Awkwardly Social

Holly does a monthly review of her goals, and it’s always inspiring to me, so here I am, trying to make 2013 a year of getting things done.This month I started a chore chart of sorts as a way to get me motivated to follow a plan of attack on my life.  It showed me some very interesting patterns.  One, that cooking is still not a priority, even though I think that as Moe gets older I’d like him to have meals around the dinner table, and it’s never too early to start an evening routine, it’s been too hard with work and weekend plans to make this happen.  My job ends mid-February, so maybe I’ll have the time then?  I’m not too worried about it yet.  Two, that the practice of blogging is really fun and I missed it.  I made an effort to write stuff down here and I’m so glad I did.  Having an online journal is one of those things many people still think is weird, but if I just kept a paper journal it would be all about my anxiety and stress and how I’m not losing weight.  If I have to show people what I’ve written, it definitely makes me dig deeper.

So, the year long resolutions, if you care to revisit, were these:

Get back to my pre-infertility treatments weight. - I started Weight Watchers before Christmas and it was going really well there until work stress and home stress started to give me an excuse to eat all the things.  I hope to get back to being more aware of the 20 Hershey’s kisses that magically just disappeared into my face hole.  It’s a process!

Make time for me and Seth. - Yes and no.  I try to stay up with him while he putters around the kitchen so we can talk about our day, but my back has been bothering me, and most nights I just want to get into bed and relax.  So, this is another thing I’ll be working on with more steam in February.

Start running again, even if I can only find time for it once a month. - Big yes!  I mean, I only ran twice this month, but that’s two times more than I ran last month.

Use my new sewing machine - Not yet.  But Mood fabrics just opened a couple of blocks away from my house and I can’t wait to go explore.

Carve out time to work on my own writing - Barely.  I wrote a couple of times this month on non-work related projects, but I hope February will get me going even more.

Don’t buy anymore books. - I didn’t buy a single one!

Figure out how to get Moe back into his own bed. - We did it!  We did Ferber sleep training and it’s still tough some nights, but last night he slept through until 6am.  I, on the other hand, woke up every two hours wondering if he was going to wake up.

Get a family photo of the three of us. - We got one at the beach of the three of us, but Seth’s head is cut off, and it’s not exactly what I was hoping for.  My sister gave me a tripod for my birthday, so I’m hopeful this will be taken care of very soon!

So, for February.

1. More personal writing.

2. More exercising

3. More fruits and vegetables

4. More Seth and Tamara time

5. More sewing

More: physical activity, reading, creativity, dance parties at home, cooking, doing, seeing people who make me laugh, telling people I appreciate them.

Less: complaining, television, over-thinking, worrying, sitting, being mad at my body for being imperfect.

Happy New Year!

I rang in the New Year in the back of a bar in Delaware watching a crowd of people give their livers a workout, and I drank several shots of something called “whipped cream flavored vodka,” while dancing to the most expensive cover band in all of Delaware sing songs I didn’t like in high school.  Then we came home and ate spicy left over Chinese food and talked and laughed and woke up this morning refreshed and happy.

I hope your 2011 is fantastic.

I don’t know if it’s superstition or the break-up or laziness, but I didn’t want to make a long list of resolutions this year.  There are a lot of specific things I want to accomplish, but those are just the big, daunting, somewhat tedious items on my to-do list.  The one thing I’ve been thinking about most is why my relationship failed, why I’m still not achieving the level of success in my off-line writing I thought I would be achieving by now and why I’m still 10 pounds away from my ever changing goal weight.  And the answer is not a pleasant one.

I’ve spent most of my life doing the minimum.  This is what happens when you’re told you’re smart for most of your habit forming years.  Instead of telling me that if I worked hard I would be able to get the things I wanted, I was told I was smart, I would be OK.  “You’re smart, you’ll figure out a way to get that 20 page paper done by tomorrow that you’ve known about for 3 months.”  Guess what, I always got it done.  I always spent the entire semester dreading that final weekend before it was due, but never got off my ass and did the research.  So here I am, approaching 32 and I’m still cramming for life.  Here’s the thing, you can’t cram for your relationship, you have to do the work every day.  You can’t cram for your screenplay, you have to sit your ass in the chair and write.  You can’t cram for weight loss, you have to - well, you get the point.

So, on December 17th, 2007, my world got flipped around, I’m starting over and instead of making a grand sweeping change that is sure to be given up on in one month - like RUN EVERY DAY OR DIE - I’m resolving to ‘try a little harder.’  It sounds so simple and maybe it’s too simple, but so far it’s working.  All I have to do to keep this resolution is ask myself a couple times a day, “Did you try a little harder, can you do a little more?”  And if I say yes I can try a little harder, I can do a little more - I run a little faster, I add an extra set of push-ups, I write a few more pages.  Generally, I’m only asking the question if I know I can try a little harder, but it helps to have the extra push even if it comes from me.

I expect to resist this in a few months, I expect to get to a point where I want to tell myself to shut up, but one aspect of my personality that I shove in the corner most days is a supreme level of stubbornness.  I am a stubborn mother-fucker, and I mean to get the most out of that.  At least, I’ll try to.

Happy New Year. Ironically a few days before Louie broke up with me I started writing a post about last year and how even though I crashed my car, and had a few other minor setbacks it really wasn’t all that bad. Then the universe thinking I was being smart gave me the what-for with a nice gut punch on a Monday morning. I can’t even bring myself to blame Louie for it anymore, it was clearly the universe telling me something, and that something was, “You think you had it bad, sister, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” So I say to you, Universe, I give. Uncle. I’m at your mercy, let’s play nice or if not nice, at least fair. At least give me the rules.

Yesterday I was walking around the apartment thinking, worrying, wondering what I had done to deserve the shitty dresser that’s stayed with me for over 10 years and not have a boyfriend stick with me through December. I looked at my three awesome lamps that I absolutely love, one a hand-me-down from my neighbor, one a heavily researched Target purchase, and one a house-warming gift from my mother - marking when Louie and I moved in together, and I thought to myself, “Well, at least I have good lamps.” I keep thinking of that. It’s something that comes from film school. When I was gaffing a lot, the first thing I would do when I walked into a room whether we were scouting it or not, would be to look at the light source. It’s just one of those habits people get into. I lit for a lot of my friends and every movie presented different challenges, sometimes you’d walk into a room and all you’d see was a boring nipple light in the center of the ceiling. My cinematography professor would say that when you’re having trouble lighting something, you’re trying to hard. Turn everything off and start over, beginning with the best light source in the room. Sometimes it’s a window, sometimes it’s a lamp. Sometimes it’s the shitty overhead fluorescent in the bread aisle of the grocery store. But that’s life, your job is to make it pretty or ugly as the case may be.

So, here’s to turning everything off and starting over with the best light source in the room. Thankfully, I have good lamps.

Last year I tried to do 55 things, because I am crazy.

This year I hope to accomplish the following:

1. Run the LA Marathon.
2. Take a crap load of pictures.
3. Put said pictures in my 2006 album.
4. Buy said album.
5. Take my vitamins.
6. Pay off Capital One credit card.
7. Do not purchase any new books this year. (I said ‘new’ for a reason, I’m trying out Paperbackswap and I’m not counting that as ‘new’.)
8. Continue not smoking, even after the marathon.
9. Finish RH script.
10. Get my old school Canon 35mm camera fixed.
11. Get my new school Canon Rebel fixed.
12. Write a short story.
13. Or two.

And that’s enough for a year. I hope to remain healthy and happy and continue on this Zen journey I’ve just begun. This year is going to be awesome!

So to recap my 55 in 2005… I accomplished, um, some things. I was being very ambitious when I wrote the list and ambition is not one of my strongest suits, so let’s see how I did.

General Behavior section
1. Stop complaining. No one wants to hear how hot it is or how rainy it is. They can tell. They are standing RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. Yeah, I’m a total complainer, it’s only been since I’ve been around this other complainer that I’ve realized how bad it is.
2. No more judgmental stuff. Just because the first time you meet someone you thought they were an ass, doesn’t mean A. that they actually are an ass. And B. that you should tell everyone you know that you think they are an ass. SHUT UP about it already. I didn’t even really work on this
3. Stop wishing death on people who cut you off whilst driving. They don’t deserve to die, and neither does their cat or dog or grandma. It’s mean. discounting the weeks when I was quitting smoking I was much better at this, I’m much more zen in the car now

4. January - March reading list - A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

5. April - June reading list - To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

6. July - September - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

7. October - December - Wings of the Dove by Henry James, Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

8. Limit television watching to 1 hour a weeknight, except on Wednesday nights when a one-hour limit would actually be cruel and unusual punishment because both Lost and Alias are on, although with the way things are going, I might just be fine with one hour that night. Yeah. didn’t happen. At all.
9. Learn CSS nope.
10. Re-learn HTML I did do some work on this and count it as re-learning, partially. I will have to spend a lot more time on it, but it’s going well so far.
11. Take a photography class at LACC nope
12. Take a Spanish class at LACC nada
13. Read a non-fiction book every month. The whole thing. Not just the first 5 chapters, like I consistently do. a hahahaha! I only read 5.

14. Volunteer at an animal shelter (twice a month) I looked into this, but never got around to doing it
15. Take more pictures. Yes! I have been better about this. I really want a better camera, but for now, it’s nice to have at least something to look back on
16. Organize pictures I already have. Again, yes! I have a photo album for this year’s pictures and I’m working my way through old photos that are in photo boxes and labeling and organizing
17. Decide what to do with the stairway and do it. (It’s been half painted for 3 years.) Uh. no. still half painted, have no idea what to do with it
18 Get the writing group going again. Or start a new one. Had our first meeting to re-start up on 4/3
19. Learn to knit. No, but I have mad crochet skills now
20. Throw a dinner party. My apartment was never clean enough to attempt this, hopefully this year
21. Fix the web site. I don’t know what I meant by this, but no, no website was fixed.
22. Learn Photoshop. nope
23. Fix bike. Completed 12/11/05, I just had to pump up my tires. I’d really like to get my brakes checked but, it is functional!
24. Get tires for car. (Don’t worry, it’s not on blocks in my front yard, it has tires on it, they’re just bald.) Holy crap that was waaaay more expensive then I thought, shocks, struts, re-pack ball bearings. etc. etc. blah blah blah. But the damned thing rides like a shitty Lexus now, so I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice. January 29, 2005
25. Clean the damn office. The pile of papers that extends from the desk to the floor is unacceptable and fucking up the feng shui of our already feng shui challenged apartment. Cleaned 5/30/05. It was a dusty mess, but now it is dust and paper free. YAY, ME!
26. Take clothes to the dry cleaners. Wow, those dry cleaning ladies really don’t like to touch my clothes. They picked them up with two fingers and looked at them askanse. Whatever bitches, you work there. It’s your damned job. (No offense, B) January 29, 2005
27. Take clothes to Goodwill Completed 11/8/05, I had 6 bags of clothes and crap. It was so nice to be free of it.
28. Rip CD’s. Completed 3/5/05
29. Sell CD’s. They are still sitting on my floor, waiting to be sold, I might just give them away in order to be rid of them
30. Use the sewing machine for something other than a storage surface. (That means sew something. Preferably something fashionable and wearable.) It was unburied but nothing was done with it.
31. Get a CA Driver’s License. (I know. Five years. In CA. Without a CA Driver’s License. They’re going to haul me off to driver’s license jail.) I’m really ashamed of this not getting done, soon, very soon I will get a CA driver’s license

32. Take a ‘vacation’ with the boyfriend. That is, if he remains my boyfriend. If he doesn’t that might be just a little bit awkward. Completed in August for our anniversary. We only went as far as Annaheim, to Disneyland, but it counts because we stayed in a hotel and ordered room service. For some reason, that makes it count. I don’t know why.
33. Mexico (or another Caribbean border area) Apparently I thought I was going to be rich last year. Silly me, that’s THIS year.
34. Go to Joshua Tree. Uh. No. But I did have an awesome time in Palm Springs.
35. Visit some place I’ve never been (Like Lake Tahoe! Wait. I might have been there… I don’t remember it though so it still counts!) I spent a day in Palm Springs in the middle of the summer, while technically I’ve been there before because of all the driving through it I do, I had never spent this much time there, so I count this.

36. Run twice a week - on average. (104 times this year. Easy.) I ran 101 times last year, I kept track. I count that as totally accomplished because 101 is close enough to 104.
37. Go on a bike ride once a week - on average. (52 times this year.) I went on one bike ride, so no, this was not accomplished
38. Take Calcium twice a day. (Impossibly hard. But both mom and grandma have serious bone loss, so… nothing like good genetics to kick me into gear.) I really made an effort, but I’m not quite there yet with this.
39. Buy one of those pill dispenser daily thingies so I can remember to take my calcium. Completed sometime back in August I think, I purchased it… put the pills in it. And it sits, prominently on our junk table with the original pills still hanging out there. Oh well.
40. Go to the dentist. I disgust myself
41. Pilates tapes once a week. (Again, that’s on average so 52 times this year.) hahaha!
42. Fast food no more than once a week unless it’s an emergency. (Craving a Jumbo Jack is not an emergency. BUT, needing a Sausage and Egg McMuffin to cure a hangover is an emergency.) This has been pretty easy since I went on my diet. I really don’t eat it anymore unless I have no other choice. Yay, me!
43. Quit smoking. For real. I quit smoking 2 months ago, I’m really proud of myself for this one

Writing
44. An hour a day. Blogging doesn’t count. Not so much
45. Do wedding script outline nope
46. Fix SBB outline. I don’t even remember what this was
47. Write SBB script. see above
48. Finish re-write of Mine script. Completed 3/30. Got great notes, the polish should be easy
49. Polish Mine script. After Tara and I realized we needed to do a complete overhaul of this we sort of gave up
50. Write outline of prequel. no
51. Write first draft of prequel. I am crazy
52. Finish novella. what novella?
53. Write a short story and submit it somewhere. I wrote many stories for you people, none of them qualified, I’m a loser

54. No more complaining about going to work. I’m lucky to have a job. I got so much better about this, I really did, it still needs work though
55. Write thank you notes. Do it within two weeks of gift giving. Uh. Thank you!

So if you made it through reading that, I’m really proud of you, look forward to regaling you with a tale of New Year’s Eve and this year’s resolutions! I completed 19 out of 55, better luck next year, I guess.

This list is long. And maybe a little embarrassing that I have to resolve to do some of these things. Being 29 isn’t all it’s cut out to be. If, in fact, it is cut out to be anything.

General Behavior section
1. Stop complaining. No one wants to hear how hot it is or how rainy it is. They can tell. They are standing RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.
2. No more judgmental stuff. Just because the first time you meet someone you thought they were an ass, doesn’t mean A. that they actually are an ass. And B. that you should tell everyone you know that you think they are an ass. SHUT UP about it already.
3. Stop wishing death on people who cut you off whilst driving. They don’t deserve to die, and neither does their cat or dog or grandma. It’s mean.

Smarten up section (Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you these are broken up into sections? Well. They are.)
Classics I’ve never read but sometimes say I have reading assignment
4. January - March reading list - A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

5. April - June reading list - To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

6. July - September - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

7. October - December - Wings of the Dove by Henry James, Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

Other stuff to do to smarten my dumb ass up
8. Limit television watching to 1 hour a weeknight, except on Wednesday nights when a one-hour limit would actually be cruel and unusual punishment because both Lost and Alias are on, although with the way things are going, I might just be fine with one hour that night.
9. Learn CSS
10. Re-learn HTML
11. Take a photography class at LACC
12. Take a Spanish class at LACC
13. Read a non-fiction book every month. The whole thing. Not just the first 5 chapters, like I consistently do.
January Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood - a memoir, but I’m counting it as non-fiction.
Months following January and up to August I’m Not the New Me - another memoir.
We Thought You’d be Prettier - shut up. I like memoirs.
Thinking in Pictures oh my god. This is a memoir TOO!
The Mole People - haha! not a memoir.

You guys bored of this yet? I warned you. Feel free to skim.

Do it portion
14. Volunteer at an animal shelter (twice a month)
15. Take more pictures.
16. Organize pictures I already have.
17. Decide what to do with the stairway and do it. (It’s been half painted for 3 years.)
18 Get the writing group going again. Or start a new one. Had our first meeting to re-start up on 4/3
19. Learn to knit.
20. Throw a dinner party.
21. Fix the web site.
22. Learn Photoshop.
23. Fix bike. Completed 12/11/05, I just had to pump up my tires. I’d really like to get my brakes checked but, it is functional!
24. Get tires for car. (Don’t worry, it’s not on blocks in my front yard, it has tires on it, they’re just bald.) Holy crap that was waaaay more expensive then I thought, shocks, struts, re-pack ball bearings. etc. etc. blah blah blah. But the damned thing rides like a shitty Lexus now, so I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice. January 29, 2005
25. Clean the damn office. The pile of papers that extends from the desk to the floor is unacceptable and fucking up the feng shui of our already feng shui challenged apartment. Cleaned 5/30/05. It was a dusty mess, but now it is dust and paper free. YAY, ME!
26. Take clothes to the dry cleaners. Wow, those dry cleaning ladies really don’t like to touch my clothes. They picked them up with two fingers and looked at them askanse. Whatever bitches, you work there. It’s your damned job. (No offense, B) January 29, 2005
27. Take clothes to Goodwill Completed 11/8/05, I had 6 bags of clothes and crap. It was so nice to be free of it.
28. Rip CD’s. Completed 3/5/05
29. Sell CD’s.
30. Use the sewing machine for something other than a storage surface. (That means sew something. Preferably something fashionable and wearable.)
31. Get a CA Driver’s License. (I know. Five years. In CA. Without a CA Driver’s License. They’re going to haul me off to driver’s license jail.)

Travel Portion
32. Take a ‘vacation’ with the boyfriend. That is, if he remains my boyfriend. If he doesn’t that might be just a little bit awkward. Completed in August for our anniversary. We only went as far as Annaheim, to Disneyland, but it counts because we stayed in a hotel and ordered room service. For some reason, that makes it count. I don’t know why.
33. Mexico (or another Caribbean border area)
34. Go to Joshua Tree.
35. Visit some place I’ve never been (Like Lake Tahoe! Wait. I might have been there… I don’t remember it though so it still counts!)

Health Portion
36. Run twice a week - on average. (104 times this year. Easy.)
37. Go on a bike ride once a week - on average. (52 times this year.)
38. Take Calcium twice a day. (Impossibly hard. But both mom and grandma have serious bone loss, so… nothing like good genetics to kick me into gear.)
39. Buy one of those pill dispenser daily thingies so I can remember to take my calcium. Completed sometime back in August I think, I purchased it… put the pills in it. And it sits, prominently on our junk table with the original pills still hanging out there. Oh well.
40. Go to the dentist.
41. Pilates tapes once a week. (Again, that’s on average so 52 times this year.)
42. Fast food no more than once a week unless it’s an emergency. (Craving a Jumbo Jack is not an emergency. BUT, needing a Sausage and Egg McMuffin to cure a hangover is an emergency.) This has been pretty easy since I went on my diet. I really don’t eat it anymore unless I have no other choice. Yay, me!
43. Quit smoking. For real.

Writing
44. An hour a day. Blogging doesn’t count.
45. Do wedding script outline
46. Fix SBB outline.
47. Write SBB script.
48. Finish re-write of Mine script. Completed 3/30. Got great notes, the polish should be easy
49. Polish Mine script.
50. Write outline of prequel.
51. Write first draft of prequel.
52. Finish novella.
53. Write a short story and submit it somewhere.

Last little bits
54. No more complaining about going to work. I’m lucky to have a job.
55. Write thank you notes. Do it within two weeks of gift giving.

As I complete these - I’ll put them in bold.