A Sense of Accomplishment

With these words, I have ensured that I have not broken my very first New Year's resolution! AMAZING. I have already broken others that weren't written down, like getting to work on time every day and bringing my lunch rather than buying it. But since I didn't write them down, they don't count. Duh. So I'm pretty much on the right track in this first week of 2012. You can stop applauding now.

Or keep it up if you like, because I've had a very successful week filled with exciting, grownup accomplishments! You will be very proud to know that:

1. I went to work. And I did important things.
2. I went to yoga for the first time in months.
3. I didn't eat banh mi, not even once.
4. I painted my nails a weird color. And I liked it.
5. I downloaded nerdy word games on my iPad.
6. I sat through an entire football game with my boyfriend and his friends without complaining or making rude comments about the corpulence of the players. This was managed by accomplishing the previous two activities simultaneously.
7. I went to the Museum of Chinese in America and learned all about the hardships faced by Chinese immigrants throughout the years. I'd like to go back because I didn't get to finish seeing everything before it closed, but now I know who Bing cherries were named after.
8. I cleaned my kitchen multiple times after the boyfriend made dinner (using food that I bought at the grocery store! BONUS!). And I cleaned it at other times when he didn't even cook, like today! I EVEN SWEPT THE FLOOR. I'm pretty much a domestic goddess.
9. I caught up with a dear friend I hadn't seen in far too long and we conceived a new plan for our book club. BECAUSE WE ARE GROWN UPS!
10. I went to see not one, but TWO movies. This is big news, because I never see movies. I saw "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and "My Week With Marilyn." Go see them. They are both excellent. And I didn't stuff myself full of popcorn til I was sick, I actually practiced restraint! YOU GUYS, THIS IS SERIOUS.

In other news, even though it's Saturday and I had planned on doing NOTHING all day except maybe (MAYBE) cleaning my room and petting the cat and not talking to anyone because my boyfriend is working all day and night, I actually left my house. I forced myself to stop watching "Portlandia," even though watching it is another accomplishment in itself because I kept meaning to and I never did before. Yay! I made myself take a shower and put on actual clothing and shoes and I went for a walk around my beautiful neighborhood and drank in the sights and enjoyed the fresh air and unseasonably warm temperatures. It was lovely. I even saw a puppy! Her name was Peaches.

To recover from all this activity, I got a coffee and sat on a bench and talked to my mother for a long time and then got a delicious bagel to take home. On my way back I ran into an old friend who was visiting with his adorable little boy, who after a year of living in England HAS AN ACCENT. He told me he was "three and a hoff" and I nearly peed my pants. Then I came home and cleaned my kitchen (again!). I took off my nail polish. I talked to another friend on the phone and got the scoop on his love life. Now I'm here. WRITING.

Wow. I'm so proud of myself.

This probably won't last. My life tends to follow a trajectory much like the one pictured here. Doing stuff is HARD. But tomorrow I'm going to try again to be a grownup who does things. I'm going to wake up early, go to yoga, go to a musem all by myself, clean my room, and then be social by seeing a few friends play music in the neighborhood. Dear god, at least I am going to try. I AM GOING TO DO THINGS. Or not. I don't know. Maybe I won't do any of those things. I still have plenty of time to just give up and shut down altogether.

I think I'll go watch some more "Portlandia" now. Or perhaps I'll just browse the Internet! FOREVER...

Listless

I am not an organized person. I have a jumble of things in my head that need to get done and sometimes I do them, sometimes I don't, and the tasks just hover there in non-list form waiting desperately to be listified but forever resigned to their drifting, cloudlike existence. O, the agony!

But then she made a list. And so did she. So I thought, "I can do that! I make a list! I will make a list of things I need to accomplish! And then I will accomplish them! Because I made a list!" But I am a procastinator, and so the longer I go without making a list, the longer I go without completing the things on it. Damn.

Anyway, here goes...

1. Write on this blog more. Because I need a creative outlook. And besides, just look at it! I redesigned it and now it's pretty! So I should put words on it! Pretty words!

2. And in order for me to write more and not have my boyfriend tell me to stop getting lost in the blogosphere instead of cleaning and/or doing anything productive... I should clean my apartment very thoroughly. This is very necessary and only sort of got done this weekend... Oops.

3. Part of cleaning my apartment will be to FINALLY organize my clothing and jewelry. This will entail getting rid of a lot of stuff I don't wear and use. And I mean A LOT. This will be a huge endeavor and I'm not excited. But it's time to clean house. This will also entail getting a lot of clothing I've acquired over the years hemmed so that I actually wear them.

4. And in order to wear some of the pants I bought maybe two years ago, I should probably shed some pounds that I picked up because I got ridiculously lazy this summer after going to Ireland and eating nothing but meat and potatoes and then not doing a damn thing about it... Veggies!

5. Speaking of Ireland, I need to upload the something like 1,200 pictures I took while I was there. Too bad my dad has the camera and memory cards and this will not be as easy as I thought and it will also be a huge time suck.

6. And because my summer travels also sucked my savings account pretty dry, I need to get my finances in order. My economic life is in shambles! Sad face.

7. Also because I need to fix up my economic state, I need to finally be a grownup and get a credit card so I can have a credit score. This is now nonexistent. Sad. I am a failure at adulthood.

8. Speaking of getting a credit card, I should buy less stuff! I've actually been very good about this recently. I didn't even buy any shoes this summer! Oh wait, that is a lie, I bought a pair of gold flip flops from Housing Works to wear to a wedding and then realized they are uncomfortable and slippery and that I already had three pairs of gold sandals. Dammit. But they were $10! For charity! From Banana Republic! And in great shape! Still, no more buying crap, only quality things for good prices. Or better yet, just don't buy anything.

9. Speaking of charity, when I was rolling in tax-free, whiskey-induced dough, I started making monthly charitable contributions to a number of organizations, mostly those that help cute kitties and puppies and abused children. I realize now this is stupid and if I'm going to make a donation, I should just pick one charity and actually make a real difference. So I will consolidate these donations into one or two. Like the American Humane Assocation. They encompass EVERYTHING I believe. Down with child abuse! Down with animal abuse! Up with animal therapy! Up with scientific research on the human-animal connection in order to make positive policy change! For puppies! And kids! YES! Also now I'm poor. Sad face again...

10. And since I work for a nonprofit that I really like a lot, I should probably work my fucking ass off to be really awesome and be super duper professional and finally apply to graduate school for a Master's of Public Administration. Shazam!

There. That's my list.

Let's see if anything actually comes of it.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

I am writing, goddammit, it it's the last thing I do. Which it probably won't be, because the Rapture did not occur yesterday. Yippee!! Anyway, I just read through most of my blog posts from the last year. (The last fucking year!) And what have I done for the last four months? NOTHING. I mean... not actually nothing... I went to work... and to some other places... I saw people... sometimes I ate food... I did stuff... But as far as this stupid blog... NOTHING.

And today that is changing. I have been too long in an uncreative rut. I haven't been able to write. I haven't drawn a single doodle in the corner of a page. I've had dreams, yes I have, but no crazy otherworldly post-apocalyptic movie-like stuff that's worth even talking about. Just mundane topics like adopting a kitten... which is not happening in real life (but in dream world it's damn cute). And most frustratingly of all is that I CAN'T EVEN READ. No seriously, I haven't been able to pick up a book in weeks. What does reading have to do with creativity, you ask? A LOT. I have only been able to read nonfiction. UGH. I can only take so much fucking Harper's at a time. I can't even get into "The Crying of Lot 49" because apparently reading comedic memoirs by Tina Fey ruined me. Bitch. (Just kidding, Tina, you're magificent.)

Ok but seriously, I think the only reason I'm writing is because I'm on my fourth glass of wine and it's only 5:00 and I need some sort of creative outlet because my boyfriend is taking an MCAT practice test and I have to be quiet. And this was nice up until this moment, when I realized, "I don't want to watch 'Weeds' anymore and I don't want to clean my room!" Because I am a child like that. I've had a good day though. I did yoga. At 10:30 in the morning! ON A SUNDAY. That is a very serious accomplishment. And I bought bagels so I could make my favorite weekend treat, a toasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and tomato slices loaded with salt and pepper. DELICIOUS. Then the boyfriend and I watched one episode of "Mad Men" (depressing!) and then I had a little spa day with a Queen Helene mint julep face mask (retro!) and an olive oil manicure (refreshing!) and an experiment with hideous dark blue nail polish (depressing again!) that I'm too lazy to take off (surprise!) and think I should just pretend I like (dammit!). But then I decided to camp out on the couch and just WATCH TV BECAUSE I CAN so that brought me back to "Weeds" on Netflix and then I realized I had half a bottle of Sonoma wine left over and now HERE I AM.

Note how my punctuation and capitalization just goes buck wild.... None of that quiet contemplative philosophical bullshit to be found here, people! Hell no, let's not talk about books when we can ramble about NOTHING. And about how I have NOTHING to say. Ok that sounds depressing, and it's really not, I'm just, like I said before, in an uncreative rut. And getting words on a page feels good. It feels like breathing deeply into a yoga position, like this morning. It feels like taking a giant bite of a bagel laden with your favorite things in the world. It feels like taking a long, slow sip of wine and feeling it warm you through and through. It feels like looking out your window and seeing nothing but a glowing, opaque, gray sky and thinking, "I'm okay with the clouds, because I have nowhere to be, nothing to do, and I am perfectly content to stay inside and type, type, type away..."

Perhaps I'll resuscitate this stupid blog after all. I mean, hell, it's been four months. Seems like I ought to give it a shot, right? Well, here's the beginning. Cheers.