premeditated blatherings

I wrote this a while ago. It's been collecting dust... maybe from June? May? Early July? A few weeks ago? No bloody idea.

Tonight: Been writing other things on my balcony for hours by the glow of my laptop while drinking Malbec out of the world's cheapest wine glass (*white wine glass, because je suis idiote), so I figured I'd save blathery stream of consciousness writing and just post this old stream of consciousness that never saw the light of day.

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Drunk on meeting people…

always the anxiety of not meeting the right person, or meeting someone and being anxious and wondering if they’re the right person. Because even if you’re supposed to just know and feel that they’re 'right'… does this still apply to people like me who have profoundly overactive imaginations? I’ve had an overactive imagination since I was a fetus. Am I living a delusional life because of this? Do I really have everything that I want within my grasp, and I’m just making myself frustrated because of my own stubborn personality traits? Or am I a passionate person whose frustration is a symptom of the fact that I haven’t found what I need yet (or perhaps passion is the thing that makes you constantly a-flutter, constantly frustrated and chaotic and questioning. This is my fear. That this IS the life of passion and wanting more… is that you do actually want more from your mind, your habits, your inner self. All the damn time. It’s exhausting, but to be honest, that’s where I get most of my ideas and momentum)

I was dating someone about two years ago who put it to me in terms that I almost could not tolerate. We met up at the Dark Horse for a beer… oh, it lives up to its name…a seedy, dark college bar with kind of a creepy nuance and sticky tables. It was February, and the parking lot was an oasis of sludge and black ice. I could barely sit still, I was so worked up about something… practically knawing on the side of the table. We tried to remedy my conundrum. “Explain it to me,” he said, “I’ll help you put a name to your problem”. So I listed my symptoms: agitated, flighty at work and with relationships, want something in my life very deeply that I couldn't put a name to. Unsure of whether or not to stay or to fly… lacking a certain meaning or goal that I couldn't clearly identify, either. Felt a little manic about the insecurities that come with putting down little tiny roots in a place that I’m unsure about rooting in.

I looked at him, confident that my complex mind would exasperate (and then stump) him.

He cocked one eyebrow at me while he sipped his beer.

Then, without an iota of hesitation, he simply said, “it sounds like you’re bored” and wiped the foam from the side of his beard.

What?!

I felt like he’d hit me in the gut. Bored?! Me, Jane Kathryn, whose mind wakes her up at 4am, who showers sometimes just to listen to the ticking of her internal monologue as it goes through its life lists, who has an epiphany or a new project every hour, on the hour?! Bored?!? Jane Kathryn, the video producer with pens in her hair, talent to direct, pretzels to buy to feed her crew every 15 minutes, lest they starve?! BORED?!??! Ms. 'I Did Improv and Stand Up Comedy On Spontaneous Whims for Seven Years just for KICKS and Not For Purposes of Self-Torture"?!?

Shit. I thought. Maybe he’s right.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was exactly the same feeling as the disappointment when you’re sick… miserably achy, hot, it feels like the world is ending between your knees and your neck … and you pop the thermometer in your mouth just to discover that you don’t even have a fever. Life is so much more fun to milk when there’s something sexy to proclaim, like ‘typhoid fever’… having to tell someone that you just have a cold takes all the fun out of being miserable.

And that’s what he did, right then… he took the fun out of the incredible complex throes of my complicated emotion by suggesting that I was simply bored.

Well, I’ve done a lot of thinking since that fateful winter, and I think that bastard was on to something.

Bored doesn’t have to mean that you’re lazy. Bored doesn’t mean you’re not challenging yourself, or that you’re letting yourself go, or that you don’t MIND being bored. It doesn't even matter if you're tortured by the mere thought of being bored.

But it does mean that your brain is craving something bigger and better than where you are. It can mean that you’re letting yourself circle the drain in some ways, even if it’s just to gauge how much it really sucks (sorry for the pun). But bored is not good. Bored is a desk job with no real potential, bored is a treadmill that’s not moving fast enough. Bored is settling for circumstances that aren’t fulfilling you as an individual.

Bored is not ok.
I keep seeking the scarier option in an attempt to slay bored. And despite all the heartache, all the thrills and raised eyebrows and blind turns, I think bored is the hell that I need to keep avoiding, no matter how much energy or nerves or heartache it takes to stay ahead of that two-headed doberman pinscher of a fate.

**author's note: at this point in the essay, our brave heroine grew bored and wandered away.

-Mae West

post script

(Startling epiphany of the evening... hearing the Dave Matthews song "I'll Back You Up" and realizing that I'd forgotten that Dave Matthews existed. And I'd also forgotten the fact that I made a breakup mix when I was 19 and devastated and REALLY far from home, and used to listen to that track every single night for about two weeks to get myself to sleep).
It's SO weird, these moments where you suddenly feel like a teenager again, but living this close to family and old friends and old memories... it's inevitable. I occasionally drive past memories of first kisses, the first time driving a standard transmission, first day of high school, public pools in the summer and neighborhood butcher shops at Thanksgiving... and it's trippy... it makes me journal these weird, angsty, John Huges posts... and that's the way it goes.

It's 1am.
Why do I do this to myself?
Work is never going to call and say, "by the way, just start at 11 tomorrow, that's cool, stay up until 3 again..." :)

But damn...
I just remembered that they play the Cosby show after 1am...

this post script is not juicy.
if it doesn't contain gossip, a great joke or an admission of deep and burning love, post scripts should probably not happen.

when the night has come, and the land is dark...

Lights off. All of them, except the floor lamp by the window that overlooks the parking lot.
Slippers on feet, phone quiet except for the occasional buzz of texts from a weary friend who's just getting out of work. Eyes tired and hair in a crazy conundrum of bobby pins and a pencil that I don't remember owning.

Intro... one of the best intros of all time...
bass line. triangle. a brief percussive whisk every measure on the 2nd beat.
Followed by Ben E. King's voice.
When the night! Has come! And the land is dark. And the moon is the only light we'll see.
No I won't be afraid. No Iiiiiiiiii won't be afraid. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.
the triangle becomes a little more courageous. Then the violins. And then, like magic, the "ooo" of the backup singers.
Stand by me. Stand by me.
If the sky that we look upon. Should tumble and fall. Or the mountains should crumble to the sea...
I won't cry. I won't cry. No Iiiiiiiii won't shed a tear. Just as long. As you stand. Stand by me.

Across the parking lot, a puppy 'yips' and a balcony full of young voices laughs. A beer is opened. Next door, the blue flicker of television in a dark apartment where a guy lives alone (he wears black cowboy boots, and looks a little like Jeff Goldblum...)

violin solo comes to a close
Darling, Darling, stand. By me. Ohhhhh stand by me. Oh stand now. Stand by me. Stand by me.
Whenever you're in trouble, won't you stand by me, ohhhhh stand by me...

posting at the end of the day usually means crashing energy and lots of alone time; resulting in less-than-chipper posts. If I wrote at the beginning of every day, I would leave a much cheerier impression.

However, this is the nature of journaling.

A brief portrait of recent things...

Friday:
1. the rain came. completely drastic cold snap, pouring rain, had to turn the heat on in the car and put on fingerless gloves to type when I got to work really early.

2. late Friday morning, a funeral for a friend of the family. She was only 45. The memorial service was heartbreaking. One of the most heartbreaking moments ever.

3. After the funeral, drove home through country roads alone and upset, got stuck in construction traffic two blocks from my house. Construction guy screwed up with where he was trying to direct me, and embarrassed about his mistake, he yelled at me... something along the lines of "get the hell over to the next lane". Then the window wipers pushed the rain off my windshield and he saw how upset I was. He gave me a super apologetic look and mouthed the words "my mistake" about the lane misunderstanding, which was nice. When it was my turn to go, I passed about 5 other construction workers... the last one was on the walkie talkie with guy #1, and as I passed him, he nodded his head and gave me the kindest wave. It seemed like the first guy had just asked him to do something nice. It's funny... you go into certain events with definite expectations of what they'll be like, and what you will remember about that day. But looking back on Friday's events, I will always remember someone at the funeral standing alone, with hair poking up in the back like a little boy's and a perfectly pressed suit, and then I will remember my teeth chattering in the rain on the drive home, and the kind wave of two construction workers. You really can't plan the cinematic moments in life. They just happen to you when you're least in the mood to experience them.

4. When I thought my drama was over for the day, I pulled over at home to get a sweater and try to get myself together before heading back to the office. I was annoyed when I heard the sound of someone's television blasting into my apartment-- it sounded like the women's finals in tennis... those ungodly half-grunt, half-screams. The sound went on and on, and finally, I stormed over to the window, sick and tired of getting noise from the apartment below mine this summer. Peeking out, I saw someone lying in the parking lot. Under, or next to, a FedEx truck. The blood left my face so fast, it's amazing I didn't faint... it looked like a woman was pinned under a huge delivery truck, screaming her brains out.
Then I heard a strange thing-- someone standing next to her, sounding annoyed: "well, what do you want? Do you WANT me to call an ambulance? Just tell me what you want."
The f***???
I ran downstairs, cell phone in hand, into the pouring rain. A fed ex delivery woman had been running back to her truck, slipped on the drenched curb, and dislocated her shoulder badly. She was in an incredible amount of pain. My neighbor was on the phone... with fed ex, as I found out, and NOT 911... oh lord. It felt like hours before I managed to get the story straight, ensure that help was on the way, try to figure out how and what to say to someone who was literally almost losing her mind with pain if she moved even half an inch.

The rain fell and fell and fell, and I watched her carefully to make sure that she was staying awake and as coherent as possible, and I kept saying maternal, empty promises like "they're almost here, they're almost here, I can hear sirens almost" and tried to say anything helpful... and then the fire truck and the ambulance came and I just headed back out of the rain, dazed and confused by one of the all-time weirdest days ever.

5. Spent the weekend relaxing, spent a LOT of time alone, just thinking and not thinking and trying to catch up on the frenetic energy that's been spent lately.

6. Except for the part where Thad and I had a drunken wrestling match on his kitchen floor as Meredith and Tom cheered us on (or groaned, horrified what nerds we are. Maybe both.) It's been at least 10 years since someone flipped me over their head. It's Monday night, and I still have linoleum burns on my knees, bruises under my ribs, and really sore pec muscles. I start laughing every time I think about it... the last thing I remember saying was "Tom, anyone in this room would wrestle each other for your love, because we all love you" and then tossing back another sip of red wine before Thad-- the human gust of wind-- was pushing my face in the cat bowl. Oh... god... what would I do without these three....

7. I have found the best cup of coffee in Colorado. Ironically, it's just the dark roast drip coffee at Ziggy's in Longmont. It makes me want to be a better person... oh man. It's good.

8. I'm making a couple of mix cds... Meredith's mix that I put on my ipod for her bday, Thad's mix that I've been working on for MONTHS, and a mix for Lance that has strangely morphed into sort of a vintage classics piece. Some latin, some jazz, a little Velvet Underground, Etta James, Ben E. King's "Stand By Me"... I love making mixes, but I'm perplexed by how each one takes on a life of its own (and I'm forced to put songs on people's mixes that I don't even necessarily want to at the time... it's like being hypnotized or something)

9. Portrait of a Monday: went to work. thought very deep thoughts. made the world's worst pot of coffee-- it's like I'm drunk or something when I try to make coffee at work. Barrista for 8 months, can't even fake it in our kitchen downstairs... it's really weird. Came home, ate shite for dinner, Fatal Attraction was on AMC (why?! Why did I watch 75% of it?! Being eccentric has its toll)... watched some olympics and worked on my mix cds... strangled iTunes when it stopped playing songs, and had to spend the next two hours reading forums online and re-installing shite...

10. exhausted. To bed, then to work, then hopefully out for a run, then a cello practice for wedding #3, then vino with Lancer as we sit next to big open windows that smell like summer, then Troy's wedding that Robin and I are filming, and finding a new job, and endless hours of resume-tailoring and putting stamps on envelopes...

11. I. Love. Summer.

12. And I love babbling into my laptop until I can't even think straight as a means of unwinding and then passing out in my awesomely comfortable tree bed.

ain't no sunshine when she's gone,

the vintage mix girl

chilean red and hues of a blue heart

Nothing profound to report...

Decided that a bad day gave me permission to break my own rules, so I'm drinking red wine alone in my apartment while watching the Olympics. After much, much thought, I decided to contribute my own symbolic refusal to watch the Beijing ceremonies... but last night I got home feeling low despite having a lovely day of watching birthday partying friends celebrate sweet Meredith's 26th while drinking bourbon and eating cake and all the loveliness that comes with birthday parties... after tracking down our friend who never showed at the party and nearly having a heart attack when I thought he was *completely* missing (still as maternal and paranoid as ever, Jane the Wonder Freak), nothing sounded more necessary than watching swimming. I figured, as long as I cheated, I might as well just give in again tonight... because I'm the only who knows and/or cares if I watch the games, anyway.

The swimming was amazing both nights. Michael Phelps, who in the fresh hell are you? Where did you come from? Did robots construct your arms? Are your legs made out of jets?

I must admit that I was *completely* turned off by the men's relay team last night as they were interviewed (and who is this blonde reporter with her blue polo shirt, huge mic, and the world's WORST questions? Oh. She makes my soul hurt. Shouldn't there be some kind of decision making process that goes into interviewing first-place olympic athletes when you've got millions of viewers and thousands of cameras watching you?) Anyhoo. The men's relay team responded to questions about potential trash talking by saying something like, "those Frenchies were talking smack, but we knew we'd blow them out of the water..."... I'm sorry... but... Frenchies? You jocks. And whoever it was who said that was the one who looked all around the pool to see where the cameras were before making his "we just won first place by less than the length of a fingertip" face. GROSS.
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Hmm. Took a 20 minute break just now to watch gymnastics on mute while drinking a 2nd glass of red wine and talking to Lancer.
Feel much less snarky.
I take back everything I just said... and I raise my glass to you, gold-medal-winning swimmers. Just try not to prove all the American stereotypes right overseas, ok, boys?

Plans for star-watching tomorrow night because it's the peak of the Perseids meteor shower, and I'll be damned if a year ever goes by when I miss it... sigh... nature really needs to take over my entire night and make me forget all the snark and disappointment and sadness and frustration and other feelings-- good and bad-- that come with the privilege of being a thinking (and, currently, over-thinking) human bean. I just want to feel small and in awe of the bigger picture of the night sky and friendship and summer and the universe's great, unexplained expanse and motion.

I got out of work feeling really unlike myself. On the brink of tears and helpless to big feelings that surfaced yesterday while sitting on a stone wall watching kindred friends interact and absent-mindedly getting mustard out of my party dress that a sweet tiny baby left for me as a present (or a sacrifice to my cleavage-- either way, good aim, tiny baby). Stayed up late last night watching the thunderstorm, followed by dark nightmares about men with ponytails getting out of vans and chasing me around the neighborhood where I lived when I was really little. Woke up terrified and-- as always-- almost certain that the ponytailed man was actually in my apartment. Actually sat up in bed, sweaty and crazy-haired, to say, "is anyone here?" What kind of horror movies have I been watching that this particular plan seemed like a good idea?

So. Long day at work, too many thoughts, and then I found myself getting totally scammed at an Oil Can Henry's in Longmont (why?! Why did I go there?!? to get my money stolen by a couple of 15 year old punks in bow ties)... when my mom called to say that their next door neighbor passed away from cancer at her home this morning. Oh, I feel so sad. I showed up at my parents' house and my heart broke before I could even get out of the car. Sat in the car on the way home just watching the sunset and thinking thoughts without judging them... deep-down thoughts, like how wonderful and meaningful it is to be alive and capable of thinking, reason, judgment and love, but real loss and real suffering do make life almost not worth living sometimes. And what a profoundly complicated thing it is to be alive, and to lose someone or to be lost yourself. Literature and film keep feeding that part of us that answers and asks some of those scary questions, but tonight, I found a lot of dark and important questions in the salmon-colored, mushroom-shaped clouds that collided with the front range. I think I will remember today for a long, long time.

After cracking open my Chilean wine, I was watching swimming and just feeling numb. Maybe tired, maybe emotional, maybe just out of energy to feel things, but I was completely staring at the events... the women's backstroke, the men's backstroke, 100 meters, 200 meter, they kept coming and they were so appropriately brief. I realized that I was almost tolerating the majority of the race-- the bird's eye view where it's all splashing arms, heaving water, commentators yelling into the mics, the roar of the crowd. But then there's that agonizingly brief shot of the swimmers from the bottom of the pool-- and I realized that I was completely sinking into the back of the couch every time they switched to the shot from below. The motion of the bodies underwater is breathtaking... each swimmer's body has the most amazing muscles, and the streamlined suits silhouetted against the bright lights... the women looked like mermaids, or seals, or waves. I felt stoned each time-- my inner monologue just automatically tried to come up with the right adjective for how those amazing movements looked. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was such a word-less, natural, incredible motion and expression of being a living part of this world... part of physics, gravity, motion, buoyancy.
Mmm. I do sound stoned. But I'm not... it just really moved me. I wonder if I can watch any of the swimming events a second time, all from under water?

This wine is such a dark red color, and the pool through my glass looked so aquamarine. I was thinking about the red and blue bruises that form when something hits you hard... the red and blue qualities of blood, depending on whether you are looking at it from above the vein, or within the vein (are you watching them swim from above the pool, or below)... the purpley-red and blue chambers of the plastic hearts that they show you in science class. I hold the glass to my nose and smell deeply... the red wine plunges into my blue veins... red embers of peppery, tanic scents flood into my blue and red heart, bruised slightly, like a mis-shappen plum. The red and the blue of the pool, and the swim caps, and the French, American, Australian flags competing for first place in the women's 200m race.

Swimming in colors, I will finish my glass and head to bed.
Tomorrow is a new day. With shooting stars, open skies, new thoughts, deeper understandings.

I will watch the stars skip across the sky and feel grateful for a lot of things... remembering Carl Sagan, who illuminated this great universe to me at a young age, and to Mr. Rogers, who gave me permission to feel things other than being happy, as long as I learned to find peace with my emotions one way or the other before being tucked into bed for the night...

golden sunsets, longmont sunrises

Longest busy stretch ever.

If I'm too busy to write-- at all, even on the down-low-- for my own self, then life is craaaazy. And it has been since the beginning of June. It's mysterious, a little perplexing, a ton of fun, and something that was one part purely intentional, one part excellent coincidental timing, and three parts hot summer nights that promise mischief and deep thoughts and cold bottles of beer.

Here's a photo of the sunset in Golden last night ... followed by a photo of the beautiful sunset clouds and me rubbing my butt where Thad had just won our butt-kicking contest. (both photos courtesy of Erik J., who was nice enough to be my photographer when I made whiny dolphin/Lassie noises because my camera was out of juice, and banished on my counter at home.)

*For the record, Thad's pretty damn good at ass-kicking contests. His giggles don't affect his performance as much as mine do... and he also has a much swifter foot-to-cheek delivery. My leg goes out at too much of an angle or something.


So... YES! The summer of going to bed after 2 am at LEAST three nights a week, if not four or five nights. The summer of getting my legs eaten alive by mosquitos and spiders... without even camping... summer of absolutely tedious work days and ENDLESS nights / weekends / early mornings filled with painful producer shoes and shoots with impatient parents and whiny, coddled little children. Er...and nice parents and AWESOME children, too. Those families are just less apt to jump to my mind first after THREE MONTHS of endless video shoots for this project. I'm so over shoots... unless the beaurocratic powers that be make me replace my perfectly wonderful families with a 15 year old hippie with triplets or something, we're done with shoots for the project I've been working on all year (fingers crossed fingers crossed). Before this, the most Mini DVs I ever shot (of new footage, specific for one program) were 5-6. We just finished tape #32 for this project. That's over 32 HOURS of footage to organize, edit... 32 hours of families who had to be cast, directed, bargained with, paid, fed... see? This has turned into some kind of weird work rant. I'm exhausted, and I really need some days off before I lose my mind. :)

Also of note:
1. The mysterious return of the G.I. Joe Invasion... however, this time around I'm less frazzled about it because I figure, hey... if my appendix isn't going to explode and I don't have ulcers, I can deal with mysterious sharp pains and just take myself out for a glass of wine after work. This is the life and wisdom of Dr. Jane, Medicine Idiot. Perhaps this is more of a metaphoric pain... not so much a 'cyst' situation as it is my body's strong psychological reaction to having to watch so many hormonal new mothers with their tiny babies 40-50 hrs a week, when really, at the moment I'm just a bachelorette out painting the town red and being irresponsible. Maybe my SOUL is hurting at the thought of watching such responsible domestic footage all day when I could be out bowling in high heels with friends and pitchers of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Ah! That must be it. Kidneys be damned.

2. Adventures with Edi and Lance: the awesomeness of July. Including: Mer & Jane's 2am cello rehearsals for 2 solid months... mountain adventures... plans for an amazing features piece of 'what are you doing right now'... synchronized swimming parties in the hot tub... going to see Matson Jones and getting all misty-eyed that we're all kind of grown-ups now, and Anna's going to be more famous than Madonna... Also, Lance & Jane's amazing ability to be spontaneous: cheap, sweltering Rockies games with margaritas and stand-up comedy on the bus ride home; philosophy discussions on the golf course and golf lessons in the kitchen; watching naked neighbors fold laundry one sock at a time for an eternity; sitting in chairs watching life happen on a sleepy downtown street below... learning about everything from toe injuries to the importance of venting with fellow only children about the stigma that society places on us.


3. The list is the best thing ever. Let's review!!!
A compilation of my various lists from the past two months...

> New additions to the list (tm) including: a secret that I'll have to figure out how to write in code to myself... still working on this one, but it's going GREAT! Will return to this another time.

cantering while in an *English saddle*... yes, East coasters, I've only cantered with a Western saddle... haven't done anything horse-related this summer except watch GORGEOUS horses in the Boulder County Fair parade this morning in Longmont...

improve vocabulary for quickfire comebacks... found coffee shop that has AMAZING coffee and a word of the day. Often know the meaning of the word of the day already. Ego is boosted, vocab pretty much remains the same

write letters to people who have said or done *very* meaningful things that I would like to acknowledge them for-- including Mer & my cello teacher Maggie, haven't written to Maggie, but I'm drafting it... my uncle who I don't really know, and the author of Bridge to Terabithia...learn an easier way to do the 'inside/outside' cable wrapping with mile-long extension cords and XLR cables.slowly getting better. It's a misnomer, I discovered. It's more of a 'top coil, bottom coil' method.

1. babysit Suri Cruise (seriously. I had the most incredible dream about babys [editors note: this was supposed to end with babys-"itting Suri Cruise". Because I did have an incredible dream about babysitting Suri Cruise. Somehow, this post was left... how shall we say... incomplete, due to the distracting powers of whiskey & cello duets, and lying on the floor giggling to death with Mer as we left long, LONG music messages for a poor unsuspecting victim. The author apologizes for any typos and/or ridiculous sentiments left here on this post a few days ago.] despite being a bit boozy when I originally wrote this, I would like to put "babysit Suri Cruise" back into consideration. I have some things I need to ask this chick before I feel comfortable with the state of Hollywood in the 21st Century

2. take old fashioned photos of ourselves out in a field with our cellos when we have more than two photos left in the old fashioned camera oh yeah! I should find the first two from Mer... scan them and put them online... they're really cute

3. buy a perfume to smell lovely on a subconscious level when meeting new people (one that doesn't reek as much as the atrocity that I just dumped on myself... while eating donuts and jameson) hmm. Ok. Still must find something that smells delicious to slather myself with, so I feel all 1940s and decadent...

4. sing 'for the beauty of the earth' with meredith on a golf course at midnight...without getting past the first three words and falling over giggling and calling it quits not on a golf course, but we DID sing it in the echo-y foyer of my parents' house after the most stressful wedding music afternoon EVER, and so I say: check. Random fact: the wedding weekend was so hot, chaotic and stressful that I lost SIX POUNDS between Friday night and Monday morning. It was kind of awesome.

5. RED HAIR. That I don't have to commit to for a year. Red, little orphan Annie, incredible hair. ok girl, don't yell. I will do red hair for fall. And then go back to ever being a boring regular-hair-color school marm like I always have.

And the original list:
1. swimming tomorrow at 7am fell off the wagon with this. didn't swim at all this summer.. I've just been jogging (and note to self: NEVER jog at night again. Three times with terror running through my veins that I'm going to be eaten by a bear or an escaped prisoner are enough)
2. possibly bringing back the Asian aesthetic of the parasol this summer in an effort to get to fall without a single serious sunburn bzzzt. I have so many weird tan lines, I look like a tiger
3. hikes... Rocky Mtn. National park, Sanitas, the grasslands, everywhere planning some fun ones now!
4. go white water rafting for the first time oops. missed the season for that one. but found a white water rafting buddy, so that's good too
5. find a new job. STAT. regardless of what 9 News may or may not (FINALLY) tell me this week via email three minutes after the 10pm newscast has ended yeah. um, this item of the list has been turning my hair gray for months and months and months. back to the fun stuff before I cry.
6. once I have found my new dream job-- figure out a stable schedule
7. once I have a stable schedule, become a Big Sister, or another youth mentorship program
still planning to do more Nurturing Program work in the fall... can't wait...
8. call the therapeutic riding center and ask them if they still need summer volunteers for the youth with disabilities camp hasn't happened...
9. read absolutely everything about twins. Twins blow my mind. My obsession with twins will never end, and maybe if I read up on them now, I will have the psychic ability to will myself to have twins in my early 30s when I will be married to LeVar Burton and living happily as a documentary producer and fiction writer. mission accomplished! I've learned the difference between fraternal and identical, and had an amazing conversation with Chrissy Stewart about her terrifying surgery she had to go through to save her twins while she was pregant... and I've met at least two new twins this summer and kind of picked their brains... twins are just awesome. Nature is incredible. Multiples should be the next planet earth subject... I mean... seriously. It just blows my mind. Two amniotic sacs-- it's like a science fiction movie!
10. write my buns off until I have something that I would actually have the avacados to try to publish. AUGUST. Taking a couple of days off just to write and re-examine my priorities soon. Slapping my wrist that I've been so bad all month with work and running around (but picked up lots of inspiration this summer, and new ideas of things I want to write...)

11. #10 again, because it's one of the most important things I've decided all year.
12. watch the Cosmos series again front to back, mostly over at my parents' because dad can tell me what research was updated since Carl Sagan's death Went to see Eddie Izzard last week (AMAZING!!!) and his opening line-- "why didn't God start the Bible with, 'So the Earth is round..." turns out to be a Carl quote. Awwww.

13. watch all the Sopranos episodes that I missed all those years at school
14. learn how to properly chop vegetables, instead of the for-crap way that I taught myself in my bachelorette pad
15. make a mystery video, a personal project video, and "what are you doing right now?" before end of July. video projects-- A+. Working on the secret video now, did a Terminator spoof video with Beth that was shown at Mile High Sci-Fi's Terminator show last week (on YouTube soon? I'll put the link up)... also made a top-secret video involving tiny toy cars and three disgruntled overtime employees... also filmed some driving around in the mountains with Meredith.

16. learn Elgar's cello concerto with Maggie, my spiritual advisor since 8th grade
17. learn guitar, instead of the crap self-taught guitar I've picked up while poorly chopping vegetables have started! will conquer!

18. write an original song for guitar, cello, and piano... and memorize all three parts in case this ever becomes a desirable skill and my country calls upon me for service
19. write letters to Canada because I'm a terrible person and I never send lovely typewriter-drafted notes on vintage magazine ads like Steve has for years

20. go on a ride-along with the Longmont Police Program YES!!!! It was amazing!!! Thursday from 1:30pm to 10pm, had the option to stay with another officer until 4 or 5am... too tired to write the entire experience out now, but it will be coming soon. Actually, it will also be up on dad's website soon. God, I love the list. :)

21. speak with someone from the Reading Rainbow production company and Sesame Workshops to talk about what experience I actually need to get there, as opposed to the experience I'm pretending I'll need have done MUCH thinking on this subject, but it was not the right time... with luck, I'll have the moxie to do it soon

22. do something that scares me at least once every two weeks CHECK

23. take a winter driving course
24. interview a dog expert to see how I can overcome my fear of scary dogs (or at least how to get a dog to stop attacking me if it were to ever happen) have also looked into this. May simply read pack-mentality dog essays and dog-trainer books to get a less hands-on approach. However, discovered a dog expert on Google named Jane. I kind of want to have a long back-and-forth with her about scary dogs... it would be like an existential "teaching yourself the things you already know" kind of moment
25. write a heartfelt hand-written letter to the people at This American Life who discussed their employment opportunities to me

26. learn Thriller. The entire thing. Well enough to do it drunk in a bar surrounded by strangers. oh yeah! forgot about this one. Will return to it.

27. audition for at least one more comedy group / project / improv troupe / standup gig Mile High Sci Fi! Check. Will be writing with them as soon as next week. Very endearingly dorky and fun idea

28. learn how to paint, and take a figure drawing class
29. possibly take a calligraphy class in Boulder from Marlow Brooks
30. take some kind of dance class. Preferably something fun, where I won't look like an idiot. not so much. Although I did take Meredith to a wedding where she met a sexy Tango dancer. So I consider this one to be a check mark.

31. go out in Denver as much as possible during the convention, and have at least one beer with an interesting politician who wants to tell me about checks and balances in more detail than I currently understand on second thought... the recreate 68 *ssholes make that way less fun and manageable than I'm in the mood for.

32. buy a new computer and set up my first at-home edit bay check! have borrowed one. looking into maybe buying a gently used mac.

33. someday: buy my own video camera seriously. it's becoming essential.

34: someday: also buy a second pair of tall high heels. they make me feel like a 1950s jazz singer, and it's absolutely worth feeling 10' tall to feel like that when I leave the apartment.

speaking of number 20...
I filled out the Ride-Along application for the Police Department this morning, and it has the craziest clauses. "Observers shall not converse with prisoners, suspects, witnesses..." "Observers shall not participate in any police activity unless specifically directed by officers" ... "No handcuffs or weapons are permitted"... "you voluntarily assume the risk of death or personal injury from the use of vehicles, weapons, unlawful acts, forcible resistance by law violators, fire, explosion, gas, electrocution, or injury in any other way..."

I'm totally excited. I scratched out the day shift and am now requesting the night shift. I really want to learn more about how law enforcement works, what part it plays in society, what it's like for people on the offender's side, how our society really works, and what the ugly side of it is that I only peek at when it's convenient for me. I want to get jury duty soon, too. I also have an itch to vote soon. did I mention that I completed this one??! It was awesome. I still have pants that smell like jail. Yeah... I was in every holding cell in Boulder County at least twice, and a man covered in blood asked me for my phone number. I know how to use a SWAT gun and what code means "distempered raccoon" when we originally thought we were racing to a "stabbing-- possible homicide". I'm so excited for this post...

I will also update my new list items soon.
Here's to the weekend... *clink*