i strongly considered using this hour on the dawn train to scare up a first draft of the essay about shoes i told a dear colleague i'd write before labor day, but this whole-blogging-when-i'm-taking-the-train-out-to- clinic-escorting is all i got for the 'champ right now, so i can't hamstring it like that. i was talking to a friend yesterday about wanting to persist and make arm-waves at mental health as we ride this rockslide into authoritarianism, and informal personal writing could be a way to do that, though my tendency of late is to write strident essays about nature that end on elegiac/ambiguous notes. i will tell you how that feels when i get a hard copy of the next one, written last year when this administration was just a twinkle in russell vought's eye, in a few weeks. i think the main way to move forward or at least tread harder is going to be plugging away at the book's foundation. i still haven't found an agent–i haven't queried anyone other than the woman i met at one of these escorting shifts a couple of years ago–and i need to revisit the notes i took on my last feedback call with the prospective editor before they squirt out of my head. a translator friend has been lovely about suggesting jo and i apply to residencies as an author-illustrator team, not unlike how she's done some with poet-partners, and i think something like that would be magnificent momentum. it helped her to think of herself as an artist, she said, she is an artist, she is an artist, and i could use some of that. on persisting, this is also part of it, as are the relatively frequent blood donations i've been making. they're still attractive for all the reasons they always were–an excuse to sit still for a few hours, snacks, community service with minimal conversation–but it also just feels nice to give something intimate away, and to have your humors in someone else's custody for a little while. (i'm still doing platelet donations, since my blood isn't fancy otherwise, so an apheresis machine separates them out and then deposits everything else back in my arm commingled with a bit of anticoagulant, except last time when they took plasma also and i didn't feel the typical lip-buzziness upon return, so maybe the cocktail was a little different?)
i'm headed to mississippi next week for my first press trip in a year and my first visit to the state in a decade. i requested an extra day there and then spaced out and accepted the extra programming they offered me for that day, so i will be lurching groggily between local cafes instead of exploring graveyards, at least unless i pull up my big-girl pants and tell the organizers i've changed my mind. (but what if they booked their flights the way they did because they're showing me around that day? what if i hurt someone's feelings?!) the timing in general is not great, as i'll be home for like a day and then am getting on a boat to canada, but i had been thinking about how i'd like to get back to mississippi, as it happens, and though i have stepped back from most travel writing, i have a feeling i'll want to write out there. emma straub anounced her new novel yesterday and talked about how she saw it coming in the form of a particular trip–that was her next novel, waiting for her. maybe my next elegiac essay about birds is in the south; maybe i can fit in a trip to some extra graveyards after the cafes. i don't know that i'm ready for the next thing to happen to all of us, but i'm ready to talk about it.
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