Honestly, I’m just emotionally drained from 18 months of the pandemic America’s political hellscape since 2015 the undeniable & increasingly unavoidable reality of a climate apocalypse literally everything, and haven’t managed to do much in my personal life since my last blog post. In the interest of not forgetting everything I’ve taught myself about Liquid & Git, and pushing the updates about my recent & upcoming publications, here’s a brief update:

Publications

The Poetry in the Brew anthology Sinew was released on August 24, and I attended their in-person release party last night at Portland Brew East, PitB’s home since 2011. You can catch me on the Facebook Live feed, starting at 56:20. I’m so out of practice that when I fucked up my second poem, I didn’t have the presence of mind to start over. Not to mention all the fidgeting

I also received another acceptance since I last updated—The Mildred Haun Review, out of Walter State Community College, which should be released some time this Fall.

I haven’t submitted anything since ::checks notes:: the first week of May, so I’m not expecting any more acceptances until I get back to it.

The booksite

I have made no progress on the book.

I still have to solve my issues with creating the Gallery & the previous/next buttons, but just care less & less about it the longer the pandemic drags on.

Life in general

The personal circumstances of my life are fine. I can’t see the people I love as much as I want, and my corporate job is a corporate job, but otherwise, I have no problems that it feels fair to complain about.

I tend to cycle through depressive or anxious periods, often in the summer, and this year has continued that pattern. The news of the world, and especially my home in the United States, is usually the trigger:

  • climate disasters
  • Republicans
  • the idiocy of COVID/vaccine/mask deniers, and the lives destroyed by their selfishness
  • the havoc my country’s imperialism continues to cause around the world
  • the fundamental inequality within my country

If the things that send me into a spiral of depression were problems with my life, at least I could work on them. But I’m mostly powerless to fix the problems of the environment in which I live. I can exercise, eat well, meditate, practice gratitude all fucking day, but none of that will end the imminently endable pandemic here in the United States.