Tomorrow, it's back on the road home, and I have 16 hours ahead of me to get my head out of vacation mode and back into real life .  There has been much more in the past two days, more thrifting, more casino expeditions and beach going. More decadent southern desserts, the heady scent of honeysuckle bushes, and luxurious Mississippi warmth.

I have off til Weds, but later this week  it's back to the grind with new books to get underway, new printers to be delivered, supplies to be ordered and a score of other things. Until then...

39

 

 

 

So it wound up being boston crème pie and chinese food instead of cheesecake and shrimp, but it was still a good day, filled with birthday dresses, a little thrifting, a huge full moon out over the beach, and a fortune that read:

 

 Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind.

 

 

Here is hoping this year is less about the calamity and much more about the bravery..

 

 



3/365

After spending the entire day on the road, we arrived in Gulfport late last night, and then settled into our hotel a couple towns over in Bay St  Louis.  Even with some storminess and some rain, the weather was far kinder and milder than the Midwest, so I can't exactly complain . The coast is dotted with lovely buttermint colored stilted houses and shrimp boats and endless expanses of empty sand.  Also, so many ghostly steps and driveways and foundations from Katrina.  It feels like a haunted place, maybe not by people, but by it's own architecture...the overgrown empty lots of bent trees nestled next to houses that are stronger, higher, bigger than their past incarnations.

We'll be at the hotel til tomorrow when its back to my aunt's in Gulfport and then maybe some poolside lounging, some birthday cheesecake, maybe some seafood for dinner.

the 365 project

1/365 

 

 

I've been thinking for awhile I need to take more pictures (and a road trip I suppose is a rather excellent place to start.)  I might not post them all, but I will do my best to at least keep up with them here and on facebook..so stay tuned... 

While this morning there was snow on the cars and ice on the sidewalk puddles, I am just about to blow this pop stand for far warmer climes, and when I return to the city on May 1st, I expect Chicago to have gotten its act together already.  I am packing up my sunscreen and flip flops and sundresses and vacating to the sunny shores (well hopefully) of Gulfport for the next week.   But before I head out tomorrow, there will be much hurried book making tonight, so while I'm stuck at the library, I am trying to iron out all the things I want to have ready to go when I get back.  I have four new titles set to go, one of which I released today, the others to follow next week, and all to go into production the following week.   I also have a couple updates for wicked alice I would like to get up in the next couple of days before I'm officially on vacation.

I am also dimly aware in the margins that Thursday is my birthday and yes, the 39th, and it puts me another year closer to 40 and all that scariness.  But if 40 is the new 30 and 30 is the new 20, I should be okay. I'd hoped by this age, I would feel like a grown-up, but sometimes I'm beginning to wonder if there really is no such thing. 

blurgh..

This is turning out to be one of those weeks I really just want to crawl into a cave and get away from the world, while at the same time, I'm badly in need of busyness and routines to keep my head away from sad things.  And even outside of my kitty drama, there seems to just be so many sad things, on a national level and a micro level. It's hard to concentrate on beautiful things, on making beautiful things,  when there is such ugliness everywhere.  I try to snap myself out of it by skimming listlessly through poetry books and novels but nothing holds my attention.  I'm also in a weird period right before heading out of town, so there doesn't seem much point in starting in on something new in terms of projects, art, craft, or otherwise...

I do have a number of dgp books almost nearing completion and in layout state  (titles by Colleen Abel, Brandi Homan, Emilie Lindemann, and Christine Herzer), so those will be releasing soon, possibly before the end of the month if I get them ready to print.  And my book from Noctuary, the shared properties of water and stars, will be coming very soon.  So there are good things among the bad things, it's just hard to keep sight of them out in the waves.  And, thank god, Mississippi, less than a week away with its beaches and sun and wide expanses of gulf. I don't think I've ever needed a vacation more than I do right now. 
 

 

It's been a rather awful week, the sort I wish I could erase from my life like pressing a delete button,  a week that started with various technological malfunctions, poor weather, the dregs of a cold and ended with a sick and dying kitty.

 My oldest,  Sophie, who was 15, suffered a stroke and died yesterday, and though she's the second pet I've lost on my own (there were others as a child, but they were family animals and seemed less jarring personally) it's still weird in this vacuum.  She's pretty much the only kitteh that's been with me since I moved into this apartment, and unlike my old cat Chelsea, who died in 2004 after various health issues, Sophie was in prime, plucky, condition one day and going steadily downhill the next.  I can't say that animals have some sort of esp on these things, but she'd been especially affectionate and needy the past week, constantly on my desk next to the laptop  and on the pillow next to my head, even moreso than usual, which was a lot.

But it's inevitable I suppose, losing things, and of course, I don't handle it well.  My parents, thank god, came in to get her to bury her in the family plot of dead pets , the side garden that houses various childhood cats, a cockatiel, some finches, one dog, a few hamsters, and at least one large goldfish. While I can't say she was a favorite among the other cats and that they'd miss her (she was usually pretty cranky and slap happy with Giles and the gingers), they've all been behaving oddly, Zoe following me meowing from room to room and Max sort of skittish which he usually isn't at all.

I've been struggling to keep my mind busy with other things, playing with the others, watching bad tv shows, ordering a new swimsuit for my trip, and in general wrapping things up before I head out of town next Sunday.  I hope to get my new printer installed, my work computer back online, and my taxes filed tomorrow.  Onward, I guess, is the only direction to go...

It's still far too chilly, but I did brave a trip to the market today with only a heavy cardigan on, and even had one of the living room windows wide open for awhile till I was too cold.  There are, I noticed some tiny shoots coming up in the tulip beds along Michigan Ave.  So I suppose spring is still inevitable, even if it sometimes feels like an impossibility.  My weekend has been full of amazing grilled cheese sandwiches (see below) and tea and more Supernatural episodes. Also, penning some more apocalypse poems (oddly appropo).

My plans have finally cemented for the end of the month and my trip south over my birthday.  We'll be in Gulfport from the 23rd through the 28th, and hopefully, will be able to swing over to New Orleans for a day trip sometime in there.   Even though I just spent some time in Rockford, an actual vacation that feels like a vacation will be blissful  We'll be staying at one of the casino hotels for a couple nights on free rooms secured by my uncle  and in an empty condo in my aunt's building the remainder. Not to mention, I'll chip in on gas and meals with my folks, but otherwise, it's practically a free vacation, which is the best kind.  And all that southern warmth, finally, which will be nice, since the Midwest is continuing to be stingy with it.

But in the meantime, there is much to do in the way of books and a batch of  new releases (also finishing my taxes..meh).  This week another grouping of collages goes up in the library art series , I have a new pair of shoes set to arrive (as if I really need more ballet flats), and maybe some more cheese heavy cuisine to develop.

see you in september

 

 

 

It's looking like the release of girl show, my next book of poems,  is aiming for September, which will probably be here before we know it. I'm trying to plan some events and promotions around it as we get closer, but here is a peak at the finalized cover and some very kind words from my blurbers.  I also have my prose fragment project, the shared properties of water and stars, coming out this spring, plus a chapbook, beautiful, sinister, over the summer, so keep an eye out for more details soon on those..

So I am back in the saddle, or the saddle is back on me, after a few nice responsibility free days filled with thrifting and Wisconsin cheese procuring  I wound up with more baby swiss than I can possibly eat in a month, as well as amazing raspberry and peach salsas, a strawberry honey mustard, and  various vintage odds and ends for the studio & homefront (old frames and dessert plates and pillowcases, oh my..)

So now, to catch up on everything I neglected the past week, I am laying out some new chaps, setting up a giveway promotion, packing up orders from our last sale, and working on some covers. the bad news is I am feeling a little drained rather than refreshed and possibly coming down with a cold (I blame end of winter blues and a lack of sleep last week in general.)  I'm hoping some warmer temps and rest will fend it off, but I'm waning as the night goes on.

the cruelest month, 2013 edition

Another easter and way, way too much chocolate later, I find myself with a couple more days away from the library and general life chaos.  The snow seems finally have dwindled here to a manageable amount (no doubt it's completely gone in the city) and we've even had a couple days that topped out at 50 degrees.  I've been doing nothing much but getting my mom hooked on the first season of Supernatural and sleeping a lot.  But it's April, and you know what that means, NaPoWriMo  come round the bend.  I waffled a couple of weeks ago with possibly joining the fray, but April is always one of those crazy, crazy months with (still) finishing up tax stuff, more poetry-related things than usual, plus my birthday festivities squeezed in at the end.  There may also be a possible Mississippi jaunt (and hopefully a daytrip to New Orleans,) that very last week. Usually, I fail with my daily poems about mid month. It's always tempting to try, though, and last year, I did get some really good pieces for the mermaid poems (I also got a lot of crap..) but I am always tempted to give it a whirl.  Lately I've been trying to write a little something everyday on the weekdays at least, but who knows how long I can keep it up without it making me nuts.  So in lieu of daily poems, perhaps I'll just post some snippets of things I've been working on.  stay tuned...