9 posts tagged “lists”

So far I have:

• Had a haircut/ color.  It took three hours and cost approximately 1/3 of my rent.
• Was supposed to watch my friend's moving cube while it was unloaded to prevent theft, but by the time I was out of the salon it was already unloaded.
• Went to lunch with Binky at Vio's.
• Read the entirety of Donald Antrim's memoir.
• Finally cooked the giant scallops I had in my freezer. Yum.
• Finally watched Woody Allen's Interiors.
• Eaten some Bing cherries.
• Done laundry
• Sorted through dresser (again) to make room in drawers
• Matched my socks
  
• Worked on my memoir
• Taken out the recycling

Still on the list:

• prepare a couple of things I need to mail
• pack my gym bag
• empty and organize kitchen cupboards
• clean out fridge
• upload new cds
• put away laundry
• make a comp CD/ playlist of new music
• pay some bills
• vacuum and clean floors
• clean birdcage
• unclutter living room
• empty vacuum
• cook bird food
• spray for cockroaches
• hang screen for projector
• test projector location
• clean bathroom
• organize desk area

I'm a little nonplussed today.  My neck hurts.  I haven't been working on writing as much as I want to.  I'm having personal transitions that are difficult.  I don't want to look for work.  I went to a party in a bar last night and remembered why I don't go to bars anymore.  Not only is it boring when one isn't drinking, but it is depressing to watch drunk people when sober.  I need better social contexts.  But, life ain't all bad!

• I'm going to do STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride) in July with some friends, I think.  I don't want to make any promises yet, but I am definitely going to dust off Jaja (my bike) this week and start getting out for some longer rides.
• I've figured out that I can go to Europe in May (thanks unemployment!!).  I'm looking for flats to rent in Prague in Berlin.
• I may go to NYC in March with "the girls" - hotel is covered, I just have to work the airfare.
• I have a pile of books to read that will keep me occupied for months.
• Starting a yoga schedule on Monday.
• I'm going on a photo excursion with a new photographer friend soon.
• I took a writing class with Rick Moody and he liked my writing.
• My kitchen is clean!
• My laundry is clean!
• I am in a transitional time, and change is good.
  

Ok, so how do I stop being snarky, disinterested, and annoyed?  How did I get this way in the first place?  I think it has something to do with having these unrealistic expectations that I can do work that's rewarding, have relationships that are nourishing, exercise regularly without injuring myself, and that I dealt with so much emotional bullshit as a child that I should be exempt as and adult.  The last one really is unrealistic, but the others shouldn't be, right?

I don't like being serious.  Life is hilarious, as a general rule.  Being able to laugh during difficult times has saved me a lot of agony, but now it feels like everything's gone greyish.  The work that I do feels more like an inconvenience every day.  The paycheck is vital, but the vast quantities of completely useless stress are starting to wear me down.  I've developed a very thick, fire-resistant skin, but I'm also losing the urge to smile, ever.

According to some study (who does these studies, and why?), today, January 21, is the most miserable day of the year.  The xmas credit card bills show up and it somehow no longer seems worth it.  Resolutions have been broken.  Work is full swing.  Those of us who deal with seasonal affective disorder hit the end of tolerance for this particular season. The aisles are packed with Valentine's Day nonsense (which doesn't seem to please anyone, in or out of relationships). The vast expanse of a whole year seems to be contracting too quickly.

This seems to help sometimes - making a list of the good things in my life...

[this is good]

1. My parrot has taken to flying over to see me on the couch and letting me basically cuddle her. It's very cute.
2. This weekend's plans include an excursion to an abandoned (and purportedly haunted) mental asylum in Sedro Woolley!
3. I actually have some money to save and invest, for the first time since I was about 12.
4. I have an impressive queue of books to read, and reading is my favorite activity.
5. This working out at the gym business is working! and I feel sooo much better for it.
6. I am able to be car-free without feeling the least bit inconvenienced.
7. I have acquired some very comfortable pants.
8. iPod is chock full of good music.
9. thus far, my photo of the day endeavor is going well
10. I have a three week trip to Europe to plan.
11. Tax refund!
12. My back pain has gone back to my normal discomfort level
13. I am writing my way through my teen years and already feel better for it.
14. the iPhone is magical.

I usually do the year-end top-ten or twenty new records (and persist in calling them records though they are primarily ones and zeroes these days).  I scraped together the new music I've listened to this year and I can't find much that I think deserves to be top-tenned.  They are all runners up.

1. Blonde Redhead: 23
This may well be the one record that gets a number.  It's a dreamy record, and although dream-pop doesn't suit me everyday, there are some days that it's more refreshing than limeade in August.

• Low: Drums & Guns\Low fans generally don't like this overtly poppy and unusually positive record.  I've always found Low's sound a bit too melancholy for everyday listening, so I actually find Drums & Guns rather refreshing.  Still, it's not great enough for the top 10.
• Radiohead: In Rainbows\ Clever marketing aside, this record is just ok.  There are a couple of great tracks, but even those tracks don't beat OK Computer in my book.
• The Shins: Wincing the Night Away\ I'm sick of The Shins.  I'm also sick of Interpol, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand, Art Brut, and The Arctic Monkeys, while I'm at it.
• Feist: The Reminder \ This is a nice record. Critically acclaimed. Extremely fucking boring.
• Amy Winehouse: Back to Black \ I'm glad she finally agreed to go to rehab.  I love the motown thang, but the hype got a bit big for its britches. Just not excessively great.
• Cinerama: The Complete Peel Sessions \ I would like to give this a number, but I had already heard all the songs three years ago. Cinerama (Wedding Present side project) holds a special place in my heart for numerous reasons.
• Justice: The Cross \ Ah, French disco.  Excellent dance music, but not really something to write home about.
• Tiny Vipers: Hands Across the Void \ This is a quite nice record. Not sticking, but I think quite good.
• Jose Gonzales: In Our Nature \ Jose deserves the hype, but this is just not up to the songwriting of Veneer.
• PJ Harvey: White Chalk \ OK, this is really close to getting a number 2.  It's a new sound for PJ, with traces of old-school Phil Specter production values.  It's just so grim.

Please, tell me what I've missed this year.

• Intimacy and Solitude. I'm reading a book and doing some personal research on this subject.  Yes it is a single subject.  The most important intimate relationship we have is with ourselves, and from the strength of that relationship it is possible to form intimate bonds with others without expecting them to be our emotional backbone for us.  Expect more on this subject when I've had time to ruminate.
• Intimacy.  I'm focusing on what is working in my relationship(s) now rather than demanding things that aren't there or don't work.  I'm trying to learn not to let my sense of self-worth come from others, and what I think they think or don't think of me.  I could give you a lengthy self-psychoanalysis here, involving early childhood abandonment issues and insecurities that are more instinctive than reasonable, but that would take a while.  Let's just say that I've figured out what works for now, and it is working.
• No work this week!  We decided to close the office, and though I am working from home, I don't have much to do but respond to a few emails.  It's a pleasant break.  I should be doing laundry right now.
• Thanksgiving with Aunt Rosie. I'm mostly looking forward to spending time with my cousin's little girl, Emery.  There's a baby, too, but babies don't start to get interesting until about 18 months.  I have not a single drop of desire to fondle and coo at other people's babies.  Not one.
• Friday will be my 36th birthday.  Some people will be getting together at Cafe Presse for drinks/ dinner/ dessert.  Nothing too raucous.  Hello mid-late or late-mid thirties.
• I'm renting a car this weekend and going somewhere Saturday/ Sunday.  Maybe Portland.
  
• My therapist is so proud of me.  She cannot believe the ground I've covered in a year since I was just getting ready to stop drinking.  I feel much much better than I did a year ago.
• I've been working on a humorous childhood memoir that I hope to have complete in draft form by the summer.  I've finally admitted that writing is what I want to do.  I'm not looking forward to the grueling persistence it takes to make a living writing, but... there you have it.
• Besides writing, I am pondering creative pursuits in film and visual arts.  Not exactly clear what those pursuits will be, but I'm getting excited about creative possibilities again.  Finally. I have to admit this probably has something to do with taking anti-depressants. Depression is such a huge energy drain there's nothing left for creativity.
  

a list of all artists by whom I own 5 or more audio recordings.... I can't really call them CDs because mostly they aren't, and they certainly aren't records.

Air
Arab Strap
Belle & Sebastian
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Brian Eno
Broadcast
Cinerama
The Cure
David Bowie
The Delgados
The Fall
Joy Division
Low
Luna
Lush
New Order
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Pet Shop Boys
Pixies
PJ Harvey
Pulp
Siouxsie & the Banshees
The Smiths
Stereolab
Sufjan Stevens
Underworld
The Wedding Present
Wire

This weekend I started what will hopefully become an organizational system to keep me from losing my mind.  Step one involves getting everything out of my head. Thoughts, ideas, errands, chores, projects, hopes, dreams, desires - all out of my head and onto lists.  On Sunday evening, the extracted contents of my brain looked something like this:

IMG_1521

1 comment

I've been hearing a lot about the "gratitude journal" lately, mostly from my mom who is keeping one.  She tells me Einstein and Henry Ford both fed their respective genuises (genuii?) by keeping a gratitude journal. I'm more or less all for it - it can be far too easy to ignore everything that's going right and focus on what's going wrong.  I'm just having a problem with the word "gratitude."

Gratitude is "the quality of being thankful."  To me, 'to thank' is a verb that needs an object.  Thank you means I thank you.  Subject verb object. So who exactly am I thanking for the fact that I have all of my limbs and don't live in Baghdad?  God?  Some cosmic force? Myself? My parents? The League of Justice? Karma? The mighty ant lord? Dumb luck?

Of course there are some things that I can thank someone for.  I'm very grateful that my ex-inlaws paid my tuition for two years - this is just one of a multitude of things that real people have done deserving of thanks. I cannot in good faith say, "thank you for my eyesight," because I don't believe there's anyone to thank for that.  Does that mean I'm ungrateful for having my eyesight?  I don't think so.  I am very glad of my eyesight and fully aware of how much it would suck to be blind.  I appreciate it.  But I'm not thankful.

This comes down to a problem of spirituality, of course, once you put aside the semantics.  Whether or not there is  an intelligence or an energy or a herd of goats running the universe, I don't think anyone decided that I would have eyesight. My genes and my lack of severe head trauma decided it.  I don't think there's anything out there doling out luck, or karma.  We make our own luck to an extent and the rest is beyond anyone's control.

There are plenty of things I'm glad of besides the rather obvious perks of being healthy and relatively prosperous and not living in a 3rd world country, and I will name a few.  I am glad of these things, but I'm not necessarily thankful.  For me it is important to keep that straight because I think once one starts thanking one starts forgetting what is in their control and what isn't.  It's an important thing to keep straight.

On the other hand, it is really just semantics, and I'm not going pick on my mom or anyone else who prefers to be "thankful" - they may know something I don't.

I am glad...

• I'm healthy and whole.
• That I am taking steps to treat my depression.
• I'm meeting some truly excellent people through this blog.
• I was able to quit drinking without any fuss.
• I have been able to travel overseas.
• There are still good writers writing great books.
• I joined Film Movement.
• I am nearly finished with my BA (finally).
• I have an ideal, cozy, and cheap apartment in a great neighborhood.
• I can walk to work.
• I am employed and have increasing responsibility.
• My paycheck is healthy.
• I have an excellent bicycle.
• My car is reliable, fuel-efficient, and fairly inexpensive to keep.
• I have intelligent, funny, unique and dependable friends.
• I have friends and family living all over the world, so I can visit.
• There is almost everything I could ever need within walking distance of my apartment.
• There are mountains I can drive to in under 2 hours.
• I have an excellent bed.
• I haven't had to go to a laundromat in over 16 years.
• I've decided not to have children.
• I have access to fresh, healthy, organic foods.
• I have a spiffy camera.
• I live with an adorable and not-loud parrot.
• I'm 35 and still pass for under 30.
• I have the best bathtub ever.
• I go to yoga twice per week.
• My work supplied me with this lovely laptop.
• My mom survived her leukemia.
• I'm still friends with my ex.
• My cat is nearly 15 and still playful as a kitten.
• I have easy access to pretty much any type of food I might crave.
• I don't live in a small town.
• I don't have a tv.

Thanks to Vanna for another way to avoid the spring cleaning effort.

Instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you have read a bit from but never finished, italicize the ones you might want to read in the future, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10-foot pole, and do not do anything to the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride And Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Brontë)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (E. Brontë)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) 
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
42.The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Gift & Award Bible NIV (Various)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52.  A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brahares)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)