The beginning of this week has brought colder weather, spotty snow, and sickliness in the form of stuffiness and coughs for both of us. The boon of co-habitating is I do not have to make my own chicken soup (at least not from scratch) so we have been working our way through Game of Thrones' first couple of seasons, episodes of Community for lighter fare and mostly avoiding the world and anything that looks like work. There has also been lots of tea, strawberry shortcake, and raspberry sorbet. Blankets and cats and warm showers. I've pushed off writing assignments til the weekend when I will be powering through on design articles and some looming food piece deadlines. Yesterday, I was happy for isolation and canceled plans as the snow was falling in huge and hefty chunks outside the windows, all very nice when you don't have to brave errands and bus stops.
Today, however, still sniffling and coughing, it was back to the usual grind. The days seem really short no matter what time I get up, and dark, as if the sky is low and gray, hovering just over the highrises over by the water. It's hard to get productive or be useful beyond the required things (those involving money and deadlines), but I did manage to draft a new poem and send some others to a newly discovered horror-ish journal. I have a boatload of press things to get back to work on since its been slow going since I took a couple weeks off over the holiday on that front. This includes another 100 or so submissions to read through and then make final decisions on the second round reads, which, as usual, is tough going.
In other creative news, a new switch-up at the platform I use for posting e-zines forced me into paying for what used to be free, which means, in an effort to get as much out of it as I can each month, I may be posting a lot more zines a lot more regularly (I've been hoarding them the last few months waiting to get a chance to work on them. This ideally will mean monthly zines, which may be writing, may just be art or other random nonsense, but will still be fun to see what unfolds. The first offering? This short series of poems and collages I made late last year, URBAN CRYPTOZOOLOGY...
