Anyway, I’ve got a list of random tidbits I wanted to write about on the blog and since I’ve already revealed my lack of spunk tonight, I will indulge my laziness with bullet points:

• Andrea Scher and Jen Lemen have just begun the first fall session of their awesome online class, Mondo Beyondo, and there’s still room. I took the class last October, and continue to return to the lessons they wrote and the discoveries I made during the five weeks. I highly recommend Mondo Beyondo for any man or woman craving more space for reflection and courage to dream.
• My friend Courtney’s book cover has been released and it is hella gorgeous. I can’t wait to get my copy of Fall for Anything in December and press my face up against its loveliness. And then, of course, read it. Yay Courts!
• Speaking of books, I just finished the second installment of the Parasol Protectorate Series, Changeless (do not click lest ye be spoiled). My friend Candice gave me her copy of the first book, Soulless, a couple months ago and I finally read it this month. The books are ridiculous fun, and a great combination of science fiction/fantasy, romance, and mystery. They also introduced me to the Steampunk genre, about which I knew next to nothing. The third book, Blameless, comes out tomorrow and Candice and I have a date tomorrow evening to go buy it!
• Kim’s recent post over at What Claudia Wore reminded me of the genius of her blog and made me feel cool for being her friend. Do you like how braggy I am about these cool friends of mine? Yeah? Well I should be because THEY ARE AWESOME.

The next several weeks of my life are going to be very busy. I’ve detailed this to practically everyone I know but since I haven’t written about it on the internet, the circle ain’t complete. The good news is that I’m going to be busy for awesome reasons (three out-of-town weddings in four weeks) and will get to see a lot of people (and places) I love. Yay! The stressful part is that I have a lot to balance at school and work between now and then, and some folks will probably think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth. To those who may search here for answers in the near future: I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, just busy getting my school and celebration on!

And what’s the first stop on the Whirlwind Express? Kansas City! Kansas City here I come! (<— It occurs to me this might not be a song and if it’s not, I am totally pulling a “my mom.”)

I. Sara and Sean on Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I had a friend from the farm (Nat Tagge!) and her boyfriend visit us for a night, and neither had ever been to Canada. We parked on the U.S. side and walked across the Rainbow Bridge, one of my favorite ways to see the Falls. We decided to take them up Clifton Hill too, just because it’s a spectacle and surreal. One of the few instances where the U.S. did a better job at something than Canada. II. My potted hens and chicks in the backyard. I hope they explode a bit more next summer. III. Two guys in line for clay-oven baked pizza at the Fancy and Delicious pizza fundraiser. IV. Terrible, awful wax figures of Elvis, Robert Pattison, Kristen Stewart, and Miley Cyrus in Niagara Falls. V. Super-woman Maura at the F&D pizza party, looking lovely while living the chaos.

Perhaps the most significant step I took was to do a quick run through of my bookshelves. Keeping in mind that great book-related article I linked to last week, I pulled over fifty books off my shelf in about 30 minutes. I divided up the discards into several piles:

• Young adult books I read but don’t need to hang onto went to the Grant Street Neighborhood Center, a youth-focused drop in center that I helped develop through my awesome job at City Hall.
• Borrowed books that I’ve read and haven’t returned, or that I will not be reading in the near future. I bagged these ones up according to their owner and was surprised by how many of them I had acquired. Yikes!
• Books I’m going to try to sell on half.com, mostly former college textbooks. I’m giving myself until October to sell them and then they are being donated. There are five of them in total.
• Books that Powells.com wants. I input the ISBNs of about 15 good-quality, used books and Powells accepted five of them. I opted to get $15.00 in virtual credit and plan to use the money to purchase the next book in my Book Club’s reading queue.
• To-read books that I’ve placed on a particular shelf in my living room bookcase. If I don’t read these in the next six months, they’ll go.
• Finally, the biggest pile of books: books for the Really Really Free Market on September 11.

If I still have unwanted books after the Free Market, I will look for other ways to get rid of my no-longer-needed tomes. Perhaps the Prison Book Project if my books fit the bill?

I plan on doing a more thorough review in the near future but I’m pretty impressed with what I came up with in 30 minutes. The next focus in my downsizing will be my home office, which is already torn apart because I’ve moved my desk and reading chair to the new writing studio. The studio, by the way, is very sparse and has very little stuff in it. It’s also exactly where I want to be. That says something, no?

The article led me to Tammy Strobel’s website, Rowdy Kittens, which led me to a whole bunch of online resources about living simply and simply having less stuff.  If you want to explore more, I would start at the aptly named “Start Here” tab on Rowdy Kittens.

Recently, Sean and I have both come around to an inspired revelation: we’re sick of living in a cluttered, cramped, messy apartment. I’ve been organizing cupboards and discarding the contents of junk drawers, and he’s been cleaning out the basement and organizing our “getting ready” room (the room that’s too small to be a bedroom so it’s a glorified closet).  I’ve given away a fair amount and I still find myself with so much junk. I have considered bringing my mother in, and telling her to be ruthless. I’ve also tried to channel my friends Brynn and Natalie, both of whom have given me excellent advice about getting rid of clutter.

The simple truth is that we just have too much stuff. And most of it is mine.

The good news is that I’m inspired, and that there are a number of resources  pushing me towards the purge. One of them is Buffalo’s Really Really Free Market, which next meets on Saturday, September 11th at Bidwell Parkway from 2:00-7:00PM. The idea is that you bring whatever stuff you want to give away for free and take as much or as little as you want from other people. No bartering, no selling–just giving away free stuff. I loved the “free culture” I encountered in Portland, Oregon, and hope to see the idea grow in Buffalo.

Another inspiration: this essay on getting rid of books. I have a lot of books, and I’m terrible about getting rid of them. I find this amusing because during my MLS program I’ve learned about the importance of “weeding” collections, and I agree with the practice. I visited some school libraries that haven’t been significantly weeded in years, and it’s scary: kids can’t find their way through the packed shelves. About her school library, Brynn is fond of saying, “We are not an archive, we are a library.” I realize that I’ve been treating my home collection as an archive, and I know I’m not the only one.

Finally, the other source of my inspiration (or perhaps more accurately, alarm) is The Story of Stuff. If you have 20 minutes and are open to making some life changes, I recommend watching the original film. It has inspired and shamed me into making a conscious decision to buy less stuff and, as Sean pointed out, that’s really the key to my purge and meeting our goal of a simpler, cleaner, clutter-less life.

During college I flew out to Salt Lake City to meet my father at a work-related conference. Instead of flying back, he thought it would be cool if we rented a car and took a week or so to drive back home. When we pulled into Arches National Park, located in the Moab desert, I thought we’d been transported to another planet. The red dirt, the huge monoliths, the squishy soil–it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, absolutely breathtaking.

I’ve had similar experiences out on the Great Plains, up in Alaska, and down in the sweaty, vibrant South. And I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been struck by how pretty New York State is with its mountains and lakes and metropolises. In all of those moments I have this same thought, Wow, I can’t believe this is New York State/the U.S. too. This place is awesome.

This pride has lately eclipsed my interest in international travel. It’s not gone by any means, I’m just interested right now in exploring the States. In order to satisfy my raging wanderlust, I sometimes  research and plan fantasy vacations and trips. Mini-obsessions that last for an afternoon, couple days, a few weeks.

After finding a particularly gorgeous set up in coastal Washington State, I couldn’t keep my “dream vacation” to myself. I emailed it to Sean and some friends with a “let’s do this” message. They agreed. Who knows if it will ever happen but you gotta dream big, right?

I want to share those fantasies on this blog too, and maybe someone out there can take the idea and run with it. I’ll post my travel tips and teasers here and tag them “spacious skies,” after my favorite line in “America, The Beautiful:” O beautiful for spacious skies/For amber waves of grain.

Not all my tips/teasers will be about travel within the United States but because that’s where I live and where I want to travel right now, I expect it’ll be the focus.

BONUS: If you want to be inspired by the U.S.’s National Parks, check out this beautiful photo set on Flickr. I might’ve starred every photo as a favorite.

When I learned about this Ding Dong Ditch project from back in early July, it made my heart melt a little. The organizers’  held a week of ditching kindness and while it’s passed, I still think it’s a sweet, lovely idea. Here are the basics:

Here’s how it works:
During the weekend of June 30- July 7th our mission is to Ding Dong Ditch a house (or many) with kindness. What is Ding Dong Ditchin’ you ask? Simply leave something nice on a doorstep, ring the doorbell (or knock) and run away as fast as you can. This can be someone you know or don’t know but the excitement is doing this act of kindness anonymously. It almost always leads to racing hearts, laughing hard and high fives for us. I hope it will be as much fun for you!

Good things to leave:

Flowers
We usually write a note explaining it is an act of kindness so we don’t create some awful secret admirer scenario.

Cash
Any amount is fine, it’s best to put it in an envelope to keep it safe and so you can leave a note.

A Sign
You can leave a sign draped down the steps for someone to find or tape it to a porch. Ideas:  you are amazing! (it’s true), have a great day!, believe in love!, you are beautiful!

Ding Dongs
This cupcake sort of treat can be found at your local grocery store. This is my kid’s favorite to DDD their friends. We leave a note saying, “You’ve been Ding Dong ditched!” and then we eat some ourselves. Big hit!

Other simple ideas
Card or note of encouragement. Small work of art. Gift card or certificate. A Mixed CD.

I’m going to try to Ding Dong Ditch some kindness this weekend. I have some flowers in my garden waiting to be picked and shared.

Besides the gazillion Flaming Lips videos I’ve watched on YouTube since last week’s concert, the Vlog Brothers “Happy Dance Project” video has caused me some big time smiles.

And I have not forgotten about my summer fun to-do list. At the very top for me right now is the bike ride to Crystal Beach. Must do, must do, must do.  My friend Maura also wants to have a plate smashing party which is exactly what it sounds like. I am so down.

I. Josh on one of our last night’s in San Francisco last July. We were delirious with exhaustion and nerding out with our cameras. II. Madi in the pool at our vacation house in the Outer Banks, last August. III. Miss Lauren, frolicking in the grass in Portland, OR. IV. Josh on the same night, just when we got back to the hotel. My favorite part of this photo? His left foot. V. An ancient but awesome photo, circa 2005. Me and Tessa rocking out in my mom’s family room. She and her brother Michael spent the night on their way to Ohio.

I. Sean, Kevin, and my dad in the Niagara Glen on my birthday hike, June 12. The Glen is along the Niagara River gorge in Ontario and is generally an incredible place. II. The Friday afternoon scene at Veritas, a wine bar my friend Melissa’s fiance owns. We had several nice glasses of wine there when I visited DC at the end of June for #ala10. III. The GIANT SLUG that tried to take over our house and bread one afternoon. Huge! IV. Brynn convinced me to order room service on our last morning in DC and I’m glad she did. It was such a nice treat. My mango oatmeal is in the foreground. V. A black and white from the field of tall grass behind Sean’s family cottage in Canandaigua, NY.

When I took the Mondo Beyondo course last October, one of the most useful concepts about which I learned was “creating a clearing.” Andrea and Jen described this as consciously opening space in your life, whether it be emotional or physical, to get to things you really want to get to, like your dreams and desires.

For some people, their clearing involved getting rid of the TV or only letting themselves watch it on weekends. For others it meant cleaning out their home office, finally buying a desk organizer, or ending their involvement in a project that takes up too much of their time.

Lately, for me, it means dealing with my massive collection of RSS feeds on Google Reader. I know, not what you were expecting huh? When I first discovered Google Reader I was thrilled and went on blog-adding binge. The blogs ranged in topics from celebrity gossip and comics to long, political essays and Buffalo-related news. And lots more. This afternoon, after thinking about it on and off for several weeks, I (sort of) suddenly unsubscribed from a huge number of them, most notably the ones that generate the most posts (almost exclusively entertainment-based blogs). I made a conscious decision to unsubscribe from blogs that relied heavily on snark or negativity too.

It’s not that I won’t visit these blogs on my own (could never give up ONTD completely) but subscribing to such a huge number of them because a big distraction. I needed to clear that space. I was hesistant to post this because I don’t want to sound preachy but hey, maybe someone will relate to my clearing or the idea of creating a clearing in general. If so, good luck!

Onward!

The District
Man, I love Washington, DC. It is such a great city and #ala10’s location this year satisfied both my government and librarian nerdery. It was very hot and humid, however, and the weather made it tough to be outside for longer than 15-20 minutes. Brynn and I kept repeating to ourselves, “it is very hot and very dangerous” anytime we ventured out. I downed a lot of water and several times needed to sit down in order to recover from the heat. Ok, enough about the weather.

DC has world-class restaurants and all of the restaurants we visited featured attentive, friendly, and over-the-top awesome wait staff. The service was remarkable, hence my remarking on it. As I mentioned, I went to Veritas on Friday night with my friend Melissa and her fiance/Veritas-owner Adam. I went back twice with Brynn. Every time the service was phenomenal.

The combination of our busy schedules and the oppressive heat prevented us from exploring the city much but we did enjoy a 10:30pm visit to the Lincoln Memorial and walk along the Vietnam Memorial on Monday night. Just when we got too hot to continue walking, a cab pulled up and we hopped in. That brings me to my final point about the city: the ease of catching a cab and their relatively low cost made grabbing a taxi a really nice option when we didn’t want to hoof it.

Convention Center
Washington’s Convention Center was built in 2003 and it is beautiful, enormous, and full of light. Being from Buffalo, I have severe convention center envy and am now convinced that we really need to tear ours down and rebuild. Anyway, over 25,000 people attended #ala10 and the WCC handled us all. The bathrooms were always clean, well-stocked (including free tampons for women, awesome), and honestly really nice looking. There was plenty of seating in the forms of benches, leather couches, and soft carpet. The rooms were, with a few exceptions I experienced, able to handle the crowds for speeches, programs, and workshops. Again, this place is ENORMOUS. So big that I feel the need to use all-caps.

I’m kind of sad that the next ALA conferences, at least through 2017, will not again be in DC. Related: Las Vegas, really? Ugh.

Social media
I decided to create a twitter account specifically for the conference because my main account is private. I tweeted throughout the weekend using the #ala10 hashtag, and really enjoyed the virtual conversations I had with other conference attendees. I’d like to keep up some of the relationships I made so that next year I can meet people in person. This year’s conference was too overwhelming and besides, I don’t have well-developed relationships with library bloggers and tweeters yet. All in due time.

Anyway, the real reason I wanted to write about social media was to express how awesome it was to tweet during a program and not feel rude! Throughout my sessions people pounded away at their Blackberry and iPhone keyboards, and not because they were bored and texting but because they were taking notes via twitter.

ALA partnered with Boopsie to create an app for the conference and I downloaded it to my Blackberry. From it I was able to access the following: the conference schedule, a list of programs starting within the hour, author signing schedules, twitter feeds from the conference, the exhibitors plan, and my own schedule for programs/exhibitors. It was a little wonky and slow at times but overall, I was pleased with the app.

Next up: Part Three, the substance