Embroidery and Helvetica meet.

Image: source.

A surprisingly beautiful video of fruit and vegetables composting (however, I'd recommend muting the cheesy music and playing your own...)

From ColorLines: "Another LGBT Youth Suicide—and the Love That Can Stop This"

I'm not gonna lie - I didn't understand all of this article (perhaps my liberal arts education failed me, or maybe my brain is just rusty), but I did find it interesting: In Defense of Naive Writing.

We Are the Youth is a photographic journalism project chronicling the individual stories of queer youth in the United States.

"To try to be better is to be better."

I love good business cards - here are two that combine form and function: bike patch business card & bike tool business card. (OK, and a model airplane card, because that's just fun).

Love this NYTimes slideshow on the foods kids love to eat. Reminds me of being a kid and my mom making plates of different foods - having things cut up in little pieces and arranged seemed to make everything taste better. To be truthful, it's not so different from how I eat now. Picky eaters of the world, unite!

Image: source. Love the light, the bursts of florescent color, the whiteness.

A short film on the desk. (more interesting than it sounds - on workspace, on being nomadic.)

From Salon, "Hate crimes laws aren't the answer." "Until the government grants the LGBT community equality, society will continue to quietly condone such crimes." As someone who does not believe in the efficacy of the current criminal justice system, but is also extremely concerned about hate crimes, I find hate crimes legislation to be a complicated topic. But the bottom line for me is that I do not believe that increased criminalization of hate crimes gets to the root of the problem, just as the suggested criminalization of "bullying" is not, in my opinion, the appropriate response to the recent spate of queer juvenile suicides. As the author of this article writes, until bias is gone from our laws (laws governing family, employment, and all areas of life) and our society, no hate crimes legislation will stop these horrific crimes. "There will always be people who act with extreme violence, for whatever reason. If some of these people are truly motivated by bias alone, the way to fight this violence is to banish the bias from our laws. For how can we expect to confront bias crimes, supposedly predicated on anti-gay sentiment, if the legal framework of our society actually supports their biases?"

Does anyone out there listen to music while swimming? Looking for advice about listening to music while in the pool (also interested in watches that track laps/calories/distance/heart rate). Thanks for any suggestions!

"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades;

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
I look on time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence.

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

- Mary Oliver

"I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future . . . When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Reading or listening to MLK Jr never ceases to remind me of the power of oration, the presence of courageous and brave people on this earth, and the need to always continue the fight for justice.

Image: source.

I would think this image of Bryce Canyon was doctored if I hadn't seen it myself (10 years ago! Wow.) I spent 12 hours there one fall day, from sun up to sun down, watching the rocks change colors with every shift in the light. Amazing place.

Image: source.

I applied to a scholarship to attend the NLADA Annual Conference in November and my fingers are seriously crossed (my job doesn't have the money to send me otherwise). Please cross yours as well!

More from Regine on her time in Haiti.

Insane craft closet. Wow.

Fascinating photos of "human landscapes" in Florida.

Precious materials, mundane objects.

More beautiful, colorful embroidery.

On happiness: "...happiness is not crafted. Happiness emerges."

Birds and dogs, what's not to like?

"All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities" - David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)

Happy National Coming Out Day everyone. I'm proud to be queer, and am grateful today (and every day) to have such supportive friends and family. Today I'm thinking with sadness of all those who are silenced and unsupported, and trying to have compassion for those filled with hate and intolerance.

Labour and Wait

LLove the pic, the green tiles, and, mainly, the name: Labour & Wait.

Mmmm, a beautiful combo of color, typography, and embroidery, three of my interests/loves.

Something about this sculpture grabbed me right away.

Disappointing news in the fight against felon disenfranchisement.

Image: source.

A new blog I'm enjoying, by a young woman with a positive and sassy take on life, living healthily, etc. And this blog is a new highlight as far as beautiful interiors and other pretty things to drool over.

Book update! I've been reading a lot of mysteries recently - they are sort of my touchstone for reading. When I'm feeling in a reading slump, or generally need something comforting in my life, I turn to mysteries. I don't know if it's the knowledge that a mystery will be solved, or the fun of getting involved in a puzzle, but I love everything from Sherlock Holmes to the Steigg Larson books (more suspense than mystery, but similar). I just finished In The Woods, and enjoyed it (it even kept me up reading past my bedtime a few nights). I'm changing pace a little now and reading a trashy legal thriller (another comfort) called The Jury Master, and also just got Elizabeth Gilbert's (of Eat, Pray, Love fame, a book which I got very sick of after about 30 pages) Committed (subtitled "A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage").

(I swear this isn't going to become an "all running" blog....) I appreciated and identified with this list of the Top 10 Reasons to Start Running. My budding relationship with running has been one of the highlights of this past year - I'm grateful for the attitude, support, and physical health that has allowed me to explore running.

Right now, with running, I think my immediate need is to find ways to keep my body in good health surrounding all this physical activity (bootcamp three days a week (which strengthens my core, and builds my cardio endurance), running three days a week, swimming three days a week, occasional walks and hikes). Basically, what do I do to take care of it when I'm not running? I'm definitely prone to not stretching, something which I know I need to change. Today being a post-race day, I knew I was supposed to take it easy. But excercize is how I maintain my mental health, so I couldn't just sit on the couch. Instead, I went for a 4-mile leisurely walk, and 20 leisurely laps in the pool. Generally I think swimming is a good break for my body from running and bootcamp, but it also can annoy my (left) knee a little bit. So I'm still figuring out how to balance all the physical exertion with keeping my body free from injury. Tips appreciated.

ps - Tales from today's Portland Marathon, including a wedding. I look forward to the day I'm among the runners!

Image: source.

Well, I did it - I ran my first 10K! It was definitely a challenge (especially mile 4, uphill) and there were some technological difficulties (my iPhone somehow erased all my playlists, and my Nike + program that I use to track my pace (highly recommended for $2) didn't work correctly because my phone wasn't getting GPS), but I trusted the pace that felt right to me and ended up finishing in my goal time. I was aiming to do it in an hour and when I rounded the corner and saw the numbers at about 58 minutes I started grinning. My final time was exactly 59:00 and I felt great. Adding to the joy, my friend Jill was waiting for me at the finish line (and snapped this pic) - it makes such a difference to have someone there when you finish a race. Overall, it was a great race! Looking forward to my next one already.

The wonderful Megan Weintraub on "Why social media matters": "If we are truly committed to helping people find ways to get involved, whether they have five minutes or five years to give, then we must value contributions (what Gladwell termed “sacrifice”) all along the spectrum." Yeah, my friends are awesome.

Image: source.

Tomorrow I'm running my first 10K (the Stagecoach Run)! I can't believe I'm this excited. All day at work yesterday I thought about getting home to go for a run, and today I'm having a hard time convincing myself to take it easy in anticipation of the race. Wow, what a change. It's the perfect fall weather here, with lots of crunchy leaves to step on, and the race through Jacksonville should be great. I have a new pair of warm running tights, thanks to my encouraging Mom, and lots of support, thanks to my bootcamp ladies, various friends, and my amazing girlfriend. I'm so excited to meet this next challenge! My goal time is 1 hour, which is ambitious, but really my only goal is to finish. And then go sit in the hot tub, outside on the deck, and enjoy my success.

Awesome: Operation Window Seat.

Beautiful typographic maps - of course, I especially love the one of Boston.

Years ago I tore this quote out of the Times Magazine and framed it. I'm not even familiar with the artist, but something about it just resonated with me: "I think I do my work for some sadder version of myself, a woman who would be sitting in Row K. I am trying to make her laugh." In some way I feel that way about my life - that I'm always living it in honor of the saddest part of me, the years of my life when I was unhappy, trying to make that person laugh.

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” - Basho

Image: source.

"....Doctor,

if only you could see

how heaven pulls earth into its arms

and how infinitely the heart expands

to claim this world, blue vapor without end."

- Lisel Mueller

NYTimes Editorial: Confusion Over Secure Communities: "Fighting and preventing crime are unrelated to detaining and deporting immigrants and should stay that way . . . Secure Communities should not allow overzealous local police officers to use arbitrary stops as way to ensnare illegal immigrants in the deportation web. Nor should the administration let its zeal for immigration enforcement complicate the jobs of local law enforcement, or impose new layers of fear and isolation on immigrants."

Tim Gunn contributes a moving video to the growing library of "It Gets Better."

Image: source.

Beautiful mini San Francisco. Love that city.

Really interesting: Blogger Kicks Off A Month Without Processed Foods. I'm definitely someone who eats a lot of processed foods and am in the process of trying to cut down on that - especially when it comes to processed sugar. It's not easy though, and I definitely still have a lot of processed foods in my diet.