It is August, and The Librarian is off on adventures, for maybe two years. She has her tiny adorable netbook and her folding bike and vintage Volvo and will be reporting via blog and/or book. WOW. I’m sure I am not the only one feeling thoughtful at the sight of her actually marching off to pursue some dreams. And maybe even more so after witnessing a parade of other friends who came by to pick up stuff or help with house chores. She had a way of using help wisely and without fussing when it was offered, but still taking full responsibility for how things were going, and having the bandwidth to listen to and pay attention to people throughout. In short, there is more than one axis on which I want to be more like The Librarian. In the meantime, I now have a little experience painting a ceiling with a roller and putting down stick-on vinyl tile. And she saved the masking tape around the painted trim for me to tear down, because she knows I like that!

In order to get to her house, I got my bike out and cleaned it up for riding. About time now that it’s August, right? It’s a beater, with a little rust problem that’s never gone away since Burning Man, but it’s pretty smooth, fine for neighborhood trips. I’m not an enthusiastic cyclist, so I let myself count cycling mileage in my monthly training totals. (But not for the official Million Mile Ultra.) Aspiration: do this earlier next year and try some Pedalpalooza events.

This morning on the way to the bus stop I ate my first Himalayan blackberry of the season. Most of them aren’t ripe. Every year I say I want to make free-blackberry jam for Christmas presents–maybe this year! Any locals want to make a project of it with me? I’d probably be more motivated with someone to share the suffering and triumph.

I’m looking forward to finding a story to work on and finish– lately it’s been scraps and fragments, KFC assignments, stuff like that. Speaking of longer projects, remember the AlphaSmarts that people were typing their NaNos on back when, because they have like a 500 hour battery life and no internet and no big screen to suck you into premature editing? Well, they’re like $20 on eBay now. I’m tempted, for the next time I write something long. But that’s probably aspirational shopping.