on autonomy

I was reminded today about how important autonomy is and got to thinking about the unnecessary stress and anxiety when I don't give it enough due..  As a control freak, usually this one is easy.  Very rarely do I let people into my business and my projects, or if I let them in, it's usually not in any sort of way that predicates that I depend on their contribution, or that the endeavor may fail without that contribution.  Working with people is tough, and I suppose this could be said just as easily about interpersonal relationships. Depending makes me anxious, both in my creative and professional life and in my personal life.  It's a control thing, but it's also more a trust thing.  I know that I can trust myself to do what I need me to do.  (well most of the time).  I can't say the same about other people, all with their own limitations and priorities. It goes way back..the anxiety of group projects in school that required me to work with other people.  Those years working in college theatre where EVERYTHING depended on other people and it made me so anxious I was sick most of the time.

As an adult, autonomy is the name of the game, and one of the reasons why DGP has always been a one woman operation.  One of the reasons I identify as solo poly.  One of the reasons I've carved myself a little niche in the library that is mostly my own. But then, there are things that require working with other people--projects that are too great to shoulder by myself, at least entirely  But then comes the inevitable disappointment when things don't work out the way they planned.  When plans are orchestrated that sort of depend on everyone hitting their marks and my inevitable disappointment when other people don't hit their marks and I'm left flailing.  I had a moment of teary, rising panic and feeling overwhelmed until I talked myself down.  I realized how much I need to, going forward, make things a little more foolproof.  To not take on projects that require other people who many or may not come through when needed. I need more situations where other people can jump in, but not because I need them to.  I need plans and preparations that are solely dependant for orchestration only on myself. I think I'd be much more mentally secure with these precautions and much less likely prone to the teary freakout...

And I'm thinkin 42 is way to old for that sort of thing...

Today there was a giant dragonfly outside my bedroom window and a giant bouquet from my bestie when I arrived at work. Both good omens for the year, I would think.  I've been busy over the last couple of days working on some new prints for the shop of the Catalogue Series---bunny moths and deer women and airborne turtles.  That particular series, which just started with me messing around with digital collage last summer at my desk in the library, has turned out rather lovely and I look forward to doing more (also useful, they've adorned two dgp covers, produced three zines, and provided some really cool one off prints I'll be framing and selling in the shop thei summer on old vintage book pages ).

In the realm of new work, there are also some new designs with dried flowers  (I think with all this springishness and blooming, I've become a bit of obsessed with florals in general.)  Though it's been a cool spring, the trees and the tulips are beginning to come around to the right way of thinking.  Even the magnolias in front of the catholic school pulled through (even though our snowstorm a couple week's back turned their edges a little brown.)

Another week and another quiet (hopefully) Sunday shift in the library.  Tomorrow is my birthday, and 42 seems like such an odd, unspectaular age that I do not quite know how to feel about it.  Or at least I don't know what to say about it.   Since I am working perpetually and have limited time for celebration, it barely feels like a birthday at all.  I am, however, planning for some time off once the semester has rolled to a halt, so maybe then.

I have been working on layouts for Spring chaps and dare not say I am nearly caught up and progressing nicely through this season's books (lest I fall irretrievably behind again).  I probably have not been able to say that since 2008, so it may be something.   We open again for submissions in a mere week which is hard to believe so I will soon be afloat on a sea of manuscripts, so it good to have things a bit more under control than usual.   I do want to have all the particulars on the mermaid anthology ironed out by May , so that is my goal for the week.  Also maybe some new work up in wicked alice.

In the library, Tuesday night is our final Bookwrecking event of the year and I've been practicing some cut outs and alternations (see photo above.)  I am also working on pulling together our BALLYHOO:  Beasts, Broads, and the Bizarre exhibit set to go up in time for manifest.  Plus some planning for summer Salon Series programming.   And then we start looking forward to next semester stuff.

Writing-wise, SALVAGE's  release is getting ever nearer.  I also got an acceptance from Midway Journal for two dirty blonde poems, the entire series of which I have been waffling over whether to leave it a bit longer (and therefore more full-length book-like) or trim some of the "joke" segments (it's a mix of short prose and found snippets--possibly more or less of them.)  I am leaning toward the shorter tighter version currently.  If it's a chap, I'll probably just publish a limited edition later this year after the poems have had a run in journals (there was one previously in Hound, a handful in the latest issue of Handsome, and now these forthcoming in Midway Journal.  (there are a few more floating out and about from winter submitting.)  Then maybe fold it into a longer project eventually.  I have been working a little more on my Dali-inspired pieces and doing research for another little fledgeling thing.

But it is, with a couple of exception finally feeling like spring around here.  I am much too attached to my tweed coat at this point since we hover around 50 degrees, but I feel like it's about time to hide it away til next fall. Today, before work,  I walked in the sunlight down Michigan Avenue and sat in the park for awhile eating my breakfast and almost believed it.