The Flying Machine

One of the challenges in working alone in my office is that I've got to find creative ways to keep my energy up - to stay awake and engaged in both day-to-day tasks and in the bigger ideas that inform those tasks.

It's all too easy to get bogged down in my to-do list (massive) or frustrated by the fact that I so rarely get to appreciate the forest for having to maintain all of the damn trees. I'm always looking for ways to stay connected to the big picture and to making change. Keeping out of the scarcity mindset and thinking creatively and positively.

I like this BTFI idea:

Call it self-indulgent. Call it a privilege. Call it insane. I won’t argue. But there’s also something incredibly valuable that happens when we dive into the work of making risk-taking an ongoing approach to life and art. And feel free to define art anyway you wish. When we bring that daring side of our selves to the fore, we not only grow as human beings, we increase the chances of stumbling on something that makes true social change possible.

Benjamin Zander, conductor and recent TED speaker, talks about this kind of process as “getting beyond fuck-it”–that place where you realize it makes no sense to continue to hold back, the place where perfectionism and ego fall away and all we’re left with is pure creative passion. Creative passion that can be utilized to solve problems, deepen empathy, increase understanding and change the world.

(via Jen Lemen)

Posted by Sarah at 11:46 AM | Permalink

A 2005 TED talk by Majora Carter of Sustainable South Bronx. One of the most powerfully effective speakers on environmental justice: just listen to how she details the systematic dismantling of the Bronx and how IMPORTANT and DOABLE it is to rebuild the Bronx sustainably - and the rest of the world, too.

Posted by Sarah at 11:13 AM | Permalink

S: to float or not to float
J: currency markets?
S: the klickitat river
J: wow

(via gchat)

Posted by Sarah at 8:21 AM | Permalink

I don't usually dwell on my regrets. There's certainly plenty enough of them. But Sarah convinced me to give it a try:

This sounds like a downer, but it’s actually kind of fun. There are the obvious ones that stand out at first, but it’s the careful combing of your life’s back stairs that makes this interesting. The main rule is your regret can’t be an undoing. Think of the Mark Twain quote, “Twenty years from now, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do, rather than the things you did.” If you ignore this rule, this game quickly deteriorates into My Life’s Bad Romantic Decisions, or Why Did I Ever Say/Do/Ingest That, which I suppose are both valid games, but not nearly as fun.

So, in no particular order:

• Never doing the Ledyard Challenge.
• Not writing down any of Poppa's stories so I could remember them better after he was gone.
• Never riding on the back of Ben's motorcycle.
• Not learning how to successfully side-part my hair until age 22.
• Never won the state championship in academic bowl even though we had all the knowledge and we made it to the finals and my dad even drove up to watch.
• All those times I stayed inside on the computer instead of going out with friends, age 13-22.
• Never using my newspaper column to speak out against the archaic invite-only drinking social clubs at my public high school.
• Pretty much everything and anything about age 14.
• Never kissing E.V., even though he's Out now and probably wouldn't want to anymore.
• Never crowd-surfing back when I listened to all that hard rock and punk.
• Letting my dad sell our river property and the muddin' Jeep.
• Us c&g girls never getting our tattoos.
• Letting my shyness or introversion or awkwardness or whatever get in the way of telling people how much I really care about them (this applies to almost everyone I have ever known: I probably like and respect you a whole lot more than you think, I just suck at saying so)

Posted by Sarah at 6:38 PM | Permalink

I need to read some books soon like whoa. I've got a big long list on my Goodreads and I hear good things about books from all my bookish friends but I have not been keeping up.

I've got a growing pile in the bedroom, books from friends, books from the library, books from bookstores. Have not made the time to read them. Have not made the time for lots of things lately. Like laundry. Or cleaning. Or running. Or hiking. Or much else. What have I made time for? Work. The garden. The boy. And that's about it.

How do you do it all, people?

Also, what does it say about you that when you get a free hour on a Sunday your first thought is to go out to the garden and weed?

Posted by Sarah at 10:01 AM | Permalink

This is my garden. I'm sharing the land, water, work, and produce with my friend Lisa. We are both really excited about it: if the bugs or gophers or diseases don't do us in, we'll have enough produce outta this thing to feed both our houses and then some.

We make a great garden team, too; we sat down and gleefully drew out bed diagrams and then just as gleefully staked out the beds and tamped down the walking paths and measured the rows and spaced the seeds just so. We also did all kinds of wild and crazy stuff like sticking herb plants in between the beds and zig-zagging the pea trellises. Oh yeah. It is going to be so rad.

Posted by Sarah at 1:39 PM | Permalink

I've been meaning to go to the weekly downtown Pub Quiz here for a while. Once a nerd, always a nerd, you know? Last night I finally made it down and joined N's team of fish biologists.

We totally won. Easily. I aced every lit question of the night and I would have aced all the redneck questions if anyone had believed me when I told them that a jingle bob is part of a cowboy's spur.

I think maybe I'll go more often. And wear my 2002 Division III Academic Team State-Runner Up ring.

Posted by Sarah at 2:12 PM | Permalink

News to make my Monday: TAX REFUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Sarah at 9:54 AM | Permalink

So we started a Southern cooking club. Nate named us Southern Culture on the Stove. The first meeting was last week and it was phenomenal:

Shrimp and andouille gumbo (me)
Roast chicken with peach glaze (Magz)
Maque choux (Cajun corn) (Will)
Cornbread (Nerissa)
Collards with bacon and garlic (Nate)
Peach cobbler (Cat)
Berry crisp (Becca)
SWEET TEA (me)

Oooh man was it good. We got to do this again SOON.

Posted by Sarah at 4:16 PM | Permalink

Why did The Dismemberment Plan have to break up?!

Posted by Sarah at 4:05 PM | Permalink

Played Rock Band for the first time last night. Turns out it's pretty fun to push buttons on a cheesy plastic guitar if there's drinks and dancing people and a dancing barking dog and songs you can sing along to and did I mention drinks?

Tonight'll be even better, though. Everybody and I mean everybody is coming into Portland to see the Avett Brothers. Eug, Florence, Lakeview, Newport, Da Locks, White Salmon, Hood Rivah... Rural Oregon's gonna roll deep. There better be dancing.

And then Mego rolls in this weekend. Just in time for sunshine and 70 degrees. Things are looking good.

Aside from all the rockin' good times there's some more interesting stuff going on in my head. Don't have the time to really get into it, which is a shame, because I need to, but maybe soon. The short of it is that I am ready to make some exciting changes around here.

Posted by Sarah at 9:42 AM | Permalink

Story of my life.

(via Lizita)

Posted by Sarah at 8:54 AM | Permalink

It's cloudy and cold and wet and gross today but it won't be that way for much longer.

We busted out the first batch of sweet tea for the season last night.

Posted by Sarah at 1:40 PM | Permalink

it pours.

Always.

Posted by Sarah at 10:31 AM | Permalink

Posted by Sarah at 5:09 PM | Permalink

MY NAME IS JONAS
I'M CARRYIN' THE WHEEL

It is 2000 (2001?) and I am so proud of my sporty red sweatpants even though I can only wear them inside where the air conditioning is cold enough to give you goosebumps. We are inside because it is the middle of the day in the middle of midsummer at the beach in Florida and we are already sunburned.

THANKS FOR ALL YOU'VE SHOWN US
THIS IS HOW WE FEEL

We are also inside because you can't make out on the beach in the middle of the day.

COME SIT NEXT TO ME
POUR YOURSELF SOME TEA

There's only one Discman and one set of headphones, so we share. One or the other keeps falling out, but it doesn't really matter, because we know all the words anyway.

(Brought to you by having heard My Name is Jonas today for the first time in a long, long time.)

Posted by Sarah at 1:25 PM | Permalink

If it's been a while since you've backed up any of your important personal or professional computer documents, DO IT. Like, now.

Because you never know when the computer containing everything your organization has done in 2.5 years might kick the bucket.*

Just sayin'.

This also means that I have even less computer access than normal. Thank goodness for my nearly-6-year-old Powerbook. If you don't hear from me for a bit, this is why. Also because I'ma be in Tillamook this Saturday and then doing an all-day GUMBO EXTRAVAGANZA with Team South'n on Sunday. Shrimp 'n' sausage and all that. Oh yes.

* Yes, I was able to recover everything. But it would have been less expensive and gut-wrenchingly stressful if I had had more current backups.

Posted by Sarah at 5:47 PM | Permalink