I am utterly in a tizzy to have this bloggess extraordinaire all the way here from Not That Kind of Girl today!
I don’t have many morning rituals, except for making Lists, drinking copious amounts of coffee and reading blogs, all within the first 10 minutes of arriving at work. That said…
My mornings are as follows:
1. Arrive at work. Five minutes late, on a good day.
2. Frantically place my Starbucks (a Grande Americano) on my desk. Spill a bit. Freak out. Clean it up with a magazine (there are two-dozen strewn across my desk at any given time). Say, “fuck, fuck, fuck…” and then apologize profusely to my co-worker sitting in the cube next door for my filthy mouth. “No problem, love” she says. She’s used to it- she gets me.
3. Turn on the computer. Yawn.
4. Check emails, voice mails, BlackBerry messages and swig my lukewarm Americano.
5. Scroll my reader for my favorite blogs, especially searching for the musings of this gal, who whips out an incredibly stylish post 5x a week. This is one hard working blogger! In fact, TKOG is always in the top-3 blogs I read within the first few minutes of my day (true story). Hell, even my sister lurks her blog and has commented on it in recent weeks. For the record, my sister has yet to comment on my effing blog. But I digress. She’s just that kind of girl who is totally easy to have a crush on.
Let’s get to the good stuff, shall we?
***
Hey kids! It’s TKOG over from Not That Kind of Girl – here to guest post for sandyb who is, entre nous, one of my favorite bloggers on the whole dang internet. Sandy asked me to blog a list of things I’d like to accomplish before my next significant birthday, and while I was prepared to glibly spew a list of goofy accomplishments (learn to play the piano with my feet; punch a[nother] dude in the face, travel to Tuvalu, etc.), my dumb heart got in the way. You see, one of the things I most admire about sandyb’s blog is that she’s never afraid to get really raw – spill out her emotions and be totally, heart-wrenchingly genuine. It’s something I love about her not the least of all because I find it so hard to do myself.
So, with no further ado, here’s my true, honest, ask-me-about-it-and-I’ll-mock-you-fiercely list of ten things I hope to accomplish in the year and a half before I turn 25. (That said, I apologize for the tedious proliferation of writing-related goals. That’s the thing about dreams: they’re single-minded. They kind of have to be!)
Publish a story in Ploughshares or similarly prestigious literary journal. My biggest current project – the blog – is a work of non-fiction, but left to my own devices, I’m more of a fiction writer. Better sex scenes that way!
Write and publish my first book. For bonus points, afterwards, pitch and start writing my second book, which – if it turns out anything like I dream — will totally get me kicked out of a few bars (or people’s friggin’ lives).
Find a MFA program for creative writing that is a good fit for my goals and temperament, then start the frig out of it. Worst-case scenario: in two years I’m living in Iowa City. Best-case scenario: in two years I’m living in Iowa City.
Tell Matt Lauer face to face that I’ve had a crush on him since I was ten years old. Hopefully this will occur while doing a publicity tour for goal #2. But hey, if I just happen to meet him in a yogurt store – look, I won’t be complainin’.
Plan a kickass bachelorette party for a girl I love like a sister (and yes, my own much-beloved sister is a candidate for this). I’m thinkin’ burlesque photo shoot and then mud baths. Champagne may be thematized.
Whisk myself (and a companion!) away on a totally spontaneous weekend trip. I mean no-bags-packed impromptu. Preferably with someone I’ve met while not-packing bags. Doubly preferably a Count or Lord.
Engage in a grand, sweeping gesture of public nudity. Nothing more pressing to this one than the fact that I love to be, in the idiom of Ratbert, “naked, clueless and feeling goooood.” Plus, uh, feminist body-confidence stuff?
Plan and execute the perfect practical joke. I love jokes and can be an elaborate planner, but my inability to keep a secret has always crippled this life-long dream. I can’t even play “oooh, got your nose!” without giving up the dang jig.
Meet the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Guess I have to work extra-hard on the other nine goals, kittens, because this one is almost entirely out of my hands. Unless dude is Matt Lauer, in which case, dude, I’m in.
Brush up on my Russian. It bums me out that I once was, if not fluent, then fluish. After all, the one marginal benefit to my utterly useless degree is being able to occasionally impress dudes with my linguistic skill, so why not resurrect four years of work from the drain?!
Dang, guys. Dang. It’s kind of horrifyingly scary to put your honest goals out there. I see what sandyb is up to with this goal listing – it’s emotional heavy-lifting. Though I vow to you, loves, never to be so serious again, I thoroughly recommend you at least once engage in a little list-making of your own. Why not add a few of your almost-too-serious-to-ever-speak goals to the comment section?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, I follow both of you anyways… but I like the list. I’m just very bad at making them. Or I regard making them as akin to doing all the things that are on them, which gets NOTHING done and means I really shouldn’t write lists.
You do? Wow, well thank you. I love your writing and am taken back a bit to know that you read me, too.
Sandy! Thanks so much for posting this, and double-thanks for your incredibly sweet introduction!
Thank YOU for posting! Your List is inspiring in so many ways, especially because it delves into your writing aspirations, which, I find anyway, are sometimes so hard to say out loud. I think maybe, just maybe, other bloggers feel the same way, even if it they didn’t express it on here. Your List certainly made me THINK.
xx
Haha, TKOG, you remind me of me. Which of course I mean as a compliment, but you may or may not take it that way >P
Thanks to both of you for this guest post! And best of luck with both of your lists! ;D
For the record, Iowa isn’t that bad. ;)
Best of luck!
Well, you TKOG, and you SandyB, are 2 of my favourite bloggers. The main reasons for this:-
1) You can both make me smile more or less every time you make a new posting.
2) You then also make me engage my brain.
TKOG, you know me better as Ken O. For some reason, Sandy’s blog insists on me using my Cheezname of paws4thot, so if you’re ever looking at LOLcats etc, and see the name, say “OHhai”.
Aw, shucks, Paws4Hot/KenO… (still don’t know why my blog is being so difficult with your name…sorry!) thanks so much for the kind words. As much as you enjoy reading my posts (blushing here..) I enjoy reading your thoughtful comments and observations. Keep ‘em coming, my friend!