Confession Time

from aceshowbiz

Listening to Finger Snappin' by the Maynard Fergusen Octet
Trying to be a better, more successful, more organized human being
    Warning: The following post is long winded. Brace yourself.
    Here's the deal. I love concepts. And ideas, and theories, and notions. I think of lots of awesome ones all the time. Then I write them down in random lists that get stuffed in my purse or under my bed or in my desk or thrown in my car, which - let's face it - is a Dumpster with an engine and an iPod cord.
     I love concepts, but I am so bad at seeing them to fruition. Let me clarify that. I'm bad at seeing them completely to fruition. I'm great at starting things. Finishing them, not so much. Which is why I have an entire art shelf full of beads and stones for my jewelry company, string for my super-awesome macrame bracelets, paints from my ambitions to become an artist, and a bowl of shells - I really don't even know on that one.
    That's also why I frequently wake up with just enough time to jump out of bed, into whatever clothing is at hand and speeding like a madwoman to class. Every semester, I think, "Nine-thirty. That's nothing. I've made it to work at eight before plenty of times. A nine-thirty class is pie." Thing is, at the beginning of the semester I think I can eat that whole pie by myself. In fact, I get to class early a few times, eagerly devouring those first bites of sweet cherry pie morning goodness. Then I start to realize that I don't really like cherry-flavored anything. Why did I like this pie? The filling is just too sticky and sweet and it glues me to my bed, and I still have three-quarters of that stupid pie left, and did I realize how much it tasted like Robitussin when I first started eating it?
    Where was I going with this? Oh right. Finishing things.
    There are only a few things I have completely finished in my life. I know that sounds really sad, but this is going to be motivational for me, and you, my dear readerlings, are my witnesses:

• Last year, I knitted myself a matching hat and scarf set. The most I've ever made was baby booties, and I can only use a pattern once or I get bored with it and don't want to finish it the second time. This year, I knitted one for Coco Bean, who has yet to receive it.

  

  The blue hat and scarf are the ones I made. The black one on my sister is crocheted, and I didn't make it.

This is Corey's hat. The pom-pom is removable, and mostly a joke. Because I like to laugh.

• I finished learning an entire jazz piece by Vince Guaraldi - improv and all - and can now play it without pause. In the past, I would learn the parts of the pieces that were more straightforward, and say, "I'll get to the improv," but I never did. This September, I learned the whole dang thing. And yes, I am very proud of it.
• I wrote a book. No, it is not published yet, and no I haven't submitted it to be published, or queried an agent. I probably won't for a while. I'm still convinced it could be better, but that's not the point. The point is that I finished it, and even though I've been working on it for three years, I still love it as much as the first day I brain-birthed it in Anatomy my senior year of high school. Which means I'm still willing to put work into it to make it the best it can be before I send it out into the world. (See Anne Bradstreet's The Author to Her Book. Major poem love.) I even have ideas for other books, two of which I've been steadily working on, and I fully intend to finish both of them, too. 
• I wrote this super fun intermediate level piano piece that changes time signatures like mad, and bounces along in a way that always makes me smile. I guess I should've prefaced that by explaining that I've actually written quite a few piano pieces for my mom's students' recitals, but this one was one that had been marinating for quite some time, and when I finally got it out, I was actually really proud of it. The other ones were my mom saying, "Write a piece for [insert munchkin pianist here] that sounds like clouds/a hoedown/evil clowns under your bed," and I'd sigh dramatically, even though it would be easy, and write it. This one wasn't inspired by anything, and doesn't have a name. It was just me playing with a melody in my head. So I'm proud of it.

Those are the things that immediately come to mind, but there probably isn't much more, unfortunately. That being said, here are the things I want to accomplish this semester. I'm putting them here so that I'll be really embarrassed when... I mean if I don't accomplish them, which should spur me to complete them.

1. I want to be nicer to people. Smile more, and be more grateful for what people do. I try to do this anyways, but I have a temper, I'll admit, and sometimes the temper sort of vomits anger and irritation on anyone in my path. This tends to scare people off. A few of my friends at work - Tyler and Andrew - have joked with me that the reason I'm not dating anyone is because I'm not a (pardon the language) "bad enough bitch". They say I need to act like "I'm a bad bitch and I know it." But the truth is, I'm not. I'm almost always a happy person; I love to laugh and make people laugh. On that note, my laugh is super loud and dorky, I bounce around when I get excited, and I don't have a problem with that. I'm a huge dork, and proud of it. So my efforts are going to go towards being more of the fun, silly, dorky person that I think God intended for me to be and know that I'll date someone who appreciates that whenever he comes along. (I don't know how this went from be nicer to people to wait for whoever God has planned for me, but I think that means something important. So I'm leaving it.)
2. Try really hard to understand and do well in Statistics. At the beginning, things were easy and I was like, "Yeah! I'm gonna dominate this class!" And then Statistics rose like a sleeping tiger and said, "Psych! Watch me slash your butt to ribbons with my VARS claws!! Ha ha!" and the first test was a bit of a stinker. Now, math is not by any means my thing. I swear I'm a little dyslexic with numbers, although I was never diagnosed. I can't tell you how many times I miscount my drawer at work because I forget that there's a twenty-three between twenty-two and twenty-four, or I read the total as "71.36" when it's really "17.89" and the customer freaks out. And today in Stats, man my calculator and I were having some communication issues (I've got a letter for it for later on this week). 
3. I want to finish editing my book. Really badly. I have no idea if it will happen, since I have a massive amount of writing, reading, and analysis to do for my fiction writing class, but I want it to. Writing really is my passion, although I have recently accepted it is probably not how I'm going to be making bank in the future. But I do want to pursue it on the side at the very least, which I cannot do if I don't finish the thing. Getting a good draft of my next book down wouldn't be bad either, but I'll take what I can get.
4. I'd love to be on time on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so that I can bathe and look nice, and have coffee and not want to kill myself because I haven't been awake long enough. Doing all of the readings for my American Lit class wouldn't be bad either. I do some of them, I promise, but when I was reading Walden (sorry, Thoreau) I about plucked out my eyeballs. And I need them to read the sixteen - yes, sixteen! - books that I've begun and not finished and are all piled on my dresser. So this one kind of counts as two.
5. Not complain so much at work. For the most part, I'm a pretty happy, loud, and nice person at work - I'm not going to say anything about my work ethic, because that's for others to say; this is just about attitude - but when I get in a mood, people can tell. I've been told that I complain about my problems a lot, and that I'm always down on myself (although not in a depressing way, if that makes sense - more like, ha-ha-my-life-sucks-but-I-laugh-about-it). That's not what I want, though, or what I mean to do. I don't need to unload my problems on my coworkers, or let any stupid useless emotions get the better of me, so I'm going to try very hard, and pray that I'm not a burden on anyone and that I can work with a joyful heart. Kinda goes with number four, but you get the picture.
6. I want to do better at saving my money. In the middle of this summer I had nearly enough money to move out with three roommates, but it fell through, so I ended up just spending the money (on stuff for school, mind you, but spending it nonetheless). I will be flying up to North Carolina to visit Corey over Thanksgiving (even though I'm terrified of plane flights), and I need to have money for the flight, and also money to spend while I'm there so I'm not a burden on him or anyone else. And after that, I want to look for an apartment and roommates (any takers? I'm super fun to live with *cough cough*), so I'll need moneys to move out. 
7. This one's a bit more difficult, but try not to stress so much. Whenever I get stressed, I get tense, and irritable and my immune system crashes (like this past weekend, and um, now). My back and neck get super tight, and I literally cannot relax. Even if I'm laying in bed, sleeping, my body is still stiff and tense, and I sleep so hard I'm physically sore in the morning. I've been seeing my chiropractor for the past four weeks, and - although I haven't seen her in a while - she said my spine should be realigning properly by now, and staying that way, but it's not because as soon as she finishes adjusting me and I leave, the stress sets in and I start to tense up again. I know that's not a healthy way to live, so I want to make a conscious effort to stay more relaxed and not let things get to me so much. I've only got one life to live and I can't live it wearing my shoulders as earrings. 
8. Actually post my blog posts on time. Like, choose days of the week to post and do it, gosh darn it!

Sorry for those of you who read that whole thing - there probably aren't many of you left at this point. So here's something to make you laugh, because I laugh every time I see it. :)