Saying 'Yes"

I was watching this TedX talk by Mark Zmarzly about how our lives are propelled by a series of 'yes' statements. The choice, the decision to say 'yes' can lead to all sorts of places a person couldn't suspect. If our lives are stories then the plot is driven by moments where a person says 'yes' or 'no'. Zmarzly inspired me to be grateful for the times I've said 'yes' recently. 

This morning, for instance, when N asked me at the last minute to come to the Breakfast Cafe at her school. She wanted me to try the pumpkin coffee cake. 

Or curling up in a warm bed with a new book throughout this past snow storm. 

Would I like some whipped cream on my coffee drink?

Would I be available to tag along on a trip in March to Desert Hot Springs?

Saying 'yes' to my cousin's wife, a hairdresser, who offers to help me fix the mop of a bad haircut I've been sporting. 

At the moment any of us says 'yes' we don't, we can't, know where it will take us. It's the optimist in us, I suppose. Embracing the potential of a moment and agreeing to travel in that direction and find out where it leads. 

Pennsylvania Avenue

N's Letter

N joined me in a letter writing campaign against the Keystone XL Pipeline. We mailed off two letters to President Obama.

N received her response letter today. The return address was direct from the White House. She was elated. Bubbled with pride. Read the entire letter outloud three times.

Thank you, Mr. President. It was fun to watch the first firing of her civic mind.

Greening Up Outside

4 miles - Wilderness Park (Lincoln, NE)

Big Day

It's Extraterrestrial Culture Day in New Mexico. Today is also recognized as Fat Tuesday, Abe Lincoln's birthday, International Darwin Day, Pancake Day, and National Lost Penny Day. The President gives the State of the Union address tonight.

Sigh. 

So many reasons to wear my tin-foil hat.

Love On The Run

Photo Credit: The Leekers

This weekend lands the Love On The Run event at Lincoln’s Porridge Papers. The event inspires participants to express their appreciation for the Lincoln community by showing a little love. 

Stop by the store anytime through Sunday. You’ll compose an original love note on one of their antique typewriters. Leave your note with its delivery address at the desk and each one will be hand-delivered by a fleet of volunteers on Valentine’s Day. 

Love On The Run is a weekend long event. Tonight is a ladies only occasion at 6pm. The shop throws open its doors to anyone and everyone tomorrow morning.


Porridge Papers is a handmade paper mill and letterpress studio located at 1422 South St. in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Trickle Down Ecology

  "Trees, how many of 'em do we need to look at?” - President Ronald Reagan

At 220 MPH

California Rail Map/CC BY-SA 3.0

High-speed rail activist and mapmaker, Alfred Twu, envisions a system which connects both rural and urban areas across the country. Twu conceptualized the attached map showing what a cross-country high-speed rail network might look like in the United States. 

Check it out. I could practically see High Speed Rail from my house, here!

His concept stands in bold contrast to the rail network proposal from the Department of Transportation.

Tuesday

There is no good way to deliver bad news. 

I remember breaking up with somebody in high school. I agonized over how to go about it. Should I break up at the beginning of a date? Drive over to his house, have him stand on the front porch and break up with him there? Was a phone call the best way to go? Was there a lengthy note involved?  

The dilemma seems so terribly adolescent now it makes me giggle. In fairness, though, it was the first time I was tasked with delivering bad news. I got a stomach ache. I couldn’t sleep. Spent an hour or so rehearsing how to do it in front of the bathroom mirror. About a week later I stood in the same spot, laced my fingers into the coil of the phone cord, my eyes closed, my face scrunched up, I spoke the same words into the telephone receiver. 

At this point I'm a little more sophisticated in launching and landing bad news. You get better with the nuances over time. It's a pretty natural part of living this long. Still – there’s no good way to go about it. 

With mobile devices we get news of all varieties constantly. Job numbers and test results and pictures of babies being born are one swipe of a smart screen away. So it seems only logical that bad news comes along for the ride. 

I got some yesterday. Bad news. I was driving along with my phone at my ear and, well, there it was. 

I pulled into a vacant parking lot, shut off the car, and talked the news report through to its end. I must have sat there a while, buckled into the seat of my car, after we hung up the phone. I sort of shook around the haze in my brain before driving off and remember feeling glad to have been alone when the news came. There’s no two ways about it: bad news is bad. But when bad news lands when I’m surrounded by store clerks, or grocery store displays, or small kids squabbling in the backseat of the car ahead of me at the gas pump…I don’t know…it’s just too much. 

I got home and, in the quiet house, started dinner. And I was still glad I was alone with the news but had a pang wishing the phone were connected the wall in my kitchen. I wished that news like that would or could only be exchanged between two people connected, at the very least, by cords and wires. Something to lace around my fingers around. I thought it might help to feel like I'm holding on to something.

Love Short