Performance Evaluation

I was thinking about the goals/plans I made for 2014, and wondered if I came close to realizing them. I found the list in a blog from a year ago:


In 2014, I will.....
Learn my camera! Take awesome pictures!
See lots of local professional theater
Hear lots of symphony
Go to an opera
Cook delectable new dishes
Have massages
Host dinner parties
Work on my shabby chic urban prairie projects
Ride my bike across Mackinac Bridge with my love
Laugh with my nieces and nephews
Paint my kitchen cabinets
Plant a garden
Strum
Sing
Dance
Ski
Ice Skate
Travel
Read amazing books
Write good books
Write a fantastic play
Let go of all that shit
Learn new shit

Results:
Learn my camera! Take awesome pictures!
See lots of local professional theater
Hear lots of some symphony
Go to an opera a ballet
Cook delectable new dishes
Have massages
Host dinner parties
Work on my shabby chic urban prairie projects
Ride my bike across Mackinac Bridge with my love 
Laugh with my nieces and nephews
Paint my kitchen cabinets
Plant a garden
Strum
Sing
Dance
Ski
Ice Skate
Travel
Read amazing books
Write good books
Write a fantastic play
Let go of all that shit
Learn new shit

Performance Grade: Pretty Darn Good

Areas for Growth Opportunities:

• Should I just stop putting "ski" on my list? I felt the need to do that several years ago when I equated living a crazy schedule of crazy things with contentment, but here's a secret. I don't love skiing. I'm not even sure I like it. It scares the shit out of me, and I forced myself to do it, and I'm glad I went, but I am done! New goal for 2015: Do not put "Ski" on my "Goals for 2015" list.

• It's not of vital importance that another year has passed and you have not skated on ice. What I said above.

• You did not learn how to actually use your fancy schmancy camera and you are hereby shamed. You are now required to put it on your list for 2015, with interest penalty.

• You really couldn't help not being able to the Mackinac Bridge thing, but don't strike it from 2015 just yet.

• Should you consider forgetting about all that learning how to play guitar shit and learn how to be macho? 

• Can you just admit the truth that you don't give two shits about the fucking opera?

• You spent a the last few months of this year wondering if you should quit play writing altogether. I think you still have time to consider. Remember a few days ago in a blog you were complaining about the play Other Desert Cities because it felt like something you would write? Well, I did a little digging on the writer, and he did in fact admit that the play was what he had hoped the ill-fated show Brothers & Sisters would be, and then he explained himself. The thing is, I changed my mind about him. John Robin Baitz has a lot of interesting things to say. In fact, the play that everyone raved about here in Indy was equally esteemed on Broadway and was finalist for a Pulitzer. WTF? If he is making waves writing about things that I like to write about in a similar way (no, I'm not saying I am accomplished or talented, so just relax that huff-maker, will you?) Incidentally, I also learned that he was booted from the show a year into production--a show that ABC specifically asked him to create and be show runner. That explains why the show got so stupid after the first year.  I also learned that he did not take kindly to the booting and was pretty vocal about it. So final verdict. Good move to question yourself as a writer. For now, that is enough. If you leave, do so with sweetness for what you had, not with sourness for what you missed.

Honorable Mentions:

• Garden! (Don't mention here that you killed said garden with fucking ORGANIC bug killer and that it really killed your mood over the second part of the summer.) Goal for 2015: Try again, and this time try Neem Oil!

• Urban Prairie Phase 1 complete!

• You actually painted your cupboards the last week of 2014 on a whim!

• Best books you read in 2014: Into the Wild, Half Broke Horses, Light Between the Oceans, Little Bee, Glass Castle, Mystic River

Best Accomplishment:

• I let go of all of that shit. 

I'm so proud of that shit that I'm going to underline that shit. I let go of all that shit. For 2015, you are forbidden to take on any new shit to replace this old shit.

Nuclear Winter

Winter sort of brought life to a crawl this year. The ground was covered in jagged ice for months, and every task became an undertaking. My brain went through a shallow freeze sometime in February, but still we managed to while away the winter in high spirits. I'm not sorry to see you go, Winter that lasted five months this year, but I do thank you for some good times, which I'll append here, just to remind myself why it's always worth it to slog through even when you don't feel like it!

Highlights:
Snowy hike through the icy canyons of Turkey Run State Park and a winter picnic

Getting a new gas fireplace and cozying up night after night (Christmas present from Larry)

Starting a new job!

Anniversary party for Heather and Rick downtown with friends

Dinner party with Irene and friends at Chrissy's

Saw many plays and performances
     "Under the Lintel Tree" at IndyFringe (okay)
     Paul Strickland and Stewart Huff at IndyFringe (pretty good!)
     "And Then They Came For..." at IRT  (A story about Anne Frank) (very good)
     "Who Am I This Time?" ...at IRT (Kurt Vonnegut actually wrote some short stories that were not depressing and someone turned them into short plays...to mixed results.
    "The Dining Room" at Carmel Theater. (Okay)
    "Kings and Queens of Country" at Dance Kaleidoscope. (Awesome!) (with Jodee and Willard, really fun!)
    "Lion in Winter" (a friend was in it.)
    "Other Desert Cities" at IRT (pretty good!)
    "The Mountaintop" (about Martin Luther King Junior's last night on earth at the Hotel Lorraine)

Saw some lectures and readings at Butler, including filmmaker Lee Daniels, actress Marlee Matlin, and writers Cheryl Strayed and Jesymn Ward.

A concert for Spirit & Place Festival featuring Son Lux with Lily & Madeleine and poet Tony Styxx. 

We had some nice dinners out, usually after one of the shows, including Mesh (one of my faves in town), McCormick and Schmick, and Morton's (overpriced upscale man style dimly lit steak and more steak), plus some good authentic ethnic places in my 'hood. 

I did a little cooking, including a fantastic Valentine's dinner of lobster, coconut shrimp, salad, focaccia, tomato bisque, and chocolate coconut pie. And some really good wine from one of our CA trips.

I worked on a play, and then was assigned a new book, so I've been really busy procrastinating that.

Spring finally sprung, and the flowering pears are a bloom, and the flowers will soon follow! Spring is my favorite time of year! 

Thank you Grumpy Old Man Winter for making it that much sweeter!