December 3 - Collaboration

So I've been blogging daily for nearly two years and I have to admit, I feel like I'm getting kind of stale. Or at least the exercise isn't producing the end result I might have wanted when I started out on the endeavor two years ago. My first thought was to make it through December and then release myself from the self-imposed obligation to post every day, go back to posting only when I have something really interesting to say. But then I had another idea.

This idea has the potential to kick-start this blog into something better than what it is, and also to gauge how many people are even reading it. Which also means that if nobody participates in this idea with me, I'll probably just stop the daily thing and blog when I have something to say. But my idea is to have a blog where you guys get to pick the topics. All of them. And they can be whatever you want them to be.

My thought is to start a public Google calendar where you guys can fill in the topics for each day of the year. They can be random, they can be poignant, if you want to claim your birthday now for a special shout-out, go for it. Whatever you'd like me to talk about, whether I've talked about it before or not, I will be beholden to your whims to write my blogs. If you fill in enough dates, I'll blog daily. If you don't, I'll blog on the days where there are topics. And I will certainly credit you and link to your blog or whatever when I post about your topic if you provide that information when you fill in a day.

So what do you think? Do you want to steer the direction of this blog in 2015?

November 17 - Goals

I know I'm not the first to say this, but the important thing in achieving long term goals is to stay at it. To think every day about what you can do to reach the goal. Be it research or networking or whatever, something every day should move you toward your goals. 

I read today and fell in love again with what I was reading. I had some new insights that will make my project more fun, I think. There is still a lot to do, but I got a start. A real start. Now to make sure I take the next step, too. And the next. And the next...

November 14 - Long-Term

As an absolute last minute thing, I got to see a friend of mine yesterday who I have not seen in at least six years. A lot has happened for both of us in that time, so there was a lot of catching up to do. One thing I found really nice about our conversation, though, was that it wasn't entirely past-focused. We talked about the present and the future just as much if not more than all of the things we had missed.

Side note: one other thing I really love about talking with this friend is that we have actual conversations. I find myself in situations quite often where I ask someone about their life or opinions or goals or whatever and they don't then turn around and ask questions back. I don't know if that is an introvert/extrovert thing, or a product of our society wherein we're so focused on what we're doing that we don't invest very much in those around us, or if I'm really so dull that people just don't want to know, but it's a thing that happens. Which leaves me feeling like I'm in either a one-sided conversation or a one-sided relationship, or it forces me to be more extroverted and just tell people the things I think they should know about me instead of waiting for them to ask and as an introvert, I hate having to tell people things. I'd much rather that they ask so I don't sound like I'm bragging. But with this friend, he asked about my life as much as I asked about his. We talked through ideas and celebrated each other's successes and empathized with each other's sadnesses. It was a true conversation. For that and for many other reasons, I will always love this man.

Back on topic: one of the things we talked about in terms of future plans on my side of things is an idea I had a little while ago for a video series. He was very encouraging and thinks my idea is a good one. We even added a little whimsy to it, which might help attract a larger audience. But I find myself thinking more and more about it today. It is a project that is personal to me, something I would like to learn more about and then share with others, something I think I could have a lot of fun doing. And it is something I could do on my own. I've been submitting to the odd audition announcement here and there and have not been getting invited in to read, and I'm feeling like my luck in getting three shows right off the bat upon arriving in New York might be wearing thin. Not that I'll never get cast again, but it could be a little while before my next show. So maybe it is time to start working, really working, on this longer-term project. I like long-term projects. It's something I can really dive into and devote time and energy to, and the more time I spend in pre-production, the better the videos will be. Which is good because finding a space to shoot videos given my current living situation could prove challenging.

Anyway. Much love to my friend, and thank you for giving me a little kick in the pants to keep moving toward my goals.

June 27 - Procrastination

I am a very good procrastinator. After all (to paraphrase Mark Twain), why put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow? Though sometimes, I wonder why I do it, because I am also the sort that likes to accomplish things. I love being able to cross things off of my "to-do" list. When I'm involved in some sort of long term project, like VEDA or this BED2013 thing, or YoM which started for me yesterday, I like to do my part of the project early in the day so it is completed and out of the way and I don't have to worry about it later.

So why I am so good at procrastinating when it comes to other things?

I think I may have figured it out.

The things I put off doing are the things I don't really want to do in the first place. Things I am not excited about are, perhaps obviously, the things I am not motivated to finish. If I don't care when it gets done, I'm not going to do it. But give me a deadline, and the closer I get to the deadline without going over, the more I feel a sense of accomplishment when it's actually done. It's like I need the threat of the deadline to make things exciting enough to invest my time in doing them when I don't really want to do them. Then I can be proud of finishing them, just as I am when I post my daily photo at 8:00am.

It may be sick and twisted, but it's how I work. And now that deadlines are here and I'm getting things crossed off the list, I can say it feels great to be done.

June 26 - YoM

First off, I want to say that in the past couple of years I have tried very hard to expect very little of this day so that when and if very little happens, it's okay. So I expected very little this morning, but have already received quite an outpouring of love so I want to say thank you for that. Thank you for remembering.

And thank you to my parents because without them, I wouldn't be here. Literally.

Anyway.

I don't want to do a full-on recap of the last year, or another chat about how awesome it is to be vegan now that I am eleven years into what was going to be a one year experiment. Instead I'm going to tell you about a little project that one of my friends thought up. Her birthday was Monday, and she decided to take a selfie every day for one year, starting on her birthday. I told her I would if she did, so I am. I even signed up for Instagram to capture them all and everything. And now that I have shared that link, I should probably fill out a profile so it's not just a sad looking page with one picture on it, huh?

I don't know what I'm expecting to achieve by taking a picture of myself every day. I'm also wondering if "selfie" means "full face picture" every day, or if there is room to play with that a bit. Knowing me, I'll probably play either way, as long as some part of my body is in the picture and I'm the one taking it. But we'll see. We'll see what a year of pictures of me yields. Hopefully something more than just 365 pictures.

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

Oh! And the hashtag I'm using on the pictures, YoM, stands for Year of Me. But it also sounds like yum, which is why we chose it.

June 3 - Project

I bought a pineapple today, in part because I think pineapples are the most wonderful things on earth, and in part because I read somewhere online that you can grown your own pineapple from the top of an existing one. My apartment may be turning into a bit of a science project in the next couple of weeks. I have thoughts and plans on how to make the environment suitable for pineapple growing, so we'll see if it works. Because seriously, how awesome would it be to have my own homegrown pineapple, grown in an apartment in Chicago?

I'll keep you posted. 

May 25 - Nerves

I'm getting nervous about being Hamlet, now that we're getting closer and closer to the shoot dates. What if I do it wrong?

I think with a character like Hamlet, I have to remember that everyone has played her. Every scenario has been tried. Every variation, every nuance, every magic thing you think you found in the text, someone has found before you. And the best you can do is be the best Hamlet you can be and that's it.

I want my Hamlet to be accessible. I want her to be empathetic. I want her to have all of the feelings, even if she can't express them (or can't express them well) all of the time. I want her lunacy to be terrifying and sad. I want to make sure there is method in her madness. I want to feel each and every one of her betrayals and loves and hates and fears. And I think most of all, I want the audience to be able to feel all of those things with me. She is a beautiful character, stretched to the end of her rope, her every last nerve completely fried, forced into an impossible situation. I am honored that I will get to be her over the next coming months.

I just hope I do it right.

April 14 - Twitter Topic

I didn't know what to blog about today, so I put the call out to Twitter for a topic. Nic Lake was the first to respond, and he responded thusly:

"Sports. Boobs. Music. Food. The Loop. One thing you can do next week that you really want to do."

So today is going to be a bit of a hodgepodge. Ready? Okay. Here we go:

Sports: I've been thinking recently about how a lot of nerds/geeks/dorks use their lack of knowledge about sports as proof that they are nerds/geeks/dorks. I take issue with this. I am a geek. I would run against Felicia Day for the title of Queen of the Geeks if there was such a thing as a campaign for Queen of the Geeks, and I think I would have a pretty good showing in the election (but she would ultimately still win as approximately 3,000,000 more people are aware of her existence than are aware of mine, but anyway). But I also enjoy sports. It has been determined that I am a huge Cubs fan, I've been to basketball games and futbol matches and loved loved LOVED learning to be a derby girl for the play I did in November of last year. Does this make me less of a geek? If anything, I would argue that it makes me more of a geek for the simple fact that I am wearing a Cubs shirt under a Cubs hoodie as I write this post. Geeks can like sports, just as much as athletes can be geeks. Or something.

Boobs: Mine are rather nice on their own, but I do appreciate a good, supportive undergarment that makes them look amazing. Does that make me vain? I don't really care. It feels good to have a good boob day.

Music: I recently signed up for an online streaming music service and at the same time that I put together a playlist of new music that I am enjoying, I put a playlist together called "Bubble Gum" full of songs that have a beat, have mostly stupid lyrics, and sometimes actually make me kind of ill so I have to fast forward through them. It's music to turn your brain off to, which is what I want to listen to from time to time. But somehow, in compiling this playlist, I neglected to add any Lady Gaga. I feel like my Bubble Gum Pop Music Teeny Bopper card should be revoked.

Food: Food is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Mine specifically. It is my security blanket and my kryptonite. I wish I could quit it cold turkey, but I just really really really like to eat. I'm sorry; I know that's not cool and I know society says I should eat less and whatnot (and I'm actually really trying to be better with portion control), but I just really like eating. I'm not ready to give that up.

The Loop: Arguably the best variation to pull out with an eight-month-old who loves to play airplane.

One thing I can do next week that I really want to do: Hmmm...I've been kind of itching to go roller skating recently. Though I probably should schedule another fencing lesson for myself. And I need to get going on draping/patterning/building a bathing suit and a fancy white dress for myself. And I want to spend some time with my Hamlet monologues. Ooo! Or catch up on Doctor Who! (I might do that tonight.) Which means I will probably most enjoy when I have a few minutes to take a nap with my cat on the couch.

...and scene. Thanks for the suggestion, Nic! That was fun.

April 10 - Two Months

So I have about two months to get myself into the physical shape I want to be in for filming Hamlet. So technically, Hamlet's father is dying right about now - how does she take that? Not well, obviously, but what does her grief look like? Is she an ice-cream-for-dinner-every-night grief eater? Is she a workout-to-avoid-dealing-with-stuff gym monkey? Probably not. She's probably somewhere in between. Though I think I could see her as more the wallowing-so-much-I-forgot-to-eat type.

Who am I kidding? This is less about what I want my Hamlet to look like and more about I don't like how far my tummy is sticking out at the moment. So two months. Two months of regular exercise and eating right. I think I can handle that.

I can handle that.

Right?

March 20 - Creativity

I love having projects. I don't function well if I don't have some sort of project to work on. Having some sort of creative project is what keeps me sane. Without a creative outlet, I would likely not be alive anymore.

I wonder what it is like to be the sort of person who isn't always working on six things, the sort who doesn't have a half-dozen ideas for things they would like to do and build and make and play with. Do those people exist? I'm not trying to be snobby; I just don't know. I think I've always been an idea person and a creator, so I don't know what it would be like to not be that person.

I have an idea that I'm working on (more details to follow) and I'm really excited about it. That excitement leads to more ideas and more planning and more problem solving and will hopefully result in something really freaking cool. I'm geeked.

What is your creative outlet? What gets your brain buzzing?