what if we kissed on the pretty freight machine

tfw you innocently go to the art supply store, take in your surroundings, feel a lunging sense of anxiety and grief, and then realize you’ve stumbled across the Wendy and Lucy Walgreens

Endless thanks to @submorstua.bsky.social and @lukejsuth.bsky.social for letting a middle aged lady work out her nineties and aughties shit in print. Copies of @lilacperil.bsky.social are still available to order but will sell out quick — grab one while you still can.

Me: we should all aspire to make bad art Also Me: come on man trim your edges what are we even doing here?

Samantha Dorset, in 2004, on a political convention that saw one party invade NYC, wrap protestors in orange cyclone fencing, and dump them in ad hoc pens at the pier (including a toxic bus depot). Peak Bush years, when everything felt hopeless. Thinking about this for no reason. (from Silver Lines)

zines are little museums you can carry around

Me: nine months out of work it’s probably time to engage cheap food protocols Also Me: I should definitely spend $50 on this out of print punk anarchist zine

I remember rolling my eyes at the gay men fifteen or so years older than me who would wax rhapsodic about the days of quarter beers, and now here I am deep in nostalgia for being able to get anything at a bar for the change in your pocket.

reading tonight (if I get through the open mic lottery)

I’m going to have fifty year old lady feelings about this one, aren’t I? (Saw the book mentioned in a @thetransfemininereview.com thread, didnt realize we’d be the same age)

I and several other writers have books/services up for auction to fund raise for Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network and to help Alice Correia Barbosa, a trans woman kidnapped by ICE. Bidding closes in 9 hours! I would appreciate it if you donated/bid! auctria.events/migrantsolid...

A long shot, but are any of you in/near Jacksonville, FL with a library card? If so would you be willing to scan/photocopy something from their zine library for me? DM and/or other contacts (listed gliff.org)

happy three years hormones for me

Trying to hammer out a split custody agreement and unsure if a weekly or bi-weekly schedule would be best for splitting time between the demons of my past and the demons of the present.

Late on this -- but if you have a few bucks to spare and want to spill them to keep the horrors at bay my publishing friends over at Lilac Peril have a fundraiser and auction (zines, books, services) going to support Alice Barbosa and migrant mutual aid more generally in the DC area.

Fifty Eight days until Portland Zine Symposium (@pdxzines.bsky.social) — trying to get ahead of production. Taking applications for someone to stand behind me and whisper “noli vetera recomponere, memento mori” in my ear.

Cassandra lying recumbent in a bath, sucking on a throat lozenge, wondering what comes next

Can't make this tonight for various reasons but you should still tune in.

Something I occasionally think about is how I started hormones around the age my mom was when I broke contact with my family in the aughties, and now I get to see that woman every day.

There’s this thing that happens in Portland where folks move here and quickly roll their eyes at how soft we are because it’s easier to move in the world while trans. And on one hand — fair cop. On the other — don’t we all deserve the softness we need and want.

Kids at the bagel shop are OK

had a visitor today

dings the “tech trans is a young woman’s game” bell 🛎️

Day eleven post surgery, got a n evening walk in — winded but not terribly so. Also caught these beauties (word has it they might have abandoned Chapman this year)

TABOO is almost here 😈 celebrate with us on Sunday, September 7 at Lost City Books for an evening of readings from contributors and other literary perversions

Keep telling yourself that William

about eight lifetimes ago

Hungry, unlotioned, and a few hours away from finding out whether this procedure gets moved because of a stupid bug bite from a picnic this weekend.

there's worse fates than spending the rest of your days in rooms with young vibrant (unhinged (complimentary)) women

I have both entered and left Sea-Witch and I’m not quite the same, but I’m beginning to suspect I’ve always been entering and leaving Sea-Witch. (a remarkable piece of art and writing from @never.horse)

For the past few years whenever I crash at a friend’s house after a late night I have jokingly threatened to steal this mug. They (married) both gave it to me for my birthday in July and it legitimately choked me up a bit.

tfw you’re trying to explain ZZ Top to some younger friends and suddenly remember that time they made a force femme video

going to brave the bridge traffic and read at ghost town tonight in Vancouver, (WA). Art at the Cave, reading at 7:00, signups 6:30.

I miss the city that spent time on silly frivolous things like heritage trees.

It is easy to feel this way but I truly think, for trans writers at least, writing books now is urgent. Write good books about your friends, get them printed, get them widely distributed, get them in the world. There has never before been an opportunity like the one we currently possess to do this.

watching your post surgery appointment calendar quickly fill up

jesus christ -- I saw La Mala Educación (Bad Education) in theaters but apparently memory holed every part of it except the pool scene

I am publishing a photography journal and if you're smart you will submit to it

I've been filling in my Almodóvar gaps and revisiting his catalog generally for processing my past reasons -- Volver was the last one I remember seeing in real time until last year's The Room Next Door. Just watched The Skin I Live In with some younger friends and boy howdy is that ever a movie.

Word friends — are there any trans or trans adjacent lit-ish open mics in Oakland or the wider bay area?

Literary Arts Fellowship (lottery) application done -- now to spend some time fretting about whether this has all been one extended middle aged early transition therapy session or if I'm in it for the long haul.

Saturday (tomorrow!) is TRANSplants' August open mic featuring Corinne Manning. Come hang out and listen to some words! buttondown.com/asterolsen/a...

Apropos of Picnic Mag starting a Classified section, here is a THREAD of some of the classified adverts from GENDERTRASH FROM HELL (1993-5) starting with FRENCH MAN

early days of Bitch Magazine vibes (complementary)

hey Portland — we sure have seen some shit these past 20 years haven’t we?

This thing is enormous

I can't make it up this month but it looks like TRANSplants has another banger of a featured reader. Saturday, August 2nd, 5pm - 7pm at Charlie's Queer Books. Meet Puget Sound/PNW lit adjacent trans people and talk to them. transplantszine.org

With more decades than I'd like to admit of watching digital platforms -- fight like heck for your spot on the ones you use, but know they'll all eventually fall to the concerns of the capital that built them and keeps them running. A dumb URL and an exportable mailing list still go a long way.