6:30/music at 7. no punk time! josh booked this gig and i'll be running door. free masks, earplugs & second home zines will be available.

that's it! i'm hoping to book a masks required gig in december or january, but i'm done tabling events for the rest of 2023!

✷ zine news/shop news ✷

if you were hoping to snag a physical copy of the family recipes zine, you're in luck! i had some leftovers from PZS, there's now 6 copies in my shop. get 'em while ya can!

speaking of leftovers, i also added some pressed flower pins and hand-bound mini notebooks!

short kings: a zine about dachshunds is now up on patreon, and zines are en route to $5+ patrons in the mail. that zine is now available in my shop as well!

i added some new pride flag skull pins to choose from (demisexual, graysexual, fraysexual and omnisexual specifically). i'm always open to flag pin requests if you got 'em!

many thanks to em vandame for translating how to support your nonbinary family member into french!!! they even compiled an additional page of french resources! there's a pdf in my shop for that now, and perhaps little known fact- you can get all the various language pdfs for free on my website on the nonbinary zine page, which can be found in the nav menu under "more." there's someone who has requested to translate the zine into italian too! so i'll keep y'all posted on that. and just fyi, i pay translators (i can't give much cuz zine life doesn't pay much, but it seems only fair) and i love that people wanna translate it! it's so cool to see this thing i made take on a life of it's own.

i'm running a sale right now, 10% off with the code EARLYB1RD at checkout. if you'd like to give the gift of craft or diy this season, i have gift cards available for as little as $6.66 in my shop.

i feel pretty prepared for the holiday chaos this year!! wholesales will be on PAUSE from november 25th thru january 1st, since wholesales definitely stretched me way too thin last year.
 

image description: a hand holding up a mini zine printed on tan paper, there's a drawing of a dachshund wearing sunglasses on a skateboard on the cover with hand lettered text that reads, "short kings, a zine about dachshunds."

✷ some songs ✷

no blog entry for music this month! i've mostly been listening to you are good: a feelings podcast about movies and rewatching the haunting of hill house (cuz spooky! i also watched practical magic, a tradition).

i will say that tyler burkhart put out a new album that i've been enjoying, and also hugh and i went to a halloween cover gig at the crypt and had the pleasure of seeing elliott smith as performed by annie schultz & friends. if you're an elliott smith fan, it's worth checking out this video of the set. they did the man justice, plainclothes man and waltz #2 (xo) blew me away.

as a result of seeing that gig, i've been listening to annie schultz's EP, it bends until i breaks, which is unfortunately only available on spotify, but it's very good. i've also been hitting the elliott smith pretty hard, as is customary for me this time of year. do you have a favorite elliott smith song/era/album?

✷ report back from all the things ✷

oly punk rock flea market massively exceeded my expectations! we're trying to sneak in another event at the armory in the spring, before they begin renovations and close for most of 2024. besides a little chaos at the beginning and end, it couldn't have gone better! the turnout was fantastic, apparently about 200 people rolled through, according to the armory staff person. vendors gave us glowing feedback and we didn't have hardly any issues getting everyone who attended to mask up. SO MANY people thanked us for making masks mandatory. i really felt the love, and it was great to have such a big, open space where it was easy to prioritize accessibility. i'm eternally grateful to my bff and organizing soulmate, naomi, for organizing this thing with me! i'm also so thankful for kyle, sarah and kc for helping move the armory's heavy tables with naomi so i wouldn't hurt myself. special shoutout to sarah's 100ft tape measure for making setup a dream!

portland zine symposium was great! it occurred to me that oly zine fest is the only zine fest i've tabled up until now. i got to share a table with mara gervais (check out their awesome work!!) <3 like 90% of people were masked, which ruled. it was around halloween and it was so fun to see people in costumes. i made out okay financially, and traded for a lot of really rad zines. i'm glad i tabled! i'm thinkin' next year i'm gonna try to do short run (if they'll have me), PZS and OZF.

✷ fucking hooray ✷

✷ gender is weird and clothes are Difficult but i got some new ones recently (clothes, not genders) and i've been feeling much better about my mortal form as a result
✷ i'm so stoked that how to support your nonbinary family member is available in 3 languages, hopefully soon to be four!
✷ sept/oct are big bad bill months for me but i somehow already recouped those expenses which is a relief!
✷ the antidepressants are helping with my workaholic tendencies, i feel like i've been balancing work and rest really well recently
✷ it's neat and new to feel okay in the month of november !

til next time! thanks for reading!

love,
alyssa

~ past perzine newsletters ~