quickly ....

i have been in chicagoland for about a week to attend the international planning history conference where among other things, i renewed by intellectual crush on dbh (jss knows of whom i type). i took two of brad's tours of public housing sites (what's left) in chicago. it was great to be in a tall dense city with friends and family and colleagues. i stayed with karen, lunched with donna, and heard some of kevin jele's music while visiting with some of his nuclear family. despite my preference for doing absolutely nothing and seeing noone, it was good to be in chicago and among pals.

i returned to a rack of problems and troubles that irritate and enrage me. for example, i returned to a bill from HERTZ rental car from the accident earlier this summer. they already charged my debit card despite my repeated and vehement protestations. it will be sorted out eventually, but i hate this foolishness. and it comes at a time in the year when i am always especially broke.

i spent hours and hours earlier this month compiling and submitting paperwork for the IRB for the storycircle project (to happen next week in flint) only to have it deemed not to be research according to federal guidelines, therefor i did not need to fill out their materials in excruciating, detail revised and revised in triplicate.

i received one piece of mail that did make me chuckle -- not this week's new yorker. i got a thank you note today. earlier this summer, i presented a paper at the green arts conference in flint, michigan. the conference was about environmentalism and telling good and better stories to fight for the polar bears and "our music halls and our dying cities". i was talking about storytelling and the storycircles that i am going to do next week in flint -- at the brownfields where GM operated a major plant -- the storycircles that are not research. i got a thank you note today from the conference hosts and a $25 gas card from SHELL, a major multinational gas company that routinely savages the resources and people of nigeria (and probably other places too). does it strike you as funny? i understand that i drove there and that gas is expensive, but SHELL. they could have given a gift certificate from the cider mills they featured at the conference, but SHELL!

i spent some time in my garden last night and this morning. my sunflowers are going very well. i moved around the compost bins. two of my tomatoes seemed to have been rotting on the vine. (isn't that telling?) but everything else is going pretty well. i so love my rain barrel. have i typed about how much i love my rain barrel and smug i feel when i harvest greywater to water my outdoor plants? i bet that i am the envy of my neighbors.