If These Narwhals Could Talk
After moving into my new place, I was in a flurry of activity to make the place functional, putting together furniture, arranging things the right way, and on and on. But then I stopped at that point. I didn't do the extra stuff, like put up pictures, set up a container garden, and so forth. I think I was resentful of the situation that required my move and slow to accept the idea that an apartment in a great big apartment complex would be my new home. I made it functional but stopped short of really claiming it by putting my signature on it.
Now it's different. In a strange way I like this place. And it's inevitable that it will often remind me of the previous chapter in my life, but I no longer have any sort of visceral reaction to those memories. I've put up paintings and prints and put out knickknacks. I have non-buyer's remorse after seeing some Marvel Comics wall plaques at Ross and talking myself out of buying one of them. They were wooden panels with reproductions of comic book covers on them--and they were only $9.99! I wish I had one above my desk. I've since gone back to Ross--more than one location even--and not found the plaques.
I went off on a tangent there. This weekend I decided to begin some container gardening. I had some basil and scallions that were already going that I brought with me, but they didn't amount to much. Now I'm hoping to sprout some okra seeds, and I've potted a pepper start. If I can find an old bench I might make a tiered system to maximize my limited balcony space.
I fell out of the habit of lifting weights during the upward and downward spiral of my last relationship--and its aftermath. That's been on my mind, and I'm slowly starting to do something about it. I didn't lose as much strength as I thought I would have.
My avid reading has also been making a slow comeback, although it's still nothing like it used to be. I'm finally now listing the first 20 books I've finished in 2014.
1. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod
2. The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abunimah
3. The Right to Stay Home: Ending Forced Migration and the Criminalization of Immigrants by David Bacon
4. Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story by Peter Bagge
5. Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems by James Baldwin
6. Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser
7. A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
8. On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky
9. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio
10. Liberalism and Social Action by John Dewey
11. Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link by Cynthia Enloe
12., Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit's Promised Land by Norman G. Finkelstein
13. The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet by John Bellamy Foster
14. Savage Capitalism and the Myth of Democracy: Latin America in the Third Millennium by Michael Hogan
15. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López
16. The Giver by Lois Lowry
17. 1,001 Words and Phrases You Never Knew You Didn't Know: Hopperdozer, Hoecake, Ear Trumpet, Dort, and Other Nearly Forgotten Terms and Expressions by W.R. Runyan
18. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth by Juliet B. Schor
19. Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter by David Robinson Simon
20. Undoing Border Imperialism by Harsha Walia
Now it's different. In a strange way I like this place. And it's inevitable that it will often remind me of the previous chapter in my life, but I no longer have any sort of visceral reaction to those memories. I've put up paintings and prints and put out knickknacks. I have non-buyer's remorse after seeing some Marvel Comics wall plaques at Ross and talking myself out of buying one of them. They were wooden panels with reproductions of comic book covers on them--and they were only $9.99! I wish I had one above my desk. I've since gone back to Ross--more than one location even--and not found the plaques.
I went off on a tangent there. This weekend I decided to begin some container gardening. I had some basil and scallions that were already going that I brought with me, but they didn't amount to much. Now I'm hoping to sprout some okra seeds, and I've potted a pepper start. If I can find an old bench I might make a tiered system to maximize my limited balcony space.
I fell out of the habit of lifting weights during the upward and downward spiral of my last relationship--and its aftermath. That's been on my mind, and I'm slowly starting to do something about it. I didn't lose as much strength as I thought I would have.
My avid reading has also been making a slow comeback, although it's still nothing like it used to be. I'm finally now listing the first 20 books I've finished in 2014.
1. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod
2. The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abunimah
3. The Right to Stay Home: Ending Forced Migration and the Criminalization of Immigrants by David Bacon
4. Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story by Peter Bagge
5. Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems by James Baldwin
6. Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser
7. A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
8. On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky
9. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio
10. Liberalism and Social Action by John Dewey
11. Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link by Cynthia Enloe
12., Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit's Promised Land by Norman G. Finkelstein
13. The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet by John Bellamy Foster
14. Savage Capitalism and the Myth of Democracy: Latin America in the Third Millennium by Michael Hogan
15. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López
16. The Giver by Lois Lowry
17. 1,001 Words and Phrases You Never Knew You Didn't Know: Hopperdozer, Hoecake, Ear Trumpet, Dort, and Other Nearly Forgotten Terms and Expressions by W.R. Runyan
18. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth by Juliet B. Schor
19. Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter by David Robinson Simon
20. Undoing Border Imperialism by Harsha Walia