Welcome to Sometimes Y

Let's start this thing together.

Hello! Welcome to Sometimes Y. Thank you so much for being here and reading. Starting this newsletter has been a long time coming, a sapling that has been brewing under the soil’s surface for the majority of my adolescent and young adult years. 

I’m Alyson. I’m 26 years old and have lived in New York City for the past three years. I’m from the Chicago suburbs and will defend deep dish pizza and the Cubs always. I went to school in Michigan and thus am highly Midwestern; my friends from Mississippi say that I do have an accent. It may only come out when I say Malört. So I love Culvers, I love a snow day, and I love a giant lake. I moved to New York City for my master’s degree in public health, of which I am so glad I did because I wasn’t ready to be an adult after undergrad. But now I find it more difficult to play the “let me just apply to grad school” card when I am feeling existential dread, because I decided to play that card almost immediately upon my entrance into the big bad world.

By day, I work as a healthcare consultant and by every other hour of my life I am dreaming of moving abroad and opening a bed and breakfast, all whilst watching loads of movies and amassing a library of books of which I’ve read about one-eighth. I’m passionate about cinema, history, travel, new ~stuff~ in the city, transportation, bakeries, love, baking, reading, and learning. I love trying new things but also delight in the simple, routine pleasures of daily life. If I had to describe myself with one word, it would be curious. I love learning about new things from people, I love making new friends, and I also love just hanging out by myself. 

I largely consider myself a creative person, but sometimes I don’t think that I make enough stuff to call myself that. I do think about art and media and culture all the time and try to construct a life full of beautiful things, and I believe that act in itself is quite creative. I was a Tumblr girl growing up (still am), and I once saw a post about being a quaintrelle that really resonated with me. I’ve long been a blogger in the sense that I had a photography Instagram starting in 2012 that morphed into a somewhat arty finsta (yeah sure). I’ve read travel blogs since I was ten and have recently become obsessed with the YouTube vlog format of storytelling.

Sometimes Y will consist of a weekly personal essay about something on my mind; whether it’s a list of every movie I watched in bed on my laptop in 2016 that shaped who I am today (somehow Girl, Interrupted) or a cultural commentary on why Sephora is a candy shop and no one is a makeup expert, I promise to give you something to read. At the end of every newsletter will be the media corner, where I will share book, movie, restaurant, music, article, recipe, etc. recommendations. Take these however you’d like; I myself read dozens of weekly newsletters and get a lot of inspiration from them. But even as someone who loves to consume media, I recognize that my attention is a currency. As is yours. Spend it wisely!

baby Al. legend has it that my eyes are still this big.

What is Sometimes Y? In kindergarten, we all learned about the vowels. It feels very autumnal, very “bright red apple on the desk” to learn the vowels. “AEIOU. And sometimes y.” That was how the little jingle went that aimed to drill this simple knowledge into our brains. We were instructed to write out our names and to find the vowels, tracing them in a different color. When my dad suggested I’d be better suited to have a “Y” in my name on that extremely early November morning, he could not have known the impact that it would have on my ability to find a keychain with my name on it. Or that six years later I would be puzzling over my name in kindergarten next to those with no Y’s. Plenty of names have Y’s in them, but it’s the idea that my Y lives where there normally is no Y. It asks anyone who encounters me to challenge their preconceived notions, to correct themselves, to consider that there is an alternate way of being. And damn, if that isn’t a beautiful way to exist in the world, I don’t know what is. Thanks Dad & Mom. And welcome to Sometimes Y, what was once an idea for a future band name is now here for the world in a new format, one that I hope brings you some joy and sparks some curiosity.

Thanks for being here.

The first official Sometimes Y is hitting inboxes this Wednesday. Until then, check out some of my other writing for Blasé Raire on a summer day in my life or men’s fashion as performance.