Welp, because of my last entry, I feel a need to comment on the GG revival (well, that, and I have feelings). As expected, Emily and Paris were beautiful, wild forces of nature. While I found faults in many aspects of the revival (as I do with anything; frankly I’m not sure if I’ve enjoyed a movie or TV show in years), those two characters made it worth it for me. However, (SPOILER!!!!) it ended with Rory writing a book about her life called Gilmore Girls, so I have to hate it forever now. This is one common storytelling trope I simply cannot get behind. Dear writers, why must all these writer characters have their masterpiece be the thing you wrote? That is not interesting. That is not poignant. That does not cause me to reflect on the circular nature of time. That is lame. And a bit narcissistic to say that the great work of this writer character’s life is your work. If you must write a writer, write a good writer; one who can think outside their own life story. Do not write a writer character with the hopes of seeing a better-looking version of yourself on the big screen one day and so you can further reassure your audience that your story is a GREAT STORY.
End rant.
The New Year is creeping up on us, and I’ve been thinking a lot about all the things I want to accomplish over the next 12 months. I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately. I’m grateful for my new job (can’t turn my nose up at a steady pay check and health benefits) but it’s definitely been a pace adjustment. My last job was 24/7 with phone calls, emails, planning, reading, and stress. This new job is legitimately one I can leave at 5pm on the dot and not have to worry about until I come back the next day at 9am. All well and good. No complaints. It’s just not what I’m used to. It doesn’t present me with crazy challenges every day. There aren’t any fires to put out. And because of this, I feel like I’m not exercising my mind enough. I can feel my brain turning to mush.
The bad thing is I haven’t been using my spare time to challenge myself either. There’s been a lot of sitting around and watching TV and not enough of doing the things I promised myself I would do; the things I want to do. I want to get more serious about writing. I want to read more and experience more. I want my life to be more than sitting on a couch, watching shows I’ve already seen and/or don’t really like that much, having fleeting thoughts about my mortality and making a mental note to get a life as soon as this episode is over.
I’m a pretty curious person with a lot of interests and a desire to learn as many things as my head can carry (probably in part so I can whip it out in conversation and continue to strive for the “insufferable know-it-all” status. I am disgustingly competitive. Repartee is my men’s locker room). I am often completely overwhelmed by the amount of things I’ll never know, the amount of things I will know, and the amount of things I probably did know and have forgotten.
I’ve recently realized that there are certain broad subjects that I really just know nothing, or very little, about, and as part of Operation Non-Mush Brain, I have decided these are the things I am going to learn about in 2017. If you know about these things, feel free to share in the comments, email me, or come to my house and we can drink champagne with our pinkies out and laugh at ignorance.
Geography
I don’t know where anything is. That’s the truth.
The first test I ever did poorly on was in the 4th grade. We had to memorize the location of every town on Long Island and write it into a map. I am not a visual person. I am miserable at the “find the differences in the picture” puzzles. So this test was my nightmare. And because I am a crazy perfectionist who spends a great deal of time trying to drive memories of imperfection out of her head by screaming profanities, the results did not sit well with me. I think maybe this resulted in an aversion to geography.
That, and I have no sense of direction. I have never gone somewhere for the first time without getting lost. I feel like I only recently got the hang of North, South, East, West.
I don’t know the names of mountain ranges, seas, capitals. Let alone where they are. It’s incredibly embarrassing when I go to trivia night.
So this will be the first thing I learn about. Where things are.
How Things Work
There are so many things I use throughout the day, but I have no effing clue how they do the things they do. Because I am a serial anthropomorphizer, I am often filled with guilt for not knowing and understanding these objects better. Like I’ve been driving my car for 3.5 years now, but I don’t really know him/her. I just use him/her (my car, Victor Victoria, is gender fluid). I intend to use this upcoming year to learn about the parts that make up the whole.
Finance
I have a bank account! Why does it have to be more complicated than that?! Heck, why does it have to be more complicated than a shoebox full of cash under your bed? We should all take a leaf out of my crazy, dead aunt’s book and hide our money in paper napkins.
Investments, stocks, bonds, the economy. Not exactly my forte. The only math class I had to take in college was called Survey of Mathematics, and we didn’t really do math in that class. We just thought about it. How to manage and move your money is probably useful information to have so I guess I should get on that.
Guitar
I have magnificent fantasies of me sitting around a campfire with all the friends I am going to make once I learn to play guitar, and I dazzle them with my amazing guitar skills. In this fantasy, my fingers move swiftly and seamlessly over the strings, and not at all like they normally have the dexterity and steadiness of an alcoholic leaning on a washing machine. Plus, my singing voice becomes inexplicably awesome. While many of these things are unachievable, I have had my guitar for over a year now and I could be/would like to be a lot better at it.
Self-Care
I don’t put myself first and I spend too much time assessing my happiness to actually let myself be happy. I let people take advantage of me because I want to be loved. I’m hard on myself. I beat myself up over things that happened a long time ago and that most other involved parties don’t even remember. I need to keep myself healthy, both physically and mentally. I need to eat well and exercise but not get upset with myself when my pants are a big tighter. I need to remind myself that there is no right way to do this, that bad things happen, that good things happen, that sometimes I will be right and sometimes I won’t be, and nobody else is expecting anything of me otherwise.
The Love Song of J. Awkward Prufrock 