hello, 2026
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I initially thought I would write this post closer to the 1st, but this year, like the others, seems to be galloping fast already. The horrors persist, along with new horrors on a wider scale. The weather has also been far too cold and we got an icy start to the New Year, which I spent from my usual vantage in the bar J DJs for each NYE. Its hard to appreciate a new year, a new, clean slate, when everything feels like the same old shit, just on repeat in the world and on the news. I spent New Years Day playing some board games with friends and eating chili, then later, finishing off the Stranger Things finale. I've spent the couple days since trying to think about what I want for the year in terns of things I want to work for or accomplish. Its hard to set far-off goals when lately I feel like I am very much taking it day by day and sometimes even that feels like white-knuckling sometimes.
Most of its just the world, and sometimes surely the weather / winter dark. Also, maybe being between writing projects (actually, this may not be entirely accurate as I was considering expanding the last series of poems I was working on, the swine daughter, to be a possible full-length book instead of a chap-length thing. I feel like there is more to uncover there. I am waffling on the play script, whether its worth my time to spend the time to revise and flesh it out, especially when I still don't like it all that much. there are probably a half-dozen other started or half-conceived things I'd like to work on this year. Plus making more visual things (both digital and analog). I am frozen in the thrifting memoir project and need to return with fresh eyes. The goal for the year will be to make strides toward finishing half-finished things and at least starting some of the ones not out of the gate yet.
In more productive news, I did finalize plans for this years DGP chaps, which are ever so promising. Plus, submissions are trickling in for the eco-gothic anthology project, which I look forward to reading later in the month. I have new things destined for the shop, including new collage prints, a couple new journal designs, and some watercolouring postcards. Also, a fun desk calendar (see photo above) that going out with copies of CLOVEN to Patreon subscribers, as well as available in the shop (with a tiny, adorable easel to hold it.) One of my goals is to keep the shop stocked with more things in terms of prints, journals, stickers, and the like, all of which help keep the press operating and allow us to publish more chapbooks from each year's submissions pool. I want to keep more on schedule this year, which I am closer to than previous year launches, so it actually may be attainable. I also want to include more fun stuff with book shipments, like postcards, stickers, mini-zines. For Patreon, I already have some plans afoot for the book bundles, and will be continuing to write the (mostly) weekly 10 Minute Poet columns.
In non-art related things, there is, of course, a desire for more daily movement--important since I feel like I am not walking around and climbing stairs as much as I did when I worked at the library. While the gym was a little too much of a sensory overload for me, there is always walking or dancing workouts that, if I stay consistent, usually feel really good. (I don't know about relieving stress, or increasing endorphins, but they help my body feel less achy or less like it may fall apart every morning when I climb out of bed after being motionless for too long or stand up from a long block of working.
There are also other things on the docket. More plays, more films. More small weekend getaways that strike a nice balance for a girl who hates to travel and loves to stay home, but also wants to feel like I am not always homebound (which is a trap I fall into very easily and luxuriously.) It's especially easy for me to get a little cabin-feverish in the winter when I really don't want to venture out into the land of uncomfortable cold, dirty mounds of snow, and icy sidewalks. And organization projects, like cleaning out the fridge and excavating the too-long-neglected linen closet. I also need to invest in some new bookshelves, as the situation grows more perilous on the current ones every day.
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