Another list of things

So, here’s a bunch of random things:

• I am a writing machine right now.  I love it.  It’s me in my element.  But it’s also me at my most distracted.  Let’s not talk about how on more than one occasion this week I’ve put laundry and detergent in the washing machine and walked away without starting it.  
• Let’s also not talk about how I’ve done the same thing with the dishwasher, or how many people I owe e-mails & phone calls to at the moment.
• Remember those great summer reading programs from your childhood library days?  BookSparks PR is hosting a Summer Reading Challenge for grownups, and STAY is included in the line up!  Go check it out!  There are prizes.  So you get to read, and there’s stuff to win.  
• Vitamin D + sun time + drinking milk = less sleepy & much happier me.
• New York Mag has a really great essay on profanity (via The Rumpus) – which, of course, contains profanity, so if you’re sensitive to that, maybe that’s not the link for you.  But it is a wonderful essay.
• Judy Blume has an essay about censorship up on her site (it’s the forward to an anthology of stories by banned authors), and it made me teary, in the same vein that the #YAsaves hashtag on Twitter really moves me.  The books I read as a kid changed who I am for the better, and I am so thankful for the brave writers who put themselves out on a limb to write stories young adults can connect with.
• I finished Evan Dawson‘s book, Summer in a Glass, last week and now I totally want to go on a Finger Lakes wine tour.  Who’s with me?
• My garden is a mess this year, but I think we’re going to have tons and tons and tons of raspberries, so I’m not complaining.