Just a quick check-in

I have so much to say that it’s like a logjam – too many thoughts in my head all trying to get out at once.

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Usually I do all of my social media for HaldeCraft on Sundays, for the next week (taken from pictures that I took last week, so that I don’t have to ever scramble for posts – shhhhh, it’s a secret!). But I’m having trouble even thinking of clever things to say, because I just want to say how worried I am about the future, about our country, about people I care about. I want to say that my ceramics and things I make don’t amount to anything in the grand scheme of what’s going on. That my art isn’t important, but what’s important are all these other things that everyone is already talking about everywhere. But then I also think… maybe it is important. Maybe it is what I need to talk about and put out for people because everyone right now is desperate for some normalcy.

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Same with my writing, on Patreon. What do the fictional lives of fictional characters in a fictional spaceship heading to a fictional planet even matter right now, when actual real live people are losing funding, losing jobs, losing health care, losing the security for being accepted for who they are? But then… like the ceramics… maybe that’s what folks need right now. Escape into fiction, something that doesn’t have anything to do with the dystopian hellscape we’re heading for.

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Speaking of the dystopian hellscape, at the request of some friends, I’ve started this page – Rebellions are built on hope. It’s a non-complete page of where I’m getting my news from these days, who I’m listening to as they talk about what’s happening now, I already need to edit it and add some news sources that I’ve come across that are really aces at boiling things down without clickbait headlines or dramatic prophecies. I’m pretty much not paying attention to any “major” news sources – I’ve even stopped waking up to that five minute NPR news recap. I mean, JFC. Who wants to wake up hearing about Trump and/or Elon every morning? I can’t control much about the world, but I can control where I put my attention.

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I want to tell you all about my vegetable garden! Here’s a sneak peek of what’s been put together so far, but I promise a long post about it. In fact, y’all will probably get tired of me talking about it, eventually!

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Like most of you, I really just want to hide under the bed and watch dog videos on TikTok right now. But then, like the meme that’s floating around right now says, then I’ll have fascism *and* dead plants. It seems so uncanny that we’re watching our Constitution be gutted but at the same time have to go to work and feed our pets and take showers and fill up our cars with gas. I mean, we still have to do laundry, but at the same time we have to worry about whether or not there will be fresh food in grocery stores in a few weeks? It seems like… I don’t know, I wish we could all get paid time off for a week so that we could have time and energy to call all of the politicians who are allegedly representing us. Instead, all we get is cognitive overload.

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I have so much to say, about so many things. But I also have to go over to the studio and feed the animals, and then go into town for a dentist appointment… which is another thing I want to blog about because my amazing dentist with the therapy dog has retired due to health reasons, and the people who are taking over her practice (without a therapy dog, let me add) are … not my people. I’m afraid I’m going to have to find a new dentist. Which, now that I don’t have dental insurance (why are my teeth not considered part of my body?!) is probably going to be a world of fun.

OK. I’m out of here for a few hours. Stay gold, y’all. Love your people and love yourself and get loved on by your pets and hold the line. You are important. You matter. Stand tall. Resist. Dissent. Find some radical joy and some indescribable beauty in your day.

Thanks, y’all!