While I have been in better sorts for the past couple of weeks, Tuesday there was a dip that found me crying for no real reason in the middle of the day in the middle of the library. My mood usually improves as the weather does, but an upward spike in covid in the city had me frustrated with the stupidity of humans and just not ready to ride a third wave out, especially when vaccines seem, even once they open to me next week, something not all that easy to get an appointment for (especially if you do not have limitless time to spend on the internet and transportation to far away places to get them). I was mostly crying not necessarily because I fear getting sick (every day, unavoidably out in the world) but I'm not sure how much longer I can go in this state of paralysis where I can't read, can't really create, have no concentration and mostly am phoning it in and pretending to be a human. Facing another summer of it had me in tears when it feels like it could be so very close. At least until I made the mistake of reading the news.
In better spots of my days, I am busily humming away on new dgp releases, though it's hard to not be intensely scattered. Things that used to be easy breezy take forever. There will be a slew of catch up 2020 titles coming to the shop soon, so watch for those. While it makes for a crazy time right now as we launch into 2021 releases as well, taking a bit of a time allowed me the opportunity to catch up on a horrendous backlog of orders from late 2019 into lockdown (a time when I was uprooting the whole operation and releasing way too many books in too short of a time). I think the wise words about knowing not when to quit, but when to rest were very important as I thought about upcoming plans for the press, which I considered scaling back significantly in my burnout. This was combined with a slowdown in income for the whole operation. Obv. not releasing titles makes things expectedly slower, but also just people not spending as much $$$ in general, and authors not regularly ordering author copies for readings (becuase, you know, there are no readings *covid sigh*) It's a huge blessing that I was already free of studio rent becuase we would have certainly have been evicted. On the other hand the slowdown allowed me to catch my breath a little, so it worked out for the best. Now it's just a matter of moving onward.
In the library, things are beginning to happen for our Urban Legends focus topic, which last night entailed a campfire zoom story hour. We were able to choose from a great selection of artists for the exhibit that debuts in a couple of weeks. I've also been being kinder and a little more flexible in my own workload and schedules when previous years were more rigid. We got such a great swathe of art--video, painting, soft sculptures, stained glass, it should be an awesome show.
