I’ll be revisiting the New Year’s Resolutions concept in a little bit, but for now I’m off work until January 4th, so I’m doing…old-year resolutions. End-of-the-year resolutions. In the 2 weeks I have off work, I am determined to accomplish the following:
-Hit the gym 6 times. It sounds pretty reasonable, but I’ve also booked myself into seeing everyone who’s back in California for the holidays, including 3 overnight trips in Lakeport. So basically every day I’m not on the road, I’m at the gym.
-Do some deep cleaning of the apartment. Specifically I want to clean out the fridge, scrub the bathroom, and organize all the stuff that’s just been floating around. Tonight I unpacked and shelved two boxes of books, so there’s my head start.
-Organize my iTunes and sync up my iPod. Since I got my new laptop, I’ve managed to transfer all my music, but I haven’t really done anything to clean it up. So I’ma tackle that. Also, I have a list of new songs I want to download, just to make sure I’m up to date with Bruno Mars and Pink.
And tonight I added to that list:
-Manage to make a dinner that makes Drew go, “Mmm! This is DELICIOUS!!” He’s been pretty complimentary about the stuff I’ve been making lately, but I want to really impress him. (At least I know he won’t fake it on me.)
New Year’s Resolutions are being crafted. Also a confessional post.
This weekend Drew’s family had an estate sale at the house of a family member who passed away over the summer. The purpose was to clean out the house of as much stuff as possible so they can get the house on the market. Everything was set up inside the house so people would come in and wander around to look at everything. There were boxes of books lining the driveway up to the garage, where there were tools and two (gorgeous) steamer trunks and an exercise machine that we all took turns trying.
I had matinees both days, but I went down with Drew in the morning around 7:30 each day, and stayed until 11:00. The first day that 3 1/2 hours was packed with people snapping things up, including a guy who right off the bat wanted all 35 sets of salt and pepper shakers. Edie and I spent the next 15 minutes wrapping them all up in newspaper. He came in every so often and said things like, “Oh, look at that little raccoon figurine – that’s cute, throw that in too.” I wish I’d gotten a picture of all of the salt and pepper shakers the way they were set up, but by the time I started thinking about taking pictures, all that was left on the table was this ashtray:
(Obviously there’s stuff on the table around it. I exaggerated.)
In the bedroom there were these two portraits, and I’m not sure why there are two of them.
In the other bedroom, these dolls:
In the kitchen: this bowl, which surprisingly was still there on Sunday afternoon.
We also still had many puzzles at the end of the weekend.
The second day was less busy but people still came. It was raining in Redwood City and not good garage sale weather. But we did get rid of the steamer trunks, a bed and nightstand, and some miscellaneous stuff. Overall, the difference in the house was astounding from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.
It was weird – watching people fill plastic grocery bags with the small details that used to make up a person. I found myself getting suspicious of things: why are you taking that entire box of old books? Is one of them worth a million dollars and you’re sneaking it out to sell it on eBay? Where are you going with that picture of a little girl dressed like the Virgin Mary? Do you even have a cassette player? What are you going to do with those tapes of CATS and Barbara Streisand? Then as I watched the house empty out, including all the furniture, I got really motivated to clean up some my own stuff.
Among the stuff we came home with: a cuckoo clock, a cigarette holder, some fur hats, a giant area rug (for donation to MTC), and a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette book (it has a chapter telling you the proper etiquette if you have an audience with the Pope!). And yes, I recognize the irony in bringing home more stuff while I’m thinking about thinning my stuff out.
In conclusion: Estate sale ended up being super successful, and it was really fun being down there and helping out with this big project. I wish I could have stayed for the entire day, especially on Saturday, when it was really hopping.
And, the story of the salt and pepper shakers guy is that he’s a bartender. He spent another hour and a half browsing and drove away finally in a fully loaded car. I’m just glad we weren’t enabling a hoarder. Hopefully.
It’s been getting shabbier and shabbier, and while there are still lots of green tomatoes on it, they didn’t seem to be ripening or growing any bigger. I still watered it and fed it, but I wondered if the weather lately (ping ponging back and forth from hot to foggy) had done a number on it, or maybe it had gotten sick, or maybe I just inadvertently killed it somehow.
Last Tuesday there were people here, and one of them, acting unknowingly as my grief therapist, assisted me in first pinching off all of the dead leaves. From there it was a slippery slope to me shouting “Let’s just pull it!” A few people had told me that even if the plant is dead, you can take the branches and hang it upside down and the tomatoes will ripen. When we tried to pull the plant out of the dirt, the entire 5 gallon block of Miracle Gro and roots came with it, which is when it occurred to us that this kitty litter bucket might have been too small for the size of the plant.
My therapist suggested we cut it in half and plant half in another bucket, but plants don’t come with dotted lines down the middle, and I was in a state of exhileration at this point. So we hacked off the branches with fruit on them and hung them upside down, and then kicked all the crunchy leaves on the floor off the balcony.
The next day when I peeped out onto the balcony I beheld the saddest sight: some leaning over, leafless, scrawny branches, a mess of carnage on the floor, and a couple branches tied up with baby blue yarn, bearing tomatoes that I have to admit to myself will probably never be edible.
The weird thing is that I don’t really remember what prompted the slaying. It feels sort of like looking back on a drunken or just very late night. It’s somewhere between the “Oops, I shouldn’t have cut my own bangs” and “Oops, it wasn’t a good idea to slaughter my pet pot bellied pig and serve it up with barbecue sauce.” Thank God this was “just” a plant and not a pet. And thank God I never got around to naming it.
My basil is dead (although I didn’t really expect that to work out either, as I just bought a little basil plant from Trader Joe’s and stuck it in dirt) but the rosemary seems to be thriving.
I’ll try again with the tomatoes next year.
I had to clean everything off the balcony and get rid of the evidence because it was depressing me. And making me feel a little guilty, honestly.
I’m not leaving you with a picture because I want you to remember the good old days, the days of lushness and prosperity.
I close my eyes only for a moment then the moment’s gone…
Dust in the wind…All we are is dust in the wind.
Over the last few months I have thought about and formulated (but never quite typed up and posted) blog entries about the Mill Valley Health Club, including such subjects as:
“Congratulate Me, O Friends, For I Have Been to the Gym and Then Gone Back Again and Again”
“I Can Run 10-Minute Miles on the Elliptical, Does That Still Count?” and my personal favorite, “Steam Rooms and the Women Who Love Them Even Though I Think They’re Sort of Scary” (that one still may be in the works).
The Mill Valley Health Club was one of the perks of working at Marin Theatre Company – every one of their staff, cast and crew gets free use of the health club. After one and a half shows, I finally went, thinking I was being idiotic to not take advantage of such a great opportunity. Well, let me tell you, the MVHC is wonderful. It’s mellow and has lots of big windows, high ceilings with fans everywhere, enough equipment that I almost always got to use my favored machines, and it even has lavender-scented sanitizing wipes. The locker rooms and clean and sweet and the showers were clean and provided shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and even shaving gel. The steam room was fine too, although that’s another story.
Well, I don’t work for MTC anymore (sad face) so I can’t go to the health club anymore (sad face) unless I wanted to pay for it, and I bet it doesn’t come cheap, and pay bridge toll every time I go. So today I decided to look into some gyms around here. Bally has a lot of commercials on TV, and they have that deal where you get a week-long free guest pass, and then they are doing this other deal where they waive the initiation fee and you get the first 3 months for $27 each. If you go on their website, you’ll see that it expires on [today’s date] but I’ve been checking back and it’s consistently expiring on [today’s date] so I think that’s a sale point.
So I signed up for my guest pass today, printed it out, and was all set to go this evening. Then I get a call from “John” at Bally, wanting to know when I’m coming in, and I remember this from the time I was going to use a guest pass at Bally in New York – they want to try to pitch to you. I’m like, I can hold him off. And I don’t want to be all slinking around or anything, so I decide to roll with it.
I go in this evening around 5:00 and ask for “John” like he told me to. He comes over and takes me around to show me the gym, and also asks all the same questions he’d asked on the phone, about my fitness goals, what I’ve been doing, what I’m interested in doing here, what time of day I’ll be coming in, etc. Now, all I really want right now is a place I can go and use an elliptical, maybe a treadmill sometimes, and just do cardio. I have Jillian Michaels for the Shred stuff, and maybe I’ll start incorporating more of that someday, but right now I’m fulfilling a need for cardio in my life. He’s not really interested in hearing about that though. He tells me that since I’ve never worked out with a trainer, he’s going to give me a special training session today. I’m like, Okayyyy…not what I signed up for, but again, I decide to roll with it and see what I can take away.
So he starts me on an elliptical, but it’s only for 20 minutes (psshh) and it’s the “fat burn” mode, in which you’re supposed to keep your heart rate down to like 126. I’m trying to do that but I’m going like under 3 miles an hour and this is soooo laaaaaaaaaaame and boooooooring. So I give it up and just start running like usual, but it’s just flat and level 1 and easy even though it keeps beeping at me to lower my heart rate. Whatevs. After 20 minutes he comes back over and we go do “some exercises,” and he puts me through squats and lunges using a bar, and then some arm and ab stuff on a ball, and then right before he starts whatever’s next, I say, “Is that the time? I actually have to get going.” It’s 6:00 on the dot.
“So soon?” he says. “Yeah, I have to get home and shower, I’m supposed to be somewhere at 6:30.” Lies, all lies. “Okay, well, you have a minute so I can go over some stuff with you?” “Sure,” I say. We go into a little cubicle where he lays the hard sell on me, and I keep repeating, “It sounds great, yeah, that’s a huge discount, but I don’t want to sign up for anything today.” Then he goes over how little it is per day if you pay for 3 years up front ($499 for 3 years – about 45 cents a day!). I say, “Yeah, wow, but I don’t want to sign up today.” Then he leans in and tells me he’s going to add his personal discount on top of the other discounts. How’s that? “That’s really great. I don’t want to sign up for anything today.” Then he says he has to go check something, and comes back with the manager (or something) of the center, who proceeds to give me the harder sell.
You may ask why I just didn’t get up and take off. Because they take your driver’s license away from you at the front desk and hold on to it. Which is skeezy.
The manager (or something) hard sells me, leans in and tells me he’s going to authorize a discount that John here isn’t allowed to, then offers the same discount that John here just offered me. I thought about calling them on it but didn’t. The manager will not listen to my repeated “I’m not signing up for anything today,” plus, he keeps saying things like “if you want to lose the weight” or “lose that weight” and I”m like, can you please not essentially point at me like that? Let’s talk in euphemisms a little here. They kept me in that cubicle for 30 minutes, hard selling at me, and not listening to me at all. Finally I started saying things like, “But you guys offer this free week guest pass so people can try the gym out, why won’t you let me use the full week?” The manager (or something) just keeps talking about how I have to commit to this, and how only I am holding me back. I don’t want to hold me back. I just want to come in for a free week, run on the machines, and then next weekend, sign up for membership.
Also, the way the manager (or something) kept talking about how you can’t make changes without a gym, or how you can’t make changes in a week, was really starting to offend me. I mean, he’s looking at me sitting there, and I know I look like a hot mess because I’ve just been exercising, I forgot to bring a bobby pin so my hair is all over the place and I can feel how sweaty I am…but he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know that I have actually made a difference over the last few months. He just knows the number he wrote down when I entered my weight into the machine, he doesn’t know how that’s changed recently. I know you don’t need a gym, especially not Bally Fitness, in order to make changes in your life, and I resent the implication that I’m just going to founder around out there without John the personal trainer to keep me on track.
Speaking of John, he’s supposed to call me tonight so I can say whether I’ve decided to keep my guest pass for a week (it’s their promotion!! why won’t they let me use it??) or trade it in for my super discounted awesome amazing fun cool bust out style membership. Yeah…I’m pretty sure I’ll be letting that call roll to voicemail. And then deleting it.
The funny thing is, this is why I was bad at sales. Because the first time someone said to me, “That’s great, you know, I’m really not interested now, but I think in a week I will be,” I would say, “Awesome! Here’s my card. Lemme know.” I think pushing someone like that when she is CLEARLY NOT GOING TO CHANGE HER MIND is stupid and waste of time. A waste of time! Did I mention I didn’t get out of there until 6:30?
The messed up part (for them) is that I was totally ready to pay them money for the privilege of using their facilities. And now? I’m not going back AT ALL. There are other gyms in the area (which he readily told me about in order to talk them down and Bally up) and if all else fails, there’s the treadmill and machines in our apartment’s fitness room, and there’s outdoors! There’s always outdoors!
So Sunday night, the end of an 8-show week, I’m worn out and over it and my attitude is souring fast. Everyone still keeps asking for things, right up to the end of the second show (“The bathroom in the boys dressing room is out of soap.” “Okay, use the other bathroom, it’s like 20 minutes until the end of the show.”) (Although then I totally did refill the soap for them.) (I can’t exactly figure out whose job that is, which makes me think it might fall under the “production assistant” umbrella). Anyway, it’s been a long week.
I finally get out of the building, get in the car, start digging for my iPod, Himself has been off work and I just want to get home and sit around and watch TV with him…and I remember that I left my food in the fridge, and I was going to eat it tonight. I debate for about 3 seconds, then get out of the car, slam the door, and start striding back toward the building. Feel for keys in my hoodie pocket, and…nothing there. Keys in purse, which is actually in my hand? Nope. Keys in the ignition of the locked car? Check.
I call Himself because I’ve heard you can use a remote fob thingie and unlock a car from far away, through your cell phones. He’s not at home but heads back there. There may be a little bit of crying as I explain what happened, because this is just embarrassing. I locked my keys in the car like an idiot because I had to go back inside to get my food? Come on now.
I climb up onto the trunk to sit there and mope, with maybe a few more tears. Suddenly Ted the sound designer/mixer calls from behind me to ask if I’m okay. Instead of responding how I’ve been responding to any personal inquiries all week – “I’m fine” – I let it out. He pulls his car around and parks next to me, asking questions like “Power windows or manual?” and “Have you ever broken into your car before?” Which, funnily enough, I haven’t. At some point, Himself calls back and we try the remote-unlocking, which of course totally doesn’t work. So he and the two friends he was out to dinner with start the drive to Marin.
Ted works diligently using a heavy-duty coat hanger we steal from the costume shop (I also shamelessly pick up the oh-so-important food), while I hold the flashlight and make helpful comments like “Seriously, thank you so much.” At some point the stage manager comes out of the building and stands near us, but I get rid of him pretty quick. About 5 minutes in I get the brilliant idea to see if the passenger side window is down any further, which it is, and even better, I can wrench it down another inch or so. So we’ve got about 2 1/2 inches of room to work with, and luckily Ted has little girl wrists. He sticks with it though, and it’s 15 minutes later, maybe 20 minutes tops, that he pops the door lock with the coat hanger.
I call Himself and tell him to turn around (luckily he hadn’t made it very far) and tell Ted about ten times that he’s awesome. I’m home by 11:00, which is only maybe half an hour after I’d planned to be home. Not exactly the relaxing Sunday night I had envisioned but it could have been a lot worse. So I’m bringing Ted a 6-pack of Stella today, which will come in extra-handy, since they had a 5-hour music/sound rehearsal today at which I wasn’t needed.
Equivocation closed on Sunday and I failed to write anything about it. I had planned this “funny” post where I talked about how I had gotten my track down to a science, and detailed how I spent a lot time sitting in the green room or on the floor backstage, and jumped up at the precise moments to be where I needed to be…but the day that I started writing it was the day EVERYTHING went wrong. One of the actors got a scary phone call 5 minutes before curtain and thought his child was sick or hurt, so the first 15 minutes was real hectic until he could get offstage, get someone on the phone, and make sure everything was fine. Props were misplaced (not always by me) and right before the end of Act I, one of the actors spilled a tidal wave of fake blood (mostly corn syrup and red food dye) all over herself and backstage left. While we made it through intermission and got her cleaned up, some of the spots on the floor backstage were missed by the mop, and so I spent a lot of the second act finding sticky blood spots and trying to clean it with baby wipes.
ANYWAY, Equivocation is closed now and that’s that. It was a good closing. The audience was very friendly and agreeable and on our sides. The cast got to go back out for a second bow. (The stage manager apparently LOVES encore bows and always wanted to send them back out, but this was actually deserved.) The champagne toast onstage was very nice and everyone was happy and it was just a good note to go out on. One of the actors tipped me (hooray!) and one of them gave me a copy of Middlemarch, because he had been telling me to read it ever since rehearsal. That may very well be the nicest closing present I’ve ever gotten. The tipping actor told me that the book actor must really respect me, because that is one of the highest compliments he pays (she’s known him for about 15 years).
I was sad for about 10 minutes and then I started in on the next project, which is 5 days of a reading of this new play called Carthage by Emily Schwend. I really like the play and I’m stage managing and it fills in this week, which otherwise I would have had off. On Friday we start prep for the next mainstage show and on Tuesday we start rehearsals and then I’ll just have hundreds of things to say about Woody Guthrie’s American Song.
Sunlight closed yesterday. When I woke up feeling slightly head-cold-y I knew it was going to be a long day. Over the next 12 hours the cold settled in, through 2 shows, strike, and then the obligatory going-out-for-a-drink which I avoided through the entire run of the show. By that time though I couldn’t stomach the idea of alcohol (I was light-headed already from sinus congestion) so when Liz the Stage Manager asked if she could buy me a drink I wimped out and asked for a diet Coke. Which came with a peppercorn (?) in it.
Closing was kind of a weird experience, it’s just not the same as it was in high school and even in college. I remember getting major post-show depression and it just hasn’t happened in years. I thought it was because for the last 4 years all the shows I’ve worked on have been in addition to a job, and so closing them has just meant that I get to go back to working only 40 hours a week. Turns out that it’s actually not that pessimistic – everyone agreed that closing (and opening) just don’t mean as much when it’s your job, and it’s just another show. Jen the Production Manager said her parents were still saving all her programs and ticket stubs on the wall of their laundry room and I grinned from the familiarity: my parents moved their wall of theatre stuff from the hallway to the laundry room sometime while I was in New York. Although I guess they’re not even saving stuff anymore, my mom told me they threw their Sunlight programs away like the day after they came to see the show. That’s fine, what are they going to do with that anyway?
I still saved a program and I still felt a slight urge to ask the actors to sign it…but don’t worry, I resisted. I have learned a thing or two.
I was thinking about past shows and some of the past facilities I worked in, and how great Marin is in so many ways. I thought maybe I would share some of them.
Brilliant Traces: Well, we rehearsed and performed inside a school during the summer.
A) Rehearsals were on the 5th floor, air conditioning controls were on the 1st floor, and I often had to run up and down the stairs several times in a 3-hour rehearsal period.
B) It was summer which means the school was locked most of the time, so if I arrived and the actor (who worked at the school) wasn’t there yet, I had to wait outside.
C) I often ended up washing the dishes in a drinking fountain.
Kraken: One of my least favorite theatre spaces ever (Soho Rep) – an unmarked door in a fairly dirty part of Soho, it always reeked like someone had just peed on it (which they probably did, it was set back in the wall and next door to a bar, all the guys working on the show remarked it was exactly where they would go if they stumbled out of the bar and had to go). I washed dishes in a dimly lit dirty bathroom, which incidentally had no doors. At one point the toilet broke and I fixed it myself.
The Vietnamization of New Jersey: Okay, I actually liked this show and it was in Theatre Row so it was a great facility. But they did throw cornflakes ALL OVER the stage and it was crazy hard to keep it cleaned up during rehearsals…luckily I had two crew members for the run so they did all the sweeping and mopping work.
Eccentricities of a Nightingale: Giant bowl of “eggnog” which was really powdered milk in water. Washing dishes in a bathroom again! Except for when I would use the slop sink. And I hated the stage manager for some reason.
Recent Tragic Events: While this was one of my favorite things I did in New York (I really liked the script, the people, the time commitment, and my life while this show was going on), the theatre itself was incredibly small and the booth was really just behind-a-curtain in the back row of seats. For a couple of the performances, I know the audience could hear my stomach growl. But I can’t really complain about this because I still smile when I think about the entire thing. I loved buying a pizza from the $.99 pizza place every night, and I loved having to play all the sound cues (and there were a million) on a CD player, even when I had to change the levels quickly and precisely. I guess I did have to wash dishes in a bathroom again. Really, I just don’t like washing dishes in bathrooms.
Brunch: OMG. The American Theatre of Actors is terrible and I would never work there again, and I say that with complete honesty even if I did live in New York again. The guy who runs it is crazy and the director almost got arrested for taking out the trash. To get to the booth I had to climb up a ladder on the wall and I was convinced I was going to fall and die at some point in the run. The place was messy and dirty, and the house lights sometimes didn’t work at all and sometimes wouldn’t go off. Too many ladders and too many perishable props that had to be bought daily. I was in the grocery store on the corner constantly for limes and ice, down the street at the flower stand for roses, and in the ice cream store for balloons, all grossly overpriced but it’s New York so what are you going to do?
I guess I can’t say anything bad about TACT or TACT shows…
So I guess that leaves my two lists.
The things I will not miss about Sunlight:
-Snow. Sweeping snow, scooping snow, loading snow, shaking snow, finding snow in my clothes.
-Certain actors’ warmups
-The fight
-The smell of low sodium vegetable broth mixed with water. Gross!
-Cumulative hours of references to old films and actors that everyone else is unfamiliar with, but has to nod and smile along to, as one actor describes exactly what he’s doing with this line
The things I will miss about Sunlight:
-Liz the Stage Manager
-Hanging out and making fun of the actors during intermission (when they turned on the charm they were really awesome)
-Headset chatter and movie games with Liz and Myles the Board Op
-Only 4 actors! Minimal laundry!
-The last 30 minutes of the show when I had no more duties and could just sit on the floor in the dark and drink Juice Squeeze
But we start Equivocation this weekend and so I am not feeling too sad. Onward and upward!
While brushing my teeth, I got a little overexcited and flipped the toothbrush out of my mouth. It hit the edge of the counter, the toilet seat, then somehow fell behind the toilet into a puddle (I think from the shower). What should I have done?
A. Finish brushing, then throw it away just to be on the safe side.
B. Stop brushing immediately even though I was barely halfway done.
C. Rinse it off and it’s fine. Five second rule.
Last night I had trouble falling asleep. As I lay there listening enviously to the even breathing of a certain other person who could obviously fall asleep just fine, I slowly didn’t know where I was anymore. I lay on my side facing the outside edge of the bed and realized that the wall in front of me had two closet doors, one open and overflowing, one closed. The bedroom door further down was closed for privacy. The fan at the foot of the bed was off (this is the middle of winter after all) but I could sense it there. I could feel the dusty curtains somewhere behind me over the grated window that led out onto the fire escape, and then I heard (faintly) the 7 train go by outside. I reached a hand out and touched, not the smooth polished wood of the nightstand I was somehow no longer expecting, but the rough unpolished birch of a $7 Ikea side table. Covered in piles of books, papers, and dust. I let my fingers trail up over my head and I stroked the headboard I remember leaving behind.
I kept my eyes closed because I could see so clearly through the bedroom door, down the hallway, into the living room glowing in the light filtered in from streetlamps. The ugly couches and the TV we paid off for a year were outlines, dusty ones. If I went to the window the sill would be cold even with the heater blowing warm air from the vent below it. Out the window the Manhattan skyline glittered: the Empire State Building, its lights already off due to heavy fog; the Chrysler Building, my favorite, sparkling like a Christmas tree; the CitiBank Building a blight as always on the otherwise perfect view. Inexplicably an older woman would be pushing a cart down 61st Street even though all the stores and laundromats would be closed. Would it be snowing? Sometimes I could only tell by looking at the beams from streetlights – and sometimes it was everywhere.
The elevator rumbled innocuously past the 4th floor, delivering home someone who had just disembarked the recent 7 train. The parquet floor was cold and the rug gritty beneath my bare feet. If I knocked on Jared’s louvered doors would he answer them, wearing a t-shirt from God of Carnage or [title of show]?
I kept my eyes closed tight, rolled around in the so familiar feel of this bedroom I had lived in for 3 years. I tried not to move so I wouldn’t disturb this feeling. I wanted to peek and see if it was true. Before I looked though, I wondered what was more likely: that the last year had been a dream and it was the beginning of 2009, I was gainfully employed in a job that challenged me and gave me health insurance? Or that this was an alternate reality where I was in January 2010, but one where we had stayed in New York? Would anyone else realize this was wrong? Would Jared be happy or disappointed to have us back? Would I be happy or disappointed to be there? Would Drew?
Eventually I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in San Bruno, California, married and fully admitting it was 2010. It seems silly and a little dramatic to imagine being back in Queens. Of course I wasn’t back in Queens. But it was nice to feel it, is all, around me, for just a little while.
A year ago, I made a list of 100 things to accomplish in 2009. Some things were kind of a stretch and I could have guessed wouldn’t happen:
-visit Madame Tussaud’s
-see a Cirque du Soleil show
-buy a Macbook (and pay it off)
Some things were relatively minor and should have happened but never did:
-read in a bath
-buy a lottery ticket 5 times
-stay up all night
Some things were too general, not easily quantified, and I learned a lesson about that:
-stop saying Oh my God
-drink 32 oz of water a day (I know, I know, but it’s harder than you’d think to do something EVERY SINGLE DAY)
Some things I didn’t do before we left New York:
-Top of the Rock
-Tryon Park with Erin
But I checked 59 of the 100 things off of the list, including:
-Move back to California…by driving
-Watch a sunrise
-Send Valentines to my family
-Read the classics I own and haven’t read yet (Wuthering Heights, Mrs. Dalloway, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, etc.)
-Stage manage another NYC show (2 this year)
-Go on rollercoasters (Six Flags New Jersey)
-Take the CBEST (and pass it!)
-Go gambling (and win!)
I also had some experiences this last year that I didn’t put on my list, but consider noteworthy:
-Get engaged
-Run around the reservoir in Central Park
-Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
-Get married
-Get a pedicure (my first, and then second)
Good times, 2009. I knew it was going to be an exciting year. I look forward to a happy and calm 2010, filled with paying off debts and enjoying California!
The Cameraphone Diaries 
