Two months have gone by and Sarah's still gone. This is, of course, not a surprise or a shock, just something to make note of. I wonder if I'll feel the need to mark the day every month from now on or if I'll eventually graduate to birthdays and holidays?

I have been having a pretty good week. Ever since I moved my papermaking "studio" into Sarah's room downstairs, I've been feeling better. I feel closer to her down there, not to mention the fact that it just felt wrong having her room sitting down there, unfinished like some random store room. She was going to set it up this summer, we would have done all the legwork and whatnot spring break. We had already talked about furniture, and our landlord had said that she could paint down there if she wanted to (as long as she didn't do anything that would be difficult or impossible to paint over). I was really looking forward to having her make that her own space, but she never got a chance to.

Mark Roth never expected his research to have military applications. He was a biochemist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, studying how chromosomes move during cell replication. Then, about a decade ago, his second daughter, Hannah Grace, died of heart failure at the age of 1. Her death sent him down a much stranger path. “I became interested in immortality,” he says.

Isn't that how Frankenstein got started? I can't help but picture secret labs (probably underground), scientists in white lab coats peering intently at unconscious, oxygen-deprived mice and shouting, "It's (still) alive!"

If you are interested in the papermaking hobby, this book is a must-read. If you are serious about papermaking, this book is a must-own. Hiebert includes detailed instructions for constructing molds, presses and dryers. She also includes recipes for cooking plant fiber, descriptions of various methods of beating fiber. She somehow even includes a wide range of projects, including a small section for children's projects.

I have taken up a new hobby. I've started making paper. Years ago, I bought Sarah a paper making kit. I don't know if she ever used it, but I decided to try it out for myself the other day. At first, I just focused on the process. I tried different types of materials, different additives, different thicknesses of paper, etc. I never really thought about what I would do with all this paper I was making. The idea was to learn how and figure everything out about how it worked. I bought a second, larger mold and some better couching paper. I experimented with natural fiber (leaves from my palm tree, flowers from the garden). I bought a pulp additive for neutralizing acids. Then, yesterday I suddenly started having all these ideas of what I'd like to make out of all this paper. My head is now so crammed full of ideas of things I want to make that I am afraid I'll never get all of them done before I forget what they were.

I picked this book up when I was last in Oregon. It has a very compelling story premise. I was completely taken in by the idea of a race of people who stop aging just before puberty until they meet their "one true love." After meeting their soul mate, they can go through some kind of coming-of-age ritual that allows them to go on aging, have kids and grow old and die like the rest of us.

Unfortunately, the guy who wrote this book, while obviously imaginative and creative and capable of great things, writes like a 9th grader who made a C+ in English/Literature. I found myself mesmerized by the story for about 100 pages and then forcing myself to read through 25 pages of nothing (I mean literally nothing at all happens for long stretches of sometimes 25-30 pages or more. No plot development, no character development. . . it feels like watching the weather channel for six hours while they discuss the weather someplace far away that you're not planning on visiting and probably never heard of.) I did finish the book, but I don't intend to read the sequel, even though I really do want to know the rest of the story.

Some of Your Blood is another story written in an unusual style. In this case, the style is that of a medical record, a psychiatric folder complete with therapy notes, letters, and a detailed "life story" written by the patient himself. The book starts out unusually as well, describing the doctor's office, the big drawer where the file is hidden and the pains one has to take to get to the hidden file in order to peruse it. The reader is reminded that this is fiction, but the reminder only brings up doubt. Of course this is fiction . . . isn't it?

I have good days and bad days. Some bad days are worse than others. This morning was hard. I have a hard time getting out of bed most days, but today was worse, much worse than usual. If it weren't for Kiyose's gentle coaxing and patience, I would never have gotten up. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't.

We had to walk down the street to catch the bus, because my dawdling caused us to miss our regular bus. Thus, we were already a bit later than usual getting downtown. I normally wander through Border's just about every morning, which is not such a good thing for my pocketbook. I end up buying books, baubles, miniature sunflower gardens, etc. -- things I really don't need, but I have the money and they look cool so I buy them. Today, I didn't go into Borders because I already had a book to read. I waited outside for the bus, since it was just about time for it to come.

Random Acts of Senseless Violence is a story of the not-so-distant future, told through the diary of a 12-year-old girl named Lola Hart. Due to economic collapse and constant rioting that leaves Los Angeles (among other places) in flames, Lola finds her screenwriter father out-of-work and her family in turmoil. Forced to move from her comfortable home in a nice neighborhood to a broken-down neighborhood bordering on the slums, she finds herself gradually being dragged down, one step at a time into the dark, facing one challenge after another until she has nothing left but her own desire to live, somehow, whatever it takes.