It's been one of those sticky, cool and cloud-filled weekends that seem commonplace this summer, in which everything in my apartment feels slightly clammy and damp, including most of the paper which curls at the edges and gets waves if left unaccompanied too long. My sheets feel damp, but the fan in the bedroom makes it far too cold when on, so I feel too warm and too cold all at the same time. Hopefully, it will break early this week, or at least rain enough to wring out the air a little and bring dryness and sun, though I am not missing the heat exactly.
We are more than halfway through July and already I am antsy for fall, an affliction that usually doesn't befall me for another month. It's the first fall I will be without my usual academic fall routine of back to school, so I will have to make sure to indulge in other fall festivities even more. New notebooks and sweaters at the very least. I am working on another video poem today and it's definitely a little bit spookier than the preceding ones, so maybe it's just making me long for cooler weather, despite my love of these long, lingering days.
I also am dipping my toes in the water of submissions this week and making a prelim list of what I want to read a second time. The nos usually get a few pages in before I decide I'm not digging it, but if it has potential I keep going and then move it to the second round folder. In August, they start duking it out. There are already a good 300 submissions, which seems like a lot for halfway through, and we always get a bump in August and a lot that last week, so I have my work cut out for me. I also need to touch base with my ever-patient mermaid anthology authors & artists,, who have been on the long journey of making this happen and I think we might be able to now that I have more bandwidth. If that works out, there will be more to come, both book arts things and maybe even perfect bounds.
