Another chapter

Studio 360, the wonderful public radio arts-and-culture show, is asking listeners to make a Creative New Year's Resolution for 2016. Here's mine. I'll be sure to link to updates here, too, so you can follow along.

Back to the top of the stack

One of my favorite books of this year (and last) is Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef. And because I truly do need a lot of help and reinforcement in this area, I'll be starting it over again on New Year's Day.

I found the book in the mid-1990s as a busy writer and the mother of a toddler, when its title appealed to me. (The inside flap shows I got it used for $5.) But honestly, it's only been in the last year or two that I started taking it seriously, because I continue to do too much, think too much, worry too much, work too much and sometimes care too much, even amid a life of intentional simplicity. The 365 dated entries are full of wisdom and gentle encouragement for overcoming workaholism.

The book was first published in 1990 and I've sometimes found it just a little bit dated. Let's face it: A quarter century ago, our lives were a lot simpler than they were even a decade ago. And yet, the tools that have made it more complicated have also helped me learn that Anne is still very much at work; that a new edition of Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much appeared two years ago; and that, with one click, I was able to download it to my Kindle for three bucks less than the used copy I bought 20 years ago. (The fact that such a priceless book costs a mere $1.99 is a matter worth another blog post ... another time ...)

Chances are I'll order a paperback copy, too. Because this is a valuable book -- and because, frankly, part of getting over the "too much" in our lives is getting offline.
 

'Tis the season

I spent $179.48 yesterday. I'm pretty sure it was the most I spent on "stuff" on a single day in 2015. All but $15 of it was at my go-to store, Fred Meyer, which is a three-minute walk from my house. 

Most of the year, I'm not much of a shopper. One of the biggest benefits of not having a car is that I only buy what I can carry. But the deals this time of year are truly hard to beat and I had a bit of pent-up demand from moving to a new place this fall -- a place with a little more storage. Nature abhors a vacuum, you know, and that goes double if it's unused cabinet space, right? I easily have twice as much of that in my new place as my old one. 

So I bought a few things for my kitchen (a griddle, two glass casserole dishes and a mini-muffin pan, all 50 percent off, plus a cheap hand mixer, an orange silicone spatula -- I had NO spatula -- and a wider flapjack flipper); two games, also half-off; no-slip treads for my bathtub;  a broom; a few cloth napkins; some cleaning supplies; a Christmas doormat; and half-off Hanukkah candles for next year. (Being a Unitarian Universalist, I celebrate everything). 

It took me three trips to the store to buy (and carry) all this stuff. But it was not a typical day. 

Before the trips to Freddie's, I also made a trek to the last Very Vintage Market of the year at the Lake City Community Center. There, I found a fun, painted orange accent table for $15; bought it from the woman who painted it; and schlepped it home by hand. It's a little too summery orange for this time of year, but with a muted scarf draped over the top, it's perfect. (And yes! I love pretty much anything orange.)  

"Everything in moderation" is one of my mottos, and that includes shopping. I do find joy in occasionally buying objects of beauty, whimsy or both -- all the better if they're repurposed. (The tissue-box holder was a recent $3 purchase at Value Village.) But I'm not immune to sales, and I'll probably pick up a few more seasonal bargains between now and the end of the year, too. 

Another set of wheels (and another)

"Rent the car. Own the adventure." That's the motto for Turo, a sharing-economy private car rental site that had escaped my notice until the Seattle Times wrote about it this week.

I haven't owned a car for a few years now. Public transit and walking are my main modes of local transportation, but I'm a member of Zipcar and Car2Go; I hail the occasional Uber; and I rent from traditional car rental companies on occasion, especially out of town. Turo (formerly RelayRides) looks like an intriguing addition to the car-free person's toolkit, especially as an alternative to renting for a few days.

The sharing economy continues to become ever more interesting and useful. I rented an Airbnb rowhouse on Pittsburgh's Northside as a base for a working vacation this past summer. I had it all to myself, it cost a fraction of what it would have cost to stay in a hotel room for that long, plus I was able to live like a local. It's fun to help people earn a little money with their spare rooms or extra car, and it's a good way to stretch your travel budget and reduce your carbon footprint.

'Bigger just wears you out'

The New York Times did a story this week on how millennials favor microkitchens. Using Seattle as an example, Kim Severson writes about how aspirational tech-industry workers favor downsized kitchens that still have choice amenities like "expensive blenders, elaborate coffee makers and professional-quality knives." Many of them also have access to impressive communal kitchens such as the one local superstar chef Tom Douglas designed for the Via6 apartment building across the street from Amazon headquarters. (Douglas also has restaurants on the ground floor of this vertical neighborhood.) Adds Severson: 

The building was designed for a Zipcar generation that embraces a sharing economy, said Matt Griffin, the Seattle developer who came up with the concept for Via6. “Life becomes having access to it but not necessarily owning it,” he said. “If your kitchen is efficient, it doesn’t need to be that big. Bigger just wears you out.”

According to the article, an 860-square-foot apartment at Via6 rents for $3,379 a month. I know plenty of people -- especially two-income couples -- in Seattle's red-hot economy can afford such digs, and more power to them. But for many of us in modestly-paid occupations, "bigger just wears you out" can refer to the price tag a "big" career can exact just as easily as it can to the costs of owning "big" stuff.

I like to say that I live in Seattle's least-sexy neighborhood. My 1960s-vintage apartment (the same age as me!) costs significantly less than half the Via6 tab for a similarly sized unit. My home isn't fancy, but renting here gives me options -- for work, for travel, for rambling around a place that has plenty of room -- and when I want to go to the hip neighborhoods, they are a short bus ride away. It's the semi-affordable Seattle, complete with mismatched appliances and a genuine Mr. Coffee.

A week the world stood still

One of the most remarkable things about the second week of September 2001 is just how isolated we were those 15 short years ago. Facebook and Twitter didn't yet exist, and relatively few people had cell phones. Amid the events of September 11, a tiny Canadian community on the edge of the continent unexpectedly became a haven for 7,000 people from around the world as 38 airplanes were diverted there from U.S. airspace. New bonds of community and understanding were forged as the Newfoundlanders opened their homes to guests from around the globe.

Come From Away is the new musical about that week in Gander, Newfoundland, co-presented by La Jolla Playhouse and Seattle Repertory Theatre. Its Seattle Rep run has been extended through Dec. 20. I landed one of the last remaining single seats for Sunday's matinee and enjoyed every minute of the brisk 100-minute show. 

Show creators Irene Sankoff and David Hein are marvelous reporters. They spent a month in Newfoundland in September 2011, interviewing the townsfolk plus "plane people" and pilots who returned for the 10th anniversary of the terror attacks. ("We talked to hundreds of people and came back with thousands of stories," Sankoff told Shirley Fishman in notes for the Seattle Rep playbill.) From this mass of source material, they weave stories both poignant (people from many faiths pray together for peace) and hilarious (as some of the guests become honorary Newfoundlanders by downing a shot of "screech" and kissing a cod). 

Two stories especially resonated with me: that of Beverley Bass, the first female captain for American Airlines, and of Colin, one of the visitors who -- we later learn -- marks the anniversary of 9/11 each year by paying back (and forward) some of the generosity he experienced on "the Rock." But there's a story and a song in here for everyone, along with some hope that, even (or perhaps especially) amid tragedy, we can all get along. 

Musical magic

With 5.7 million views as of this morning, this is three minutes of pure joy. I've watched it several times this morning since my sweetheart showed it to me. My favorite parts come around 1:13 and 2:26.

Is anything more capable of producing joy than music?

Kudos, of course, to Family of the Year for the original song and to Richard Linklater for using it in 2013's best movie.

Easily amused

Early today, I realized it was January 5, 2015. That is: 1-5-15.

This made me ridiculously happy -- just as I was easily amused last Dec. 13. (12-13-14.) It apparently makes other people happy, too, since more than a dozen people promptly "liked" my Facebook post, "Happy 1-5-15."

One of them remarked that I must be one of those people who sees patterns in numbers. Not so much. Another friend said he'd be really excited by 3-14-15, and I didn't even get it until he explained that not only will that be Pi Day, but it'll be the special once-a-century Pi Day in which March 14 falls on a year ending in 15. (To which another math-minded friend mentioned how it'll be especially cool to experience 3-14-15 at 9:26:53 a.m.)

I was a poor math student, but I do like design and I especially dig order, which must be why patterned dates delight me to no end. (Did you know that for some non-theistic people, GOD actually stands for Good Orderly Design? That makes total sense to me; I understand Good Orderly Direction is another favorite in AA circles.)

I think it's healthy to be so easily amused. I'm getting hungry right about now, too ...

Reasons for hope

A few years ago, I briefly worked for a climate-related nonprofit. It was generally not a happy place to be. I labored in Idaho politics -- in paid roles and as a volunteer -- for about 10 years before that and left for the same reason: You can only bang your head against the wall for so long.

These days, I am an informed voter, but beyond that, I avoid politics. I figure a) I did my time in the trenches; b) I don't see the current gridlock going away soon; and c) I am simply far happier when I'm not immersed in the day-to-day Machiavellian minutiae in which I marinated for so long.

This morning, while listening to KUOW, I heard a roundup of environmental news from the past year and was surprised how much I'd missed. (In my defense, the huge holes in the Siberian tundra appeared during my annual mid-July media sabbatical.) Yet I was happy to hear that, although the climate situation remains serious, there is reason for hope. The U.S. and China have a new climate agreement and the ozone layer is starting to repair itself. I went online to try and find a link to the story and I couldn't locate it. But I found this.

It's always possible to dwell on what's wrong in the world. For me, for now, anyway, it feels better and healthier to focus on and celebrate the good news. I'm pulling for this baby orca. I'm glad to live in a state with forward-looking leadership. The world is an amazing place.