It’s weird how one can have a set schedule week to week, yet feel so disjointed and aloof. It feels like I’ve been in near-scramble mode for the last couple of months – trying to stay engaged with what’s going on in the world, but also trying to live the life in front of me. It feels like the bullshit never ends. If it’s not more bombs being dropped on Palestine, it’s debt collectors applying a tighter grip to get at what little money I have. If it’s neither of those, then it’s the fact that I’m working a job I like, but don’t necessarily love, for meager pay and an extensive commute. All while our government aids a genocide, rolls back protections for under-represented people, and seeks to dismantle one of our more effective means of communication and organization (TikTok).
So yeah, my brain feels scattered.
But I thought I could take a minute to walk through what I’ve been working on (very slowly), and maybe kick up a little excitement for myself to get back into it. First off, if you don’t follow me on TikTok, I’ve been writing haikus every day for the month of April (National Poetry Month), but I have some catching up to do. There may not be much time to really invest in a TikTok community, but feel free to follow me there for what we have left. Second, May and June look like they’ll have a lighter workload at my day job, so I’m hoping to finally launch my podcast, “Existentially Speaking.” I’m also working on a new blog site to go with it, but haven’t yet ironed out the design. Third, I’m setting up a paid subscription site that’ll house my more creative projects – stuff beyond podcasts and mere blogs.
While I’m at it, I’m also aiming to be more active within the reader communities – on TikTok, YouTube, and maybe Instagram as well. I’ve often struggled with vlogs – something about how I look and sound on camera vs. how I look in the mirror and sound in my own head – so these projects might take some time. But given the way the government can just clamp down on these platforms, I might push through to use them while we have them.
This week I’m working on a longer blog post that reflects over the role of sound in the reading experience – comparing audio books vs. physical books. It’s a post I’ve been working on for a few weeks, but again, because I’ve felt so frazzled lately, it’s hard to tie it all together and feel confident that it’s actually making sense (sort of the same vibe with this post, too). But I think it’s almost ready to post.
In terms of what I’m reading lately, I’ve been loving Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. I’ve loved it so much that I’ve dusted off my MFA creative thesis and started to re-write it. After a few years, it feels like it’s meant to be a horror novel rather than whatever I have it as now. I’m also working through The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi, and I hope to pair it with The Question of Palestine by Edward W. Said soon.
Anyhow, that’s all for now. If you’d like to “get in on the ground floor” as they say in the business, feel free to hop over to my Ko-Fi page and buy me a coffee (i.e. help get this paid subscription thing started). My pipe-dream is to fully switch over to content creation as my “career,” but I’m going to need some help generating momentum. Every little bit will help!
Scribal Practices 