Halfway to heaven

Hello! Welcome to June! Let’s talk about sustainable fashion! 

As we transition into our Summer Wardrobes now is a great time to take an evaluation of all of the clothes that you have. Do you wear all of them? Are there things you didn’t even know were in the drawer? Clean them out! Find a place in your wardrobe where you can style things using the existing items in your closet and dressers or gtfo. A sustainable wardrobe doesn’t necessarily mean no shopping, it just means that you shop more thoughtfully to see how you can maximize the outfits a single piece can be incorporated into. I really love Lakyn the Ethical Stylist, she runs a personal styling company that helps people develop their personal style inside of capsule wardrobes. Ultimately though the goal of sustainable fashion is to beat the rapidly building impact of climate change. The fashion industry contributes to 10% of carbon emissions because of fast fashion demands. Creating sustainable wardrobes keeps another emission out of the industry.   

Per the usual we've included things coming in the upcoming month, and a look at what's happening on our Patreon (which you can join for ~as little as a dollar~) & Discord which is open to all!

Feelings are valid or whatever:

STELLA:

The biggest news in my life? My baby got his mmr vaccine, his flu shot and his Covid-19 shot! What does this mean? It means I’ll finally feel comfortable taking him out in public…probably. Postpartum anxiety is a bitch. But yay modern medicine! 

You may remember that I, Stella Cheeks, a known Star Wars hater (hater seems harsh. More like “meher”) have decided to watch all of Star Wars in chronological order. Well I finally finished clone wars and I loved it 😭if you want all and I do mean ALL my thoughts check out my thread on Bluesky. But my biggest takeaway? The force is fucking dumb, Jedis and Siths are BOTH bad and the clones deserved BETTER! 

This month's notable books from my actual damn shelf are The Bookshop and the Barbarian: A Cozy Fantasy Novel  by Morgan Stang, Grand Slam Romance Volume 2 by Ollie Hicks & Emma Oosterhous, Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby and Star Trek Lost to Eternity by Greg Cox. One review said Booksshop and Barbarian read like Agnes Nutter wrote it and I affectionately agree. Highly rec the audiobook. Grand Slam Romance is about magical girl lesbian softball players. Need I say more? Shit Cassandra Saw is an absurdist feminist short story collection. I’m usually hit or miss on short stories but these all slap. And finally if you love true crime podcasts and the one with the whales Lost to Eternity is a great Trek book for when you are consuming too much Star Wars. 

We’re trying to be screen free (unless we’re in a four hour car ride and twenty mins from home and FREAKING OUT. Then it’s Elmo to the rescue) so we’ve pivoted to listening to a lot of music. We started with just playlists on our phones but we’ve had this record player forever and it’s basically just been an art piece. Well no longer! We listen to records everyday and it’s been so fun. We have some vintage ones from my grandpa like an old school Sesame Street album and the Bonnie & Clyde soundtrack (lol) but we’ve started to add to our collection with titles from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Olivia Rodrigo. Basically we’re new to vinyl so I want your must have record recommendations! 

Speaking of music, Mel C of Spice Girl fame has a new album that’s like 90s house dance music and it’s so fun! 

The Good Omens finale wasn’t perfect but it got me in the feels. Grateful to the creatives who fought to give us a final goodbye despite that shitbag almost ruining it. This article sums up my feelings pretty well.  

It’s funny that Erin wrote about fashion up top because I’ve been resetting my closet post pregnancy. I have a lot of clothes (mostly graphic tees lmao) but I don’t have a lot of outfits. My favorite new thing to do is scroll on Thredup. You get the brain buzz of shopping but it’s all used fashion and super cheap. Plus they make selling your own clothes super easy!! Highly recommend. 

ERIN:

Exciting development - I’m at the tail-end of a manic episode, which, thank fuck, was so much better and under control vs even last year that it’s almost hard to process. I cannot recommend enough getting some synthetic brain chemicals. As they say, if you can’t get them organically, you can get them store bought. Last year I fixated on bags and shoes and literally couldn’t control myself from hitting the buy button, but this year I’m experiencing a fixation on reading and the library. Like, what a great shift! This time I can’t stop hitting the hold request button. I currently have 17 books in my hold request queue (about half of them are graphic novels, and a few are still on order, so is it REALLY too many? I suggest no). LIBRARIES! They rule!!

ALSO LIBRARY RELATED: I took my kid to get his very first library card, and he immediately checked out ten books. Like mother (and aunts), like son. He spent the morning today pulling them one by one out of the bag and reading them out loud to himself. Still can’t believe this whole person was in my abdomen. Like truly, what the fuck.

Another thing about this past month is I was really good at failing. A terrible truth about me is that with most games I was/am deeply and obsessively competitive BUT also I am very bad at games in general- an unfortunate combination. One thing I have tried to do over the last year or so is learn to be better at losing so that I can play games with my kid and not be an asshole. I’ve been successful about 85% which is great! This month I played a lot of games with a bunch of different people and felt great when I walked away having failed a bunch of times. There’s a great Bluey episode about learning to lose (it’s only 8 minutes, you should watch it) and I feel like I also really internalized it while my kid watched it 800 times lol. Also I just recommend Bluey generally as a show you should watch even if you don’t have kids. It’s incredible Australian government propaganda.

Reading wise I cannot recommend highly enough Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. It’s extremely buzzy right now and the library hold queue was (not kidding) 1885 people deep, so I just bought it and man was that the right decision. I flew through this book and want to talk to other people about it! Many thanks to Lavender Vyxn for recommending it to me.

TRAIN RIDE. I TOOK A LONG ASS TRAIN RIDE. 26 hours scheduled. But, jk, it’s Amtrak so I actually spent 33 hours on the train once you count all the delays. I know 26 to 33 doesn’t seem that long, but I welcome you to really feel what “an additional 7 hours” is like. Especially when you are already a full day into travel and you’re in coach. I don’t think I’ll ever take this particular ride again, but if I ever need to travel longer distances again I will 1000% be taking a sleeper car.

And finally - I saw OBSESSION and really enjoyed it! The kill count was well below what I was expecting tbh but fuck did they make them count. Also holy shit Inde Navarrette absolutely killed it (lol). Deeply creepy and legitimately made me jump out of my seat, she’s perfect in this role.

PRODUCER BOBBY:

Please laugh: I finally started the next step of a (seemingly) doomed project, which was making interstitial/transition music to use during TTRPG games... and then got absolutely pummeled by my first ever two week flare-up of carpal tunnel in my left hand! It turns out, being in constant mid-level pain for an extended period of time has a way of making someone depressed AND agitated! And I loathe being that version of myself. Ohmydog doctors do help though. That and living in compression braces. 

:: Hey this next part is sad and involves death so don’t read it and skip down to the recommendations section if that’s not good with you right now.:: One of the unforeseen consequences (because I’m an idiot) of growing old is losing people who meant a lot to you a long time ago (and in a way still do). I think this month was my first one of these, and it was my highschool girlfriend. I’m not going to fully eulogize her here or give the details past saying that she lived a hard life and it’s fucking sad. Grief is... a football filled with live gerbils. You know you’re supposed to try and receive it when it approaches but it’s impossible to know how to hold onto it or what to do with it next. But we do. I do.   

R E C S

I realized I had hoarded all of these audiobooks but listening to them on Audible was making me queasy. Is that you as well? Then I recommend Libation, a single developer application that signs into your Audible account and rips your audiobooks (and companion PDFs!) into cross-platform usable files! The program walks you through the whole process, so the technical barrier for use is low. I had issues transferring to .mp3 so I suggest using the default .m4a file format. What do you do after you have all those files? Well...

If you are me, you self-host your own audiobook server using Audiobookshelf. This one takes a bit of know-how and tinkering, but I can now access all of my emancipated audiobooks from any android device anywhere I have service. So I’m re-listening to all my Hitchhikers guide books first (read by Stephen Fry and Martin Freeman), and then moving onto the entire Night’s Watch track of Discworld novels. (Want these? Just ask... ON OUR DISCORD SERVER.)

Videogames: I got bit by the curse of early access games this month, where you play an unfinished game and LOVE it but then struggle to convince yourself to keep playing or wait until it’s fully baked. First, it was Alabaster Dawn which is currently in early access on Steam. Hades slash Final Fantasy leveling slash 2d overhead Legend of Zelda with an interesting story and deep, engaging systems. I smoked through 8 hours and then stopped, wondering if I should keep going or not. Then, in this month’s Game Informer (holyshit didyouknow Game Informer is mailing our real magazines again Ifuckingloveit) I received a pre-alpha access code for Soulframe, the next MMO from Digital Extremes of Warframe fame. Still reeling from the news about Destiny 2 (notreadytotalkaboutityet), I jumped in and what is there so far is GOOD. If you are interested, I have a couple codes for it. Just ask... ON OUR DISCORD SERVER.  

Music: Short and sweet because goddamn did I write this month.

Spiritbox  (genre: Melodic metalcore) continue to make music that makes me wish I still owned a car so that I could drive around at night with the windows open blasting it. Tsunami Sea may be the most “this” album they’ve made yet. 

The new Panopticon (genre: extreme/black metal), Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet, is like if the raging, mourning, so disappointed in us Lorax raised the Ents to rightfully fucking slay us all and brought a full string section with them. 

Jumping moods, the new Black Milk (genre: hip-hop) CEREMONIAL digs its heels into a relaxed, contemplative vibe so hard that after three listens I had to seek out the vinyl. It’s no skips like that which is really rare for modern hip-hop albums for me. 

Oksorrythankyou

This month’s Links 4 U:

• A win! Kickstarter apologized and un-adjusted their rules on adult content.

•  Well done article about redoing your wardrobe

• Additional great article on building a smartly shopped wardrobe specifically for men from Derek Guy - who you should absolutely be following, he is smart and accessible about how he builds men's pieces together and helps you build your visual style. Even as a woman shaped person I find the advice super helpful.

• Support Dark Horse workers as they unionize

• Good news! People fired for accurately quoting Charlie Kirk are getting their bags.

• Kat Abughazaleh talks with Marisa Kabas from The Handbasket  about the Broadview Six case being dropped and what moving forward means for her community organization

• If you're in Chicago check out the Festival of Unfinished Works at Bramble Theatre. I've been to one of the past festivals and it was a fun experiment with some real gems

Things coming this month:

• Not Your Demo is still stuck in purgatory but we haven’t forgotten about it or the Demmies.

• Instagram: @nydproductions you can get show announcements, hilarious clips, a truly unhinged array of reposts, and general revelry. (Upscroll? Erin is squatting her name)

• Ahoy! Tumblr!

• Bluesky @nydproductions- how exactly do people want to interact with this platform?

Exclusive to our Patreon (it's only a dollar!) and open for all Discord!

• Join the book club in June! We’re all reading a graphic novel of our choosing and bringing it to the meeting book report style. Discord has all the (virtual, do not worry) meetup information!

• Xtras on the Patreon include:

  • All of the Erin’s Not Your Demo After Darks are available 

  • Unofficial Channels archive is there 4 u

  • Outtakes from X-treks

  • First looks at upcoming projects

And in the Discord, let’s hang out! We’ve got lots of cool little internet rooms.

• Memes are the currency of love 

• Literally always ready to talk about gaming  

• Erin has been on hiatus (see: manic episode) with liveposting fanfic in Stella’s Link Lounge, but she’s back in June baybeeee! She’s also documenting it on our Instagram highlights. It’s been long enough - she needs weird recommendations! The time has come.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s our parasocial relationships!! Run!