First sentence (or two) from the first entry of each month in 2012:

January: Happy New Year! I have been away–- very far away, it felt like.

February: I got word today that the book Circulating Communities: The Tactics and Strategies of Community Publishing, which contains a chapter by Write Around Portland, which chapter in turn contains a short piece I wrote during my first WRAP workshop, is hot off the presses!

March: My internet friends tell me it’s World Book Day, which looks to be mostly in the UK and rather like Free Comic Book Day, but with fifteen years of history and recognition by UNESCO. Cool.

April: At work I’ve gone from 3/4 time to full time for the next couple of months, to help fill in for someone on medical leave. Last week was my first 40-hour work week in ages. Let the whining commence!

May: Authors whose books I admire greatly but have to read over and over again because I never quite get a complete understanding of them: Ellen Raskin, E.L. Konigsburg, Diana Wynne Jones, Henry James.

June: I peeked in at Lynda Barry’s Tumblr, which I’d sort of forgotten about for awhile, and read about the four-minute diary: “Why is it so hard to keep a diary? IT ISN’T! Keeping a diary is much easier if you limit your writing to four minutes each day: two minutes spent writing a list of what you remember from the day before and then two minutes making a list of things you saw.”

July: The practical reason I’m reviewing these books in the same post is that they are both due at the library.

August: I had a hankering for orange cheez powder, as in Kraft mac and cheese or cheap cheese crackers, so last night I tried cheez-flavored rice cakes, and ate some store-brand cheesy crackers, and also had some tuna mac (except it turns out we didn’t have any tuna in the cupboard, so I put in frozen peas instead).

September: In my Labor Day browsing I ended up reading about Joe Hill, the Wobbly labor activist executed by Utah in 1915. I was surprised to see that the text of his last will and testament were already familiar to me– as a song we sang at Girl Scout Camp.

October: I had jury duty at the county courthouse yesterday and today. Yesterday I was tickled to find myself in voir dire with Phillip Margolin, who writes bestselling legal thrillers!

November (draft post): I’ve had a soft spot for The New Criterion since the ’80s, in spite of its conservative politics. I used to take a bound volume or two to my library desk with me at Reed, and read articles when I needed a break from the Derrida and Post-Whatever I was trying to wrap my brain around.

December: Text sent to sanguinity at 4:50 p.m. yesterday: “Coming home a little early– yay! Because my back hurts– booo!”