Tonight I feel like I haven't experienced so many of these things in such a long time. I miss feeling like myself. I miss the joy and innocence of these things, the simplicity; I wonder where they have gone. And how I can get them back.

• unsolicited correspondence from dear old friends - trains and bikers and mispronouncers of spanish and people with ears and cartoonists. sometimes you make me grin nine smile lines and sometimes I cry out of love.
• being won over
• certain scents
• cozy weary travelers
• giggling gleefully as I shirk work
• running farther than I've ever run before
• the part where I get to eat the shot bloks
• the chocolate bar perpetually inhabiting ...

most recent on top.

• cat's cradle - kurt vonnegut
• eating animals - jonathan safran foer
• blankets - craig something
• the toughest indian in the world - sherman alexie
• once a runner
• let your life speak - parker palmer
• the world without us
• war dances - sherman alexie
• indian killer - ibid.
• doing nothing - tom lutz
• mennonite in a little black dress - rhoda janzen
• reservation blues - sherman alexie
• gladys: a life lived for others - my grandpa wrote this book about my grandma. so sweet.
• a fisherman of the inland sea - ursula leguin
• the lone ranger and tonto fistfight in heaven - sherman alexie
• the b.f.g. - roald dahl
• run - ann patchett
• the phantom tollbooth - norton juster

Ending the exploitation of people and of the earth and its resources.

not sure this is the main thing I'm about...

But that is a negative statement, and what we need is positive statements about what that looks like. Instead of "what should we seek to avoid?" let's try "what can we do? how can we act? how can we mold ourselves into better stewards of the earth and into better brothers and sisters to each other?

To that end, the following:

• environmental justice
• economic justice
• sustainable development
• a fundamental re-thinking of what the Good Life is
• conservation
• sustainability
• human kindness

• basic lentil soup (make double batches with polenta or cornbread)
• chili!!
• homemade pizza
• black bean sweet potato burritos
• stuffed zucchini
• lasagna
• homemade veggie burgers
• french toast!
• grilled cheese + tomato soup
• CASSEROLE
• gingery butternut squash soup
• honeyed lentils
• vegetable CURRY
• nelson mandela birthday pasta bake
• tortilla española
• ratatouille
• scalloped potatoes

• morning benders - big echo
• jonsi - go
• the tallest man on earth - the wild hunt
• florence and the machine - lungs
• anais mitchell & co - hadestown
• dark was the night

suggestions welcome.

• the rapture exposed - barbara r. rossing
• the citizenship papers - wendell berry
• radical homemakers - shannon hayes
• food rules: an eater's manual - michael pollan (n.b.! I do not necessarily think we need an eater's manual, especially after all pollan has told us about not needing other people to tell us how to eat, but I'm curious.)
• blessed unrest - paul hawken
• urban sprawl and public health: designing, planning, and building for healthy communities - howard frumkin, lawrence frank, richard joseph jackson
• limits to growth - club of rome
• the red leather diary - lily koppel
• the powers trilogy - walter wink
• silent spring - rachel carson
• ceremony - leslie marmon silko
• angle of repose - wallace stegner
• diet for a new america - john robbins

• "Throughout evolutionary history, a big surprise would get everyone’s brain thinking," said Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford. "But we’ve got a large and growing group of people who think the slightest hint that something interesting might be going on is like catnip. They can’t ignore it."
  • does my political/vocational paralysis come from too much emphasis on the incoming information and not enough on long-range matters? If I shut off my email and got rid of the catnip, would I be able to do bigger things?
• "Secondhand impressions kill." - Hillary Watson
• "You are so much better in person." - ibid.
• "...mining in a pristine environment such as ours can only lead to environmental p...

• baby dee – the robin’s tiny throat
• phosphorescent – here’s to taking it easy
• sigur ros – agætis byrjun
• morning benders – big echo
• horse feathers – thistled spring
• local natives – gorilla manor
• yeasayer – odd blood
• jonsi – go
• the tallest man on earth – the wild hunt
• fiona apple – extraordinary machine
• florence & the machine – lungs
• neon indian – psychic chasms
• field music – measure
• midlake – the courage of others
• (animal collective – meriweather post pavilion)
• noah and the whale – the first days of spring
• girls – album

• bb clarke beach
• the firepit-
• downstairs-
• mother fool's
• the arboretum
• streets that dead-end in lakes
• sarah's house!
• jenny street market
• state street
• picnic point
• cap city trail
• dark pier over dark lake reflecting dark sky
• library
• farmers' market
• monona terrace at night
• union terrace
• sw bikepath
• I can't go any of these places anymore, because I can't walk for the time being. It is very sad. I can't bike, either. I ha...

• frank sinatra music wafting out of cozy bookshops on snowy nights
• swimming in my down comforter
• jube cube
• 1410 N Central Ave., schmindianapolis
• me in a dress and apron, wearing oven mitts, pulling something tasty out of the oven to give to someone I love
• 11.75 miles
• 149
• maybe someday something forever
• wood floors and white radiators and big big windows and snowflakes
• cookie cutters
• bathrobe-to-be
• the madison blizzard of '09
• sledding
• ice skating in the dark in Tenney Park
• Christmas morning creaks
• slippers

• speech therapist
• environmental political scientist
• caretaker in a family's home
• grad student http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-Sc...
• doctor (med school)

• create a blog, similar to FAILBLOG, dealing entirely with instances of Sustainability Fail
• There’s no greater tragedy than an equal intensity, in the same soul or the same man, of the intellectual sentiment and the moral sentiment. For a man to be utterly and absolutely moral, he has to be a bit stupid. For a man to be absolutely intellectual, he has to be a bit immoral. I don’t know what game or irony of creation makes it impossible for man to be both things at once. And yet, to my misfortune, this duality occurs in me. Endowed with both virtues, I’ve never been able to make myself into anything. It wasn’t a surfeit of one quality, but of two, that made me unfit to live.

- Fernando Pessoa

• http://hilobrow.com/2009/08/29/living-in... http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2010/06/mor...
• abandonment as reenchantment

• figure out podcasts, then download shittons.
• figure out skype
• write down questions I'm curious about and look them up online
  • first query: how is coffee de-caffeinated? and does it retain some caffeine?
  • what are self-reinforcing runaway loops?
• ✔ write creatively
• make a comic book
• ✔ blog
  • ✔ for self
  • ✔ for mvs unit publicity
• learn to make books
• ✔ screen print
• ✔ draw
• ✔ practice guitar
• ✔ make cards
• ✔ write letters

Yes, I know they're not all new.

• devendra banhart - smokey rolls down thunder canyon
• bon iver - blood bank (ep)
• bon iver - for emma, forever ago
• fleet foxes - fleet foxes (and ep)
• the national - alligator
• black keys - attack & release
• grizzly bear - veckatimest
• neko case - middle cyclone
• mgmt - oracular spectacular
• mum - go go smear the poison ivy
• villagers - hollow kind (ep)
• the low anthem - charlie darwin
• andrew bird - noble beast
• leo kottke

comment with recommendations!