The PaperGirl Predictor Machine-o-Gram Predictions for 2018

posted in: Day In The Life 8
Is that Philip Larkin down there?? (“Gipsy Fortune Teller,” by Taras Shevchenko, c. 1840. Image: Wikipedia.)

 

Thank you for being kind about my mini-story the other day; I was weirdly seized with the desire to talk about what was going on with me without actually talking about what was going on with me and it was a really interesting exercise. Several of you asked for more chapters and you know, I might just write them. Thanks, as always, for reading the ol’ PG.

Thank you also for sensing that I have needed a little rest. I am getting a modest portion.

Now, then.

This time of year, you see a lot of “Best/Worst” year-end lists and various wrap-up features (e.g., The Year In Pictures; The Year In Memes, etc.). It’s certainly important to reflect. But it seems there’s way more retrospecting than there is futurecasting. Instead of me doing a year-end wrap up of all the things that happened on this blog in the past year — it was all a blur, anyway — how about some predictions for the coming one?

Here is a list of people, places, events, and other stuff I predict you’ll be reading a lot more about in the ol’ PG in 2018. It’s stuff I’m hoping I’ll be able to write about, anyway. I used a special machine to generate the contents, as you can see:

The PaperGirl Predictor Machine-o-Gram Predictions for 2018

Quiltfolk Magazine (my dream magazine)
Philip Larkin (my dream dog)
Travel (to distant lands??)
A move to a new apartment?? (in Chicago, don’t worry)
Love?? (possible … )
Soaring income (look, this is my predictor machine! I’m going for it)
Completion of my master’s in May (it’s gonna happen!!!)
The return of a certain podcast project??? (who can say??)
Other Wonderful Things
Great clothes, baby
Hottest year ever (not weather)

Now, the PaperGirl Predictor Machine-o-Gram can tell no lies. So it also predicted things that I might not want but that must come to pass because hey, man. Life. So the following things will probably come up as you read along with me, but it’s okay:

Woe
Illness (but nothing serious, hopefully — Thanks Machine-o-Gram!)
Melancholy
Wistfullness
Despondency
General malaise
Crushing fear

Why are you looking at me like that? Them’s the breaks, gang. If I try to land a year with only good things and no bad things, I don’t think it would make for a very interesting reading experience for you. And I live for you.

(I’m only half-kidding.)

Happy New Year, everyone.

At The Chicago Botanical Garden, Early April

Me and a little dude with a tail.
Me and a little dude with a tail, Chicago Botanical Garden, 2015. Photo: Yuri

Yuri was in Chicago over the weekend, also.

We spent time together on Monday. After work tasks were complete, he took me to the Chicago Botanical Garden to walk, to talk, and remember each other for awhile.

The Chicago Botanical Garden is a world-class joint. Hordes descend upon the place in warmer months but somehow milling among thousands of people doesn’t feel bad at the Botanical Gardens; it feels communal. English gardens, Japanese gardens, fields of field flowers, a glassy pond, sculptures big and small — if it’s green and cultivated you want, green and cultivated you shall have and there’s a great cafe for when you’re exhausted from walking and have pollen all over your shirt. It’s also free to get in.

Yuri and I walked through the grounds arm in arm. We did this because we care about each other a great deal but we were also freezing cold. Nothing has bloomed, yet; there were a few brave shoots poking up here and there, but not many. All the plants are waiting, checking final items off the pre-production list before the big launch.The greenhouses were thriving — greenhouses do that — so when we were almost too cold to be having fun, we found a greenhouse and slipped in to warm up. Tip: if you’re feeling disconnected from nature, pop yourself into a balmy, breathing greenhouse. You’ll get fixed right up.

We had fun together. We got soup and a glass of wine at the cafe. We argued. I cried. We laughed. Walking on the main promenade under the cold, grey sky, Yuri picked me up and spun me around and I hollered, “No! Don’t! Yuri, stop!” but it was okay. New York, we have both decided, seems like a dream. It’s a trite thing to say, but damned if I know how else to describe it. The East Village? Really? Manhattan? But when? I know why — passion, risk, love, adventure — but as to the how, I couldn’t tell you if you put a Rhododendron ferrugineum to my neck.

Yuri and I aren’t together, but we’ll always be together because of New York, because of Chicago, because of that day in the garden, I guess. When do you stop being connected to a soul?

That picture up top is one of a series Yuri took of me being a mom to a hunk of bronze.