So What’s Been Going On With You Anyway?

Hey y’all. There’s been a lot going on in my personal life over the last year, and I haven’t been sure how to talk about it here, or if I even wanted to. Or if it even made sense to keep this blog going.

Eventually, though, I decided I wanted to at least keep this space, so, with a little revision, here we are.

Running

No running right now! Years of ignoring my core, while still partaking in intense physical activity (and probably aggravated by my scoliosis) have led to muscle imbalance and weakness and from there to a chronic knee injury. I’m taking the time right now to really focus on rehab and some other health issues with the goal of being able to return to running and swimming.

Writing

I’ve set aside the novels. They were useful at the time – as a way to keep writing when writing poetry felt too raw/vulnerable, as a way to work through some things I couldn’t look at head-on,  and to prove to myself I could. But poetry is my real love.

There’s a common adage in ministry that you should only do it if you really, really, really, really can’t do anything else. Because why else take up something so challenging and with so little reward. I think the same thing is true of poetry – it’s a calling.

I was trying to articulate for a friend how poetry feels intimately connected to spirit for me and so why making a commitment to it is about more than just words on a page. Here's what I came up with:

That poetry is the medium I live in, breathe with, swim through. Medium as in both as the substance that surrounds me - that sustains and heals and invigorates me - and as the material that I work with.

I’ve been writing new work and revisiting all of my previous writing. There’s not much yet that I feel is complete, or that I’ve gotten enough feedback on to want to share widely (still looking for a poetry buddy!), but I’ll might start posting some work here over the next few months.

Body & Spirit

Longtime readers (don’t know if I have any left!) may see I’ve cleaned up a lot of old posts. Mostly ones to do with goal-setting, or with food/weight-loss. This is probably a surprise given how much time I’ve spent on such posts! But I’ve never found long-term goals to be that useful, as you’ve seen from my inability to keep to them. Short-term goals, yes. Mid-term priorities, for sure. Long-term vision, absolutely.

A lot of those posts were also about me trying to figure out “what should I do with my life” – but I’m feeling pretty clear about that now, thanks very much.

As for the food/weight-loss posts, I’m sure I’ll write more at some point about my eating disorder. (For example, I’ve been interested to learn that there is a higher incidence of eating disorders among the transgender population, particularly among trans masc people.) But in reviewing what I’d written, I can see how far I’ve come since then, and I didn’t want to perpetuate old thinking that proved unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. So while there may be a few references to struggling with food (especially around marathon training), I’ve tried to remove any other specific references.

And that’s it for now! If you found me from Twitter, that’s where I’m most active. If not from there, you’re probably family / friend / longtime reader, drop me a note here if you want to connect.

Peace,

S.A.

Little More Action

Midday through summer, and marathon training is going well. I've had to shift my schedule around plenty between travel, work, and family, but I've hit all my long runs and all my speed workouts, so I'm feeling pretty solid. Guess it's time to start fundraising.

Writing is feeling more solid these days too. I signed up again for Camp NaNoWriMo, this time setting my goal in minutes rather than words, since I needed to revise and research and brainstorm above all else. That's been pretty consistent too, and I'm getting interested and excited again vs. just confused and overwhelmed.

My summer is heavily fueled by music, as always. Some familiar albums giving new energy -  Macklemore & Ryan's "The Heist", and Grimes' "Art Angels". Then albums new to me - "Calentura: Global Bassment" (remixes of classic Fania releases), and Bomba Estéreo's "Amamecer: Remixed". Fantastic electro grooves, perfect for digging into words or steps.

And very grateful for Spotify for introducing me to new stuff I would not have heard otherwise:

Mona Haydar's "Barbarian"

Madame Gandhi's "Top Knot Turn Up"

Lulu Be's "Rude Tings"

FAKA's "Uyang'khumbula"

Hope your summer is treating you well!
Annie

It Must Be Spring, I'm Setting Goals

Even if it is currently snowing AGAIN.

I've gotten twitchy about setting goals publicly over the last year, especially ones to do with running, but things have been going well the last couple of weeks (slow, slow, but still improving) and I've begun to set my sights forward.

So I think I'm going to shoot for the Hot Chocolate 15K in November.

I've run this before and enjoyed the race. It's a good distance, at a good time in the year. No time goals this time around, I just want to be able to work up to that distance again and have a race on the calendar.

And in non-running goals, I've signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo this month. You may remember that National Novel Writing Month (November) is a world-wide writing challenge of 50,000 words for the month. Camp NaNoWriMo happens twice a year, in April and July, and you set your our challenge for the month, be it time spent or words or pages or even specific projects.

I've set my goal as 15,000 words for the month. I've done a lot of research and revising and transcribing over the last four months but very little new material in that time, and it's been hard to get started again. Excruciatingly hard. Then Camp NaNo came up in a couple of different Facebook groups I'm in - I hadn't even been aware of it prior to last week - and I thought this might be the challenge I need to get back into a regular writing (vs. revising/research) habit. So far it seems to be working. (Cross fingers.)

Hmm... perhaps I need to set some kind of challenge for myself for the garden?

Not happy about today's snow,
Annie

Return To Scary Movie Month - The Books

Even as I was writing yesterday's post I knew I was missing titles. That's what I get for leaving my book journal at home, and not updating my notes from the beginning of the month. (I meant to write these earlier in the month but NaNo got in the way.)

I suppose it's not too surprising that I couldn't quite put my finger on what I was missing - I read these all as e-books, and my brain still hasn't figured out where e-books fit into it. Which is a shame, because I've gotten to read some fantastic new authors I never could have otherwise, as well as a lot more short stories and novellas. But I'm a hands-on kind of gal, and I remember things based on the way they feel and the place they take in the world, the more I can handle them the better.

That said, here are some more books (and stories and novellas) of a fantastical bent that I enjoyed this November. A number of these authors were new to me and I'm looking forward to reading more of their work.

By Elliot Cooper, The Clockwork Menagerie and Junk Mage. I'm trying to remember how I found out about these - maybe a Twitter thread? I get a lot of my book recommendations from Twitter these days.

    

Ginn Hale's Swift & The Black Dog. I don't know if this is a stand-alone story or part of a larger series, but I would love to explore this world more. I do have the first of another of her series on its way to me from inter-library loan.



The Whybourne and Griffin series by Jordan Hawk. This series took me a while to settle into, I think I was expecting something else from it, though I'm not sure what. Now though I think of these as cosies - as cosy as hell-beasts, insane asylums, and curses can be, that is. But something I can cuddle into at the end of the day and not get all tied up in emotional knots about.



Close Quarter by Anna Zabo. Well. I was going to say that all of these stories today have some romance in them, so if you dislike kissing and sighing and longing you won't want to read any of these. But this one is a bit more graphic. (Well, the Whybourne and Griffin books are too, now that I think about it.) Still. Fairies! Vampires! Elemental beings! On an ocean liner to boot.



And then two by E.E. Ottoman, Business Makes Strange Bedfellows and Selume Proferre. I've been slowly working my way through his works, as well as appreciating his blog posts on history. I particularly loved the first, a gothic vampire story, but I'd be happy to read more stories from both worlds.

    

Oh, and I'm in the second book of Zoraida Córdova's Vicious Deep series, The Savage Blue, I mentioned in an earlier post that I had started this. Because, you know, mermaids.



That's it for this month. I'd been thinking I might use December to work through some of the historical novels in my to-be-read pile, but I've also got my hands on new releases by some of my favorite contemporary authors so maybe not. (Though E.E. Ottoman's latest is a historical and I can't wait to dive into that.)

Because I will buy books before clothes or shoes or sometimes food,
Annie

Scary Movie Month Part III - The Books

I started off my reading for this month trying to get through my growing pile of fantasy books, though by the end of the month that had veered mostly into ghost stories and horror.

No spoilers here or even reviews, really, I loved all these books. Some I may have swooned over more than others but I'll let you guess which ones.

Finished Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor and am sad that I'll have to wait until next year to get the sequel in paperback ('cause I'm dorky and like to have my series in similar format). Luckily I have The Book of Phoenix still to read.



Then, Thorn by Intisar Khanani. My sister recommended this to me and I'm glad she did.



A new Gail Carriger! Two, even. Romancing the Werewolf and Romancing the Inventor. I should say, two new ones in the Supernatural Society, since I haven't been excited by her young adult books. But these were sweet, I loved getting to return to these characters.



On a complete side note, there's been some discussion on the interwebs lately about "sweet" as a descriptor for romance novels. In its strictest sense it apparently means romances without sex on the page, but in broader usage it refers to romances with traditional gender roles/ages/abilities/etc. Socially conservative. And "sweet" as opposed to "dirty".

I think it's safe to say that nothing I read is "sweet" by that usage. But it's a good word to describe some of what I read! Damn social conservatives mis-using good words.

Two by K.J. Charles, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal and Spectred Isle. I'm not sure I can adequately convey my love for her books. I had to join her Facebook group just so I could have a place to squee sufficiently.

   

Then Open Mic Night at the End of the World by Jessica Meyers. I'm not usually a big fan of end-of-the-world stories. Probably because I've been pretty sure since I was ten that it was likely. (I wrote my own version at that time - even won a writing competition for it - which meant having to read it out loud to a number of my peers, all of whom looked at me sideways afterwards.) But this one was, yes, sweet.



After weeks of waiting it seemed, Caroline's Heart by Austin Chant. A ghost story in the best way - haunting. And over much too soon.



Then All In Fear, a collection of short horror stories. I read this because of, yes, K.J. Charles, and Roan Parrish and Avon Gale, but all of the stories were great (and I've now been introduced to Kris Ripper and have been busy trying to read all I can of zirs).



Finally, I'm still in the process of reading The Whites of Their Eyes by Xen, and Latin@ Rising, an anthology of Latinx science fiction and fantasy (many of which are horrific, at least to my eyes). I'm reading both slowly - the first because I find the stories truly terrifying (and because his writing is lush and I want to fully take it in, plus I've gotten sidetracked by his other books), and the second because the stories are so different in tone that I want to be sure each one sticks before going on to the next.

     

I've really enjoyed spending a block of time steeped in these books - I've always read some fantasy throughout the year but these have pushed me to read more science fiction and horror as well. I think this may become a new October/November tradition.

Read any scary stories lately?
Annie

November Joys

This past week has been hard, folks.

Just in ultimately inconsequential, non-threatening ways though, so not worth detailing. The usual trifecta of work/family/sick.

As a result I'm a bit behind on my word count for NaNoWriMo, but the writing itself is still going well, and I think I'll be able to catch up. Doing NaNo has been an amazing experience, actually, but I don't want to jinx myself by saying too much about it yet.

Mostly I wanted to share a couple of things that have been bringing me joy or energy when I've needed it.

First, some music: Visualízate by Gente di Zona.



I've had this for a few months and keep listening to it, but it's been on almost constant repeat in the car and at work this week. There aren't videos for my most favorite songs on the album (Que Tú Quieres and Más Whisky), but here's another one I enjoy. Well, heck, I like all the songs on the album.

And then, for a completely different kind of rhythm and energy, some poetry: The Black Maria by Aracelis Girmay.

Maria, in this case, referring to the mare, or "seas", that early astronomers thought they saw on the surface of the moon and Mars (actually craters). She describes this collection, "This cycle of poems focuses on Eritrean history, as this is a history I am somewhat familiar with as someone of its diaspora. But, of course, the history of people searching for political asylum and opportunity (both) is much larger than Eritrean history alone."

From luam - asmara:

No one loves the flies, their work,
their rearranging, marking us
with the light of other guests.

Religious world - 

if there are angels, they are flies
who hover over our privacies,
kissing us with mouths
that have kissed
other wounds.

What's been bringing you joy lately?
Annie

Some Music for August

Listening to lots of great music these days, here's a few songs I've been loving this month.

A little fair warning - though if you know me this shouldn't come as any surprise - some of these songs have language not suitable for the office or small children.

Also, my favorite songs are almost all - as a friend of mine describes it - booty music. Just FYI.

Ali K. turned me on to K. Flay earlier this year and I've been grateful ever since. This is just one since so far I've loved every song I've heard.

Champagne

Then Dua Lipa is another new favorite of mine, amazing dance music. I love the whole album of hers, though, including the ballads.

Blow Your Mind (Mwah)

Total guilty summer pleasure - Ricky Martin!

Vente Pa' Ca (music starts about 30 seconds in)

An old favorite, Macklemore & Ryan's Thrift Shop:

And then one that has been in my head a lot this past week - Nina Simone's I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free. I've always loved this song, but right now it makes me cry even as my heart soars listening to it.

Because music keeps me going when nothing else can,

Annie

Back In The Saddle

Well, it's been a bit of a rough start to the spring.

I'm usually pretty healthy, but there are a couple of recurring illnesses I am prone to, and I got hit with both this year. I'm still dealing with the last, a cold that settled into a lasting cough. From past experience this can take weeks to get rid of.

Oh, and our basement got flooded when the drains backed up. Tree roots in the sewer lines. Thankfully the lines themselves are still in good shape.

(I think that was actually the tipping point on my cough, all those hours of cleaning up with bleach and Lysol.)

We still haven't pulled the trigger on the last preventative flood measure (exterior sewer pipe access). There's a lot of work to be done on the house and we can't afford to do all of it this year. So we're still deciding what exactly is the most important thing to do first. Outside wiring or extra flood control? Hmm.

Have I mentioned I'm running the Chicago Marathon again this year? For the Chicago Lights team again.

I've decided this will be my last one. It will be marathon #5, that's a good number to go out on. And my third time raising money for Chicago Lights.

Thinking about it as my last one is helping me get excited about the training again.

I'm about a month behind where I wish I was with my running, but it's still early in the season. And I'm finally feeling well enough, despite the cough, to start working on mileage. It helps that it's Spring Break this week and I'm home a few days - that's given me some extra time in the morning for longer runs. And it helps - a lot! - that it's not so dark.

So, a lot on our minds. But! There's a lot to be thankful for, and I have been.

Doing well in Chicago (if a little wet, cold, and coughing) -
Annie

Okay, Now I Really Want The Sun

I've been using my early morning runs as a time for prayer and meditation, since I won't wear headphones when it's dark. And that's great, it's a guaranteed time I might not set aside otherwise. I have set prayers I've memorized and then let my brain drift from them as needs be. For example, on a line about healing I might then think about those people I know in need of healing, physical or otherwise. So that's good.

But I gotta tell you, I miss my music. At this point, I am aching to be able to go out when the sky is beginning to turn, slip my tunes in, and run through the park without worrying about anything.

Waiting,
Annie

Changing Skies

The light is changing.

On my way back home yesterday morning the sky was a deep periwinkle blue, instead of its recent heavy Prussian.

And if it hadn't been cloudy I might even have been able to see flashes of pink or orange, reflected on clouds or the undersides of gulls' wings.

It cheers me to think I may someday soon be able to finish my run in time with the sunrise, to watch the clouds change as I pass under, to see the sun flashing on the river, to go through the park freely.

The world turns and spring is coming. I know we may have two more months of snow (or possibly just rain, ice, and mud), but spring is on its way.

Which is good to remember, because right now winter is here.

Bleakly,
Annie

Kind Of Like Covering Your Eyes But Still Peeking Through Your Fingers

I'm currently immersed in my novel-writing and it is wonderful, yes: fascinating, exciting, affirming. It is also sometimes overwhelming and occasionally scary. Scary because I feel so much about what I'm doing - lots of different emotions to deal with - can I hold them all and keep working? Keep going about the rest of my life?

I now have more compassion for previous times in my life when I stopped working on various projects. I had not yet developed the stamina I have now, the mental/spiritual fortitude to keep going or to stand firm in the face of fear or the tumult of other emotions. And the certainty, learned from experience, that no, I will not actually fall apart, though it might feel that way sometimes. I also didn't have the repertoire of little tricks I now have to just keep going regardless...

While there are frustrations in never feeling I have the time I want, in some ways it is also a... blessing? My moments of creative exertion are hard fought for, carefully guarded, and occasionally thwarted, but they are also short. I barely have time to get itchy and fearful before my timer goes off and I need to take care of the next thing. I tell myself these short intervals are training for someday managing longer ones. (I pray someday there will be longer ones.) Of course these short bits also mean I have to be ready to jump on them when they arrive. Go!

One of my nicknames at home is "one-track Annie". This refers to my ability to never forget what I was going on about in the face of interruptions. I can file away a phrase, an idea, a feeling I need to explore and then come back to it when I need to or when the opportunity presents itself. What can be an irritating conversational habit that I need to guard against (hence the nickname - it wasn't a compliment) is proving essential in moving my story forward. (It's also very handy when parenting small children - they have honed this skill in me to a razor's edge.)

I'll tell you, this writing stuff, it's a trip, for sure.

Composedly (ha!),
Annie

In The Interest Of Full Transparency

Well, gosh, after those admiring comments on my last post, I have to come clean and say that I have NOT managed to soldier on in the face of work needs and plunging temperatures, neither last week not this.

Whenever I post goals or set expectations for myself here, it's always coming from my most aspirational self. What I'm able to do when life doesn't get in the way. (Travel, illness - mine or the kids, work, weather.) Honestly, I usually only manage what I'm hoping for about two weeks of the month.

And this month is no exception. Last week and this one are two of my busiest in my work year, so I've been trading some of my running time in the mornings for writing instead, and just running enough to keep me on an even keel. And then I'll be traveling at the end of the month...

I won't say that the cold and dark and snow/ice doesn't make it an easier decision...

7 degrees was just a wee bit too much this morning,
Annie

Keeping Safe In The Wee Hours

I am careful heading out into the dark streets, morning after morning. The dangers are different than those I faced running at night on dark country roads, twenty years ago in Western Massachusetts. There my main fear was getting hit by a car, since I was running on the shoulder of the road (no sidewalks). I still protect against that with shoe lights, and all my running gear has some kind of reflective surface as well, but most of the streets I run on are well lit, even at night, and I make sure to cross at crosswalks. So here it's mostly about protecting myself against other people.

I do all the usual sensible stuff. I don't wear headphones. I don't run in parks when it's dark. I stay where it's well lit, I run on streets that have some traffic passing by and preferably a bus route as well. I avoid areas with too many vacant buildings. I carry my phone. In case of an "in case", I wear an ID wristband.

And I say close attention to my "Spidey-sense". If a stretch doesn't feel right - even if it's a stretch I'm familiar with and run at other times - I don't go there. It's amazing how different a section of street can feel at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday, rather than on a weekday, when it's already starting to wake up with people by that time. The weekend streets have a very different feel until the sun is closer to rising.

Daylight savings is in a couple of weeks and for once I'm looking forward to it. It's already dark now when we pick up the kids so what does it matter if it's dark an hour earlier - but it will make a difference to me in the morning.

Carefully,
Annie

Grateful

It was a rough summer.

It was a rough summer, and it's only recently that I feel we've gotten through it, though some things linger on...

Some of it was the usual craziness of scheduling with two kids - and next year we plan to do less of it - and some of it was family drama (not mine) - and that goes on. And other stuff as well.

Oh, and police shootings and coastal floodings and immigrant/Muslim/refugee bashing and heat waves beyond what has been recorded before. Zika in Brazil - no, now Puerto Rico, now Miami. (Oh, and now Haiti is being hit with cholera - yet again.) My head was swimming a lot of the time.

I find it hard to write about the things I sorrow over, or struggle with, or haven't managed to come to a conclusion on, along with all the random scraps of interesting, exciting, curious, even joyous things that come my way. My head is a very busy place, much of the time, and I am always seeking out still more.

I do want to learn how to write (here, not just in poems) about the things that trouble me, or puzzle me, and some of the connections that I find as I range around the world, via other people's words.

But for right now, I want to share with you one of the things that lifts up my heart, day after day: running in the early morning. To see the sky turn from a clear star-dotted black to a soft velvet deep deep blue (I swear the texture of the sky changes in these moments) and then as it goes through various changes as the sun rises, dependent on cloud cover and where I'm headed... it never fails to astonish and enchant me, invigorate and strengthen me. And I get to experience this over and over again. For this I am grateful.

With a deep love for the world and all that is in it,
Annie

Takes My Breath Away

Such an amazing sky this morning. The clouds were moving rapidly as the sun was rising so every time I looked things had changed, layers of layers of different kinds of clouds sliding over each other in every color, no matter where I looked. I was afraid I might trip, all I wanted was to look up and watch the grand show.

At this time in the year all my runs start off in the dark and soon they will return in the dark as well. So I am grateful every day I get to go out and watch the skies change as sunrise approaches. And I am grateful as well, again and again, that I get to go out and run in the mornings. Every day I do I get to go on a journey, exploring the world and seeing what's new. And then I come home to a house slightly stirring, and I look forward to the day and to the next run.

I live a good life,
Annie

Deer, Oh Deer

I was running in the park the other day, early in the morning, when I looked over and saw a deer watching me.

Excuse me?

The parks that I run through are bordered by the Chicago River on one or the other side. The park district is restoring the river bank in that particular stretch, so for two years now the parkland leading up to the river has been fenced off.  I'm sure all manner of wildlife have gotten used to people being safely on the other side of a fence.

Since they can roam freely through the entire city, following the river (and the deer up by the nature center northwest of us are quite tame), while we're bordered in by streets and traffic and bridges and buildings, I imagine to them it might look as if we were the ones in a cage.

Just a bit surprising for that early in the morning.

Deep in the wilds of Chicago,
Annie

Random Running Notes

It's the time of year for early morning runs, even for mid-length ones. Too hot otherwise. I've been trimming back my pre-run routine to make it more likely that I'll get up and out in time. Coffee left from the day before - check the weather - teeth - contacts - clothes - let's go.

The sun is fully up by the time I leave but we've had some stormy nights so I still have amazing skies to watch while I run.

I've settled on my races for the rest of the year, or rather, my race. The Hot Chocolate 15K. I've run this a number of years and always had a good time. And knock on wood, if my training continues smoothly I even have a hope of getting close to previous times, if not a PR. And yet it's far enough away and low stress enough that I don't need to fret if hiccups occur.

I've noticed lately that my paces in tempo runs are all over the place. It usually averages out to what I was aiming for but it's never even. Has it always been that way? I suspect so. I warm up slowly so my first mile post-warm up is still slower than I'll get to, and I run on city sidewalks so I can't always manage the traffic (today I noticed I slowed down at each intersection, even if I could run straight across). I'm not sure it matters - I'm trying to keep things even by feel - just something I've noticed. It's probably more important to keep my track repeats even, should I ever get myself to a track again.

Hmm... and now I'm trying to figure out how I can get to a track again...
Annie

Talk About Lemonade

It was earlier this week, and I had not had a good night's sleep, after several nights already of too-short sleep. Bad news at The Dude's work and too much noise in the neighborhood. I woke up feeling grim, and went about the morning routines grimly. Coffee, kids' lunches, breakfast.

And then G came downstairs, much earlier than I expect to see him, trotting down the hall in his Captain America footie pajamas and beaming at me. "I love you, Mama!" he sang out, and I swooped him up and was given a face full of kisses. The sun broke through, briefly.

The day continued with a morning full of mishaps, all stupid little things that together had me wondering at my bad luck and needing to walk away from my desk before I blew up. Not a day for buying lottery tickets. Well, anyway, things got resolved, or at least resolved enough to keep going and I put in Beyonce's "Lemonade" which I had bought two days before and not yet listened to. An explosion of light in my ears and I kept it on all day, its effect kind of like a face full of kisses when you're just expecting rain.

Back to sunshine,
Annie

Spring Forward

The thrill of getting up early to go see the sun rising over the river isn't quite as exciting when the sun is no longer rising that early.

It was still pretty, though.

A Funny Thing Happened On My Way Round The Park

... And now I can't remember what it was.

It's dark when I leave the house for my runs now, and on weekdays it's still dark when I return, though the sky has begun to lighten. I don't wear headphones at these times, and watch the sky to gauge how far into the park I can go. Can I run all the way in, by the river? (Only on weekends, when  I can leave the house later.) Can I run on the path that goes more or less parallel to the street? (Only if it's not overcast.) Much of time I content myself with staying on the sidewalk next to the park.

I remember now. When I run without headphones sometimes a song gets stuck in my head and that's what I hear for the duration of the run. Over and over, in an endless loop, just the bits of the song that I know. Yesterday: Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Except I don't even know the words, really, just bits and pieces of the music. Over and over for half a mile. It's a good thing I like the song.

Only a couple weeks more of shortening days. By the end of January I should be able to run along the river again. In the meantime I'll cross over the bridge and "settle" for the breathtaking view of the early morning sky reflecting off the river, with the dark trees on either side. I slow down and linger to take it all in.

Early morning blessings to you,
Annie