January's Newness Juice

January, despite the drudgery of its weather and shortened daylight hours, is for many a time of hope and renewal, no doubt based on the ridiculous resolutions that so many of us feel a compunction to verbalize. Resolutions notwithstanding, I often find that January is mentally one of my best months, even though, truth be told, I really don't make any changes whatsoever. I just *think* about the changes that I could effect in a brand new year with the end result being a *brand new me.* 

Just a few more days of this "clean slate" month, so I thought I'd check in my Plan for 2015 before my Newness juice runs out.

Learn my camera/Photo365
I have taken a whopping two photographs. One Sunday morning, the sun sparkled like tiny glinting diamonds on my wine bottle borders in my back yard, so I went outside to shoot the brilliance. Brilliance was not achieved. I could not capture that frosty-glinty beauty on film. 

I have a few books from the library that teach me to use my Canon Rebel. What I haven't done is read these books. I got a new computer over a year ago, one that has the OS and RAM to accommodate CD downloads. My camera came with three of these discs, and I finally downloaded them. Well one of them. Well, I couldn't figure out how exactly to download the contents. It pissed me off, so I decided to go do something else. It is bad that is it only January and I already am penciling in my first goal for 2016, which is to learn this camera. Wait. No, no, no! You bought the camera. You will learn that camera, damn you, damn me, damn it all.

Walk 1,000 miles 
I have walked maybe 2.5 miles. I absolutely hate taking walks without Primo, and I don't see that changing. I loved taking hikes and long walks with Primo everyday usually twice per day. Imagine discovering that the one thing you might love and need more than anything--long walks and long hikes--are no longer enjoyable to you and in fact are painful for you. I really don't know what to do. I really need to walk. I need to be doing this daily if for no other reason than to get adequate exercise.

I have considered getting a treadmill for my home gym, something I have scoffed at for years, because why the hell does anyone need a treadmill? Go outside you lazy asses. Am I a lazy ass? Not really. I just don't like going without my Primo. How could I have never realized that it was Primo, not walking, that I loved so much. It was our time together. And now I remember. Primo was such a good dog, so well behaved and predictable. I never made him "heel." I always let him walk out in front of me because he never pulled on the leash, and I never worried that he was trying to be the alpha. When we walked, I looked around and smelled the clean air, but more than anything, I just loved watching him trot. He'd hold his head really high, his ears erect, and he pranced so proudly, as if doing dressage. Now I'm all alone and it feels pointless and all I notice is my bland neighborhood and all the trash that overflowed from the trashcans when the trash pick up service decided not to pick up trash for two weeks--for no reason other than "it snowed." 

It feels like a loser thing to do--walk on a treadmill. But it's better than not walking. So what if I'd rather stay indoors and watch a movie or a TED talk while walking than walking alone outdoors bored to death? I don't have to actually tell anyone that I am a loser indoor walker. Okay, I might get a treadmill. I'm not a loser. I'm just lonely, so there, whoever's voice is in my head telling me that I'm coming up short by preferring indoors to out. I don't know who you are, in there, but GTFO. It's my life, and it's my legs getting flabby, not yours. You probably have the perfect body and you probably drink bizarre kale juice for breakfast and you're probably gluten-free and vegan or are trying out that caveman diet. Even if you did watch a dumb show, like Gilmour Girls, you would only talk about the latest TED talk you watched. Yeah, I know who you are. You're my bitchy wannabe alter-ego. Well listen here. I don't think you're me at all. I think you're pretentious. I don't have to listen to you. I'm going to walk on my treadmill and watch the Gilmour Girls on netflix and I'm going to do it in $5 clearance yoga pants from JC Penney that I have mended more than once when the crotch blew out in a Pilates class at my gym. 


Try 100 new recipes
I have tried only two, so I am really behind, but here they are:

White Chicken Chili
Maple Glazed Salmon

Read 20 books
I have started five books! But I have finished only one: The Wild Truth, by Carine McCandless, surviving sister of Christopher McCandless whose story of exile in the Alaskan wilderness was immortalized in the book Into the Wild by John Krakauer. Other books I have started but have not yet finished, but knowing my track record probably will not finish because once I pick up a new book while mid paragraph in another book, I rarely finish either. This is because I am a lying, cheating, two- and sometimes three-timing reading bitch. Other books include "Basketball Diaries," by Jim Carroll (I don't really like it. It's a bunch of punks who run the city streets stealing women's purses, little fucks), "The Falcon and the Snowman," "Gone Girl" "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression." 

Read Magazines 
I am actually keeping up with this one. I love Psychology Today and National Geographic and have found that much to my surprise I prefer reading something intelligent to reading something purely entertaining, such as typical women's magazines. Also, Oprah is a quality magazine, and I'm taking my treadmill approach to that one, too. The most successful woman, probably ever, has created a magazine to inspire people to become more effective. How could it not be good?

Don't Buy Any Clothes
I haven't purchased any clothing, but the truth is, I need some new shoes. I need new boring work attire shoes. 

Paint my bedroom
I have not painted it yet, but I have chosen the colors: Bunchberry and Pewter, by Behr, which is another way of saying Plum and Silver. 

Write more fluff blogs (for the sake of writing)
Well, I could do better at being fluffier. I could have easily written about some funny movies we've watched lately. The reason I would write about them at all is because comedies are so rarely funny that when one is funny, it's worth writing about. 

Buy all new brand new upscale stainless steel appliances for my newly updated kitchen, which I did all my myself!
This was not on my list, but I did just this, and I am proud of it. I spent the last week of December and the first part of January making cosmetic updates. I stained my cabinets Espresso. I painted my counter tops to resemble granite. (They actually resemble sidewalks on which autumn leaves have been trapped under snow and ice for months, and I like them! It's very me! No one else in the entire world has such a design!) I painted my pantry door red. I painted the walls white. I bought all new switch and outlet plates. I bought knobs and drawer pulls for my cabinets. (Builders from the 90s tried to pass of handle-less as a trendy trend when actually they are just cheap bastards.) All of a sudden my twenty-odd year old appliances in four different colors started to look really ratty. Well, they've looked ratty for awhile, but they worked (except the dishwasher. That hasn't worked in years), so I couldn't justify upgrading. Well, I decided that I work hard and save hard, and I deserve a nice kitchen with nice things, and man do I love it. I can't believe it's my kitchen. 

You would think that as part of my Photo365 that I would have taken Before During and After photos of all my work and the big transformation of my favorite room of the house, but no. Once I set my mind to task, nothing deters me. 

Working on and creating my new kitchen has been really good for me. The brand new appliances are symbolic more than anything. I'm someone who knows how to do without, that's for sure. And more times than not, I am compelled to not spend any extra cash flow. But when I do decide to spend it, it's usually on something really nice that brings me a lot of satisfaction. I walk in my kitchen, and I can't believe that's my kitchen--it's so nice. And I not only did all the work, I paid for it myself, and in cash! 

The worst thing I've done in a very long time, however, was install the hardware for the cabinets. It was a real bitch for real stupid reasons, mostly being that the builders could not use even measurements for length and width or use the same size drawers, and also that my drill broke, and also that I had to use a combination of five measuring rulers and tapes, and just thinking about what a pain in the ass it was is making me mad. Those knobs are never coming off!

Exercise
I come home from work and start immediately working on projects. My exercise routines fell off track but I got back on track yesterday

Watch Lots of TV!
Well, that has never been a goal of mine, but it's exactly what I've been doing, although, I'm not really watching TV. I'm listening to TV while doing projects that require both my hands and all my attention except my ears. I am finding it preferable to music because it holds more interest on a continuum of thoughts longer than hours of 3-minute songs can. When I finish my projects, I love to light the fire, put my feet up, grab a magazine, and then turn on some home improvement shows. Never in a million years would I think that I would allow myself such frivolity, but I like it. The TV helps me work diligently. I've been listening to Gilmour Girls, if you must know. Last night it was Brothers & Sisters, and man that is a dumb show. It somehow gets dumber every season. 


Being more in the moment
I've been working on this, and I will tell you a secret: Lorelei Gilmour, fictitious TV character of Gilmour Girls has been my guru. I'm working harder at making myself laugh, when I'm all by myself, by saying really ridiculous things to and about myself and life in general. I laugh even when I'm not that funny. I want to make more dumb jokes to actual people besides myself. This is what Lorelei would do. 

Get my ass back out there
I used to be lot more involved with my city. It was really fun. I don't regret that my life has become more home-focused, but I do make myself get out there and remember that I live in a nice place. This weekend we went to the IRT to see the drama "Good People" by David Lindsey-Abaire. This was definitely in our top five of all-time favorites. ("God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza also stands out.) This was an incredibly complex play. We nearly missed it because of the stupid ass Monster Truck rally at Lucas Oil and the subsequent lack of parking. Other than this play, there were some flat out stupid events in downtown Indy this weekend. We happened to attend the single intelligent thing in the city that night. The theater was half empty because people prefer stupid things over intelligent, thoughtful things. 

So I've made some progress on new things but still have to work on some other things, like walking and reading fiction and doing my abs routines. I need to read more fiction to be more balanced. 

I need to get back on track with the TED talks. I have been listening to The Moth while I compile some tedious reports at work. I really liked this one, and you can listen here: Lucky Ladies. I want to start listening to a new show called Invisibilia on NPR, but I work for an asshole company and the servers block all streaming, which is quite assholish.  

I'm going to update curtains and rods in my house, paint all awful 90s plastic-y gold plated door handles and knobs with Rustoleum rather than replace them altogether, and replace those awful 90s Hollywood style dressing room lights in my bathroom, and maybe even the sinks. If I don't replace the sinks, I might learn how to do the cement overlay, which Pinterest pinners claim can be done for $20.  

I'm going to start with making some delicious new dishes with my wonderful new hybrid oven/convection oven.

And we need to make plans for our big trip this year, starting with "where." 

Uncluttered

Without prior plans of doing so, I have recently given up two things that have given equal parts joy and misery: Facebook and alcohol.

I was a late adopter of Facebook, and even when I did join, I maintained a low profile, thinking it was all just so very stupid. Over time, I started sharing more thoughts, and at times I over-posted, meaning I was bragging about something I was doing that I felt was exciting, I suppose with the ultimate goal of either having people like or envy me. I became the thing I loathed about other people, although to my credit, I never once wrote about getting my "hairs did" or having "pretty toes" or wanting to eat "all the ice creams." 

I briefly became political in February 2011 when the Republicans went particularly Jihad on women, but that futile exercise quickly ran its course, as did even so much as commenting on other people's political postings.

I avoided posting sentiments with the express intent of baiting people into telling me I was wanted, loved, or esteemed, or to illicit fear that something might be wrong with me. I eschewed re-posting annoying memes about dieting, chocolate, "adult beverages," or anything that could be seen as instructional for men as to what women want. I don't think I ever once posted pictures of my feet while I was on vacation, or pictures I took of my own head in a bar or club.

I never once wrote something bombastic or inane and summed it up by hyperlinking a bunch of words crammed together with no spaces between and preceded by a pound sign. I understand this is a device of another unnecessary communication tool called Twitter, and for the life of me, I can't find the reason for posting the same sentiment across both platforms. 

I never once in my entire life expressed a desire for "a much needed adult beverage," bacon, or a "sammich" via social media.

I have posted my share of photos from various beautiful locations around the world and a great number of sunsets. I have posted the occasional picture of something I baked or a beautiful glass of wine or beer. I might have even posted a photograph of a glass of wine through which you could see a ship in the harbor outside of the restaurant on Puget Sound. I might have even on occasion gone into too much detail to describe where exactly on the planet I was. (See previous sentence for example.) I like doing this. I'm a walking travelogue. 

I don't believe I ever "checked-in" somewhere that wasn't my final destination, such as an airport (to make people ask me where I'm going) or a hospital ER (to make people ask me if I'm okay???!!!!!!), or a bar, to make people wish they were cool like me and went to bars that are actually completely open for absolutely anyone to patronize. 

I did "check-in" to the county morgue once, because...see explanation two paragraphs ago. 

I did not post nearly enough photos of Primo, who was always cute all of the time.

For the most part, I tried to create thoughtful, poetic, or at least lighthearted postings of optimism. I was often surprised by the compliments in real life I would receive about my online writing and musings. I like compliments, especially the kind I did not fish for!

Over the five years that I've had an account, I have deactivated my account a number of times for a number of months for a number of reasons, and always felt better at doing so, not missing the "connection" it supposedly offered me. I had been off for many months and returned last spring to post some photos of Primo on his sixteenth birthday, and was touched to have people I care about actually welcome me back and tell me that they missed my presence and more importantly pictures of Primo.

As per usual, however, in addition to some of the laughs I shared with friends, I also got sucked into the vortex of other people's drama and in weaker moments, revisited old drama by dwelling on certain people who are not actually in my life anymore or even in the first place. 

So, in early December while feeling particularly low, I deactivated, and began to feel a little lighter. I was surprised how many times I picked up my phone out of pure muscle memory to open my Facebook "news" feed only to remember that I no longer had access. Soon my mind was freed of the little things that I let bother me. Out of sight, out of mind. 

It's been almost seven weeks, and I am amazed at how uncluttered my mind is now. Instead of aimlessly scrolling while watching TV at night, I have picked up pencil and paper and started drawing again. I also started making a quilt for my niece, which is a good activity for TV-watching. 

I'm reading more magazines, cookbooks, memoirs, and novels. I'm even allowing myself to read fluff women's magazines, such as More or Oprah, and more importantly, to not feel as if I should be reading something more important. Yes, I still make fun of some of the ideals that are passed off to women, such as the need to have face lifts on our hands and necks (yes, people are having this done), or the fashion articles, which always name drop the exorbitant prices of various ensemble items (bracelet $108, Charcoal Grey Pant $156, Butter Cream Cashmere Sweater $204), but the point is, it's fun.  Here's one that appeals to a woman who still enjoys some traditional measure of being woman without all the Botox injections: Real Simple. Another surprising winner is Midwest Living.

I have also resolved to supplement this fun reading with academic journalism, such as The Atlantic, Mother Jones  (changed my mind. It's a little too proud of how snarky it is), Psychology Today, and National Geographic. Our library has this nifty service called Zinio, in which you can download issues of every manner of publication to your laptop, and I have been taking full advantage of it.

I don't know if I'll go back to Facebook. I imagine at some point I will feel out of the loop, but maybe I like it out here (on the perimeter, 
there are no stars, 
out here we is stoned. 
Immaculate.). 


I also had not planned on giving up alcohol, but I did just that after a really lovely Christmas cocktail party with Ralf & Jim. As per usual, they brought out their favorite bottles from their impressive wine cellar, and we had that nice blend of conversation about trivial things, such as decorating, to interesting topics, such as travel, to thought-provoking topics, such as dealing with an aging parent. As the night wore on, I began to see two of Ralfs sitting across from me, and I silently swore to myself. When would I ever learn that I cannot match my friends glass for glass without feeling it? (Think back to the day of the Chicken Limo, for example.) Furthermore, I had not drank much the previous two months or so, and when I did, I drank the cheap stuff, which has a lot less alcohol.

The next day, my stomach was quite cross with me, and even though I didn't get sick, the thought of drinking anything made me sick. The next day we had another party to attend of another connoisseur of fine wine, and I passed. This was a big thing as I have never known myself to decline expensive wine that I myself did not have to purchase with my own money. 

New Year's arrived, a night we traditionally drink expensive wine from one of our trips to CA (as opposed to the $3.99/bottle stuff we drink under normal situations), and I purchased Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice for my toasting glass. It looks like wine and has a little bite like wine does and looks beautiful in my glass, and looking beautiful in a glass is important. 

It's been over four weeks now, and I've barely missed it. I've noticed that the triggers that used to prompt me to savor a glass of wine have less effect on me now. For the record, my triggers are when I'm watching a movie or TV show in which people are gathered in celebration and clinking beautiful globe like glasses on a beautifully dressed candle-lit dinner table. I think those visions must really speak to me--fellowship and exquisite taste in food, dinnerware, and wine! (Things I rarely indulge in for my own home. Hmmm...should I be paying attention to that?)

In the absence of alcohol I'm saving calories, money, and my complexion, which for some reason now sports zits, which I never had in puberty. (I must be in the puberty of my middle age.)  I also feel slightly less bloated. (If you really want to lose the bloat, then lose the milk. I quit drinking it when I was in Costa Rica years ago because the milk always had gnats in it, and I noticed almost immediately that my tummy was flatter and that I was nearly phlegm-free. Milk. It does not do a body good! More on that another time.) 

I don't know how long I'll stay a teetotaler, but I hope it is for a long time. My friend Jodee just invited a group of us to rent the Indy Brew Bus. It's a short bus that's painted green, and instead of taking you to schools, it takes you to several of the scores of breweries that have unnecessarily popped up in Indy over the past three years. (Unnecessary because they don't seem to be offering anything special.) I love beer, kind of like how I love wine. It is summer in a bottle. But, get this, I declined the offer, asking instead to meet up with the gang after their beer adventure. 

On the occasions where we've socialized among people who are drinking, I have noticed just how repetitive drunk people can be. In an upshot, the thing they were unanimously repetitive about was their love for me, so how can I not want to hang out with my drunk friends more often?  And I've noticed something else that I suspected all along, or rather I am reminded of something I discovered about nine years ago: Drinking gives me wings. 

I started drinking recreationally pretty late in life, my late thirties, when I became involved with theater. (No one drinks like thespians. Not frat boys, not sailors, marines, or airmen, not Irish people, not jocks.) I was invited to a lot of parties with a lot of young people, who, for some reason, I was convinced were much cooler than I was. (I was wrong. They might have worn more stylish blue jeans, but none of them had lived or even traveled extensively to anywhere remotely interesting and none of them grew up on a funny farm, like I did, so THERE!) I felt very stupid when I was around them, and taking advice of Plato or someone Plato-like, I decided that "only a fool speaks when he has nothing to say." 

However, I noticed that if I had a couple of beers in me, my true personality came out, as did some confidence to actually let it show. Wings! Alcohol became the great equalizer, and soon I was able to have conversations with anyone, even dumb people and also really attractive people, and just like in the days of my youth, I could easily make people laugh. 


Wings!

I flew high! 

And sometimes crashed.

Drinking became a BIG part of my life and social fabric for about five years. In 2011, I noticed that I was having memory lapses while drinking, even when I didn't get drunk. I can count more than a few times when I had no business driving. To my credit, other than one time when I was 17, I never ugly cried while intoxicated. In my adolescence of my adult years (30s), however, I might have been guilty of being too energetic and too silly and too manic while drinking, which may or may not have annoyed people who did not feel like having a sit-up contest at 2 a.m. I might have, once, at a pool party of close friends, decided that women should not have to cover up because men don't have to cover up, and thrown off my bikini top. This might have annoyed Larry. 

(The first time I ever drank too much as a full fledged adult, I literally projectile vomited the previous night's pumpkin (yes, pumpkin, so I clearly deserved my comeuppance) the next day. I felt sick, so I went outside, still in my robe, drank some water, and immediately spewed it out like the Fontana della Barcaccia.

Like Facebook, I have on occasion, given up alcohol for weeks at a time, just to make sure I could. I saw this Australian movie once starring a young Heath Ledger who was a heroin addict, and he got his sweet girlfriend addicted to heroin. There was a clever line: "When you can give it up, you don't want to. When you want to give it up, you can't." That line was a touchstone for me, so I applied it to drinking.

What's different this time, is that it's not taking much effort, even in the face of triggers. I'm not taking much credit for not drinking when I don't feel like it anyway, but I'm taking advantage of a wonderful situation. 

One thing that has come to light is that I still suffer a considerable amount social anxiety. I have a lower threshold for social settings in which the sole purpose is to socialize with many people, rather than say a small dinner party or an art event, where you are a spectator only. I have been to a few parties with some of my favorite people in life, and while I enjoyed the outings at first, I found myself wrought with anxiety and a tension headache before the evening was done.

Without the wings that alcohol provides, I am struck with the notion that I have not made progress with my social anxiety. This is unacceptable to me. For the time being, I am going to listen to what I need--a quiet night at home or going out--but when I go out, I am going to have build my confidence to be able to relax and enjoy the people who seem to enjoy my company just fine whether I'm drinking or not. 

I don't know if it's completely necessary to give up drinking altogether, but I want to at least consider a future where I drink not regularly, not socially, not occasionally, but scarcely.  (Did you know that "seldomly" is not a word? I just learned that because Blogger underlined it.)

I don't want to think of my wings as being clipped, but I also don't want to think of my wings only working when lubricated with alcohol. I need to find them with an uncluttered mind.

Cheers, my friends!


***************************************************************************
Here's another thing that has uncluttered me lately.

Some bitch stole my phone out of the bathroom at work last Friday. This is a shitty thing to do. Someone is taking a leak for 60 seconds, so you swipe their phone? I noticed it immediately and had my phone deactivated and changed all my passwords. I talked with Security and let them know I was expecting someone to turn a phone into Lost & Found, because surely someone would not STEAL someone's phone at work. 

The entire day went by. Someone did not "find" it. Someone stole it. When you "find" something, it's been there a while. It isn't still warm from when the person purposely set it there while taking a leak. When you "find" something, you turn it in to Lost and "Found" immediately.

I had no choice but to purchase a new phone. Yeah, great, cuz that extra $150 in my pocket was becoming a problem, and I was afraid I'd never find something to spend it on.

Monday morning, I was informed that a janitor had found a phone in the trash Friday night and turned it in to security. Whoever the bitch was who stole my phone while I was taking a leak realized the phone was impenetrable and threw it out. What a bitch.

But, I did get to return the new phone for a full refund.

The problem was that the phone company could not quite grasp every detail of activating the old phone and old SIM card. It took them days. I went days without a phone for days, and I didn't worry very much. I was a bit annoyed, but I was not panicked, and I think dropping off Facebook and losing that gnawing feeling of "What Am I Missing?" helped me through the ringtone-free nights. 

Top Three of '14 and a Plan for '15

Every year for New Year's Eve, we have a nice dinner at one of your respective homes, fireside, break out some really good wine from Sonoma, and share our Top Three for the year. I've always loved this exercise, and since we started doing it four years ago I've always had a reserve list because I couldn't choose just three things.

This year was different. I think the year had a few bad things and a lot of good things, but the bad things just held more weight. 

Last year "Primo's recovery" made my Top Three of '13. If I had a Worst Three for this year, then his death late this year would make that list for sure.


Top 3 of 2014

1. Hikes and picnics with Larry and Primo

• After I put Primo on Rimadyl, he took on the energy and zeal of a young dog, and we had many happy hikes and picnics in all weather. I especially remember a winter hike through Holliday Park where he was running, leaping, and bounding; and our four year anniversary picnic at Hundred Acre Wood

2. My birthday

• I remember 46 as being one of if not the best birthday I've ever had, thanks to Larry, Primo, friends, family, and our favorite places in Indiana

3. Half a month in CSB

• These were some of the finest days of my life as I completely gave in to being in the moment every moment of the day. The outdoor recreation and beach life is for me. I swam in the ocean for hours almost every day

Other notable events:

• I also noted my grandma's funeral as a positive experience, given that the family was together and celebrating my grandma's long life
• New job 
• Landscaping my yard and starting a garden
• Publishing three books
• IndyFringe '14
• Last week of December, diligently and patiently working on my kitchen all my myself
• Highly successful year with my artist hostel

I don't make resolutions because I've never kept a single one, as far as I know. I remember the first year I made a resolution to lose weight (early in high school) and going grocery shopping with my sister for healthy foods and choosing, for some reason, alfalfa sprouts, which I distinctly remember not eating. After that, resolutions were always Lose Weight and Write a Book. I did eventually lose weight but not as a result of any resolution, and I did eventually become a writer, but again, not because I laid out a plan on January 1.

I replaced resolutions with List of Things I Want to Do back on January 1, 2008. The list, unlike resolutions focused more on experiences than on perceived (or real) deficits in my character. I was staying in the Bohemian barrio of Bellavista in Santiago, Chile, where my favorite poet Pablo Neruda had a charming house, La Chascona, named after the curly mane of one of his many fevered lovers, Matilda. This charming piazza town of Santiago was flanked by the rolling foothills of Cerro San Cristobal on one side and Rio Mapocho (which bore a strong resemblance to the Los Angeles River, which I had seen just months prior.) My hostel mates and I decided to recover from our New Year's Eve celebrations atop the Cerro San Cristobal to spend New Year's Day at the beautiful and tranquil El Piscina Antilén. I remember sitting and chatting with John, a pleasant British man with whom I shared a cab,  and we discussed what we would like for ourselves in 2008. (Why I was in Chile in the first place is another story.) 

I remember some very dumb ideas: "Get a teeny tiny tattoo and a teeny tiny nose ring." (Obviously I had been staying in an hostel. Never made good on those, thank God!) Some practical ones: "Paint my bedroom" (never happened). Some lofty ones that I actually accomplished: "Write a play for Fringe," (check! Actually wrote FOUR that year!) and "Get over _____," which I did just a few months later, and which was like a release from prison.

As promised, I will not include "skiing" in my List. In no particular order, here are things I would like to do in 2015:

• Paint my bedroom and master bath
• Make a wooden wall of pallets in my dining room
• Complete phase 2 of my urban prairie--wine bottle trees
• Try 100 new recipes (link them in blog)
• Read 20 books (link them in blog.)
• Read at least one academic magazine per week (National Geographic, Mother Jones, Psychology Today) (discuss articles in blog)
• Write more fluff blogs, such as book, movie, and music reviews; and about my daily life, even if I think it might sound boring to other people
• Take several road trips to various cities, including Chicago, Milwaukee, Nashville, Detroit, and NYC
• Learn my camera, damn it
• Ride bikes across Mackinac Bridge
• Walk 1,000 miles

Take one big trip--contenders are Acadia National Park and New Brunswick, Canada; a train trip out West to see Glacier National Park and Banff National Park in Canada; an international location, such as biking the wine country of Italy.

Notably absent from this list is anything theater related. I am in exile!

Clothing/Wardrobe
I made a choice to not purchase any clothes (outside of socks, etc.) in 2014. I am not clothes horse, but I have too many clothes. I don't need all these clothes. I wear boring conservative clothing for work, and most nights I'm in work-out clothes. When I go out to proper events, I wear dress pants or dress. When I socialize, it's jeans/sweaters or shorts/tshirts. 

I renew my commitment not to waste money on clothes in 2015. This means that I will rarely go in any stores that sell clothing, and when I do, I will not browse the Clearance racks. (I love clearance racks!) In fact, I make a new commitment to reduce my current wardrobe by 25% through Goodwill donations.