language of the world

I just finished reading The Alchemist this week and I have been hearing the language of the world on my morning walks all this week. One day I saw the 42 bus and 42 seconds on the cross walk at the exact same time. Yesterday morning I was thinking of my friend Lauren who is doing a story for the Washington Post Magazine about Branson, Missouri. Immediately after this thought a man behind me said, "She visited Branson." Just too weird. I even had to turn around to look because I was in shock.

But no message was as loud and clear as the one we had last night. We were eating dinner while watching TV in our den. Midway through the lights went out. Then a second surge brought everything up again until on the second try everything went out. My neighbor Dawn and I reached our front door at the exact same time. It was not just our individual units. I went out on the street and all of the lights were out. I could see that they were on at Mass Ave to the north of us and F Street to the south, and then on at 10th to the West. So it was not city wide. But after complaining about the fact that our a/c was not really cooling our unit yesterday, I knew that it had to be an overload to the system.

Henry wanted to play a game where we took turns complaining. Instead, I said we should go out for a walk. We decided that we both wanted milkshakes, plus we could go to a movie. So we did just that. Although we missed the 8 o'clock movie by five minutes. (A big no-no in our household.) So we got our milkshake, spent a lot of time looking at snowglobes of DC landmarks and finally went over to sit next to the Segs in the City booth at the Old Post Office. We considered going home around 9, but when we rounded the corner at 9th and F, we could see that the lights were still out at the Verizon Center. We went back to see An Inconvenient Truth.

I knew that this movie was going to be depressing and upsetting. But more than anything it made me hop back on my environmental band wagon and want to do something. The facts are quite startling. They are going to have to redraw the maps! It is amazing to me that the maps that were in my elementary school text books will no longer be valid in my lifetime. I haven't even been to my twenty year high school reunion yet. Is that conceivable?

Now I hate science. I guess because it was always my worst subject. I still have nightmares were I never showed up to class until it is the last day of high school and I realize that I am going to fail. I don't think that we had a pass-fail option in high school. So it is my recurring nightmare. My mom has a similar one about history. But Al Gore's presentation was pretty easy to grasp. I am glad that I won't be tested on it in a traditional sense. But by ignoring this lesson, I imagine that I will be tested in other ways. Including what we came home to - a dark apartment with the smell of leftover chicken lingering in the air. Ughh... we opened all of the windows to cool off the apartment as an incredible lightning storm approached. I got up to make sure the rain wasn't ruining our furniture. With my glasses on, I could see the lightning dance across the sky. I typically miss that show. Well, I actually haven't seen a storm like that since we have been here. Not a lot of wind - just extremely loud thunder following the constant ribbons of lightning. Then this morning's Express headlined with Warm World. The circumstances only emphasized the point of the movie.

The environment is something that I have been passionate about for a long time. When Sherri and I were in high school, we started an environmental club. We researched several organizations featured in Sassy Magazine and sent off for information about what we could do. In fact, we were just generating more trash. But hopefully enough of the ideas did stick to make the additional trash worthwhile. In college, I took an ethics class about the environment and wrote My Environmental Ethic. We read a series of essays for the class and Al Gore's essay had such a huge impact on me. I totally agreed with what he was saying. So much so, that I did not really know how to reference him in my paper. I think that my final product captures a lot of the ideas that I had been mulling over in my class, which had a huge impact on me. The key point from the paper is that we are all stewards of the earth. It is quite an incredible place and, quite honestly, our only option. We need to start treating her with a little more respect and humility.

So... what am I going to do about it?

I have already visited the web site climatecrisis.org and I started brainstorming little things that I could do. While writing I reset the a/c to 78 just so that it would stop running. I am going to try to readjust my comfort level. In addition, here are a few ideas that I came up with this morning on my walk:

Things that I already do
1. Walk or use public transportation everywhere
2. Pay my bills online - less stamps and effort by USPS
3. Live in a small urban apartment - less room to collect stuff
4. Telecommute
5. Turn up my a/c in the summer - this one is the hardest!
6. Reduce the amount of paper I print by choosing multi-sheets on layout format in Print
7. Eat two or three vegetarian meals a week
8. Use Kiehl's deodorant - less dry cleaning and laundry
9. Don't go shopping for something to do (It's kind of hard when I never move my car)
10. Reduce - Reuse - Recycle (in order of priority)
11. Visit the Green House exhibit at the National Building Museum (been three times)
12. Take the stairs

Things I am going to start doing now

1. Unplug all of my chargers and equipment we don't use daily
2. Stop buying so many books and magazines! (maybe harder than the a/c)
3. Promote reuse and fabulous places like The Scrap Exchange in Durham, NC
4. Only buy things that I really really love, preferably with less packaging
5. Encourage my building to install a bike rack and add plants to the roof
6. Change our air filter more often (and remind our renters to)
7. Go to the library more (even though it scares me a little)
8. Encourage my mom to look into eco-friendly flooring for her refurbishing project
9. Redo my studio space and seal up the windows
10. Moving towards more pdf/print on demand products and reducing my actual inventory
11. Switch to a spool of floss instead of those plastic plackers

Things I am going to do in the future

1. Have our apartment in Chapel Hill energy tested, add skylights, a new fridge, and seal up any cracks
2. Invest in responsible companies (when I am rich, of course)
3. Redo the Handy House with solar panels and eco-friendly materials
4. Hire a diaper service when we have kids
5. Have my bills sent as e-bills instead of a paper bill
6. And when I need one, buy some type of hybrid car

So what are you going to do?

MerriMail

Eris and I finalized the MerriMail logo today! Time to celebrate. Just one baby step keeps us moving towards our Fall launch. More details to follow.

plans are taking shape

It's official! We are off to London as of August 15th and returning on September 26th. Just in time for my last day at UNC followed by Lauren and Dave's wedding in Durham. Henry will be studying in Oxford for four weeks, so we allowed a little travel time before and after our time in Oxford and, of course, on the weekends.

After all of our travels, we will continue to stay in Washington for the near future. Henry has accepted a job offer to practice law with Covington & Burling. And I just spoke with our landlord about renewing the lease.

So ... now we need to start planning our trip to Europe. I have grand ideas of all of these places that I would like to visit. Of course, we are going to Spain. We have been married for five years and I have yet to meet Henry's family living in Spain. (Except for Jose, who came to the US for a visit a few years ago.) So if we are going to Spain, then we must travel through Paris. Mary and Felix promised several excellent references for dining while we are there. I imagine many visits to London and tours through Scotland and England. I really want to go beyond to Norway and Belgium, especially after our incredible brunch at Belga Cafe on Saturday. But I doubt if that is possible on this trip. Of course, I don't have any commitments while we are in Oxford. So maybe I can sneak away. Let's just say I am not limiting my guidebook selection just yet.

We have been back and forth this morning trying to figure out the best approach to renewing our passports. And I think that I spotted a place to have our pictures made at a small shop across the street next to Wok and Roll. They also sell herbs, swords, snow globes and other Chinese imports. Sounds like a fun little trip in and of itself.

my first syllabus

On Wednesday, I held my first workshop, which was on Paper Gardens at Paper Source. I guess that I have actually had other teaching experiences in the past: as a graduate student, Sunday School teacher, camp leader, birthday party leader and demonstration expert. However this was the first time that I created a hand-out for my event. I was quite pleased with how it turned out.



I spent the past few weeks getting comfortable with the paper flower kits and discussing key points with the manager. One of the keys of teaching the workshop is to cover ideas of variations and how to go beyond the kit instructions. As with any new medium, I found the more that I worked with the materials, the easier it was for me to grow comfortable and begin thinking of new ideas. That was the case with the bluebell boutonniere you see above. It was my favorite project from all of my samples and now has me thinking about variations of paper flower projects that I want to create. To say that I have mastered the medium is a little strong. But at least I am well on my way to thinking beyond how to make the flowers to how I can go beyond.

I realized with my experience with the paper flowers that people were not going to have a lot of time to take notes. You must keep both hands filled with paper, scissors or glue at all times. (We did take a short field trip after our first flower.) Having attended Edward Tufte's One Day Course on Presenting Data and Information, I knew that it is important to provide your audience with what you are sharing. This allows them to pay attention and not try to take notes. Plus they can walk away with all of the information that they will need to go home and continue learning about the topic. Plus as an information designer, Tufte believes that it is important to fill the entire page with information in an aesthetically pleasing way. No need to waste space in a typical outline format. Fill it up! Create columns. Include thumbnail images. Make people want to spend time studying the information and continue to explore. As an expert in a field, share the information so that they will save your handouts and remember it. Less paper is more. If you can get it all on to one sheet, perfect. If necessary, expand to an 11" x 17" sheet folded to 8.5" x 11".

I personally prefer using a landscape 8.5" x 11" format, as seen here. I have intentionally kept the image small. You will have to register for my next class in order to see the full size syllabus. I also plan to use a similar format for our future MerriMail issues.



Everyone should incorporate design principles in their work. You have spent many hours toiling away on your latest project. You want it to look good. Play around with Word and move beyond Times New Roman. You will be surprised with the response you receive. You may even get promoted! Or go a step further and see if your work will pay for you to take Tufte's course. You will receive copies of his fabulous books, which will make it worth it and of itself.

fabulous favors

The issue has finally hit the news stands! I received an email this morning from someone interested in ordering a custom cootie catcher pdf. She is getting married in Germany and thought it might be a fun way to introduce a few phrases to her guests in both English and German. Brilliant! I love the idea. By the way, she told me, "I found you in the latest issue of Brides Magazine."

I have been waiting since being first contacted by Brides in January. So it was exciting to discover that the issue was already in the stores. I ran out to our local CVS to see if I could find it. But the 7th Street store is a bit of a disaster. So I went home, ate lunch and then hiked a little farther over to Barnes & Noble. I was so tempted to tell the lady reading a magazine next to me, but I refrained. Quite exciting.

Click here for a close-up! And, please, tell everyone.