Twittering in an elevator

Well, the big recurring theme of my weekend at BlissDom 09 is Twitter. Apparently, I am ridiculously behind in the blogging world because I don't have a twitter account. And I have to sign up for one right away. It's a great way to build relationships with other bloggers and gain exposure. Or something like that.

I'll be honest, I just didn't get it. So...it asks the question "What are you doing now?" and you post mini entries. Should anyone care what I'm doing at any given moment? Does anyone really want to read:
I'm going to work
I'm going to the gym
I'm balancing a bowl of soup on my lap while checking my email and watching "Two and a Half Men"
Now I'm packing my lunch and gym bag for tomorrow
I'm going to bed
That certainly doesn't seem to hold any appeal. Or how about my days off:
I'm doing laundry
I'm cleaning the bathroom
I'm doing dishes
I'm going grocery shopping
I'm going to the bank
I'm going to the gym for an extra long workout
I'm pretty sure I'd lose readers from that.

But I figured, "Hey, I'll give it a try. I'll sign up for an account. I'll twitter for a while and see what comes." I haven't done it yet.

And tonight, something happened and I TOTALLY got it.

Tonight, I got stuck in an elevator with a gaggle of twittering bloggers. (I believe that gaggle IS the correct word) We pushed the emergency button to call the front desk, but there was no answer. So, the Blackberries and iphones came out. Within moments, the front desk was calling us. There were updates. And jokes. We got tips from The Worst Case Scenerio website. We were named "the elevator 13". (ok, the elevator DID have a sign that said "Limit 7 people." But we didn't see that until after the elevator violently stopped. And we were under the weight limit. We went around and added up our weights to be sure) By the time we emerged from the elevator (around 40 minutes later) a crowd of well-wishers had gathered to cheer for the elevator 13.

So now I'm off to set up a twitter account.

BlissDom

One of the tools of The Artist's Way is something called and "artist date". The idea being that just as you need to carve out time in your life to nurture a new relationship (a date) you also need to carve out time in your life to nurture creativity (an artist date). Just like more conventional dates, they can take many forms from staying in and renting a movie, going for a walk, trying a different restaurant, or more extravagant measures, like going to a museum or on a trip.

This weekend, I am on THE extravagant artist date: Blissdom 09. At first, the idea of a blogging conference seemed a bit strange to me, I'll admit. Isn't blogging something we all do at 11:30 at night before bed, writing about something and then checking up on all our blog buddies? I mean, there aren't tooth-brushing conferences or packing-tomorrow's-lunch conferences, why that other nightly ritual that happens to involve a computer. But then, I figured, I've never been to Nashville, and I wanted to hear Jen Lancaster speak. So my giant artist's date came to be.

Day one is down, and I'm soo happy I came! For some, like me, blogging is that thing we do before we go to bed. But for others, it's a business, a networking opportunity, a way to reach out and make friends. And while I've tasted a bit of that in my own blogging journey, I certainly haven't utilized blogging to the degree as most of the people here. So I'm learning a lot. Lots of ideas to improve on my little nightly ritual. And I've met lots of really great people whose pages I'm planning to check up on in the days to come.

In much the same way that the Artist's Way is a journey to creativity and self discovery, blogging is a journey to the same destinations. I started the whole blog, really, to find myself again and to rediscover the distinct voice that I once had but had somehow lost. The creativity came later. More interesting was that the assignments this week (theme: abundance) mimicked almost exactly the monthly goal setting I have been doing on the blog. (throw out clothing you no longer wear, change your living space, track your expenses, look for little gifts in nature, reach out to friends). That got me thinking of the creative journey not only in blogging, but in every aspect of life.

So, this weekend, as I attend this conference, meet new friends, gather new ideas, and try new Little Debbie snack cakes (they're everywhere! and they're delicious!) I'm hoping to come away with some new ideas not only for the blog, but for the rest of the journey, as well.

Sweet dreams, all

WEEKLY WRITING ASSIGNMENT

One of MamaKat's writing prompts this week was to write a list of 10 things that are on your mind. Since I am compulsive list maker, this prompt was right up my alley!

THE TOP 10 THINGS ON JEEPGIRL'S MIND RIGHT NOW:

10) I think I am coming down with a cold I started getting snuffily yesterday. But I thought I had nabbed it with a cup of hot-and-sour soup, a yoga class that ended with a "healing meditation", and a mug of peppermint tea. But no, today I woke up even more snuffily and it got progressively worse all day. So now, I'm hoping to kill it with ZiCam, Tang, and more peppermint tea. It is imperative that I feel better by tomorrow.

9) Because tomorrow I will be on a plane A plane to Nashville to the Blissdom conference to see Jen Lancaster. Who is awesome. Even though she may be my polar opposite in every sense. She is funny. And I am going to see her speak at...a blogging conference? I never knew such a thing existed. But I am getting way off track. The point is, I am going to the airport

8) And the Logan Express leaves at 6:05 am Which means I will get absolutely no sleep tonite, since I haven't even packed and I am blogging instead of packing right now. I hope I can sleep on the plane. Because I have really skimped on my sleep lately. Which may be why I am coming down with a cold in the first place.

7) I have a million other things I want to get accomplished on the plane, too. I feel like I may be over committing myself just a bit. I need to re-evaluate things.

6) For instance, I have committed to several work projects. I may not have time to do them. I don't actually get time DURING work to do them, they must be completed on my own time. Like re-doing a certain eval form. or writing up a case study for submission to a national conference. (Not a blogging conference, either) I feel like I was striving for mediocrity in my career and I'm getting sucked into the excellence realm. Damn overachieving!

5) And I didn't work out today. Which was really the right choice, since I am coming down with said cold. But that throws off my training schedule. Which may be further thrown off by the upcoming trip. I don't even know if the hotel has a workout room. I may have to run up and down the stairs for an hour. Which should make me super-popular with everyone.

4) And I somehow think I'm going to finish - like - 6 books on the plane ride there and back I'm still waiting for SOMETHING to happen in Twilight. Call me cynical. But I can't understand why a hundreds-year-old vampire would be spending his time in high school. That's why I have to finish this book on the plane. I'm still not getting it. And I really want to get it!

3) I'm really sick of winter I'm remembering with startling clarity why I left New England in the first place. But I go away for the weekend to Nashville? It was like 19 degrees in Nashville today. Granted, that's 5 degrees warmer than here, but it ain't the Caribbean, either.

2) I'm also a still squirming from my post-martini behavior last weekend I remember saying "Oh, my God! Did I actually say that? I can't believe that came out of my mouth! Just erase that from your mind. Pretend that didn't just happen." at least 5 times. The problem is, I can't for the life of me remember what preceded that outburst. Any of the 5 times. I do remember Nerd looking at his friend and saying "Are there any single girls where you work?" after such an outburst. I laughed at the time. But since this was kind of the "meet the friends" night, I have a suspicion that I (and my martinis) blew it.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO: THE NUMBER ONE THING ON JEEPGIRL'S MIND RIGHT NOW:

1) Is the following email:


"Hey! You really biotinylate my enzymes."

a good thing or a bad thing?

I googled biotinylate but that was absolutely no help whatsoever. Except that now I may start referring to myself as "Vitamin H".
Just saying.

MARTINI ATTACK

I'LL HAVE ONE MARTINI
TWO AT THE VERY MOST
THREE, I'M UNDER THE TABLE
FOUR, I'M UNDER THE HOST ---Dorothy Parker

Recap of what I learned this weekend:

1) If you are considering going to an Omni theater show, consider having a couple drinks before hand. It makes the experience that much more intense.

2) Martinis are wolves in sheep's clothing. They have lovely names like: Flirtini or Bella-tini, reminiscent of a fairy princess with wings and a tutu. They come in pretty colors like soft pink or sherbety orange. They taste like liquid candy in a glass. And sometimes they are slightly fizzy. But rest you assured: they are out to get you! Have a couple of these babies and you are apt to turn into a blithering idiot, unable to shut up and hammering unsuspecting people with TMI. They keep appearing in front of you, magically. And no matter what anyone at the table says, you did NOT keep ordering more. Those martinis were on the attack. Out to get you.

3) If you do order martinis, make sure you have a friend with you who will take them away and tell the waitress "No more." Only through a team effort can you come out of the martini battle in one piece.

tuesdays bad dates (BILL PART 2)

When we last left Heather at Tuesday's Bad Dates Land, she had accepted a date from Bill because she couldn't think of any reason why not to...
(Just because I wanted to feel like a radio announcer for a cliff hanger show!)

Anyway, as I said, I can think of several reasons now.

The first of which is, the date appeared to start exactly the same way as the one with Adam. We had just sat down at a restaurant for lunch. We hadn't even gotten the menus yet. And Bill says:

"So...have you ever dated a man of color before?"

I repeat: A MAN OF COLOR. Who the hell says that?

So many responses were flying through my head: "Well, there was the orange-and-green guy from Seattle," or the opposite extreme: "Until now, I was exclusive to albinos." But we hadn't even gotten the menus yet! I felt it was a bit to early to break out the sarcasm. So I simply said:

"No."

He replies, "Why not?"

I'm like, "I don't know." What is this? Some kind of Spike Lee inquisition?

Then he throws out, "Well, what do you think of it?"

"What do I think of WHAT?"

"Dating a man of color?"

"Um, I wouldn't exactly say we're DATING. We haven't even gotten the menus yet."

"Oh, I guess you're right. Ha Ha Ha."

And really, that should have been the end of it. But it wasn't. Which brings us to reason number two why I'll never date Bill again: he just couldn't get past skin color. To me, it is a non-issue. To him, it was the ONLY issue.

Later, after both the menus and food had arrived, we were talking about places we had lived. I mentioned that for a year, I lived in Southie.

"Southie is very dangerous" he said.

"Well, dangerous is a relative term," I said. "Southie wasn't dangerous for ME. I'm a blue-eyed Irish girl. And my dad is a union man. I was as safe as Fort Knox. Now, the guy I was dating at the time, he could have had some issues. You know, at 2 am when drunk, belligerent locals emerged from the bar? But we never had any problems. People were really nice."

"Why would your boyfriend have problems?" he asked.

"His mother was from Syria and his dad was from Lebanon. He didn't BLEND, like me."

"Oh." Bill said. "I thought you had never dated a man of color."

"Well, I guess I never thought of him as a man of color. I just thought of him as Sam."

"I'm sure he thought of himself that way."

"No, he really didn't. It was never an issue for him."

"You don't know that. I'm sure he was always aware that he was dark and you weren't."

"YOU don't know that. I dated him for two years. You never met him. It really was never an issue. Except that sometimes he said that he had superior pigmentation if I got a sunburn. Sam and I never had this ridiculous conversation."

"Oh, I've had this conversation quite a few times" Bill said.

You don't say? Wow. That's a shocker!

"I only date white women" he says. "Usually blondes."

I was about to ask him why he's never dated a woman of color when he clinched it with reason number three why I never want to see Bill again: Bill got really inappropriate. (As if everything up until this point wasn't inappropriate enough.)

"The last woman I went out with at dinner, asked me if it was true that black men had big....." (I'll let you fill in the last word)

I was flabbergasted. WHO THE HELL SAYS THAT????

"Um, that's a little inappropriate!" I said.

"Yeah, I thought so, too" he said.

"I don't mean HER, I mean YOU. It was inappropriate of you to say that to me."

"I was just making conversation."

"You know what?" I said, "This conversation is over." And I left.

I saw Reggie at the gym later on that week.

"Sorry, Reggie. I do NOT like your friend Bill, at all."

"You went OUT with him?" Reggie said. "That guy is an asshole!"

Indeed.

simplify

IF YOU SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE, THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE WILL BE SIMPLER, SOLITUDE WILL NOT BE SOLITUDE, POVERTY WILL NOT BE POVERTY, NOR WEAKNESS WEAKNESS ----Henry David Thoreau

HOO baby! I just keep paring down and paring down. This is great. It's funny how excess stuff weighs on your mind and well as taking up space. I'm feeling lighter and thinking more clearly.

I was still working on the bathroom area this week:

Jan 27: Under the sink, I had a bunch of lotions and bath salts in a cardboard box. The box never really worked well. It was kind of balancing on top of a bunch of other stuff. But since I got rid of a few towels in January, I could re-configure the towels from 2 shelves to one. (they are all rolled up in a cute little pyramid shape. They make me smile every time I go in the bathroom) So I arranged the lotions and bath salt on the empty shelf. Much nicer! The box went in the recycling.

Jan 28: I had a bunch of samples I had collected from various places also under the sink. Why am I getting free samples of products to try and then keeping them where I don't use em? I moved all the free samples up to the sink and will use them in February. If I like em, I just may buy em!

Jan 29: I had 2 bottles of cough syrup that had expired. I looked high and low on the internet about how to dispose of expired medicine. Most sources say to keep it in its original container and throw away.

Jan 30: The expired vitamins were another story. The internet had everything from flush them, throw them away in the bottle like medication, or crush them up and make plant food. (I asked Nerd his opinion, since he's a scientist. But he was no help. He said that after vitamins expired, they turned to a life of crime and usually ran away to Mexico) I was about to take the entire bottle and see how psychadelic and flourescent I could make my urine when I saw that vitamins are compostable.

Jan 31: Final item from under the sink: purfume that smelled rancid. Threw away the same way as the medicine. And pulled out the rest of the fragrance to the shelf where I can access it more easily.

February 1: Laundry day! 1 pair of socks to donation bag.

Feb 2: I'm back to the front entry way, where the recycling is piling up again. Brought the paper in to recycle today.

Over the next week, I'm gonna go back to the front entryway and clear that space out.

February Goals

Well, January was a wild, wintry, cold, busy month. But overall, a great start to what I'm positive is going to be a great year. This is the first February 1st I ever remember feeling like I'm doing well with goals and making progress, rather than feeling exhausted, frustrated, and beating myself up for NOT making progress. I am watching Bruce Springsteen as I write this, feeling hopeful and energized for February.


RECAP OF JANUARY GOALS:


1) Get Rid of One Thing Every Day: Going well. I'm strategically going through my apartment one section at a time, cleaning, organizing, and sorting. It's been pretty easy thus far. But I know the tough part with some real decision making is coming down the road. I have been avoiding the front storage area. Partly because the heat doesn't get down there and its been a cold January. partly because I'm overwhelmed when I think of it. I'll get there eventually.

2) Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day: This was a bit hard for me at first, as I found drinking a lot of water meant many trips to the bathroom at work, and sometimes I don't have time to pee at work! (seriously) But over the month, I found a way to make it work. First thing in the morning, when I am doing my morning pages, I drink a huge glass of water to get the creative juices flowing. I keep a water bottle in my car. I drink before and after workouts. And I drink at home before bed. Still trying to kick the diet coke, but getting a handle and feeling a bit healthier.

3) Stick to a Triathlon Training Program: Aside from one week when I was sick, this was a huge success this month. I'm feeling good. And though I usually GAIN weight when I train hard (I put on muscle really quickly) I actually lost 2 pounds this month. Which doesn't sound like a lot, given the amount of exercise I've been doing, but I didn't gain weight. Which is huge.

4) Read Three Books from the Bookshelf: I didn't quite finish this one, since I had a week of reading deprivation thrown in there! I finished and gave away "CLUTTER CONTROL" for a few ideas in sticking to goal one, I'm about half way through "THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE" which a friend gave me for Xmas, and I'm 5 chapters into "TWILIGHT" which I'm hoping turns out to be as good as the hype.

5) Went to Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: It was fantastic!

6) Post a Blog Entry Every Day: Done and done. Much easier now that I have daily themes!

7) Consistency with The Artist's Way Program: Looking good. Getting much more out of it this time around. I'm convinced its because I have to blog about it and have committed to others to actually do it. So, thanks, everyone!

8) Stick to an Eating Plan: This is another one that took a bit of work. First, I tried on an eating plan from a fitness magazine. But it only had 1200 calories a day. Which doesn't work if you are working 11 hour days or if you have a 2 1/2 hour workout planned. Plus, with getting home at 9 pm, bigger dinners did not work. So I think I have it down with smaller breakfasts, protein shakes for dinner, BIG lunches, and snacking all day. I'm going to continue to fine tune, but it seems to be working for me.

9) Taking more Pictures: Haven't taken ALOT of pictures, but took a few. So, baby steps, again.

10) Make an Effort to let People I Love Know It More Often: I do feel like I've done a bit more with my family and friends. I've written one letter a week (hand written, not email) to friends who live far a way. I've been to karate tests and dance practices. I've gone out to eat with my parents. And there's a good chance that I'll be spending a couple nites a week at my Granddad's house when he gets out of the hospital. SO I'm going to call that a success, too.

On to February!

I'm not feeling as cranky and cynical as I usually do about Valentine's Day. I certainly am not excited about it (I never am. Even when I was 3 or 4 years into a serious relationship) But I am excited about February.

1) Get My Finances in Order: I tried, unsuccessfully to organize everything last year. But I'm giving it a more focused try now.

2) Read Three Books from the Bookshelf: I have a trip coming up, so I got some reading time on the plane. I need to finish my 2 outstanding books, and I'm going to focus on Financial Books to tie in to goal one.

3) Continue with Getting Rid of Things: I have so far to go on this.

4) Post an Entry Every Day in February: Again for NaBloPoMo. Its funny how February is the shortest month but seems like the longest in this respect.

5)Lose 2 Pounds this Month: Oh jeez. I've posted it. I gotta do it.

6) Go to Bliss-Dom Conference: Yep, I'm gonna see Jen Lancaster speak! Hoping to bring the blog to the next level! Plus, I've never been to Nashville!

7) Tune up and Play My Guitar At Least 1 Time per Week: I know, 1 time a week is nothing when it comes to musical instruments. Baby steps. I think I can actually start playing the thing again without thinking too much of M and crying. I'm past that, I think.

8) Have a Pajama Party: Yep, we're hosting our annual PJ party. Should be Fun.

9) Keep Going with The Artist's Way: Starting on week 6 today.

10) Keep Going with the Triathlon Training: Keep feeling better and stronger every day.

I'm hoping that on March 1, I feel twice as good as I feel today.