notes & things | 5/30/2021
This week, the weather can only be described as unusually angry--the wind that howls all night outside the windows and turns umbrellas into janky scraps of metal. The lake gray and monstrous and more like the sea than usual. Even on sunny days like today where I want to open all the windows, but have to keep closing them and cranking up the space heater next to my desk. A week ago, we were humid and sweltering, but May is often a season of opposites. In a week, the heat will rise as it does every year, only to break in the afternoon into violent storms that seem to come from nowhere. Such is June. I'd planned to pull out the summer wardrobe, but I might wait til next week if this persists.
Even still, green and chilly is far superior to bare branches, so I'll take it. After a couple weeks at it, I am settling into my low-stress summer plans and shorter weeks. Already, even the days I am working feel better and less chaotic for the most part. I am, as such, progressing through things like manuscripts and galleys and cover designs at an even pace. I feel better rested and less stressed, though I am not sure if this is just summer or my easing covid fears...after a year of creeping fear and a terribly long winter it could be a little of both.
I'll be headed to Rockford in a few weeks for Father's Day and some thrifting exploits--one of the things I am most looking forward to returning to (along with movie-going). I shop a lot for vintage things on ebay, but the serendipity factor isn't quite the same--walking into a store and finding something you didn't even know you needed or were looking for. Over the years, the midcentury gems are harder to find as they get buried by the 80s and 90's stuff, but you can still find treasures sometimes.
This week, I managed to come to a closing point on the bird artist pieces, so I will let them sit a bit before I return with a fresh eye. I also have a decent idea of what I might want for the visual aspects, which I've been plotting to start. There are also some simple animations I have been working on for video poems for an older series of poems. After a pandemic year of little visual output beyond the poetry videos I created for book trailers and the swallow series, I am hoping the summer allows more collages and paintings to happen. I've been working on a lot of original art for cover designs, which wasn't possible last year, so things are looking up. I also have older stuff that has been sitting in stacks in drawers and on shelves that needs to be scanned from late 2019. I also need a serious studio area tidy, mostly since I feel a lot of stuff was just shoved in various places during the move nearly a year and a half ago, but I've yet to uncover much of it, let alone use any of it.
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