Mmmm.

Friends and Neighbors: Dejene Regasa

This week's column features the story of a man who came all the way from Ethiopia in pursuit of the American Dream.

Tigard-Tualatin-Sherwood Times

Beaverton Valley Times

Running for Kristen: Week 33

Nearing the home stretch!

For 40 weeks, I'm setting aside $1 for every mile I run to donate to a cancer foundation in honor of the other Kristen Forbes, who died of cervical cancer at the age of 23. To learn more about Kristen's story, visit www.kristenEVE.org.

This week, I ran 14 miles, bringing the total amount raised to date to $337.

Mojo-a-go-go

These last few weeks, I haven't had a lot of writing mojo. Or rather, I've had writing mojo that is specifically directed toward my fiction, but does not include the day-to-day, paying, real world writing that I'm supposed to be doing. The act of sitting down to write an article is a chore, and therefore the only option is to bribe myself.

Which I do, on a daily basis.

I bribe myself with promises of free time, social time, relaxing time, fun time. Write this article and you can take a nap! Write this article and you can have a cup of tea! Per usual, I bribe myself with the things that would appeal to any normal 80-year-old woman. I'm pretty sure that's what I am, trapped in a 20-something body. Never is this more apparent than when watching TV (The Biggest Loser of course, what else?) with my parents and a commercial comes on for some phone/internet/navigation/gadget thingy and the three of us stare at the screen and say, "Now what is that thing?" and they figure it out semi-quickly and try to explain it to me. "It's a phone that doubles as a time machine," they explain, and I wave them off and say, "Ah, technology, it's too overwhelming."

Back to the writing. It's been slow. Challenging. Rough. I can't quite figure out why -- I've had some great interviews with really interesting people. But then sitting down and writing their stories? Not unless I know there's sandwich and/or bubble bath in my future.

The problem is that my mind seems to have finally caught up with me and grown weary of the bribery. In fact, my mind has devised this annoying routine wherein it insists on arguing, whining, and pleading its case for not writing that article just yet. Some of the arguments are convincing and others are just pathetic. "If you write it tomorrow morning, you'll be so much less tired," my mind tries to tell myself at 8:oo p.m., as if I'm actually going to go to bed anytime soon.

Come to think of it, going to bed at 8 doesn't sound so bad ...

But the writing! Ah, back to the writing. I'm pulling it, dragging it, grabbing and digging it out. It's not pleasant, it's ridiculously more complicated than it should be, and every single day has become a battle between my childish mind and my need to be a productive member of society.

I think I need a better bribe list.

Like the Wind

I think I must have been in Girl Scouts or some similar club when we had this Dad/ Daughter event. All of the fathers were instructed to bring something from nature that reminded them of their daughters. They all had to give a little speech about it. Predictably, all of the dads brought flowers and talked about their beautiful little girls.

My dad brought a miniature, portable fan. He said I reminded him of the wind.

All of the girls rolled their eyes and said, "Daaaaaad," when their dads gave their speeches. All of them. So I did too.

But really, I loved that moment. I loved that thing my dad did to differentiate himself from all the others. I loved it enough to remember it always.

Dress for Success Article

Here's an article I wrote awhile back for the Lake Oswego Review, that I just noticed it up online.

It's about Barb Attridge, director of Dress for Success Oregon (such an amazing organization):
Lake Oswego Review

More Food, Yum.