377 days, blog #144 - Revisiting the list

I decided to give myself a week away from writing this blog for Christmas.  My head has been full of a lot of details and I felt my inspiration suffer quite a bit.  

Well.  That week is over, so here I am back again.  Somewhat rejuvenated.  Some things are a bit clearer in my head – but that may be the merciful consequence of not going to work and sitting at a computer for most of the day.  I have really enjoyed that part of it.  Granted, I did spend a whole day binge watching Netflix… but I was (finally) assembling my elliptical as I did that… so it wasn’t total and complete sloth.

Anyway, now that you have that update, dear Reader – and I’m sure you were waiting with baited breath to know that – I figure today (the last Sunday of 2014) would be a good day to come back to this blog and revisit my list.

I am almost five months into this year approaching 40.  I confess I’ve lost sight of that list quite a bit.  Except this blog and a few things I had already accomplished and then swiftly abandoned as a priority.  I also still have 12 blanks for that list of 40 things to do before 40.

Well here’s a partial update of a partial list

1. Readable draft of my novel – Well, yes.  I did this.  I haven’t looked at my manuscript since my birthday.  I sent it to a handful of readers… but have received no feedback with which to go back and start again.  But as events of Ferguson and New York have erupted in this country, I am reminded of my novel and how important it is for me to wrestle with my own thoughts about race.  How important it is for me to do something with it beyond have it hang out in my hard drive.  So at the start of 2015, I need to get some feedback.  I need to write another draft.  I need to see if anyone will publish it.  If not, I really should do so myself.

2. Write a blog EVERY day – This is probably the most successful… habit.  But I did take off this last week because I felt like my content was getting very tired.  The aforementioned news item has filled my imagination with a lot of things about which to write… but I am hesitant to just write a blog and not have a conversation because there are a lot of opinions that are being misconstrued and taken out of context these days… and I really crave more dialogue and less expostulating about racial bias and violence.  Of course, that is not the only topic for my blog.  I think I need to re-evaluate that structure and be more deliberate with my posts so there is a consistency to the theater, writing, health, or political topic.

3. Walk every day – Yeah, no.  This hasn’t happened yet.  Winter has taken a temporary leave.  So I don’t know why I don’t take advantage of that.

5. Get a dog – While this is probably the easiest solution for #3, my budget took a severe hit with the purchase of a new car.  And I want to go to Ireland.  And I know that being a good pet parent is being able to pay for vet bills and food.  So this may have to be an end of the year thing.

6. Learn Spanish – I have the Rosetta Stone CD.  Still in the box.  I am in the car 45 minutes – an hour a day.  Duh.

7. Tap dance – Not yet.

8. Audition for a play – I have my eye on one.  I’m not sure if I want to do another play in 2015.  It’s very easy to think it’s a great idea while involved in another… but I think doing one show after the other detracts from the quality of my time spent with one.  But… it is a helluva script… and auditioning is a worthwhile experience.  It might be worth it to try.  I’ll come back to this in a week.

9. Submit to direct – I sent my submission.  I actually worked quite hard on it, something I fear isn’t really appreciated by those who are reviewing it.  Not only in designing the motif, but in analyzing the audience patterns and competition of other theaters… details I find fascinating, but facts that I fear cause as much of a glaze on the attention focus as does the Shakespearean verse I hope to direct.  But… maybe one closed door is the universe suggesting I should go build another door.  I don’t know about that yet either.

10. Eat less sugar – Well, the holidays are a very easy excuse to not pay attention to this.  They are also a very easy excuse to say I’ve had enough and it’s time to detox.

11. Cook from cookbooks once a week – Not once a week.  Once a month, perhaps?  Although today I did make one of my grandmother’s recipes to bring to a rehearsal.  Granted, it completely undoes any intention of making #10 happen today.

12. Update the bathroom – I’ve stripped most of the wallpaper… over a month and a half ago.  I’m hoping to make use of January sales to get some new fixtures and get going on that.

13. Manage time better – Well, if I don’t figure this out in January when I’m stage managing a play, producing a workshop, revamping writeins, visiting friends from out of town, and going to work each day… I won’t be a happy Jessie

14. Build writing brand/website/novels – I need to add this to the list of things to fit into time management.

23. Buy a car – Well I did that.  It seems like I’ve had Peat forever already.  It seems like I’ll be paying for him forever, too.

24. Cut back on Starbucks – This is much easier to do when it isn’t the season of iced coffee.  I’m also not in a latte/mocha frame of mind these days (bonus for that #10) and prefer a simple (good – unlike Dunkin Donuts which is crap because it needs sugar) brewed coffee with milk.  And I can do that from my own kitchen.  I will still visit my favorite shop and baristas once a week… but I need to save money for #40.

25. Sell more books – this connects to #14 and for that matter #40.  I like to think of my writing as a skill.  I would hope that it could be a skill that gave me some sort of income.  I hate to think that the skill from which I will gain most profit in my life will be how well I can manipulate Excel.  That’s not exactly how I see myself.

27. Cut back on Facebook – This is difficult to do with my life at a computer.  But it is a mind suck.  I took the whole day off from social media on Christmas.  And funny thing is, I lived those minutes.  I didn’t just watch them or live them so I could show them off.  I do appreciate Facebook.  I know that is where my writing has an audience – a mostly appreciative audience.  But the voyeurism and passiveness of it is really … sad and a behavior with which I would like to spend a little less time.

28. Get rid of stuff – It is amazing how swiftly one acquires things, is it not?  I didn’t get a whole lot for Christmas (I didn’t ask for much).  I don’t really buy a lot of things in general.  Gone are the days of buying videos and CDs just because.  I still buy books (but mostly local authors whom I try to support to tempt karma for #25).  The problem is I have a whole house to myself and extra bedrooms where I keep stuff.  Some makes sense.  Things I don’t use all year – like wrapping paper (I stopped buying it at least five years ago, but still have a plentiful supply.  I was so thrilled this year when I used up a roll and had the added bonus of a cardboard tube for kindling – it’s the small things) or a punch bowl I will pull out for food on a stick and hurricane punch if nothing else.  Or the boxes of photographs through which I slowly mine to scan and give back to family members.  But… do I have to hold onto stuffed animals?  Or t-shirts from past shows?  Or manuscripts from when I was in high school?  Probably not.  But I think this getting rid of stuff is more about letting go of needless nostalgia than anything else.

40. Go to Ireland – On Friday night, I hosted a dinner to talk about our initial plans.  There are seven of us who will be sharing a cottage somewhere in Connemara this summer.  I hope to save enough money and vacation time to be in London for the big day of turning 40. (Contributions welcome, by the way.)  But this is going to drive most of my year – and my less social behavior as I try to crack that nut of getting some income for my writing.  It will help to inform a lot of other items on this list.  Less spending on coffee and wine.  Walking every day so I will enjoy those hikes through the heather and gorse.  And managing my time so I can get every productive minute from it until July 22^nd when we depart.

#40 is the end game.  It is going to help start 2015 with a smile and fierce determination.  It is going to be a good year.