First, a note on what the diddly is going on. The last ten days have taught me a completely different lesson than I ever expected to learn. That is that no matter how amazing, how life changing, how uplifting a project is... eventually things get difficult. I'm nearing the home stretch. There are only about 100 days left until the end of the year and contrary to what I thought back in January... I'm still not sure I'll be able to finish. I figured if I made it to August I'd know I could do it. Now... not so much. Largely because I've discovered the ability to love something and hate it at the same time. I long for the familiar. I want to spend a day just doing things I'm good at instead of knowing I'm going to be a beginner, yet again.
As such, while I've hung in there, keeping up with blog entries has become a bit tiresome for me. I'm guessing that doesn't shock anyone who got used to daily updates and now is stuck with my once weekly push to catch up. Rather than subject myself and y'all to ten days of relatively mundane experiences with even more mundane lessons, I'm going to do a speed catch up (about a paragraph per day) and see if I can clean slate my way through the next 115 days. Wish me luck!
Day 239 - Do a Cross Stitch
Date: September 2nd, 2010
As the sun set on my first day back from my trip, I was dead tired. This was the first day of the epic lull of 2010. I had spent the better part of the morning relaxing at the lake and enjoying vacation before getting on the road back to Ann Arbor. Fearing failure, I reached for the nearest back-up project I could find and got cracking. Lesson of the day: cross-stitches are for people who aren't creative enough to come up with their own embroidery projects.
Day 240 - Watch a Plane Do Skywriting
Date: September 3rd, 2010
Friday was a lovely day. Justin and I had a nice, romantic date at Real Seafood (because there's nothing more hilarious than bringing my shrimp-allergic boyfriend to seafood restaurants) and walked around Ann Arbor enjoying the weather. Then we headed over to La Dolce Vita to indulge in what can only be considered a wildly inappropriately decadent tort. Friday was a moment of sublime kismet for me because eating outside is what saved me from having the "oh crap" moment when I got home and hadn't done anything. I'd seen sky advertising in the form of banners behind planes, but not skywriting. In honor of gameday the next morning, a plane flew overhead and produced the Michigan M while we were at dinner. In addition to being epic, and something I'd never seen before, it caused a noticeable number of people to begin chanting the fight song. I will admit that, sans project, I would never have been where I am or gotten to see the epic kick-assery that was the skywriting. So, that rocked.
Day 241 - Get my Palm Read
Date: September 4th, 2010
I expected this day to be something worth writing about at length and in detail, like the other learning moments with the numerologist and the tarot reading. It was not. The lady didn't really know thing one about what she was doing and she claimed there were lines on my hands that were rather conspicuously absent. I still want a palm reading at some point to see what unusual insights exist within that discipline. Hopefully it will be by someone who takes the time to look at my hand first next time.
Day 242 - Watch an Outdoor Play
Date: September 5th, 2010
One of the things that has been simply unacceptable about my time in Ann Arbor is that I never saw Shakespeare in the Arb. I've had many friends who have passed through the cast of the various shows and I've seen amazing pictures of the actors and actresses involved, and yet I was either not in Ann Arbor during the summer or I was too busy to see it. The thing of the day was going to be something completely different, since Hop is now back from Korea, but when Justin, Hop and I stumbled onto the play in the Arb, we simply couldn't resist the chance to stop and appreciate it. The show was lovely and I was impressed at how well they used the space around them (since they weren't confined to a single stage). I was singularly unimpressed by the lack of *ahem* facilities. Granted I should've known that, since we were going to an arboretum, but I choose to be righteously indignant anyway.
Day 243 - Burst Out Singing in Public
Date: September 6th, 2010
Despite the project lull I've been incredibly happy for the last month or so. I've come to wonder if that's part of the reason why there is a project lull in the first place, actually. My daily life is so perfectly lovely right now that I don't see much reason to get out there and find purpose in newness. I am, however, more stubborn than a mule on Sunday; so I darn well will succeed at this project. Luckily, since I made the rules, I long ago decided that things that happen by accident or that I realize are new after the fact, like, totally count. That's why, as I sat across a table at TGI Friday's right Justin, belting out tunes on the radio, I realized that my usual walls weren't up in place and decided this was the sort of thing I want to stop and notice. Last time someone brought up singing with me, my response was that my voice could cause small children to pop their own ear drums just to stop the pain. The delightful and wonderfully new experience was that I didn't care about how terribly terribly off key I was. The song was good, the company was better and gosh darnit I felt like singing.
Day 244 - Freeze off a Wart
Date: September 7th, 2010
Gross. Also painful.
Day 245 - Win the Wiki Game
Date: September 8th, 2010
This. Its the most amazing time waster in the history of man. Compete with random strangers to see who has the better understanding of the interconnectedness of the world. I stumbled onto it out of boredom and instead found a delightfully random look at all sorts of things I never thought about before. It was also a day that I made a point to actively go do something for my project instead of accepting experiences that came to me. Though allowable, they aren't really the main point of the project, for me; which is to live with more purpose on a daily basis.
Day 246 - Train Someone at Work
Date: September 9th, 2010
I love my job. No, seriously. I honestly, truly, completely and seriously love my job. I missed it while I was on vacation. I know this seems like kiss-assery... and it would be if anyone from work read this blog. But they don't so its not. The point is that I didn't remember until last week that I was once completely green and utterly petrified about talking to clients. One of my boss's asked me to train one of the new interns on how to deal with clients on the phone and I found myself back where I was at the beginning of the summer. I remember being scared and convinced that I was going to miss something. It was a good refresher - that fear keeps you on your toes and it really is easy to make a mistake. Training the new intern reminded me why its so important to ask as many questions as possible -- you never know when a legal issue will pop up and people who don't have legal training don't always know to ask what their rights are. Also, training someone made me feel smart.
Day 247 - Send a Message in Morse Code
Date: September 10th, 2010
I found an website that would translate anything you wanted into Morse Code so you could hear what it would sound like to receive it as a message. I tried to do it manually and found the spacing surprisingly difficult. Not having the code memorized meant almost certain death to the message because the only way to indicate punctuation is to just wait to start the next word or sentence. I did my best to send a stilted message over the interwebs and then gave up and sent an S.O.S. which I found surprisingly amusing. It was an odd day. I also wrote a brief little lovey-dovey so-cute-I'm-gonna-puke kind of note to Justin and played it through the Morse Code generator. It... took most of the romance out of it.
Day 248 - Buy Something on eBay
Date: September 11th, 2010
The only thing particularly unexpected about the eBay buy was the adrenaline rush that came from getting my bid in at only 30 seconds left in the auction. Also, I got a pocket watch for $0.02. I know, I know, decadent. I will say that I could see myself getting hooked on eBay auctions - finding deals and ninja-ing bids in at the last second. Other than that, well, I bought something on the internet. Throw me a parade.
Day 249 - Eat at BTB
Date: September 12th, 2010
Two things about Big Ten Burrito. The first is that its where Ben and Lisa had their first date. As the official matchmaker (I take full and complete credit for everything good they do as a couple for the rest of their lives), I really should have eaten there sometime before the wedding. Just like no one should be in Ann Arbor more than two-three years without eating at the Fleetwood. The second thing about BTB is that Justin has been wanting to eat there since we started dating-ish back in May. Since then we've hung out almost every weekend and not gotten it. Part of me wanted to see how long we could keep that streak going, but I decided instead to indulge and having myself a quesadilla. Its the blandest, most amazing Mexican meal ever. So Justin got his two pound burrito. I got my quesadilla. And arguably the last acceptable restaurant stop (other than maybe Medieval Times) has been officially added to the list.
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So that's the last ten days of my life. I hope you enjoyed them. I know I did. As fall and winter near, I anticipate significantly more epic days ahead. Only 115 days left. I'm excited, I'm nervous and I have an ever growing desire to succeed. So, a toast to newness. It may be good, it may be bad, it may even be boring - but its always new.
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