I’m working on a few copyediting projects right now, including a research series text on violence and communication for the Center for Basque Studies, but my favorite work—if I can even call it that—is editing the Tahoe Blues collection for Bona Fide Books. Due on shelves in June, the collection pairs fiction, nonfiction, and a few poems, all under 500 words in length, in one volume. The stories are fascinating so far. I’m about halfway through the 60 pieces.

I took the above photo on a lunch break today. Being able to experience this lake daily, and reading all the different points of view in Tahoe Blues, makes me remember just how lucky I am to live here.

It’s been exciting to see the energy and press around Mary Robinette Kowal’s A Month of Letters initiative. As a devoted postcard writer myself (evidenced by my postcard blog) I hold USPS-fueled communication near and dear. A Month of Letters is a challenge for the month of February, to write and send a piece of postal mail every day USPS is open (24 days). And, of course, I’m doing it.

Here are the rules if you want to join me:

*Mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch.

*Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

If you use Twitter, tag your posts with #LetterMo. You can follow my daily mailings at my postcard blog, 28cents.

Thanks for doing what you do, Gary!

OMG, my macaroons are internet famous! Read the recipe shared by the fabulous food writer Jackie Varriano in her column on PoorTasteMag.com. These are great treats for anyone in your life who can’t have dairy.

photo by Wendyness/Flickr

I tackled a tough but necessary topic in my art column this month: death. It was a bit crazy how it all came together really: me finding artist Kath McGaughey, my recent experiences with death, the need for this discussion in my life. Read my column to see some of the coincidences, but another one that was too “out there” to explore in print was the fact that I was reading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five at the time. Holy Tralfamadore! It was pretty cool to read this fictional planet’s take on death. Here are a few excerpts if you haven’t read it:

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

This part in particular struck me after reading it and then seeing Kath’s show because one of her larger pieces, the crows lined on wires, references Rosary beads.

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is “So it goes.”

“I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.”

*top 2 photos by Lexy Eich

PR and advertising folks have their work cut out for them due to this season of no snow. Right before Christmas I had to rework some ad copy for a client to promote cruises vs snowmobiling, and here’s how it turned out. The client wanted to run with a “sNOw problem” concept, but we’ve all heard that before so I tried to do something a bit different. Every time I turn in a copywriting job, I always wonder: Would Don Draper love or hate this?

Check me out in the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association’s 2011 Vacation Planner! Ya know, just living the good life in Tahoe… posing for some pics while skate skiing—well, not this year yet. This shot was grabbed by the uber-talented Jeff Dow two winters ago at Tahoe Cross Country. We’re all still waiting patiently for 2012′s snow.

My Christmas present to Bona Fide Books this year: a custom-carved stamp of their logo. I saw it in action right away since Kim used it to stamp-seal her holiday cards this year. Hooray!

I am not a runner. Or at least that’s what I always told myself. I can sprint all day on an ultimate field, but get me on a trail and 3 miles was always my max. I once ran 6 miles. That was a big day.

But something bit me this fall. Ultimate frisbee season was over, I had a few months of down time before skate skiing, and Tahoe’s snow was on a serious vacation (still is). So I started running. I downloaded the Runner’s World half marathon training guide, and began a 9-week process to turn me into a runner. I admit my half marathon goal may seem very small (especially when you compare it to all the people out there doing really big things—the Lolë president’s journey up Kilimanjaro, for one). But you’ve got to start somewhere and this was an attainable goal that I decided to do as much for the training as for the race itself.

Week one of training had me at 20 miles, and I worked my way up to 31 miles/week. I primarily ran trails, and they ranged from right outside my door up to Paige Meadows to horse trails in Woodside, California, to ridgeline paths in Reno above the Patagonia outlet. This was one of my favorite things about running—exploring new trails. Reno has some amazing spots… those hills always call to me and I finally explored some of that high dessert terrain. Here are a few of my favorite vistas (and most memorable ones—wet meadow crossings, ugh!) from my training:

The other thing that amazed me in the process is that I enjoy running. Sometimes I’d dread heading outside, especially with Tahoe’s icy roads and trails, cold rain and frigid air as obstacles, but as soon as my feet starting hitting the ground I’d feel this sense of relief. Running became my relaxation, a place that I could meditate and let my mind stop churning.

Things went great, except when I ran a faster-than-usual 5 miles on pavement in week 8 and some serious knee pain set in. I’m not sure if I’m cut out for this long-distance running thing, but perhaps I’ll just train longer and slower next time. Knee pain and all, I finished the race though: the 2011 ZombieRunner Bay Trail Run. Mile 9 was the toughest for me. And next time I’ll avoid the Clif Shot, which did a number on my belly. But I’m happy to say that I finished in good form. My time was 2:10 so I ended up right in the middle of the pack: 24th in my age group of 47 women, and 106th out of 199 total runners. My pace was a 9:58-minute mile.

the official finish line photo

the spoils from my accomplishment: a tech t-shirt, sopping wet hair, and a medal!

Special thanks to the iMapMyRUN iPhone app, which helped me log all my miles, and to Lolë for outfitting me for the journey. Couldn’t have done it without your leggings!! I’ll be blogging about my favorite running gear on the Tahoe Mountain Sports blog soon. See photos of the Bay Trail half marathon course here.