Collapse of Industrialized Society

Once a week or so, especially after a long day printing or washing dishes, I like to fill the tub with hot hot soapy bubbly water and read the fiction selection in the latest New Yorker.  I might also make myself a beverage, maybe grapefruit soda and gin with a little rosewater, perhaps even drink it out of tall glass with a fat straw. When I am warm and pink and sleepy, I might get out of the tub and eat a few spoonfuls of ice cream for dinner.

Don't mistake my occasional treat as a symbol of a decadent lifestyle. I know how to enjoy myself but the realities are also crystal clear. I live in a state in the middle of a severe drought. (I skip showers and generally use an "efficient" amount of water so I can sometimes take a bath).  Sometimes I look forward to the collapse of industrialized society.  I am not sure how long I will last, but I am an efficient cook, with a lot of practice at one pot meal (post-Katrina Plan B kitchen, anyone? I was cooking with one burner in a bicycle shop). I can make do. I will certainly miss the warm tub of soapy water, and silly silly straws, but I will be ok with letting a lot of other things go.

Every month I print a folded card and mail it to a list of subscribers and call it the Keep Writing Project.  One part of the card is for you to keep, a letterpress memento.  The other half has a little story about the image, and some instructions. For April, I sent these, asking people what they will bring to the collapse of society.  I post the responses here but you can also see them if you follow me on instagram, @gutwrenchhope.  Oh, and if you want to subscribe, you can do on my website here or in my etsy shop .  

And, if you live in the Bay Area you can come look through baskets of responses when i share them at a show at EM Wolfman's Bookstore for the month of July. There will be more special treat but you will have to wait and see.

Keep Writing number 73, mailed April 2015