bookshelves

I finished working yesterday at the nursery. And today has been a fantastic day! I got up early and Jen and I had breakfast. It was a beautiful morning and Jen and I hung out and went on a bike ride and looked at places for rent (we are moving out in July).

I also went on a dumpstering expedition on campus. I went with a friend who knows some good places and has a lot of experience doing it. It was so much fun! And we found all kinds of stuff—a bottle of conditioner, a vacuum cleaner, a fancy tote thing, a duffel bag, desk lamps, lots of food (cereal, cup of soups, pb, chips, cucumbers, a Bach cd), lots of clean notebooks, and lots of other stuff. It was seriously a very good time; I learned a lot and had great fun.

Then I headed to a Fuerza Latina press action at the senator’s office. Fuerza Latina is a local group dedicated to immigrant rights. Several folks showed up, some people held signs, and there were even a few cheers (unemployment and inflation are not caused by immigration….that’s bullshit….get off it….the enemy is profit). The ‘bullshit’ was changed to ‘bullcrap’ for the lone video-person from a news station. Then a small group went up to the office while the rest stayed down in the old town square.

From there, I went to the bike co-op and borrowed a bike trailer and headed down to the nursery to pick up three book cases I had built from truck lumber. The semis we unload have a lot of lumber—2x2s, 4x4s, 1x4s—and most of it ends up in the trash. The nursery uses some of it and so do some of the people who work there (one person built a shed out of it, one person uses some of it for heating, another built elevated cold-weather garden boxes, and I’ve built a couple of tables and boxes). It is amazing how much good lumber ends up in the dump. Anyway, there is a community info-shop getting started back up in town. I had dropped off some of this truck lumber there a couple weeks ago and today I took the three book cases over. It was very exciting for me! It sounds silly but the whole process just felt great. When I got there, I found that folks had started building using the lumber; things seemed to be coming together. So, from the idea of an info-shop (a place housing resources like books, videos, etc. that are difficult to find in libraries and that are usually of a political/radical nature), to the salvaged lumber, to several individuals getting together and building the shelves, to using a bike from a co-op to drop off the shelves I made at the nursery—it just all felt great. The idea of just dropping off some bookshelves doesn’t really sound all that exciting but when it is done in a way that embodies all of these wonderful, community aspects it takes on a whole new meaning and becomes something that in itself feels meaningful.

After returning the bike and trailer and picking up my own bike, I stopped by a friend’s place to see her and Jen. They weren’t there yet but I ran into her neighbor and he invited me over for a beer. Now I am home, it’s a beautiful evening, and there are several comics I finally found that I am really excited to read!

The comics are called Mars and were published in the early 80s by an independent publisher called First Comics. So far, they are really cool. I actually read some choose-your-own adventure style books when I was a kid that were illustrated by the same two people who wrote and illustrated Mars. That is actually how I learned of this comic’s existence.

There are a few things I really like about the comic. First, the story and art are really good. And, beyond that, there are no advertisements in the comic (except for a few for other comic books by the same publisher). There is a letters page; this is something that I have always really enjoyed in comic books, ever since I was a kid, but that is often missing from comics on the newsstand today. Also, there is a page with some sort of article in most every issue. So far, the articles have been interesting. One piece was about the importance of continuing storyline comics in the daily strips, how they are dying out and not supported by newspapers, and how they are really a precursor and origin of what we know as comic books today. A couple of the other articles were about independent comics—their history and what was happening currently at the time of the article’s writing.

I’m not sure that all this typing about comics is all that interesting but it is fun to share! Maybe someday someone who wants to talk about comics will stumble across this blog and get a hold of me. And we will talk about comics together!

P.S.

I wrote the above on Wednesday. It is Friday morning now. Yesterday was also a really good day. In the morning Jen and I biked to the garden and planted some onion seeds and watered. I left for more dumpster exploring (granola bars, a still-cold-from-the-fridge fruit smoothie drink, an electric heater, binoculars, trail mix, and more), while Jen stayed down at the garden. After getting kicked out of the last dumpster, we shared the cold drink in the shade of a pine tree.

From there, I went to a meeting about strategies for anti-war stuff. Then I went back to the garden and helped Jen pick some chard, lettuce, and chives for a fresh salad to eat once we got home.

I just realized I have been minutely chronicling my day….that’s kinda strange. I think it is illustrative of my mood, though. I am having a really good time and I want to talk about it, I guess. I think it is silly and I should probably write about things and ideas instead of myself on this blog. I have a journal if I just want to write. But then again, I do like sharing what is making me happy.