Sunday, January 18, 2015

Update: 101/1001

I took another look today at the list I made back in June (I wish were June right now) of the 101 things I wanted to complete in the next 1001 days. I have just 773 days left to complete everything on this list. Let's see what's up.

1. Finish list of 101 things (Completed 6/4/14)

TOGETHER
2. Read a book together (Things That Are – Amy Leach) This one is a bit of a cheat, because we both taught the book for our Fall 2014 classes, but I'm counting it anyway. 
3. Spend nothing for two weeks
4. Create list of life goals
5. Go canoeing
6. Go to a scotch tasting
7. See the orchestra
8. Bike ride & picnic (Completed 6/29/14)
9. See a live sporting event (Twins game! Completed 9/13/2014)
10. Go to 4 live concerts per year (Completed for 2014)
(2014: 4/4) (Zombie Pit Orchestra, Old Crow Medicine Show, Dred I Dredd, Jenny Lewis, Wilkinson James)
11. Go camping
12. Go sailing
13. Visit a museum (Shipwreck museum, Duluth MN)
14. Get a pet
15. See a meteor shower
16. Ride a tandem bicycle

HEALTH
17 Do yoga at least 12 times per month (6/33) (I slacked a few months near the end of 2014)
18 Take 30 yoga classes in 30 days
19 Hold crow pose for at least 5 breaths (Completed 6/10/14)
20 Teach yoga (Completed 6/5/14)
21 Participate in a race of some kind (do eating-based races count?)
22 Bike or walk to work when possible instead of driving
23 Work toward full splits on both sides
24 Try a new kind of exercise or class

TRAVEL & ADVENTURE
25 Go to my 10 year high school reunion (missed it)
26 Get a passport
27 Go to France
28 Visit 3 new states (Maine, Alaska, TBD)
29 Go backpacking
30 Take a cross-country road trip (Completed 7/1/2014: Minnesota to Vermont and back)
31 Visit a famous landmark I've never been to
32 See something that claims it's the “world's largest” of whatever that thing is
33 Do something that scares me (participated in Write Fight on TV!) (Completed 6/6/14)
34 Go snow shoeing
35 Go skydiving
36 Visit the Boundary Waters
37 Go to the zoo
38 Meet somebody famous
39 Ride in a hot air balloon
40 Go to an amusement park
41 Visit the Mall of America
42 Swim with a dolphin
43 Visit a national park I've never been to
44 Go somewhere haunted

WRITING & LITERATURE
45 Participate in at least 4 poetry reading events per year (2014, 2015, 2016)
(Compteted for 2014: Wunderkammer, The Soap Factory, Midstream, Write Fight, SHORE, Bennington Reunion reading, Rosalux Gallery, Maeve's, Magers & Quinn 20th Anniversary party, Harriet Brewing, Sisyphus Brewing)
46 Read at least 4 books per month (3/33) (I've been a HUGE slacker in this arena)
47 Write down all books read & movies watched for the duration (8/33)
48 Get into at least 1 top-tier journal (0/1)
49 Write at least 15 poems per month (1/33)
50 Put together a solid full-length manuscript (working on this NOW!)
51 Get 100 rejections per calendar year (magazines, contests, etc.) (2014, 2015, 2016) (got 78 for 2014)
52 Get head shots taken by a real person instead of my iPhone
53 Go on a writing retreat
54 Enter & win a writing contest (Revolver's Write Fight II – 6/14)
55 Take a class at the Loft (Todd Boss manuscript class)
56 Publish another chapbook (OH NO EVERYTHING, coming out March 2015!)
57 Apply for a PhD program in creative writing
58 Write a short story
59 Attend at least 50 readings (9/50) (Write Fight II, SHORE, Bennington, Rosalux, Maeve's, Trotter's, Amy Leach, Harriet Brewing, Sisyphus Brewing)

ETC.
60 Try to buy mainly used clothing (Haven't bought anything new in ages!)
61 Try 10 new board games (5/10 : Lost Cities; Zombicide; Undermine; Lords of Waterdeep, The Resistance: Avalon)
62 Do a new thing every day for 1 month (Completed 6/22)
63 Go through my clothes & donate what I don't wear (Completed 6/6/14) (I'm going to have to do this one again)
64 Host a dinner party
65 Take a photo every day for a month (Completed July 1 2014)
66 Get my weird tattoo covered up
67 See the Northern Lights
68 Go back to vegetarianism
69 Sing Men In Black at karaoke (proudly done, but not well)
70 Throw something into a wood chipper
71 Milk a cow
72 Say yes more

MEDIA
73 Give up all social media for 1 week
74 Keep blog updated: at least 4 posts per month (1/33) (hahaha)
75 See all movies on AFI top 100 (28/100)
76 Go to the drive-in
77 Watch all the movies we own that I haven't seen
78 Give up internet games for a year (this is the year!)

KITCHEN
79 Cook 20 new recipes (4/20)
(roasted summer vegetable pasta, portobello mushroom burgers, potato skins, rosemary chicken)
80 Try being vegan for 1 month
81 Try 5 new foods (2/5: fish tacos, dates)
82 Eat something I grew myself (Basil)
83 Be diligent about composting and recycling (I've been pretty good about this so far!)
84 Cook all my own meals for a month (no dining out)

HOME
85 Tackle the books
86 Organize the kitchen
87 Plant something (basil, jade, dill)
88 Get a huge bookshelf
89 Wall art (we're on our way here, too)
90 Get a new computer
91 Get real bedroom furniture (dressers)
92 Decorate the bedroom so it doesn't look like a prison cell

LOCAL
93 Try 10 new restaurants (6/10)
(Cosi, Sea Salt, Twisted Fork, Leaning Tower of Pizza, Flashbacks, Salut Bar Americain)
94 Go on a brewery tour (Alaskan brewery, Fitger's)

95 Go to the Minnesota State Fair
96 Attend Minneapolis movies in the park or music in the park
97 Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight showing
98 Go to the farmer's market
99 Go to 4 summer festivals every summer
(Completed for 2014): (4/4) (Grand Old Day, Northern Spark, St. Cloud Art Crawl, Highland Fest)
100 Explore Minneapolis & St. Paul on my bike
101 Have dinner on a rooftop patio

Friday, January 2, 2015

Consumption: Not Just a Way to Die on the Oregon Trail

As part of my plan to use my time more wisely, I decided at the beginning of 2014 to write down all of the books and movies and TV shows (etc. etc.) that I consumed during the year. It's a good way to look back at my time, face myself in the mirror, and say aloud, Yes, I spent fourteen hours in the past two days watching Supernatural.

I lived up to the goal of writing all that down, but the list of books I read was curiously small. I started 2014 off pretty strong, having read more than ten books in January. Then things got weird. But I'm presenting to you the lists of things I consumed in 2014, mostly without comment.

In total, I read about 38 books. I watched approximately 67 movies (some of them twice) and about 50 seasons of different TV shows. It almost hurts to say that aloud.

BOOKS

Jack Gilbert - Collected Poems (This book contains each of his five books and his uncollected poems)
Carrie Lorig - Nods
Carrie Lorig and Sara Woods - Root Poems
Jason Shinder - Among Women
Bradford Tice - Rare Earth
Gregory Sherl - Last Night Was Worth Talking About
Harryette Mullen - Sleeping With the Dictionary
Paula Cisewski - Ghost Fargo
Matthew Zapruder - The Pajamaist
Zack Haber - Chapbook
Michael Earl Craig - Thin Kimono
Kristen Naca - Bird Eating Bird
C.M. Burroughs - The Vital System
Aimee Nezhukumatathil - Lucky Fish
Charles Simic - Hotel Insomnia
Rachel Richardson - Copperhead
Jenny Boully - of the mismatched teacups, of the single-serving spoon
Opal C. McCarthy - SURGE: An Oral Poetics
Sarah Vap - end of the sentimental journey
Lois Lowry - The Giver
Lucille Clifton - Next
J. Michael Gonzalez - Heredities
Jeffrey McDaniel - Forgiveness Parade
Kate Greenstreet - Case Sensitive
Sarah Vap - Acro Iris
Lily Ladewig - The Silhouettes
Amy Leach - Things That Are
Neil Astley (ed.) - Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
TJ Jarrett - Zion
Daniel Halpern (ed.) - The Art of the Story: an International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories
Chris Abani - Song for Night (haven't finished this yet)
Chrissy Kolaya - Any Anxious Body (haven't finished yet)


TV/MOVIES

Inside Llewyn Davis
Fargo (rewatch)
The Story of Film: An Odyssey (fifteen episodes)
Veronica Mars (Seasons 1, 2, and 3)
Return of the Jedi
X-Files (Season 1) (rewatch)
But I'm a Cheerleader
The Graduate
Supernatural (Seaon 1, episodes 20 & 21, Seasons 2 & 3)
Kissing Jessica Stein
Pickpocket
High Fidelity (rewatch)
Harold & Maude
Practical Magic
Phantom Menace
Gossip Girl (Seasons 1 & 2)
American Psycho
Hannibal (Season 1)
Bling Ring
The United States of Leland
A Young Doctor's Notebook (1 series)
Boyhood
30 Rock (Seasons 1 & 2 twice) (Season 3) (rewatch)
Happy (twice)
New Girl (Seasons 1, 2, & 3) (rewatch)
Flashdance
Cry-Baby
The Virgin Suicides (rewatch)
Following
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ghost Hunters (one episode)
Paranormal Entity
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
The Inbetweeners (Season 3)
Spiral (Seasons 1 & 2)
Mean Girls (rewatch)
The Royal Tennenbaums (rewatch)
The Room (rewatch)
Sherlock (Season 3)
Orange is the New Black (Season 2)
Louie (Seasons 1, 2 & 3)
Party Monster
Shoot the Piano Player
Luther (Seasons 1, 2, & 3)
Louis C.K. Hilarious
The Ninth Gate
Taxi Driver
Scoop
In the House
Tin Man (Seasons 1 & 2)
The Punk Singer
Friday Night Lights (Seasons 1 & 2)
The West Wing (Seasons 1 & 2) (rewatch)
Wayne's World (rewatch)
The IT Crowd (Seasons 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Californication (Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7) (rewatch of first six seasons)
Teenage
Gilmore Girls (Seasons 1 & 2) (rewatch)
Bad Grandpa
Electrik Children
The Lego Movie
Peep Show (pilot episode only)
Salem (pilot episode only)
The Bletchley Circle (Season 2)
The Office (U.S.) (Season 1, episodes 5 & 6)
The Office (U.K.) (pilot episode only)
Shadows & Fog
The Initiation
Dead Poets Society (rewatched twice)
The Brak Show (season 1) (rewatch)
Emporte-Moi
Unzipped
Game of Thrones (Seasons 1 & 2)
Jurassic Park (rewatch)
September
We Are The Best
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (rewatch)
Cropsey
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex
Stand By Me (rewatch)
Rachel Getting Married
Amelie (rewatch)
Turbo
Californication (pilot episode rewatch)
Beauty & the Beast (rewatch)
American Horror Story (season 3)
Advanced Style
Donald Glover: Weirdo
Aladdin (rewatch)
Home Alone (rewatch)
The Wolf of Wall Street
Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (rewatch)
Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
Labyrinth (rewatch)
Don't Trust the B**** in Apartment 23
Love Actually


And that's it. I'm planning on writing down everything I read and watch in 2015; hopefully the book list will be a little longer. I'm not sure I can do anything about the TV/Movies list. I'd like to say it's going to be shorter, but let's be real.