links + recs

...for the longest days of the year

The solstice happened this week. Did you notice? The Latin word means “sun standing still,” which is kind of exactly what it feels like. I’ve been sitting on porches til long past 9pm, watching the lightning bug performance over the river and getting my ankles ravaged by mosquitos who finally felt strong enough to emerge after a long, cool spring.

The gardens are thriving, mostly. I’ve been eating yellow cherry tomatoes from my vines for lunch all week long, and experimenting with various pickle recipes to use the cucumbers that are coming in. My zinnias are very happy, and the nasturtiums are all nodding their heads in the sun.

We are also in the middle of a drought, which is very bad for farmers and the local reservoir but not yet as bad as, say, central North Carolina where mandatory water use restrictions are being imposed. All against the backdrop of tech conglomerates busily buying up SW VA’s beautiful water sources for their insatiable bot buildings.

Here are a few links and recs for these long, dry, sunny summer days.

I’m taking a poetry class this summer, and we read this one from Naomi Shihab Nye last week, which is always worth a revisit.

I took a field trip to Floyd this week with my artist neighbors to do some screen printing at a local print shop’s open studio hours and it was SO FUN. I noticed this perfect tiny print on the shop wall:

The AI Resist List is a treasure trove of inspiration.

I am trying to change my life into one that runs on creativity instead of obligation, and it is NOT EASY. I’ve been collecting encouragement, and this essay from Emily Rapp Black (who I feel like I am probably only one or two degrees away from, network-wise) was just that.

My collard greens have loved this year’s weather and are going gangbusters. I found this Dovi collard green recipe, which is the closest I’ve come to recreating the Zimbabwean collard dish from Zweli’s restaurant in Durham. DELISH.

A friend recommended I read Mary Beard’s Women and Power to kickstart my own writing, and it did exactly that.

Google is pretty evil, but they do hold all the data, and this cheatsheet was super helpful for digging through it in more efficient ways. Long live the librarians!

I deadlifted 100 pounds last week! That is relative chump change, but it makes me feel SO DAGGONE STRONG. Strength training: just do it.