YAY!

The Nebraska women climbers swept "Iowa Climb" today. Expect climber profiles later in the month.

Apart from that, on this chilly Saturday, I haven't much else to report spare:

1. The newly released, digitally remastered Beatles album is amazing.

2. My Wii "Fit Age" is now 29. Suck it, Old Age! That's down from a humbling 41 in just a month. I'll take it. Of course, I know this isn't scientific proof of my youth, but until you're on the other side of 39 you won't understand my glee.

3. My plan to post new squash recipes was squashed last night. Neither recipe turned out all that well. Both were bland, though incredibly healthy. I'll have to try again. In the meanwhile, I'm cooking apples, sweet potatoes, and a pork roast. Those recipes I will post because they're awesome, and after an entire week of vegetable and poultry protein choices, I needed a break. I've been craving steak again, and at this point would willingly take down a steer with my bare hands if one crossed my path.

4. My face is smaller. I had to go back to the optometrist yesterday to get my glasses and prescription sunglasses re-adjusted. Both were sliding off my face. Since I didn't think to measure the circumference of my face at the beginning of this project, I can't report the exact loss. I just know that I've been picturing what it would look like to pose with hats that no longer fit, like those women who pose with gigantic pants extended out to demonstrate how big they used to be.

5. If all goes well tomorrow and I finish reading the assigned, "Civilization and Its Discontents" by Freud in time, I'm heading back to the wall. I'd like to finish my cerebral fall weekend, one spent up to my armpits in legal briefs and court rulings pertaining to First Amendment rights, feeling as though I've accomplished something.

Overall, I'm feeling great about P'UP. I'm meeting new people, holding myself to a project, and enjoying that very much. I'm also preparing for my No Name Reading Series performance at Sur Tango in Lincoln, Nebraska on Oct. 9. I've got some new poetry and an essay to unleash upon the world, and I'm excited about that though I miss my usual editor and co-conspirator who always helped me to prepare my manuscripts. I'm flying solo on this performance, it seems.

I'll leave you with this meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh:

From any point in the cosmos, people can touch us wherever we are and wherever they are. We are not at all confined by time and space. We penetrate everywhere; we are everywhere. Whenever someone touches something with deep mindfulness, deep looking, he or she will touch us.