[image by Brian]

Goal for June: Read a book a day. Follow my reading list here.

Green reading tip: Leave the SUV at home and bike to the library. Despite the fact that the Santa Monica Public Library has yet to add more bike racks, you’ll likely find a space on the railings and meters around the street if in a pinch.

Or take the bus — which I did yesterday, to pick up a book at USC. Side benefit: You can read on the bus — Plenty, in my case.

On the way back I stopped off at the WindPower 2007 conference, and had a decidely un-local lunch, topped off by an icky-sweet eclair I couldn’t finish. When I got back on the bus and opened up Plenty again, I started feeling nauseous — My body, immersed in 100-mile diet reading, had decided to rebel against this foreign mass of overprocessed sugar and flour.

Luckily I managed to hold it together until I got home. After a lil kombucha, my tummy settled down enough to go to the Gaslite for drinks — Happy birthday Sarah (above, right, and “22″)

Then I woke up late today with a minor hangover and missed the farmers’ market :(

None of that has much to do with Barry Yourgrau’s Wearing Dad’s Head, except that I did bike to the library a couple days ago to check this one out. It’s a sort of surreal, absurdist collection of very short stories — A mother, bitten by a mosquito, slowly swells up and floats to the ceiling. Pirates break into a boy’s house — to steal his fathers’ vacation slides. My favorite is “Traitors”: A guy’s about to get hanged for treason, and his mom couldn’t be more proud:

I recognize my mother’s large, festive sun hat in the throng of bloodthirsty early-risers. A manicured hand waves enthusiastically to me. I acknowledge it in miserable embarrassment, wiggling my fingers in front of my thighs…. A bouquet of flowers arcs into the air and plops at my feet. “For Christ’s sake, mom!” I sputter.

Book read: Barry Yourgrau, Wearing Dad’s Head

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