I am sometimes crushed by paralyzing guilt for not posting stuff here more often. Lately, I've been trying to remember that this isn't because I've fallen into a zombified, do-nothing rut (which would have been the case in years past), but because I actually am being productive, trying out new things and working on Projects and I just tend to get completely sucked into whatever I'm doing at the time and my brain can't handle anything else. I'm not a good multi-tasker, unless you see "eating a handful of Thin Mints while watching a Burn Notice marathon and coming up with different nicknames for Jeffrey Donovan's patented facial expressions" as multi-tasking.
I've been in a weird stop-start state for the first 60 or so days of 2009, though, wherein I can't really get a good grasp on ANYTHING that I want to accomplish, whether it's something small like a wee blog post or something gigantic...like cleaning out my closet, which is in such a state that it currently looks like it's vomiting clothes.
In this vein, I've decided to succumb to a blog meme that was going around for a while, and maybe still is. I can't remember where I first saw it, but it's basically a massive to-do list with a set time limit. 101 Things in 1001 Days. Big things, small things. All manner of things. Write 'em down, cross 'em off, make 'em as specific as possible. (Naturally, I was tempted to make "write up 101 in 1001 list!" my first item, so I could immediately cross it off. But I didn't.)
Feel free to join me, fellow fans of Doing Stuff!
1. Hike up to the Griffith Observatory. I've full-on hiked exactly once in Los Angeles and it was awful because 1) I had a bad attitude and 2) it was supposed to be a "butterfly hike" and I didn't see one fucking butterfly. Now I have a slightly better attitude and I realize that there are other things to appreciate besides butterflies, like all the nature.
2. Have dim sum with friend Den and a big crew of people. Have done this several times, but would like to make it a more regular occurrence. The last time was actually kinda funny, because Den -- the one connective link among all the people gathering -- was late (as he always is) and we all started eating without him. Maybe he did that on purpose so we would bond.
3. Clean out my closet, hang clothes nicely, take cast-offs to Goodwill.
4. Return to San Diego Comic-Con. Probably not this year, but I have 1001 days, right?
5. Venture outside the country. I've only been to Canada. Suggestions welcome.
6. Go on a Kogi taco quest with Charley, Darlene, and whoever else wants to join me. I have sampled the Kogi tacos but once and NEED MOAR.
7. Go through all of our comic longboxes once and for all and organize the damn collection. I have gone through four boxes. I have discovered long forgotten treasures. There are many more boxes to go and I imagine myself attaining such a blissful state of mind in knowing EXACTLY what we have and where it is and what issues we're missing and what can be swapped out for trades. It's also making for good blog fodder; I wrote that Swamp Thing one last week and next I want to do something on the Brian Wood Generation X run because I think it might be the reason I like Emma Frost?
8. Re-read The Invisibles. Matt is on a mission to re-read all Grant Morrison and as he's describing it, I realize that 1) I was a very passionate Invisibles fan back in the day and yet 2) I can't, for the life of me, describe to you what the plot was. Like, at all.
9. Complete my She-Hulk run. I have/have read all of Slott's run (I think). I don't know what the general perception is of David's, but now that it's over, I'd like to read it.
10. Call at least one out-of-town friend every week. I miss my college friends hardcore, you guys. I'm grateful that at least one of 'em lives nearby (hi, Kelly!), but the rest? Hard. Core. And yet I've gotten really bad about calling people just to shoot the breeze and catch up.
11. Okay, this was originally going to be something about finally trying out Mo Better Meatty Meat Burgers, which used to be the stuff of legends, but I clicked over to the Yelp page and it's now closed! Rargh. So I guess this one should be something like "find a perfect, out-of-the-way burger joint in LA."
12. Re-write Projects #1 and #2 and give them to readers. These are things I wrote last year that I haven't touched since I finished them. But they both need tweaks and outside opinions.
13. Start Project #3, in the same vein as #1 and #2.
14. Actually do something with said projects after soliciting said outside opinions. Contests? Something?
15. Go back, read the "Glory" story, and fix stuff. This is the 3-part thing I wrote for Grok last year. I was reasonably happy with the way it turned out, but I know my "make it up as you go along" continuity left a few gaping holes (I think there's a part where someone is technically not wearing a shirt and should be?) and I'm sure there are other things that could use fixin' now that I have a little perspective on it.
16. Write something totally cool for the new Grok. Don't know if I want to do another ongoing story, but it's always a temptation.
17. Do the ScriptFrenzy thing. According to friend Sarah O., "a bunch of us" are going to do this.
18. Watch The Wire. Yes, I know. Will change my life, etc.
19. Improve my D&D character's backstory. Right now, she actually doesn't have much of a backstory beyond "can shoot good" and "is blind, but NOT because I had a really hard time painting eyes and finally just gave up."
20. Find a cool new-t0-me mystery series and read the whole thing beginning to end. I'm a sucker for good mystery series, especially if they feature 1) British people (Elizabeth George, Deborah Crombie) or 2) crabby female protagonists (Laura Lippman, Sue Grafton -- Sue Grafton got me through a bout with surgery, y'all. Plus, she is the only person I can recall my mom ever having a honest-to-god fan reaction to: "oh, we met her and she was sooooo nice! She talked to EVERYONE in line!").
21. Host a Star Trek movie marathon. To coincide with the new one, natch.
22. Work out at least one day on the weekend. Used to do this. Have fallen off. Still work out during the week, but feel like a slacker Sat/Sun.
23. Eat at one of the Top Chef-related restaurants (do you like how this comes right after the one about exercising?). There are many of them in LA.
24. Find a reliable "can turn it on and will probably like what is playing" radio station now that Indie 103 is online-only. Don't have much hope for this one. Might end up being "my iPod."
25. Go on a Bay Area jaunt with Megan and get into trouble, like we have in the past. But not too much trouble.
26. Write something semi-meaningful about Tanya Donelly.
27. Find a drive-in movie theatre and see a movie there.
28. Go on a wine-tasting.
29. Find a short-sleeved black cardigan to rotate with the every-disintegrating one I bought at Anthropologie 5 million years ago. I don't want to look like a ragamuffin at my friend's wedding in May, but the outfit I'm envisioning involves this cardigan.
30. Actually participate in Wardrobe Remix. I joined ages ago and have posted like 2 photos. What would help is if I could figure out how to take a self-portrait on my cam--oh, hey!
31. Learn how to take a self-portrait on my camera.
32. Go to another Broadway show.
33. Get my boots re-heeled. Two pairs are in need of surgery.
34. Find the perfect trench coat. This has been an ongoing quest. Too many swallow me whole, making me appear as if I'm a little kid playing dress-up in Mommy's good clothes. I've come close a few times, but at this point, I feel like it's perfection or nothing.
35. See another show at Hollywood Bowl. In my 7 years as an Angeleno, I've been twice, which just doesn't seem like enough.
36. Get a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery.
37. Go to the Golden Age comics exhibit at the Skirball. Is it cheating to include something I pretty much know I'm going to do? I don't think so.
38. Go to what the husband refers to as "GhettoCon." Held every month, yet I've never been. Geekfail?
39. Host a dinner party. It will have to be small, given the size of our living room, but it can still be done.
40. Get another girl group together to see New Moon and Eclipse. Well, girls + Ken.
41. Learn George's last name. Hunky waiter/bartender at popular WeHo watering hole, ridiculously-muscled object of a friend's affections. We know him only as "George."
42. Meet Sigrid. I have now encountered 3/4 of Fantastic Fangirls IRL and what can I say? I'm a completist!
43. Re-read all of Strangers in Paradise beginning to end and figure out if the continuity makes sense. I think the Casey Conundrum was sort of explained away as being part of Francine's "vision," right? Yet it still nags at me, as does that whole future or alternate future or...
44. Re-read at least one Dragonriders of Pern book. Lately, I've had a hankerin' for some high fantasy adventures with a little romance tossed in. Will these do the trick the way that they did when I was 12? Would like to see!
45. Obtain a decent hairdryer, perhaps with a diffuser? Perhaps that one that looks like a freaky hand?
46. Find my old friend Stephanie. The problem is...I can't remember her last name. This makes Facebooking difficult.
47. Go on a bike ride.
48. Invest in an actual couch to replace our increasingly-sad futon.
49. Eat a hot dog at Pink's. Another thing I've never, ever done, despite being here for so many years. I might be worried that actually doing this will not quite be the magical experience Weetzie Bat has led me to believe it will be.
50. Get a facial. I did this exactly once and didn't really notice a big difference. Yet I persist in thinking there's some magic bullet that will make my skin look radiantly amazing in that Vaseline-lens kind of way.
51. Have a cocktail at The Library Bar.
52. Go to a reading/book signing featuring an author I admire.
53. Scan pages from my old 'zine, so you can all see how awesome I was in college.
54. Scan old pix of me at conventions, so you can all see how awesome I have always been, since birth.
55. Scan the circa 2003 pic of 3/4 of the Alert Nerd crew, so you can all see how awesome we were together in 2003.
56. Get my watchband re-sized. I got this really cool, oversized men's watch last year. Only the band is also oversized, and does not fit my delicate wrist.
57. Interview someone from Gossip Girl.
58. Clean out my Facebook inbox (meaning "actually respond to all the messages"). Seriously, the shame. I tend to just pretend like it doesn't exist.
59. Start doing yoga again. My class from last year seems to have fizzled out, meaning my general aura is much less namaste than it should be.
60. Take my husband to OMSI. He really wants to go. REALLY. Having been approximately 5 kazillion times when I was a child, it doesn't hold quite the same appeal for me.
61. Participate in a podcast. I did this once, for Alert Nerd, and it was lots of fun, though we encountered a ton of, ahem, technical difficulties.
62. Get into the habit of writing thank you notes. I always mean to do this and then don't and then feel like a jerk. Thank you emails aren't the same.
63. Clean out my car. The horror.
64. Get a car wash. The previous item refers to the inside of the car, but the outside is also filthy. The last time I got a car wash was when my friend Nicole made me because the dirt was so thick I could barely see out of the windows and she was worried for her safety. We then noted that if we had a reality show, that experience would have been documented as "The Day Sarah and Nicole Went to the Car Wash." Exciting times indeed.
65. Return all my dry cleaning hangers. I have a massive collection of these. My dry cleaner is happy to take them back, yet I always think of it as such a chore, for some reason? Well, now that I have so many of them, I guess it is a chore.
66. Re-read the Dark Phoenix saga and write something about it. My favorite comics story of all time, evAR, yet I don't think I've ever written about it in a meaningful way.
67. Watch the last season of The L Word. I've only seen one episode, and it was Shenny-heavy. This grossed me out so much, I haven't watched any of the rest of it. Still, I must see how it ends. (And, contrarily, I suddenly don't want Jenny to actually be dead.)
68. Give True Blood another shot. I'm a big Sookie Stackhouse fan and was thrilled when they decided to adapt Charlaine Harris' novels for TV. Thought Anna Paquin was great casting, etc. Then I watched the pilot, and honestly...kind of hated it. Lots of reasons. But a lot of people whose taste I share seem to have warmed to this show as it's continued, so I figure it deserves at least one more chance. They might have ruined Sam for me, though.
69. Figure out a way to throw my husband a birthday party he will actually enjoy. (This might be the most challenging item on the list BY FAR.)
70. Wake up early enough to go to the Santa Monica Farmers' Market and cook a meal based around foods purchased there.
71. Track down copies of the made-for-TV Parent Trap sequels, so I can see if they really are as amazing as I remember them being (still weirded out that one of the Creel triplets is now married to Rob Liefeld).
72. Watch the Firestar origin episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which Jeff tracked down for me online, so I can see if that is as amazing as I remember it being.
73. Send Matt his "Print Ain't Dead" poster, which has been languishing on my desk for way too long. WAY.
74. Play the new Oregon Trail game.
75. Somehow convince Kristina to make me a custom Sackboy.
76. Make a mix CD for someone for no reason.
77. Karaoke somewhere other than the comfort of my own home.
78. Go to Sunday brunch at the Italian place near the Santa Monica Pier. I can never remember the name, but I love their regular menu and the brunch is supposed to be legend(wait for it)ary.
79. Actually comment/tell someone when they write a blog post I like. So many times, I'll read something, find it brilliant, then close my browser. Lame.
80. Have an encounter with someone whose work I admire wherein I am not an idiot.
81. Organize my many photos from the pre-digital camera, pre-Flickr days. They're all in shoe boxes. This is one of the items on here that sort of makes me want to cry?
82. Visit my college campus and go check out my old dorm. Bonus points if I can somehow gain access to my old dorm room to see if my initials are still carved in the doorway.
83. Invite high school classmates I've re-connected with on Facebook to some sort of bar gathering when I visit Oregon this summer. Bonus points if I can not freak out in some way over this.
84. Go to the ballet.
85. Spend a whole day in bed with a book. Look, this list is already making me tired. I'm going to need to relax at some point.
86. Actually start my day with the X-Men cartoon theme song, which I have always, always wanted to do, so much so that I have imagined myself doing it multiple times. (But usually with unrealistically dramatic results. Like in my imagination, when the song ends, I can somehow fly. I only have to do this once, btw -- it might get a little annoying if I make it a daily ritual.)
87. Try out a non-D&D roleplaying game.
88. Find some of those geek-goth fingerless glove/armwarmer things for my jaunts to colder climates.
89. Make a casserole.
90. Get into the habit of moisturizing. Husband is a moisturizing fiend. I have crocodile skin.
91. Try to replicate the amazing brussels sprouts I had in Brooklyn last month. Dang, now I can't remember the name of the restaurant. But I've never thought of brussels sprouts as a food I enjoy, and this restaurant totally changed my outlook. Must learn their secret and make them at home (I think at least part of the secret is "cheese").
92. Find the terrible serialized melodrama me and two friends started writing in junior high (one of us would write a chapter and pass it on and the next person would continue the story, etc.) and give it an ending. I've always wondered what happened to those three ridiculously beautiful sisters who looked nothing like each other.
93. Wear my favorite vintage dress more often. I put it on a bit of a pedestal, I think. But it is meant to be worn.
94. Actually watch the video of me performing sketch comedy in college. Either that or burn it.
95. Turn on the "sing-along" feature on my Hairspray DVD and...sing along. Alcohol may be involved.
96. Watch the Stella DVDs Jenelle lent me, then give them back, then never borrow anything ever again.
97. Write a blog entry about the night I learned that "regular" people can be just as lame as us nerds.
98. Just once, get my DVR down to 0%.
99. Take at least one decent walk a week. Walking across the street to 7-11 does not count.
100. See Patton Oswalt perform stand-up live.
101. Get an outline going for a project I've been thinking about for a while. (different from previously mentioned projects)
Hmm, yes. So most of these have to do with eating, drinking, geekery and/or writing. Sounds about right.
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