The New Project

About three weeks ago, I teased a new project. No more teasing. The Patreon is live, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a look at it. I plan to post at least every two weeks in the free tier, once a week in the paid tiers. And if you sign up for the top tier (which is only $10 a month), I’ll mail you a handwritten postcard each month from one of the places we visit whether from Romania or from elsewhere in Europe.

Now for the reason we’re doing all this.

That’s a screenshot from the Romanian-US Fulbright Commission’s Facebook page. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of what Amy has accomplished so far and I know she’s going to kick ass in Iași. I’m just happy I get to tag along and support her in this.

We’re in the final phase of preparation for the trip to Romania. We’ve been transforming the house we’ve lived in for almost the last 12 years into a short term rental, which is akin to moving, except all your important personal stuff that you can’t take with you (which is most of it) goes into storage and gets replaced with stuff that won’t break your heart if it gets broken or takes a walk out the door.

But beyond that, you have to outfit the house for strangers, which means new bedding and new towels and new dishes and and and. Would it surprise you to learn that there are companies that serve this specific need? Surprise is the wrong word. I didn’t know they existed but the second I learned about them, I thought “of course. There would have to be.” And so the mismatched plates we’ve amassed over the years are now in boxes in the basement while our future guests will eat on very colorful dishes made from wheat straw. We did leave out some ungeneric coffee mugs.

And then there’s the packing. So many boxes. So many trips to the store for packing tape. So many steps in and out of the basement, which is original to the house (built in 1889). It has exposed beams and ductwork about 5 feet 8 inches above the floor, which is two inches shorter than I am. It was’t empty when we started but man is it full now. We’ve also reached the point where the labeling is going a bit awry. I saw a social media post recently of a box with the word “Ephemera” on it and the caption said something like “what happens when a writer helps you move.” All my writer friends were like “yep, that tracks.” We mostly avoided that but sometimes?

No reason to lie about it.

We’ll be hitting the road soon, with our first stop being south Florida to stay with Amy’s folks briefly. Then it’s four flights over god knows how many hours, just the six of us (4 humans, 2 dogs) and our many many bags to this adventure in Romania.

The posting here will mostly go back to being about poems. To read about and see our Romanian adventures, you’ll want to follow me on Patreon. And please, please, spread the word about it if you like what you see. I’ll be posting about it some on Bluesky and Instagram, but I’m not really a social media person and don’t expect to get much traction there. Which is fine. If I have to become BRIAN SPEARS, CONTENT CREATOR in order to make this work monetarily then maybe I just need to try to sell crocheted ears of corn named Maizie at the local market instead. I mean, they are cute.

Thanks as always for reading.