Somehow it was the beginning of November and now it's mid-month and I am not quite sure where the last week vanished to. It was a busy one, filled with movie outings to see Christmas horror offerings in near empty screenings. Filled with Beetlejuice: The Musical in the grandeur of the Auditorium Theater. Late night diner meals, karaoke outings, and my tattoo appointment yesterday adding to the patchwork sleeve I am slowly building in increments. Writing has been crammed in around the edges to meet tighter pre-holiday season deadlines, and now a slight breather and the usual pace, but then this week, Thanksgiving somehow. I'll be heading to a few meals over the next week with J and his mom, the Bowen clan, and at a friend of my mom's who usually invites us (even though my mother and now my dad's absence at each are strange holes that occasionally start bleeding.) The holidays are still a season for several year, where nothing seems quite real. At the karaoke bar last night, they had up lights and all the holiday finery and I almost felt startled that yes, we are going into the holidays. While I eagerly throw myself into fall, November is a strange time. Suddenly its Christmas again and I still have bats on my windows and skulls in my living room.
I did start a new poem series in bits and starts to accompany the witchy collages I was making in September and October. I am also beginning plans for the sprawling mass that is GRANATA, the Persephone series, both the text pieces and art, which will be coming in the next year (more details in December, but you can read a snippet in the new issue of AURA). I am doubling down on both new chaps and getting all the responses from the summer reading period sent. The days I devote to reading manuscripts are good but overwhelming with so much good work.
I did notice that the leaves of Chicago trees are hanging in there unusually long, though the one in the courtyard has given up the ghost a couple weeks back after a couple of blustery days. Mostly the yellow trees, which I think are ash trees, that I noticed as we drove slowly up Clark St. through the city up from downtown after the show Tuesday night. It's actually been mild since we had a noticeable amount of early snow on Halloween, so let's hope it continues. We have a drive-in outing planned for the first weekend in December and hopefully won't freeze while watching Gremlins/Krampus.
