I got an email on Friday to say I’ve been accepted into the Independent Publishing Resource Center Certificate Program, fiction/nonfiction track! Ever since I applied I’ve been thinking about zines, letterpress (which I didn’t think I was interested in but now suddenly I am), stories, handmade boxed sets, and the cool people I’m likely to meet there. I’m psyched!

Other weekend highlights:

• got to hang out with fourgates on his trip through town! Burgerville shakes, mooching around the Reed campus, a few episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was awesome.
• chewed over furnace replacement options– Sanguinity’s talking to the sales guy tomorrow.
• drove up with Sang yesterday to the start/finish area for next week’s 50-mile race and the campground we’ll be staying at with Leboyfriend for two nights. It’s within walking distance of the race start, which will be handy at 5:30 a.m. Sang and I hiked a bit of the route on the PCT and marveled at tiny, crystal-clear Little Crater Lake. I feel better knowing my way around a little, and the ranger gave us helpful tips (yellow jackets are bad at the southern end of the course, and look out for ground wasps!). Now I know to carry benadryl.

I zipped through The Wolves of Willoughby Chase over the weekend– I don’t think I read it as a kid! although I had Black Hearts at Battersea on my shelf. Thoroughly satisfying tale of the evil governess, plucky orphans, and giant estate with roaming packs of wolves. It prompted me to poll people– do you like reading books set in the same season you’re living through, or the opposite? I’m an opposite girl. When it’s a hot summer day and I’m reading about snow and ice on the moors, part of the enjoyment is feeling how the author is creating the chill and making me believe it even while I’m sweating and eating popsicles.

Maybe next winter I’ll be rereading Mary Stolz’s Go and Catch a Flying Fish. I think that’s the most summery book I know.