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Month: April 2022

(Phone) Pictures in an Exhibition(ish)

One of the main reasons I looked at the house that I now own was, as the saying goes, location, location, location. It’s very close to one of the largest parks in the city, the park where the zoo is. I love both the zoo and the park, and love being able to visit either or both after a five-to-ten-minute walk. (It’s also really nice to be one long walk through a lovely park and then a pretty, low-traffic neighborhood from a Starbucks. Love coffee. Love.) My last home was also next to a park, and just like then, now that I’m getting out and being more active, the park is a big draw. If you’re thinking I’m about to throw a bunch of phone-camera pics at you, give yourself a prize. NOTE —->>> Do not pet the palo verde tree, or at least be very careful. (you don’t pet trees? Oh, I guess that’s…maybe just a me thing?) I love our zoo. When I can, I maintain a membership to support it. It is a nice little zoo, easily browsed in a couple hours, and they work hard and do well at taking care of the animals and presenting lots of education on conservation. And currently, baby meerkats! What’s not to love? They’ve been trying to expand the zoo for a while now, to renovate and give more of the animals a better habitat. A few years back, they put it on the ballot, and people voted for it!…

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When I’m Not Writing I’m…Thinking About Art

So, due to some health stuff, writing has had to take a back burner and it totally sucks. I expect this to be temporary, and I fully plan on being back at it as soon as my fingers can get typing. But in the meantime, I’ve been doing some serious contemplation about art. Specifically, Tarot and Lenormand decks. For those who don’t know, I started on a dog deck for my sister about twenty-five years ago but never finished it. So that’s on my list of things to do. I’d like to expand the subjects to include other dogs and our cat, Hailey, as the only subject at the time was our dog, Emmy, who is of course now deceased. So that’s a thing. But lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about life in general and healing, affirmations, self-care, and other self-empowering type stuff. I just turned forty-six last month, and it dawned on me that I could use a bit of healing, being that I had been bullied and made fun of as a child and was in an abusive marriage. And I thought a healing/self-empowerment type Tarot deck would be so cool. There are so many out there, you can’t even believe. Kickstarter is literally my Kryptonite — I got turned on to it last year and went on a bit of a backing spree on Tarot decks. Of course I stopped before things got out of hand, and I backed them with the idea that…

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Almost Normal

I hate to say it, friends, but the past few weeks have felt almost…normal. Like, pre-pandemic normal. Of course, things will never be the same again. 6 million people have died worldwide, the economy’s a wreck, and we all got into weird habits when we were stuck at home that may or may not stick with us over time. But, that being said… This past weekend we had a Scottish festival. The first one in the state since 2019. It was smaller than normal, and there were some people wearing face masks, but it felt…good. Normal. Like we’d turned some corner that we could do this again. And it was so good to see acquaintances and friends, even though some people were lost over the past few years. And last night, I went to a concert. An indoor concert. A nearly full concert, where we all sang along. I know some of you are cringing, so I will say I am triple vaxed and our COVID levels in the state are the lowest they’ve ever been, since we started tracking. Is it still a risk? Of course. But I do think it’s also a balancing act, between letting your fear rule your life and being safe. And I think, at least for me, it’s good to revel while you can. It’s only been two months since Omicron was everywhere, and we were all hunkered back down in our homes, and I’m sure that won’t be the last spike. And it’s…

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Writing Through a Pandemic, Two Years In

It’s been just over two years since we learned the phrase “social distancing”. A lot of the writers I know have been struggling. Turns out it’s hard to be creative when there’s bone-deep uncertainty washing away at your foundations. Related: the romantic myth of the writer in a garret. It’s also hard to be creative when you’re scrambling to fulfill basic needs like housing or taking care of your health and/or loved ones…even without a pandemic on top of that. (Here we give a nod to musicians, many of whom have been determinedly putting up livestreams and online concerts while their main source of income was cut off. Those have been a huge source of comfort to me, and I hope to the various musicians as well.) I’ve had plenty of creative struggles, too, during this time. I barely wrote at all in 2020, although I did manage two installments of my clockpunk serial (I’ll get back to that one day, I swear!) and a few thousand words during NaNoWriMo. During most of 2021, I could only write short pieces that all confronted the state of the world head-on, from pandemic-themed poetry to flash fiction. (We won’t talk about the short story I started in 2019, set at the Olympics during…a pandemic. Oops?) Then came NaNoWriMo 2021. I’ve talked before about how I made my secret stretch goal of 10,000 words on my unashamedly escapist feminist fantasy WIP. It felt really good. I had energy again for a few months.…

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