Is it local?

I recently read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. She is a wonderful writer. I've read her fiction but this was the first non-fiction of hers I had read - just as readable and engaging! In this book, she and her family vow to eat only locally for one full year and she documents that experience. It is very inspiring and surprisingly doable.

Now, I'm super focused on buying local when I can. I've started going to the farmer's market on Saturdays. I buy everything I can there and then head to Trader Joe's to pick up the staple items you can't get at the market.

Not only does it feel good to be eating well, but it's also just a fun experience going to the market. It's always packed with people. Everyone seems so happy. The vendors are happy customers are there. The customers are happy they are making good choices. And everyone is outside and chatting! It's an old-fashioned community experience that is so rare these days.

Of course, one must be careful not to go too far with the local thing. Sometimes I fear I'm getting a little too close to this Portlandia sketch. Enjoy!

Giddy

I have a seriously embarrassing confession to make. I am by no means a reality television fan. In fact, I find it mostly gross and feel icky when I watch it. Somehow, T and I got hooked on The Bachelorette this season. I know, I know - judge away! I'm not proud. However, the guy that won this season is so freakin' cool and adorable and awesome that I've had a silly grin on my face for two days now.

And, honestly, I love that silly grin, and I love the feeling I have because of that silly grin. Yes, The Bachelorette is mostly a ridiculous and brainless show, but thank goodness for the ridiculous sometimes. Last week I had been feeling heavy. There were a lot of heavy things happening around me and in the world and I was feeling it.

So I watch this funny guy charm this beautiful girl and it gives me a little bit of lightness.

I think part of my giddiness is just feeling gratitude, in general. I was single for a long time. If I had watched this show when I was single I would have felt that sad ache of wanting, so badly, to find someone that charming and fun. What makes me all the more giddy watching this show is that all the things I find so attractive and fun about this guy, I have in my husband. Instead of feeling sad about wanting something or someone like that, I feel blissed out because I have my dreamy hunk right here in my house. I already chose him and I got him!!

There's nothing like the feeling of gratitude to make you feel high, to lift you out of that heaviness and make you glow.

Plus there's this awesome YouTube clip of Jef (the winner) with his friends long before being on The Bachelorette. I mean, come on, this has to make you feel good!

A Sci-fi Confession

I have recently come to the realization that I am a science-fiction and fantasy fan. It has never occurred to me to use those words to describe myself. And yet, I don't think I can deny it any longer. My reading list as of late includes The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. My current TV show obsession is The Walking Dead and one of my all-time favorites is BattleStar Galactica.

I love the pure escape you get from these kinds of stories. They really transport you to another world in a way that realistic fiction just doesn't always do. Two of my favorite authors are Richard Russo and John Irving. Their books are touching, thoughtful and utterly human - totally of this world and often depressingly real. I do love reading something that gets right to the core of being human - the sweetness, vulnerability and cruelty of it. But there is something almost like free-falling when you really get into a work of fantasy. The fact that it couldn't happen (at least in my lifetime) and isn't happening anywhere in the world is liberating to me - even if the content of the story is dark and disturbing (hello, zombies eating people's faces off). The fact that there aren't actually zombies eating people's faces off anywhere on this earth right now somehow makes the story not as dark, not as upsetting. It engages my imagination in a purely innocent way. It's like being a kid and being enamored with brave soldiers at war before you really understood how awful war is.

So, that's it folks. I am a science-fiction and fantasy nerd. Bring on the wizards, mutant wolves, zombies and ancient kings with evil advisors! Take me away with you to your wonderfully complex worlds where I don't have to think about how stressful my job is, or that people can be mean and hurtful to each other, or that our planet is slowly warming and being filled with trash. No, I will take a break from this wonderful, but sometimes heavy, world we live in and join the sic-fi geeks. They're onto something!