The Good Dirt

find something good, every day 



July 17, 2008

walk with sprocket

alright, i dragged out one of my THREE digital cameras and took it on our walk today.
here they are. i don't have any way to caption them for you, but in order, they are:

1. billboards that are obviously by a ballpark
2. sprocket sits
3. i don't know why i never thought of posing my dog in front of a statue before and making him sit for photos. here he is doing his igor impression: "yeesssss, masssterrrrr...."
4. i liked the look of this alley. they are all over chicago, handy for dropping dog poo bags off, and usually ugly, but i found this one, with its bright blue bins, pretty. maybe it was because this is a sign of a recycling system!!!
5. this street, alta vista, is beautiful. it is on the register of historic neighborhoods, or something. each of its houses is made to mirror the one exactly diagonal to it on the other side of the street. of course, paint jobs have changed some features, but other than that, nothing's really changed. one of these houses is for sale. i'll take two

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July 16, 2008

man, oh man...

...the best-laid plans go swooshing down the drain.
i speak, of course, of my desire to post a photo whenever i can. what i really miss is the documentation of life, the act of it, in something other than words. i will be starting that again today. despite the fact that it's humid and awful today, the sun i shining and the day is bright.
today i've completed two more articles for the Origin of Nearly Everything book, and i need but to do two more before my obligation to them is complete. now, looking back, i wish i had been more diligent in doing these articles. it's been very easy for me to complete this last set, and i think i just approached the methodology wrong. i really enjoyed the process this time--it took me but two diligent days to complete the research and start the writing--and now, three days after the initial broaching of research, i've almost done. the last article will take a little bit more researching, but overall it should be fine.
tonight there's a bookstore staff meeting; tomorrow i'll hope to complete the articles, and then i'll meet a few friends for drinks. friday it's another day of work, trying to sort out the finalish details of the katalyst project (so far behind!) and then it's dinner with some friends at my place. i have to pack for a camping trip this weekend, and prepare a leave no trace presentation for CAARA (that's the camping thing), and that's my last real, vaguely work-oriented obligation, other than bookstore stuff.
then i can start in earnest on my book. the idea is scary. it's a whole new one. it has to be.
tonight after the bookstore staff meeting i'm taking the girl who came on board to do marketing out to drinks. predictably, she feels as if she didn't get much done, or was even assigned anything good, so i am planning on helping her to decipher the marketing world insofar as i know it. i know i will return from that meeting feeling energized.

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July 15, 2008

actually quite excited

In the fall I get to go here with Jim:
http://www.utah.com/multimedia/flv/narrows.html
We'll be camping at the bottom of the Narrows, and I finally have an excuse to really put to good use one of the very first model of water shoe that Keen ever came out with:

(I wonder if that will work. I'm still trying to fool Posterous somehow.)
I also finally get to get some trekking poles and put 'em to good use. Hooray!
I love hiking in rivers. I haven't done it but twice, and I really enjoyed it both times.

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July 15, 2008

vague changes

some interesting shifts in my little world are happening lately. although, i'm not sure they're happening in the direction I want them to go in.
1. today or tomorrow i find out if i'm eligible for my first-ever gat0rade lab rat test. that'll be fun.
2. i have mondo articles and assignments due fairly soon, and they're all, to a letter, kicking my butt. when did writing become not-fun?
3. i'm batting around the idea of a re-visit to national novel writing month, although this one will be a personal novel-writing month. alexe and mike bought me a _No Plot? No Problem!_ kit, and i think i'm going to use it. it has fun stickers, a word-count log, and good advice for starting a book from scratch, which is what i really think i need to do.
i'm not about to delude myself. i know that, although i've written two complete drafts, i'll never feel like a real novelist (and i certainly will refuse to wear around the cute little lapel pin that is included in the kit that screams, "Novelist!") until i actually get published. but i also know that i'm not good with no deadline. so a self-imposed deadline is better than none.
4. travel:
july 19-20: some park in illinois to speak on Leave No Trace ethics
july 25-26: indiana, for a triathlon
august 7-10: new york, for a wedding
august 12-21: nicaragua
september 20-22: mom's 65th birthday
september 23-27: hiking the narrows with jim
(i've decided that august is a good month to write. i'l be traveling a lot, but not out of reach of my laptop, and there will be time. also, i'll be in new york, where i always gain inspiration. and then i'll be in nicaragua, where, although i'll be tired, there will be quiet time in the mornings while my family sleeps.)
argh. to work, lazy girl! to work with ye!

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July 14, 2008

confusion

well, i'm finding that i miss a few things about blogger, like the neat little widgets that pop up on the side: what i'm reading, who my friends are, so on and so forth...but the reality is, i needed to taper my life anyway.
which, of course, leads me to the other things i maintain. first and foremost in my mind is MilesRemoved, which was a really cool little experiment in which two friends and i, all in different places, posted our workouts. it helped to have virtual training partners, for sure, and, although the original idea was that it'd be a forum of sorts for everyone to check in with each other and provide support and answers for questions, it was still really worth it.
now, the events we were training for are over, i'm finding that i miss the actual back-and-forth. i miss reading up on what my friends are doing. i'm wondering if i should continue to post there, since it really was no different than my friends having to go to another place to check in.
anyway. things to think about.
i went swimming today for the first time in quite a few weeks. just 800 yards, not even half a mile, but whatever. i have a triathlon coming up in two weeks, so i need to get on my horse. felt OK, but it took longer than i wanted it to, and i wasn't quite as streamlined getting out the door as i usually am. guess that's to be expected.

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July 13, 2008

testing, photos

remember when i said that i wanted to take a photo every single day and post it?
well, the reality is that if i tell you i'm going to post it every day, there's an impetus...and also, as peter says, you have to make it as easy as falling off a log if you're going to get someone to change.
so here's a photo test. they're photos from london. i've not captioned them yet.

     

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July 13, 2008

advertising icons i love

the creator of these guys is the same guy who created Samurai Jack:
and i always thought this guy was cute:
and then, i thought this guy was going to stick around forever, but alas, he didn't.

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July 13, 2008

taking my own advice

trying something new for now...let's see if it sticks. i like the idea of having to "go" someplace else to write a 'blog entry...it makes me feels as if i'm creating some sort of delineation between work and blogging. e-mail obviously is just used for work and communications things; blogging is very personal. so we'll see if i take to this.
sitting on the couch right now, about to go back to my newpaper. and then there's nearly a whole day's worth of errands to be done. argh!

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