Can we not do something about this?

This is from an interview with Charles Cross about Kurt Cobain.
I want our country to be better at catching all the lost people who get to a place where the only way they can function in the world is by using drugs.  I want us to help people dealing with the kind of problems Kurt Cobain had.  We’re a rich country.  There’s no way we should be letting people slip through the cracks like that.

An after school walk

Home from Overlook Park, though Overlook, Arbor Lodge and Kenton neighborhoods.
Swirly parking strip.

Gnarly old trees in Overlook.
TARDIS
Gorgeous yard and cottage.
Precise hedge.
Telephone booth peeking over a hedge.
On the fence in that same yard is the “Poem Booth.”
My favorite secret way to cross a busy street.
Burning bush among the strawberries.
Stairs being overtaken.
Retaining wall overtaken.
A nice swoop and orange trim.
This home does not fit in at all, and is tremendously ugly, but I love it for those two reasons.
In the side yard of the tremendously ugly home are many wood crafted signs.
This bungalow went and grew a big backside in the Omaha woods.
Kind of looks like a dead cat, but was actually a very happy warm cat.

Victorian with a stellar paint job.
Check out the detail on the door.

Can I make it through this alleyway?

It was okay until I found myself completely surrounded by blackberry bushes.
I made it through, though can’t recommend it.

Sorting the letters.

Along with the journals, the letters from the first two years of college were recovered.  They are all a jumble and I’m sorting them.  I have another tub of letters which I went though a few years ago, so I hope to get everything in neat piles of people.  It’s been fun to see what I can find.  They are especially nostalgic because after my first two years of college I got an email account. Though the letters still arrived, it wasn’t with the same frequency.  All of that early electronic communication has been lost and I mourn it.  That makes these letters all the more wonderful to read now.

KRPS schedule in 1994

Just in case you need to know what I was listening to my first two years of college.  Friend Sue and I especially enjoyed the Bob and Bill show.  That’s the first time I can remember a radio show giving an email address to write to, along with the regular postal service address.  We also loved the Radio Reader, though Friend Sue got to listen to him more than I did as she was always doing something in the Art building, whereas my hours were spent in the library.

Requiem: dresses.

I think I found this dress at Savers, but I can’t be sure. It’s straight polyester of the late 60s/early 70s variety that is quite thick and sweaty and never breaks down.  The dress is SHORT.  I wore it ironically with bright green fishnet stockings and knee-high boots for “green and gold” spirit day my senior year of high school. I also had my longest false eyelashes on.  You can’t get a sense of scale when it’s laid out on the table like this, but looking at it today, I marveled that I had ever been that small.  It was one of the first dresses I wore when I was starting to get an idea of what powers my body had, if I dressed a certain way.

The label.
This dress was inherited from an Aunt (I can’t remember if it was Pat or Carol.  The length makes me think Aunt Carol had it first because she had the legs, but the lace around the collar makes me think it was Aunt Pat’s.)  It spent many years as a “dress up” dress in the dress up box.  I can remember wearing it when it came to my toes.  But I grew up and it was another high school discovery.  Also quite short.  I love the purple and orange pattern. It’s pretty worn out, which is too bad.

Another brown polyester dress probably bought at the same time that yellow one was.  I don’t ever remember wearing this, but I have a clear memory of H. wearing it, again ironically, for a spirit week dress up day.
Aside from the indestructible nature that comes with polyester, this has a great back zipper and, I discovered as I was searching around for a label, was homemade.
This came from the Salvation Army Thrift store and was my favorite dress for many years as a child.  I had a thing for old fashioned dresses so this was an incredible find.  I wore it for Halloween one year, and then any time I could after that.  Always for dress up.  I even fashioned hoop skirts from the circled bit of plastic that came with the lawn dart set.  This is homemade too, and still gorgeous.  If it was anywhere near fitting, I would have kept it, but someone else will get to be thrilled to find it.

Exercise goal for April.

I get a goodly amount of exercise, but I would like to do better.  My goal for April will be to average 60 minutes of exercise over six days.  I’ve just tallied up my exercise for the 12 weeks since January 6, and I averaged 45 minutes per day.  So I have a good foundation built.  Exercise can be anything but will most likely be the following things I do:  walking, jog/walk, Pilates, exercise class.  The only thing I’m not counting is restorative yoga, which I love, and is very good for me, but I cannot in good conscious call exercise.  I don’t have to complete 60 minutes all at once, can break the sessions and scatter them through the day.

I’ll check in at the end of every week.

Week of March 31
I did 370 minutes of exercise over seven days, but since I’ve decided to divide 370 by six and not seven, I made my goal.

Week of April 7
380 minutes over six days.  Goal achieved!  Also, I walked home from work for the first time.  It took 85 minutes.  Which is not really that long, in the grand scheme of things.  I might think about doing this more often.

Week of April 14
365 over six days.  I took Easter off.

Week of April 21
Despite the fact I did no exercise on three days, I still clocked 360 minutes this week.  This makes me think that 360/week is a reasonable number to shoot for on a regular basis.

Week of April 28
Although this week I only did 165 minutes over four days.  I did run a 5k on Saturday though, which meant I skipped my walk to the gym and the gym which meant 80 minutes of usually automatic exercise I did not obtain. Not such a great finish to the experiment, but still successful enough that I will continue to strive for 360 minutes of exercise per week.

Books read in April 2014

Good stuff this month.  Except for one YA that I felt very ambivalent about, the rest of these books were ones I would shove at you with varying levels of excitement.  If I had to pick just one, I would tell you to read This Song Will Save Your Life which hit every single teenage-girls-are-awesome buttons.  I’m mildly obsessed with Leila Sales, the author.

Picture books
The Scraps Book
Lois Ehlert
Read for Librarian Book Group.
Book about the author’s process in making her books.  Full of fun detail.

Middle Readers
The Crossover
Kwame Alexander
Poetry! And Basketball!  A tale of a middle school basketball star with a twin brother (who also plays) a dad who is a former pro-ball (in Europe) player and a mom who is the principal of the middle school.  The story unfolds in many short poems.  Very excellent.

Young Adult Books
Grasshopper Jungle
Andrew Smith
Read for Librarian Book Group.
For the first half of this book I was completely in love with the horny stylings of the narrarator.  The Iowa town was great, the friend/girlfriend were great, the love triangle was fabulous and I loved the descriptions of the school and teachers.  It was also funny on every single page.  But somewhere in the middle I suddenly didn’t love it as much and by the end I was just at a simple “like” which was too bad because it was headed toward five-star status.  But you should read it if you like gonzo plots, adolescent boys being very frank about sexual desire, adolescent boys who are trying to figure out their feelings–possibly romantic–for their best friend*, sci-fi stylings, or books about small town Iowa.  Also if you like funny.

Overall, I recommend. Maybe because I read it so fast I lost interest?  I can’t put my finger on what happened.

*This angle right here was enough for me to read the book.  Boys thinking they might be attracted to other boys, but still love girls isn’t something I see a lot of.

The Theory of Everything
Kari Luna
This won the Oregon Book Award for YA and I can’t say I loved it.  Was she hallucinating or was she experiencing breaks in the fabric of the universe?  It wasn’t super clear to me and I felt uncomfortable.

This Song Will Save Your Life
Leila Sales
My favorite kind of tale:  girl finds her “thing,” boy is superfluous. It reminded me a lot of the movie Whip-It in all the best ways.  This is a fun read and will resonate with anyone who has felt out of place in school, but at home when music is playing.

Grownup Books
Lessons from the Borderlands
Bette Lynch Hustead
Read for Kenton Library Book Group.
Essays written by a woman living in Eastern Oregon, who grew up poor in Idaho.  There were things I could relate to, which makes for good essay reading.

Story of a Marriage
Andrew Sean Greer
Beautifully written tale from the perspective of a woman living in San Francisco in the 1950s.  There were a couple of surprising turns I didn’t see coming.

This is Between Us
Kevin Sampsill
Reading this I couldn’t help but think repeatedly, “Is this how guys think?”  Because if it is, I have vastly underestimated the amount of time they are thinking about sex.  And that’s with studies being published telling me they think of sex every six minutes or so.  This book is a tale of a five years of a couple’s life.  A lot of sex.  A lot of thinking about sex.  I found it rather hot, though weird that the guy who wrote it is the guy who introduces the authors for readings at Powell’s.

Postcards from China & Finland.

This is from Lu, who wished me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  This caused confusion on my part as it’s the end of April.  The Chinese postmark says April 21.  When I registered it, I found that Lu sent it at the end of December.  Where did it go for four months?
Fun stamps.  I love the fish one especially.

This is from someone whose name was obscured by the bar code stamp.  She asked me about spring in Oregon and says that it’s 10 degrees in Finland. Google tells me that  is 50 degrees Fahrenheit. She tells me also that fishing season has started which is a good reason to stay outdoors.  She also hopes her choice of card is acceptable and it is, because I adore the two old ladies.  
Fun stamp with this one too!