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.
