January Funk!
but (maybe) not the one you think. also tour starts this week! also other (random) thoughts!
Yoyoyo,
Hey! Hope you’re having a good start to your Monday. I’m starting this newsletter coming at you with KB UPDATES!
How To Idenfity Yourself with a Wound, my debut chapbook of poems, is out officially tomorrow. If you know, you know it’s been a long time coming lol. So many folks have been posting their copies on IG (which makes my heart super warm). If you haven’t already, order yourself a copy (w/ stickers) here, or get a copy from Malvern Books, UT Austin’s library, The Little Gay Shop, or Bookwoman (all in Austin, TX)! woo!
Speaking of HTIYWAW, I’m on tour starting this week. First show is at Berkeley Poetry Slam (virtually) and 20+ shows follow that. Feb-June I’ll be performing, tabling, and doing workshops at various spots. RSVP for all the stops you want here. woo woo!
My fellowship with Broadway Advocacy Coalition is in full swing. Right now, I’m building curriculum for a youth workshop on policing in schools, & I’m paying every youth that shows up & is willing to be taped for my forthcoming videopoem on this subject. More on that super soon, but if you know of any programs that engage youth 6-18 years old in Austin TX, contact me.
Anyway, the rest of this email will be me, giving a general update of my mess of a life. Feel free to keep reading.
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If you’re wondering why I included this meme, it’s because this has absolutely been me all this month. Of course, I am super lucky to be close to two months as a full-time artist, and of course, I have great friends, a great partner, and a great home that we stay in with the greatest roommate. Of course, I am at a point in my “career” where a number of good things are happening. This is where folks aspire to be, and I’m grateful.
But there are a few things that have been STRESSING ME OUT.
First stressor is for sure my fault, but I’ve been writing two books on-and-off for about 6 months. Both are still unfinished (prose book is 40ish pages away from a first draft, and novel-in-verse is further away), and I’m feeling the weight of what I’m writing/the fact that I haven’t finished either of them HEAVILY. I thought a self-imposed writing retreat for 2 weeks in my hometown would help, but I got about half of the work I expected to do done due to my debilitating anxiety and ADHD. I can’t focus on ANYTHING, much less two books about mostly-dark shit. It’s a lot. What to do, what to do!
Second stressor is just ADHD in general. I’ve been medicated for a while (hey adderall XL), but that’s seeming to not work anymore. I’ve looked into an ADHD coach but that’s WAY outta my budget, and trying to manage sympoms on my own is proving to be difficult. What they don’t tell you when you go self-employed is that YOU have to be the one to hold yourself accountable to deadlines. Not a company, not anything outside of YOU. I’m the one creating the lunch breaks, and dinner time’s, and times for reading/writing/submitting/putching, and self-restraint + self-imposed deadlines + reasonable to-do lists + is… not a thing I’m good at, I’m realizing. Realizing this during promo run for a book, and while trying to find consulting/arts clients, and while taking on a new project for a fellowship is a BAD time lol. Little stuf like cooking, finishing a book I’m reading, answering text messages, and going to sleep/waking up at a consistent time are feeling impossible. What to do, what to do!!
Third, and probably biggest, stressor is my spirit. Because I’m being exposed to negative shit online, and in conversations with friends ALL the time (because we’re in a pandemic and there are so many terrible things going on in the world) has me feeling like TRASH. And I can’t compartmentalize myself into the la-de-da frame of mind anymore. Because I’m more visibly coming off as a “man” to people, navigating medical shit has been a shitshow, to say the least. the mispronouning, the security questions being asked at length, the general discomfort I can smell on any practitioner that has to speak with me…. it’s a lot. And my spirit (and therefore physical/mental state) is suffering because of it, methinks! Though you can’t yoga/meditate/workout/nature-walk yourself out of depression, those things have helped me in the past. But I’ve not been doing them because…. I don’t know why tbh. It’s also hard to not get bummed out when talking oppression/listening to friends vent. I of course want to be there for my friends, but I’m not even… there for myself. So these convos feel like adding soda cans to the top of a landfill. I’ve been thinking about changing my name to a name that feels better for me + my gender marker to an “M” (Texas doesn’t have an “X” sadly), but I’m not a cis man, and folks have told me that getting stuff like gyno appts covered by insurance is…. a mess. What to do, what to do…
I’m just in a big ole funk, tbh! And I’m hoping it’s a January, pick-yourself-up February funk. I’m posting here in hopes that nobody feels alone in their funk (if they’re in one). I know I’ll get out of it like I’ve gotten out of every other funk; it just feels cumbersome right now. There are so many other projects I want to do, that I feel called to do, but I’m not in a place where I can take them on and that’s okay. It’s also okay for me to be publicly vulnerable (without oversharing) and okay for you if you resonate with this feeling going into the new year. It’s a lot, to be a perpetual work-in-progress, but I’m trying. I hope this finds you in your trying, too.
I don’t have perfect solutions, but I’m talking to my therapist about all the things/will give a “state of KB'” update at some point. If you have other tips that are relevant to these particular stressors, comment. Share this also; it helps a lot with growing this silly, sensetive newsletter <3
Love, peace, and chicken grease,
- KB