Hahahahahha

Ooops. Got of schedule again... so I'm going to do a really quick summary of things to get back on track.

1) Finished reading The Enchantress of Florence last week. It was delightful to read solely in terms of language, but I take issue with some significant anti-feminist elements of the story... I intend to write a short essay on this sometime very soon. But we all know how well I actually do the things I intend to do, so... we'll see.

2) Started reading Atlas Shrugged; I'm now 125 pages in and... wow, I thought Rushdie was antifeminist. Otherwise, I'm still really confused about the book's philosophy. I've read about objectivism and I feel like I know what Ayn Rand thinks, but... to me it doesn't really seem to be advocating any particular viewpoint at all - except that indifference is plaguing the modern world and, like, destroying EVERYTHING. More forthcoming on this as well.

3) In order to better facilitate drabble-writing, I started a scraps file in notepad so that I'm not looking at a blank page every time I try to write anything. Writer's block has not wholly been defeated, but it is slightly mitigated. It's something. I'm stuck on this one image and I'm trying to figure out how to make a whole decent story out of it. I'll get there.

4) This has absolutely nothing at all to do with knitting, but it is creativity and therefore is marginally pertinent: I've sewn my first throw pillow with piping! I put in for 15 yards of saree fabric (in three patterns of five yards each) on ebay, and I won, and I paid, and according to the seller in India, they've shipped... and it's been ten days. Four more and I'm filing a complaint. This is getting absurd... I'm trying to start an Etsy shop here! No, really, apparently there's a large market for throw pillow covers, and I like sewing and I spend a lot of time watching TV - I figure I can at least try and capitalize on that a little bit. My camera battery's low so it's taking really crap pictures indoors right now, all grainy and stuff, so I'm not going to post one of the pillow just this second - but it's beautiful and you have to look really closely to see where I messed up, and I'm really proud of it. So take my word for it. You have to. It's my blog.

5) Speaking of pictures, I'm putting up four SPTs to cover from... I guess February 16th was the last time I posted? Oh well. See below the cut. I'll take one tomorrow for this week. (Hint: most of the SPTs are actually taken on the weekend.)

6) Music rerating is going well. I took a cue from my dad and decided to play my whole library in reverse alphabetical order, from $$$$ to A.O.K. This helps songs stand out a bit more since I'm ripping them out of the context of their albums, but has the major drawback in that I sometimes hear up to four versions of the same song in a row. (I'm lookin' at you, 405.) The one thing I can tell you I've discovered is that I really don't care at all about 98% of the Smashing Pumpkins' discography. Don't ask why I have it, I won't for very much longer.

7) Speaking of music, I have a couple new artists that I like that I plan on reviewing shortly. Preview: Yeasayer; Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros; and MGMT. Yeah, I know I'm late to the party on that last one, but I was purposefully avoiding them because of all the hype and I feel it's now sufficiently passed that it's once again uncool (and therefore legitimate) to listen and be into them.

8) Speaking of MGMT, I updated my resume this week to start preparing for a northward move. This has nothing to do whatsoever with my goal list, but moving to New York has been my number one goal since before graduation, so it merits an update.

9) Daily Show! April 5th, 2010 - Chelsea and I were the first to show up at 1:15, but the third, fourth, and fifth people arrived within the next twenty minutes - so I feel it was completely justified. Um, yeah... they start don't even set up the lines until 2:30, and they don't open the doors till after 4, seat you till after 5, or start filming until 6. But SO WORTH IT. Picture proof below the cut.

10) Ten is a lot. I'm done for tonight. To the pictures!

March 11, 2010 - Absolutely nothing remarkable about this. It is already well-documented that I'm infatuated with my Christmas lights and amateurishly adjusting the aperture settings on my camera.

March 18, 2010 - Yeah, nothing exciting here, either. I... I bought this shirt while Ali was visiting that week? ...Woo.

April 1, 2010 - On the first night of my trip, my friend Katy happened to be in town as well from Chicago, and our friend Mollie was about to be going out of town on Spring Break, so we threw a party. This picture was probably taken shortly after midnight... because I had woken up at 5:30 that morning to catch my flight. Yeah, I was in New York by lunch time. I RULE. Things I missed while passed out: chat roulette, Mollie's ever-entertaining rendition of Soulja Boy, and a 1:30am run to Best Buy. Yeah. That tired.

April 8 - So, basically, the Kate Spade store down in Soho was doing this window display with pinwheels, and since many of them were within reach of street level, and the pinwheels were on the exterior of the windows instead of the interior, people had swiped them - which was probably what they were supposed to do anyway. So Chelsea wanted one, and I wanted to steal one, so I climbed up on the ledge and tried to push it up out of its holder inconspicuously. Surprisingly, they didn't just pop out, they literally had to be lifted up and out, and in this shot, you can sort of see that I've got the green one up to the very bottom of the stick... I couldn't reach any higher while sitting. Clearly, this was hilarious, and Chelsea took my picture. Shortly thereafter, I just stood up and pulled it out, and we lived happily ever after with our lime green pinwheel yay.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

FIRST IN LINE!

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It's just so much easier to do them in batches...

Below are four (4) SPTs. The first doubles as evidence of my first four hours on a Habitat worksite; the second doubles as evidence that I'm pretending to learn June on the West Coast; the third and fourth together serve to prove that I'm running out of ideas for these when nothing special is going on.

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St. Patrick's - January 15, 2010

I visited St. Patrick's three weeks ago with my friend Chelsea, approximately two and a half hours after landing at JFK. It was literally that much of a priority for me. Architecture innervates my soul, and, having escaped the suffocating clutches of Daytona for the weekend, it was a delightfully symbolic way to start the trip.

I'd been there once or twice before, years and years and years ago with my family, and when I was twelve, I read this book, a thriller in which a rogue IRA cell takes the cathedral hostage for no apparent reason. Most notable line: the 50/60 something Irish dude tells the young chickadee who seems to be his sidekick, "Girlie, I've been shot at more times than you've had your period." Most notable image: some dude climbs up on of the spires outside, either to light the building on fire, put that fire out, or set up some sort of signal for the cops. It's good times.

Anyways, Chels and I had an excellent time peering at all the saint shrines, conjecturing about why Catholics light candles for them, sneaking glances at people crossing themselves to find out if it's left-to-right or right-to-left, and, you know, just generally being slightly less respectful of the space than we probably should have been. I took quite a few pictures, most of which did not come out quite as well as I'd have liked because I didn't want to use the flash. I've culled the best and dumped them into a new photobucket. I got bored while I was uploading them so I ran the "old photo" script on my favorite; it is now below the cut and is the link to the full album. If you don't want to flip through all the pictures manually, there's a slideshow before the first one. Technology, woo! I also stuck the SPT from that week below the cut here, since it was taken while I was there and everything. The three subsequent SPTs should be posted before it's time for the next one to be taken. Hopefully.

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Picture Dump

Too tired to narrate. Click for pictures. Soon: SPT 19, Cathedral #1, and, for real, drabbles.


Lost SPT - December 4, 2009

Swingset #6 - Boone Park, Jacksonville, FL

SPT - December 31st

SPT - January 7

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Surprises

1. New hair in SPT 13; SPT 12 is still in transit.

2. Short-chained swingset = lots and lots and lots of fun.

That is all; see below.

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pictures pictures pictures

It's incredibly late and I'm incredibly tired, but below the cut lie not only this week's SPT, but also photographic proof that I swung on swingsets numbers two and three today - if you recall, I have not actually posted a picture of the first swingset yet because... I fail. Whatever. Number 2 is at Wadsworth Park in Flagler Beach, and Number 3 is just up the highway at Holland Memorial Park in Palm Coast. Number 2, as you will see shortly, has an interesting architecture going for it, but has pretty short chains... still, in all, a very nice swinging experience. Meanwhile, I was far more pleased with the longer chains at Number 3, except that half of them were too long and, mysteriously, could not be rolled up. Very good afternoon, though :)

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Backlog

Everything has slowed down a lot, so I apologize for the lack of posts this week. I have two SPTs below the cut here, and an article post I've been writing queued up, and - not kidding - a two-week old draft of music-review for goal number 4. I promise, though, I have kept up with drabble-writing (nothing I'm confident is share-worthy, though) and reading and free rice and working on the responses for the Foreign Service app. I just haven't felt hugely compelled to write about it. Oh well. Picture-time!


This one was before work on Oct 28th. Some days I'm a really good morning person.

This one was last night, not on Thursday. Oh well. I'm not sure how I got it to double-expose, because it never does it when I actively try, but I like it.

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Never trust the Swedes.

So this post is the SPT for October 15th, even though they were actually taken on the 17th and 18th, and the post prior to this is the picture from yesterday that was actually taken today because it was a much more pleasant day for picture-taking. For real.

Once upon a time, three lovely maidens set out from the sleepy hamlet of Bushwick in search of the mythical relics rumored to lay in the far off Temple of IKEA. They bundled up against the cold, mounted their trusty steed, Subaru, and enlisted the help of a local guide who called himself Garmin. They traveled on and on and on, twisting and turning through the trails of the Lyn of Brook, stopping only for provisions of bagels and extra sweaters. Finally, thanks to Garmin's expertise, they arrived at the fabled place.

But much to their surprise, thousands upon thousands of other brave adventurers had made the very same pilgrimage! The three maidens refused to believe they had come this far for nothing. Determined not to depart empty-handed, they marched forth into the relentless waves of people entering the temple in search of relics of their own.

As they trekked through the upper levels of the magical IKEA, the energy of discovery and delight was palpable. The maidens beheld strange and glorious wonders of home furnishing the likes of which they had never before dared dream. They wandered from one cavernous chamber to the next, in awe of the sights and sounds laid out resplendently before them. The maidens yearned to collect every single relic IKEA held, but they knew it would be unfair to overburden poor, aging Subaru. They had to make some choices.

At that moment, the wonderland of delights transformed into a hellish pit of fire and brimstone stacked from floor to hundred-foot-ceiling. Suddenly, all their happy co-pilgrims became vicious competitors, each vying for the blessing of a temple priest so they could cart off their chosen relics. The maidens stood faithfully at no less than three different altars as they waited their turn to collect their beautiful relics.

And lo, the maidens were rewarded for their patience and persistence. Having used their cunning to navigate the secret shortcuts through the temple, and their disproportionate strength to lift their own relics onto their carts, they proved themselves superior to all the obstacles the great Temple of IKEA had thrown at them.

After saddling Subaru up with their prizes, and directing Garmin to bring them back safe and sound to Bushwick, the maidens enjoyed a peaceful ride all the way home.

And they lived happily ever after, until they realized they had to transport their relics up to the highest tower of their castle all by themselves!

And then they realized that the relics had to be assembled before their magical powers could be utilized. There were a lot of pieces for the maidens to sort through!

The maidens quickly worked out how to fit the strange-looking components together into something that vaguely resembled the floor model at the temple.

But their most magnificent relic, an item that would provide amazing moving pictures and yards and yards of parchment filled with wise and wonderfully enlightening words, was not to be so easily had. A demon had slipped through the temple priests' defenses and broken a vital piece of the relic! Without it, the maidens realized, the relic would never come to life as they had hoped. Forlorn, they gave up for the night and vowed to begin anew on another relic the next day.

Reinvigorated the following morning, the maidens set upon their second-favorite relic, an enchanted wardrobe that would keep all their garments in tip-top shape as soon as they put them inside of it.

As with the first relic, construction proceeded swimmingly - but only for a short while. When the time came to place the special shelf that would keep their handbags and miscellaneous medium-sized fashion accessories organized, the maidens realized that yet another demon had ingratiated itself into the very particle board of their beloved relic. The shelf simply would not follow the laws of geometry as the priests' holy instructions declared that they would.

But the maidens were fierce and tenacious. Defeated once already by the demons plaguing the temple IKEA, they wrestled with the evil one until at long last, they had forced the demon out and the shelf in. Proud of their hard work, they were at last able to pour themselves a well-deserved glass of enchanted grape juice and admire their precious relics.

Will the maidens ever return to the great temple? Will the demon yet plaguing them ever depart? WAS IT ALL WORTH IT?

The world may never know.

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I can ride my bike with no handlebars

No handlebars.

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Busy little bee...

Another busy sort of week. There's that whole thing about pictures and a thousand words, so... here's me first thing Thursday morning, and a bonus picture of my current work in progress.

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Puppy

I sort of forgot to do SPT yesterday, what with all the excitement of creating the favicon, and today I made sure to keep my camera with me at all times - but I never really found a good opportunity for a shot. Until my family got back from dinner and our dog, Lucky, looked more adorable than usual on the top of the couch. (Yes, she's fully-grown; yes, we sometimes think she's a cat. In actuality, she's half Chihuahua, half Yorkie.) She's not normally this shy, though. Maybe she just didn't like the flash...

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No, it's totally safe.

The reason this week's SPT is being posted on Saturday is that the last three nights, I have been completely exhausted from work and after-work activities; by the time I get settled in at night, I practically fall right asleep. And I don't really feel the need to apologize to the internet for being out in the world. So my SPT this week comes from one such adventure that occurred on Thursday night with my oldest, dearest friend, Michelle, during which I discovered a few interesting new things about riverfront Daytona, discovered I am good at darts (before I start in on my second double), and began goal 24, Swing on 101 unique swingsets, at my favorite childhood park, the Magic Forest. No pictures yet, even though I obviously had my camera with me that night, but I'll get one soon. This playground is the bomb-diggity, yo.

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My enduring love of macros...

...requires that I use a paintbrush and not the text tool.

Or, this week's SPT post contains two bonus pictures to show you my workspace!

That is all.




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Sicko.

It's been a long, hard week. I've had trouble sleeping, I've gotten a sore throat, I've gotten a non-fever fever, and a cough of painfully epic proportions. I didn't go to work until noon on Tuesday, and I left at 1:30 on Friday. I have been on the couch or in bed almost all of the rest of the time. Blah.

I did do SPT, and make a little progress on various goals, and I will be posting links to and short blurbs about the articles I've been reading below. I cut because I care :)


First, the picture:

This was taken outside my office building after work, and that redness about the face is the fever. It's definitely not the best picture out there of me, but it's probably not the worst, either.

Next, I checked out the next two Discworld novels from the library when I went to stock up on sicky TV to watch (Stargate SG-1 from the beginning and The Duchess, for those interested in such trivial details). I plan to finish Sourcery tomorrow and get started on Wyrd Sisters shortly thereafter. I want to keep a steady stream of these coming in; they're good bedtime stories.

I've written another Drabble that I'm not yet ready to share. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

Adaptation is going slowly, but steadily. Well, more slowly than steadily, to be honest, but I'm blaming the sick. Very soon I'm going to stop blaming, I swear, but I've been making very solid notes and cross-referencing and getting some ideas together about the best way to tell this very long and convoluted story.

I obviously haven't ridden the bike to work this week, since I don't want to go into cardiac arrest from lack of oxygen or anything. But, I did find the handweight that I'd stashed in my room a while back to use while I watch TV, and I started stretching a little bit and doing leg lifts and crunches more regularly. I haven't explicitly tried to do a split since the gym in Portland, but I'm sure I'll actually get to that fairly soon.

I scheduled the Foreign Service Officer Test! It's on Wednesday, October 7th, and I have to drive to Orlando for it but that's okay. Within three weeks of the test, I'll get scores back and find out if I've been invited to write the five "personal narratives" about my life experiences that I feel qualify me to do the work of the State Department. I believe that about three weeks after that, I will find out if I've been invited for an interview, which they call an All Day Oral Assessment. Intimidating, I know. If they decide they like me after that, between two and twenty-four months later I will be offered a position. So. That's the process in a nutshell. Please, please continue to keep your fingers crossed for me!

And, finally, the articles. You'd think that with all this downtime, I'd have done almost nothing else, but my sick is the sick of ache and muscle exhaustion. Half the time I've been watching TV, my computer has been closed. Closed. That is so incredibly weird for me, because usually TV is in no way stimulating enough to occupy my full attention. Anyway, the last two weeks' worth of articles that I have read are:

• "Kennedycare" is a really excellent summary of Ted Kennedy's decades-long fight for better health care and coverage for Americans, Reagan and Nixon's creation of the "socialist Trojan horse" defense, and how all of this history is affecting Obama and how the best legacy he (and Kennedy) can leave is to "shift the trajectory of American politics."



• "The Rubber Room" was another excellently informative article, though this one is about something I'm sure very few of us are aware of: the hundreds of teachers employed by the New York City Schools who are paid for years to sit in these holding tanks called "Rubber Rooms" because they've been accused of misconduct or incompetency in the classroom. The reason the city is forced to continue paying their salaries (including full benefits and pension contributions) is the contract with the Teachers Union - it mandates arbitration to resolve these charges, and it can take years for a particular teacher's turn to come because the hearings for one person can go on for months. The article is fairly long because it details three of these cases, but I really recommend you read it, especially if you're a New Yorker yourself.



• "The Fountain House"I'm reading three articles a week in The New Yorker. You knew one of them was going to be fiction. It had to happen. I can't really say anything about this story that won't give part of it away, but it was just really sweet and it made me smile to read it.



• "The Vote that Changed Japan" is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a description of the recent election that saw the first solid defeat of the party that had controlled the country since the 60s and what that means for the country's future. If you have no idea what I just said, that's all the more reason for you to check this one out.



• "Pain-free animals?" will tell you everything you need to know about the next possible breakthrough in food production: animals genetically engineered to not feel pain, as such, so that killing them for food will be more humane. This article did more than Fastfood Nation could to make me seriously contemplate the ethics of my carnivorism. In the end, though, I reached the same conclusion I always do: chic-ken gooooood.



• "The Shrinking Archipelago" will remind you about the disproportionately devastating effects global weirding (bonus link yay!) has on developing nations. In the case of Indonesia, climate change will not only cause hundreds of smaller islands to be completely submerged in the next half-century; Indonesia is one of the leaders in deforestation (along with Brazil) because of Western demand for palm oil and other cash crops that Indonesians are increasingly opting to grow.



• "HIV's Weak Spot" summarizes the findings of a new study which shows that the HIV virus literally has a weak spot in its structure - a place where antibodies may actually be able to attach if they're taught to look for it, ie, through vaccination. Read, learn, love.



• After reading the previous article, I felt a little behind on the history of the search for an HIV vaccine. Luckily, New Scientist provided a convenient link in the last paragraph of that article, so if you're a clickaholic like me and have already read it, you can skip this one. If not, "Fears over HIV vaccines laid to rest" will tell you briefly about previous efforts to create a vaccine for HIV, why those efforts failed, and why the mere existence of an HIV vaccine was maligned!



• Finally, "Strife in Yemen" is a short piece about latest mid-East hotspot and the civil war currently being waged between the government and a wealthy tribal family and their supporters. Apparently Yemenis really miss monarchy.

For those keeping score, that works out to two in The Economist (first subscription issue should be arriving next week!), three in New Scientist (plus one science article in the Guardian about Alzheimer's and one in the NYT about the food industry battling the health care bill), and four in The New Yorker (subscription starting next week). Behind, yes. But these articles were a great start and I'm really excited to start reading the magazines all the way through. Next week, I hope to have this goal more complete by Friday, so it doesn't get folded into the Weekly Update again.

So that's where I stand right now. I'm still working on cleaning up my room and going through my boxed stuff, but mostly I'm just tired ALL THE TIME. Like now. So I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

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Self-portrait Thursday: 1

Nearly forgot I was supposed to be doing this today! I just set up a google reminder to repeat every Thursday morning to avoid that problem in the future. Also - quick note that Weekly Updates are moving to their regularly scheduled time on Saturday; the first one was on a Friday because it was the first day and I wanted to mark that in some way blah blah blah. Obviously Saturday is the superior choice.

Now, to the first picture!

It's a bit grainy, because I didn't really feel like messing with the settings to get it right without the flash, but I like it anyway. I have a lot of pictures of me in my room from years past, and I think it's only fitting that I capture part of the moving-back-in on (digital) film. What you can't see in this picture is my dresser (conveniently hidden by my head), nor my desk (conveniently off-camera to my left).

Other notes: the stick puppet in the bottom left wearing the green feather mask is Anastasia Romanov. You had to be there.
My bookshelf normally looks like I just won an epic game of Tetris. There are giant gaps right now because I took a lot of things out for the last schoolyear and I don't know which are going back up. Not even sure yet which things there will be staying.
My closet normally looks that messy. Oh well.
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Creativity Goals

1. Participate in NaNoWriMo.
8. Plant things. Make them grow and stuff.
9. Learn to properly knit a human-sized sweater.
18. Write at least one quality drabble weekly.
20. Learn at least thirty ethnic food recipes. Prepare each satisfactorily.
22. Learn to play June on the West Coast on guitar.
25. Adapt a favorite novel into a screenplay.
35. Participate in the 24 pictures/24 hours at least 3 times.
36. Reupholster something successfully.
37. Selfportrait Thursday.
40. Create an entire outfit by hand.
50. Sell baked goods at a farmer's market.
66. Collect 101 new characters.
67. Fill a watercolor journal.
79. Write a children's story and find someone to illustrate it.
83. Handmake and send 10 no-occasion cards to friends and family.
97. Make a baby onesie out of a Stewart/Colbert '08 shirt.

Details

1. Participate in NaNoWriMo

My reason for wanting to do NaNoWriMo is simple: ever since I learned of it six (seven? eight?) years ago, I've never been able to work up the nerve to actually do it.

One of my major problems when it comes to writing fiction is that I get so paralyzed that I'm going to do a bad job that I don't even start. The point of NaNoWriMo is not to produce the next great American novel (or that of whatever nationality/ethnicity you may be). It is to produce, plain and simple. The point is to spit words out.

I don't anticipate being able to participate in NaNoWriMo 2009, for the simple fact that I'll be too wrapped up in adapting a screenplay at the time. But I hope that by November 2010 I'll finally be able to join in contribute my word vomit to the pile. I'll go sci-fi/fantasy on this if I need to.

8. Plant things. Make them grow and stuff.

Another rather self-explanatory goal; I've always thought it would be neat to have a proper garden instead of an aging bamboo plant on my bathroom windowsill. The closest I've yet come is the plant I (with a lot of help from my grandmother, I'll be the first to admit) kept alive in the dorms all through college (except for junior year when I wasn't there; see above).

This summer, I witnessed the amazing effect a city-wide effort to plant beautiful and useful flora can have on a population. Portland is full of roses, sure, but many, many people grows herbs and spices themselves, and almost as many have at least tried to cultivate their own fruits and veggies with varying degrees of success. I want to be a part of that, even if it isn't in Portland.

I foresee this goal being somewhat difficult to quantify as finished, owing to the fact that I may be moving around a lot, at least in the next year. Therefore, if I cannot obtain a personal gardening space, if I will consider this completed if I participate in every stage of a community gardening effort, from tilling to harvest. And if I can sneak a few jasmine plants in, all the better :)

9. Learn to properly knit a human-sized sweater.

Since learning to knit in high school, I have produced yards and yards of scarves. I am an excellent knitter - of straight lines. My non-scarf projects to date have included:

• Winter cap - Begun on five double-pointed bamboo needles; abandoned shortly after it came time to begin decreasing stitches to finish.


• Patterned Scarf - I wasn't really sure what I was thinking when I began this project, adapted from an afghan pattern, except that I was really excited to try my first Complicated Lace Pattern. I only had four skeins of dollar store baby-soft yarn, but by God, I was going to get somewhere with it, two feet wide or not. It turns out that I really don't understand certain stitch notations, as I began to add stitches when I mistakenly thought that I had inadvertently been decreasing by - get this - not understanding certain stitch notations. Turns out I've been knitting by luck this whole time, I guess. Anyways, this semi-cape-like object has become a very useful winter blanket for one of my stuffed animals. There are pictures; it is adorable.


• Bear Sweater - What originally started as another attempt to knit with circular needles and following (though reducing) a pattern ended up being me devising my own pattern for straight needles. It's a hoodie, and right now I have 90% of the pieces knitted. I'll let you know how it turns out after I get someone to teach me to knit itty-bitty in-the-round (anyone know how to do glove fingers?) for the sleeves.

So, as you can see, my knitting history has been a somewhat sordid one. Essentially, this goal is the culmination of two knitting mini-goals: to be able to knit to a pattern, and to be able to knit in the round. As such, I will occasionally be making posts related to this goal in those veins - I imagine I'll probably try knitting a sort of hobo-bag on big rounds, and give another straight pattern a go before I attempt The Latvian Sweater, or, as I call it, The Mother of All Knitting Projects. It's going to be intense. There will be pictures; you may feel free to point and laugh at any time.

18. Write at least one quality drabble weekly.

This goal is fairly straightforward as well: once a week, to keep my creative juices flowing, I will write at least 100 words in response to one of the many, many prompts I see on my dreamwidth journal. All drabbles will be cross-posted here and tagged both "Creativity" and "Drabble" - I figure that since there are going to be (if all goes well) 156 of them, they deserve to have their own tag. In order to be lenient with myself, in case I forget, or am busy traveling, once a month I may take a week off, though the next week I must make up the missed drabble as well as complete the current one.

20. Learn at least thirty ethnic food recipes. Prepare each satisfactorily.

Exactly what it sounds like. Americanized versions of anything will not count - screw you, lasagna, I already know how to make you, anyway. First up on the list is Beef Rendang, followed by Bengali Payesh (the only rice pudding I've ever liked!), followed by... who knows what. Suggestions are welcome in the comment thread. Obviously, each stage of progress for this goal will be tagged both with "Creativity" and "Adventures in Cookery," a tag which will also come into play for goals #50, 53, and 63 (Sell baked goods at a farmer's market, and learn about wine and cheese).

22. Learn to play June on the West Coast on guitar.

This is one of my all-time favorite Bright Eyes songs, which I "tried" to learn to play in high school. No more fooling around. It's a four(ish?) chord song and I WILL learn how to play it. While this is primarily a creativity goal, any posts relating to its progress will also receive a "Music" tag, for obvious reasons.

25. Adapt a favorite novel into a screenplay.

As I said above, this is my One Big First Project of this entire mission. This is a goal I am extremely excited about tackling, especially because it will force me to reverse my standard style of writing. I'm a narration girl at heart, and a screenplay will (duh) necessarily force me to shift the focus to dialogue to convey the story. Because I think that in 95% of movies it is a cop-out, I will not be using voice-over in this effort. Seriously. That's cheating. I won't say any more on this right now, because I anticipate that the bulk of my posts for the next few months will be about my progress on this goal, and more detailed reflections on the reasons for it and How I am Growing as a Writer and all that. Its secondary tag will be "Adaptation." With the period.

35. Participate in the 24 pictures/24 hours thing at least 3 times.

On days 93, 307, and 986 (Nov. 29, 2009, July 1, 2010, and May 10, 2012) of the mission, I will take one picture of myself/my surroundings/my actions/my whatever to illustrate Where I Am In Life. I think it's like doing a 24 hour comic, but with less effort and a lot less pressure to be funny. For those who are into that sort of thing, it may have started here, but unless you can read Swedish, it probably won't be very useful for you to click that. Anyway. I will post these when I do them.... Probably sometime the days after, because I will be AWAKE FOR 24 HOURS (although I suppose power-napping in between hours is allowed). They will be tagged "Creativity" as well as "pix or it didn't happen." I'm betting that will still be funny in three years. But not money.

36. Reupholster something successfully.

This goal is very near and dear to me for two reasons. First, I began a reupholstering project last fall and was heavily discouraged from getting beyond the first seat cushion due to insinuations that I would not actually be able to keep the couch I was so lovingly restoring. I have about 10 yards of very good quality, very pretty, sage-striped fabric left, and I'm aching to not let that money go to waste.

Secondly, when I was very young, my family had one of those floral living room sets. Very comfy seating, very dated fabric. My mom has had them slip-covered for years. Luckily, last year or so, our dog sort of tore open the back cushion of the armchair, which was, by all accounts, my chair from about the age of two and a half upwards. Memories. So, since I'm moving home, and I have all this fabric, and my favorite piece of childhood furniture is in desperate need of some attention, everything is coming together like Stillwater and Sabbath. It's all happening!

37. Selfportrait Thursday

If you haven't heard of this, the best and most well-known example is here. Except that he did it everyday. For six years. And I'm going to smile. These posts will also receive the "pix" tag in addition to, like every other goal on this page, "Creativity."

40. Create an entire outfit by hand.

Again with the sewing, I know. I've always been fascinated by the pattern books at the fabric stores, though, and I feel like I'm pretty handy with pins and lining things up and my sewing machine, so I'm looking forward to this one. It will probably happen a bit later on, because I want to do the reupholstering while I'm still at home. There are only two more things to add about this goal right now: Halloween costumes do not count, and this goal and #51, Make a real green dress, cannot be combined.

50. Sell baked goods at a farmer's market.

I like to bake. From scratch. I like to tweak recipes. I especially like to add peanut butter or Nutella whenever possible. I think I'm pretty good at it. Other people sell things at farmer's markets; other bakers have gained their local following at them and earned enough to open a proper shop for their delicious baked wares. I have no such ambitions at this time, but this is definitely something I would like to try at least once. After I do a bit more research and find out about any licenses or fees or anything I might need, I might decide to do this for a while. We'll see where it goes. It is definitely NOT going to go off the list, and any updates will be under both the standard "Creativity" tag as well as "Adventures in Cookery." Without a period.

66. Collect 101 new characters.

This might sound a little odd, but I swear it isn't anything serial-killery. As almost everyone in the universe knows, people-watching is an excellent pastime. If you have your computer or a notepad with you, it's even better. And remember, kids, it doesn't count as stalking if they're talking loud enough for everyone to hear ;) These posts will have an additional tag of "Characters," and the first two will be posted shortly.

67. Fill a watercolor journal.

I am atrocious at the visual arts. I can't draw anything but abstract models for clothing, architectural perspective pencil drawings with a ruler, and... well, no, those two are pretty much it. I can't even draw a circle without erasing at least half of it first and my smiley faces have never been as bouncy and happy-looking as the other girls'. But in high school art class, I really loved doing watercolors, and a wash is pretty easy. I want to work my way up into loose watercolor landscapes (think Lilo and Stitch) and a representation of The Galaxy. Every ten pages I will post scans of what I've done, tagged "Art Journal." Please note that if the mood overtakes me to use some medium other than watercolor, I will be most pleased at this willingness to experiment and take full advantage of it. You have been warned.

79. Write a children's story and find someone to illustrate it.

Every once in a while, I get an idea for a modern children's book, but I never actually sit down and do anything about it. Since all my attention as a writer is on material for people my age or older, I feel like it will be very refreshing to completely shift gears and write for a younger audience. My influences are Maurice Sendak, Eric Carle, and Leo Lionni, and if this watercoloring thing works out, I may even do the illustrations myself. Woo!

83. Handmake and send 10 no-occasion cards to friends and family.

Because everybody likes construction paper and glue. And everybody likes to get stuff in the mail. And... do I really need to keep explaining this one?

97. Make a baby onesie out of a Stewart/Colbert '08 shirt.

Not gonna lie, a little inspired by the Gilmore Girls on this one. I figure it's better to do this sooner rather than later, though, as by the time I actually have a kid these shirts should probably be pretty hard to come by. I have already started collecting weird, quirky early childhood books that I'm going to want my future offspring to be able to read, in case they're out of print, so this is not totally out of character for me, either. Jon Stewart for President!

So there you have it, folks, my Creativity goals for this mission. It's one of the most populous categories so far, although I do have about 35 more goals I need to add between now and next week. I don't think I can handle any more huge projects like these, though, without marrying rich and giving up all my, you know, career goals (see #61). We'll see.

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