Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Has Something For You To Do Over Lunch

Well, there's no way to say this without sounding like a giant dillweed, but I am kind of a big deal.

When Katr gets pulled over for her next DUI, I will be in the passenger seat shouting "Do you KNOW my NAME??" at the arresting officer and then looking demure in my mugshot. And if the arresting officer is a theatre fan who lives in Calgary and likes to be entertained on her lunch hour by witty and powerful plays, then she WILL know my name!

My one-act play Camp Victoria is WORLD PREMIERING at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary next March - and it opens on my BIRTHDAY! Wooooo!!!

The play is inspired by real people and events - here's a photo of Faith Fenton and the VON nurses that Katr found and put up on a little Camp Victoria page, because she's the best.

I love these gals.

Left to right: Margaret Payson, Rachel Hanna, Georgina Powell and Amy Scott.
Faith Fenton of the Toronto Globe is on the right.

Margaret Payson, Rachel Hanna and Faith Fenton are the three characters in the show. I love the look both my nurses are both giving the camera, like "Really? We have work to do." whereas Faith is all "I'm looking towards my FUTURE."

Speaking of gals, I don't think I'm supposed to talk about the cast yet but they're SUPER AWESOME and I'm totally thrilled that they will be donning corsets and getting loaded onstage together for your amusement. And I'm equally thrilled that Glenda Stirling is directing, because she too is SUPER AWESOME and really smart and will make me look almost as smart. Hashtag: WINNING.

Seriously, though...let's be serious. It's not every day that an artistic director thinks that one of my funny little corset plays are "right" for their "audience" and like many writin' types, the majority of my plays have been produced BY ME, at festivals and cabarets and workshops and the like. So the idea that Lunchbox Theatre is "doing the show" and all I have to do to provide some rewrites and show up to see it is weird and fantastic. So huge thanks to the lovely folks at Lunchbox for including me in what looks to be a pretty tremendous season. I'm really excited to be a part of it.

So hey! If you're in Calgary in March of 2014, I hope to see you at Camp Victoria! And in the meantime, you can follow Lunchbox Theatre on Twitter and Facebook.

Corsets!

Creampuff's Birthday Surprise

It was my birthday on Sunday. Back in January, Katr asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and since last year was so spectacular, I said to surprise me! AND SHE DID.

Firstly, she kicked off my birthday month with this blond beauty:

If you're not a knitter, you don't give a shit about this thing. But to turn a skein of yarn into a ball (which you must do before beginning to knit), you usually have to wind it by hand and it can take a LONG time. It once took me 3 hours to wind a particularly fractious ball of silk lace and by the time I'd finished, I was too tired and sore to start knitting. Come to think of it, I've NEVER knit anything with that silk lace. See? Trauma.

This combo of gadgets allowed me to wind a skein into a ball in about 2 minutes.

Jealous??

I'm in love. Hat tip to fellow knitter Jebr for suggesting this particular ball winder and swift to Katr! Heh heh...yeah. Balls.

Next, Katr nurtured my latest obsession by getting me a subscription to the most hilarious magazine ever created: Village D-Lights, the magazine for Department 56 crazy super fans.

It's like your grandma writes this magazine and her friend Phyllis takes the pictures.  It is indeed a d-light and I can't get enough. Also, Katr got me a copy of Village D-Tails, a collector's guide, so that I can obsess over all the village pieces she'll now have to get for me on eBay. Score!

Then there was my birthday cake. Now, my ideal birthday cake is an ice cream cake from Baskin & Robbins. But there's no Baskin & Robbins here and Dairy Queen "cakes" are, frankly, ass. Finding a good reliable purveyor of cake here has been harder than it should be...but then, Katr discovered MANCAKES Bakery.

Here's what you need to know about MANCAKES:

• They are cupcakes made by men
• Those men will bring the cupcakes to your house
• The cupcakes are fucking delicious
• Okay, the Buffalo Wing flavour was a little weird, but the rest of them...AMAZING

Seriously, Vancouverites - MANCAKES Bakery. KNOW ABOUT THEM.

As for my actual birthday day - I thought it would be pretty hard for Katr to top last year. I could SAY I had no expectations, but that wouldn't be true - I sort of figured that after our glamourous downtown overnighter last year, she'd tone it down this year and maybe take me somewhere new for dinner.

And I figured she'd probably invite our friends Doai and Elai, because we often share birthday fun with them (not in a swinger way, YOU PERVS...just in a tasting menu/high tea kind of way). So I was kind of surprised and a little sad when they came by two days before my birthday to bring me a birthday gift because "they weren't going to see me on my birthday." Huh. Well, maybe they had other plans...or maybe Katr had something special planned for just the two of us! But WHAT?? Katr refused to divulge.

As my birthday dinnertime approached, we drove to Kitsilano (not to the Richmond IKEA, where Katr kept saying we were going for dinner) and pulled up in front of Hapa Izakaya, a Japanese restaurant we'd never been to. As we walked in, I saw that the place was full of lovely intimate booths for two and the hostess led us to our table...set for 12. WTF?

Well, it turns out that Katr had invited 10 of our friends to join us for dinner. And that all of those friends had known about this for MONTHS and hadn't said anything. And that Doai and Elai had brought me my present early simply to DEKE ME OUT so that I would be completely and totally surprised.

AND I WAS!!

HAHAHAHAAA!! 

So basically, Katr is SUPER awesome and hilarious and sweet and wonderful and everyone who came and got Sunday drunk with us is also super awesome and sweet and wonderful and even though it was three days ago, I still feel a little drunk. Because I drank A LOT. 'Cause those Hello Kitties go down smooth. And now that I'm older, I hold my liquor even more poorly. 

Creampuff's 2013 TED Round-Up

I'm a little late with my weekly post, but my excuse is that I was busy all week having MY MIND BLOWN by this year's TED conference.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

I did a round-up of last year's TED, which was pretty great (the conference, not the round-up - when you watch a bunch of teenage scientists talk about how they've come up with an answer to the global energy crisis, the complete mediocrity of your own life and accomplishments is swiftly brought home to you).

Most of these TED talks aren't up on the internets yet, but when they are, you should watch them and stuff. In the meantime, I'm linking to the TED blog, which has a write-up of each talk. 

This year's highlights included:

When I donate to a non-profit, I always want the maximum amount of my dollar to go to the cause, not to the organization's overhead. Right? Well, maybe that's actually really not right. Dan Pallotta's talk: A New Way to Judge Non-Profits has completely shifted my point of view on this issue.

UPDATE: Dan Pallotta's TED talk is now live!

I LOVED Vancouver spoken word poet Shane Koyczan's performance at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, so I was surprised to discover that now I love him EVEN MORE. He brought his To This Day project to TED and fucking brought the house down. I had a lot of feelings.

UPDATE: Shane Koyczan's performance is live on TED talks - definitely a must-see.

Radio DJ and total math nerd Adam Spencer's Hunt for Monster Primes actually made me laugh AND care about math. AMAZING.

Kate Stone does things with technology and paper. She was hilarious and her interactive posters were amazing.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Every year at TED, there's someone who makes you feel like maybe not everything is going to hell. John McWhorter's talk The Linguistic Miracle of Texting was about how texting is actually closer to speech than writing, which means that writing is NOT becoming obsolete. It made me feel smart about knowing what tl;dr means. Plus, funny.

Hyeonseo Lee escaped from North Korea and then helped her family get out. HOLY SHITBALLS.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

In my dream last night, I told my elementary school friend about Allan Savory's talk about Fighting the Growing Deserts with Livestock. Basically, this guy has figured out that to bring back the grasslands (and save the whole fucking planet), we can use cows, sheep and other livestock in specific pasturing patterns. And it is WORKING. For me, this was the most exciting talk at TED this year. 

UPDATE: See Allan Savory's TED talk - so awesome.

Ron Finley builds community gardens in South Central Los Angeles, where fresh food is hard to come by. Favourite quote: “I am an artist. Gardening is my graffiti. A graffiti artist beautifies walls; I beautify parkways and yards. I treat the garden as a piece of cloth and the plants and the trees are the embellishment of that cloth. You’d be surprised what soil can do if you let it be your canvas.” 

UPDATE: Ron Finley's TED talk is up too - huzzah!

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Jack Andraka is the kid who started working on a cheaper, more accurate, early detection test for pancreatic cancer when he was 15. AND HE FOUND ONE. Also, he is FABULOUS and a great speaker. I hate him so much.

I am not a fan of Amanda Palmer's music, personally, but after her talk, I respect the hell out of her as an artist. Her talk about building relationships with her fans and crowdfunding as a way to make a living at music was really good. It's up already and I've seen it posted twice on Facebook. Watch it now, before it becomes cool to hate on it!

Artist Phil Hansen caused himself nerve damage after years of practising pointilism as an art form. Faced with an inability to draw a straight line, he had to come up with other ways to create art. His talk, Embracing the Shake, featured some of his awesome projects. My favourite was a huge mural of Bruce Lee that Hansen created using only karate chops.

A lot of people here in town were all super hyped up about TED coming to Vancouver next year - like they were going to attend and rub shoulders with all of these luminaries. It costs $7500 and you have to apply to get in. HAHAHAHAHAAA NO. Having it here really just means that Ben Affleck might be in town.

Really, I feel bad for next year's TEDsters...in Long Beach right now, it's all sunny and shit. Here, it's raining so much everything makes a squishy noise - grass, dogs, pavement. Although if Mark Shaw, the inventor of Ultra-Ever Dry attends next year, there may be a fix for that rain problem!

Katr did her own TED round up of stuff she loved - and one thing that made her FURIOUS. As usual, she is far more erudite than I. Check it out!

It Takes a Village

My yearning for a Christmas village began at a young age. I remember the first time I saw those tiny, glowing houses at a friend's Christmas gathering and really thought about pulling a "Laura Ingalls stealing a music box from Nellie's birthday party" kind of move in order to make one of them my own.

Fortunately, I realized that I couldn't possible pull this off - not because my '80s hammer pants were not voluminous enough but because it would cause my crotch to glow invitingly. It's a good thing it didn't occur to me that the houses were just plugged in and did not glow due to Christmas magic - my life could have turned out veeeeeeeeeery differently.

My intense yearning for a Christmas village continued through my youth and into my young adulthood, but it was one of those things - like STDs and how you secretly liked Wesley Crusher - that you didn't talk about. In fact, my shame over wanting these kitschy holiday items over-powered my desire for over 30 years. Until this year. When the dam burst and I told Katr.

Katr doesn't love clutter. But she does love me. She tried to deke me out by suggesting that she wasn't going to indulge my village yearnings, but when, in the face of her masterful deception, my face crumpled like the saddest lesbian in Lesbonia, she gave up her wicked charade and the next day, this appeared:

Please excuse the blurry photo. My hand was shaking with excitement.

Part of the joy of the village is being able to look at it lovingly throughout the holiday season - this is difficult to achieve when you unwrap your village gifts on Christmas morning. Katr gave me this stunning Bluebird Cottage from Department 56's Dickens collection on December 8th. Because she knew how bad I wanted a village. And because I like things that are Dickensian.

At first, it was just the Bluebird Cottage, lonely on the ledge, yet warm and inviting, with its glowing light inside. 

Then, one magical Christmas eve, these babes showed up, courtesy of my brother in law Drtr.

And the next morning, Stratford Pies and Tarts opened up and the whole neighbourhood went to hell.

Flirting by the fish and chips...

The Tea Lady and the Pie Man are clearly TOTALLY DOING IT. Look at those guilty mugs! Like we just caught them at something illicit! Plus, the Pie Man appears to be sporting wood. Good period detail, Department 56.

Those nuns stayed ALL NIGHT. Also, note the adorable birdhouse in the back. It's a wee little church!! 

Aw, yeah, motherfuckin' VILLAGE.

It took all I had to pack the village up this year as we were putting away our holiday decorations. But I know that it wouldn't be special if it was up all year round! I can't wait to see what building pops up in Roseshire next year! Because I am a HUGE NERD.

Creampuff Is One of Them

"Oh shit," I thought to myself, as I stood in the kitchen in my yoga pants, unironically blending a green smoothie with kale I picked up at the Main and Terminal Farmer's Market from our Community Supported Agriculture shares, which were grown in the parking lot next to Rogers Arena. "It's happened. I've become a Vancouver douchebag."

I think you all saw it coming before I did. First, there was the gluten-free situation. Then, we became urban gardeners. Last year, we started doing the yoga. But I didn't really feel that I'd succumbed completely to VD until last week, when:

a) I made that smoothie; and

b) I ran errands in public wearing yoga capri pants even though I didn't have my dog with me and actual yoga was not imminent.

I HAVE NOW BECOME EVERYTHING THAT I HATE.

 

Beaver Dam

As I've mentioned in numerous posts, I was a little obsessed with the show Hoarders when it first came out and basically watched it like it was my job.

After seeing untold numbers of cat skeletons, pieces of dog shit and fridges full of rotting food, I had finally had my fill of Hoarders and also, had learned not to eat while watching it.  GAH.

My time as a Hoarders viewer, however, did outfit me with some keen skills, such as how to recognize hoarding behaviour when I see it (on television). Little did I know that I was about to stumble upon a real life hoarding situation...right on my own street! Literally, on the street.

This piece of equipment is here as part of the house next door's construction process (more on that in future posts. I can smell your excitement, like a lost cat skeleton). As I shuffled by it with the dog earlier, I noticed that the operator might have some issues. Behold!

"Oh, I'm just an innocent piece of construction equipment, disturbing your yoga with my loudocity."

"There's some stuff in here."

"You know, just the essentials...lots of newspaper from January, some spray bottles, some food wrappers, my yellow construction vest, my long lost hamster Rotunda..."

"My shopping bag, some coveralls, a log...you know, for when you need a log..."

OMG. HOARDING. In that tiny machine! I honestly don't know how the operator even gets in there! Also, you can't see it, but there's a decal on the glass, just below the Safeway bag, which reads "Beaver Dam". I'll say.

I waited around to see if the operator would show up so that I could ask him about Beaver Dam but Emmy Lou grew weary of indulging my whim and pulled to go home. I guess I'll never be able to offer Beaver Dam my wise counsel gleaned from months of watching Hoarders. Which is basically "keep track of your pets and call a professional. Because DAMN."

Academic Creampuff

As many of you know, I'm just not very bright and am still not sure that I even have my Bachelor of Fine Arts, because a) my university went on strike in my final year and b) I refuse to pay my totally bogus library fine to find out if I did indeed graduate.

Despite this complete lack of academic cred, my friend Dr. Jacks still asked me to be a speaker in her undergraduate social science class a couple of years ago - TWICE (the topic was: I'm Fat and Gay and I Don't Give a Shit What You Think - I paraphrase). So every now and then, when I'm feeling dumb, I'll bring it up in conversation, real casual-like.

Me: A similar question came up when I was a guest speaker at UBC.

Barista: Really? "Foam or no foam" came up at UBC? JESUS CHRIST, YOU PRETENTIOUS TWAT, HERE IS YOUR LATTE.

This month, I have another feather to add to my academic cap - my friend and dramaturge Moynan King was curating a volume of the Canadian Theatre Review about Queer Performance - Women and Trans Artists and she asked me to contribute an article about our collaboration on Anne Made Me Gay.

And that's how I ended up getting my name in this fancy academic journal along with a bunch of real academics and other super smart people with interesting things to say about queer performance. HAHAHAHAAA!! 

Please forgive the horrible photo. My hands were shaking with mirth.

My article is called Anne Made Me Gay: When Kindred Spirits Get Naked. Here's the article description:

2008 marked the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery's classic Canadian novel, Anne of Green Gables. Celebrations for Anne fans were planned across the country, but one key demographic was not represented in the mainstream Anne celebrations: there were no events planned for the “I'm pretty sure Anne made me gay“ Anne fans. In Toronto, two lesbians decided to create a cabaret by and for queer lovers of Anne, to help us explore Anne's influence on our young gay selves and to celebrate the red-headed snippet who taught us to live passionately, speak eloquently and really dig on other girls. This is the story of that cabaret.

Much of this issue is about the grand tradition of the queer cabaret - so naturally, Moynan decided to celebrate the launch with - you guessed it - a queer cabaret!

Sadly, I will not be there but there are lots of other amazing queer artists performing at this thing and if you're in Toronto on February 26, you would do well to attend "Explain Yourself". Plus, if you're a top, or you bring a top with you, admission is cheaper! Apparently, this event will be a great place to meet tops.

If you don't know what that means, you probably aren't ready for this cabaret.

I'm not sure what's next for me, academically speaking - I suspect this may mark the zenith of my academic achievement. Then again, who's to say that nepotism won't strike again? This time next year, I could be accepting an honorary degree from Yale! Or, morely likely, Brigham Young University. Mustn't get ahead of myself.

Seeking Simone Ep 2.5: Leslie is live!

For those of you whom I did not hassle endlessly yesterday, we hit an exciting Simone milestone when we held the last episode of Season 2 hostage until we got to 1000 Facebook fans.

I was worried that this would blow up in my face, but people were super nice and now we have 1023 fans and the episode is up! Woooo! It is called "Leslie".

This episode was especially fun to film because a few of my favourite Toronto gals - Jeba, Berin, Lex, Sura - showed up to be the extras at the restaurant during Simone's date. Thanks for keeping the rambunctiousness to a minimum, ladies - you are all class!!!

Creampuffs in the Pool

Back in November, Katr and I went to an all inclusive resort in Mexico called Excellence Playa Mujeres. While we were there, we had some thoughts and took some pictures. These are those thoughts and pictures.

DUM-DUM!

I know, right?? Awesome.

The first time we went to Excellence Playa Mujeres was right on the heels of the crazy rollercoaster goat rodeo that was buying our home (literally, we got on the plane the day after the deal closed). So we spent the first few days there staring straight ahead or weeping, spending many evenings in our room instead of going out and taking only two photos the whole time we were there - one of some papayas that tasted like farts and one of a particularly nice hibiscus. 

THIS time, it was a totally different story. We were bright eyed! Bushy tailed!  Super drunk! We went to the spa (that's a whole other post)! We got in the pool even though it was freezing! We went out to dinner all the time! We talked to people! That, as it turns out, was a mistake, but otherwise it was a pretty great time. 

Cuban show. Hubba hubba.

Highlights included:

Lesbians

I always get excited when I see other lesbians at the resort. I immediately want to shout "LESBIANS!" at them while clapping my hands like a seal, but I realize that shouting "lesbians" at random lesbians in Mexico might be perceived incorrectly. So then I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to signal to them that Katr and I are not just fat sisters who like to grab-ass in the pool. To what end? I don't know.

I honestly don't know what I hope the outcome will be when the other lesbians realize that they are not the only muffdivers in the Lazy River. As Katr pointed out when I plunked our things down very close to one of the suspected lesbians on the second day, what if they are idiots? Just because they also do not care for the dick doesn't mean that we will totally get along.

I dared to share a few twinkly glances with the butchest of the lesbians there nonetheless - although later, when I saw her engage one of the servers in a lively conversation about her favourite beer and why the resort should carry it and how disappointed she was that the resort didn't have her favourite Australian beer, I wondered if perhaps Katr wasn't correct to advise a cautious approach.

In the end, we never actually had a chat with any of the lesbians, but it did give me a frisson of excitement to see a few of my own kind on the beach in another country.

Emmanuel at the Lazy River

We staked out our favourite spot at our favourite pool pretty early every day - like REALLY early, like 6:30 or 7 a.m. - because we really like that spot and also because we really liked Emmanuel, the hardest working man at the resort. 

This was the only time I saw Emmanuel stop moving the whole time we were there. Photo by Katr.

I make a lot of jokes about being drunk in general, but the fact is that I rarely drink and when I do, it's ONE drink and it's usually about a tablespoon of Amaretto in a pint of diet gingerale. Emmanuel was not having any of this.

From the moment we sat down around 9 or 10 in the morning (you stake out your chairs, see, then go back to bed, get dressed, have breakfast and then go back to your chair and laugh at the nimrods who thought they could show up at the lazy river at 9 a.m. and just FIND SEATS HAHAHAHAAHAHAAAA you're so naive!!) Emmanuel was ON us.

Once he'd figured out our drink for the day, he would just keep bringing them - the minute your straw made that slurping sound against the ice, he was there with a fresh drink and a smile. And we DRANK THEM.

That's my flabby white elbow on the left. JEALOUS?

It is entirely Emmanuel's fault that we spent one particularly raucous afternoon in the pool, laughing hysterically and riding the pool floats like they were ponies. I remember thinking, as I flailed around in the water, nearly blacking out with mirth, that THIS is how people drown in pools shallow enough to stand up in. Oh, good times.

Katr's Birthday

It was Katr's birthday while we were there! They put up some balloons in the room and brought us a little cake. Katr...you're my favourite and I love you the most!!

Katr's birthday shrine with flowers and cheesy photo I got from the resort photographer. 

People with No Boundaries

I don't know how it happened. We met a few folks from the Trip Advisor forums that we'd haunted for months before the trip, and that was lovely. But then, we met some other people who were also nice but HAD NO BOUNDARIES. 

The second week, we somehow ended up in a marathon yap session with two couples, one from Missouri (we'll call them Bhea and Bave) and one from Manchester (Braig and Bindsey), and ended up getting roped into having dinner with them later that night. We didn't really have conversations with these people so much as we provided a face for them to look at while they talked about themselves endlessly.

Where the swingers meet, according to Antonio who works at that bar on the left.

When they did stop to ask us a question about ourselves, it was only to find a new jumping off point to talk about them. They were super friendly and occasionally funny but after a few minutes, it just really exhausting and OMG I KNOW THINGS ABOUT THESE PEOPLE I SHOULDN'T KNOW, like:

• Medical problems, mainly involving the brain


• Crazy ex-boyfriend/ ex-girlfriend/ex-wife/3-dead-husbands stories


• The feeling you get in your nuts when you swim with dolphins


• That Bhea from Missouri thinks Obama was a secret Muslim (that's where Katr lost her cool)

We also met a gal from right here in Vancouver, who we'll call Beirdre. God love her, she accosted us in the pool one day to ask about where we were getting our poolside burgers (Emmanuel kept us fed as well as liquored).

I was a little drunk and wasn't wearing my glasses, so I kept staring at her as she sort of barked questions at us and as she reached up to rub her face I realized what it was that was off about her - SHE HAD NO FINGERS. On either hand. NO FINGERS, YOU GUYS. 

This poor woman had lost her fingers - AND toes - and a lot of her hearing - after contracting a mysterious bacterial infection and going from healthy to near death in two days.

We got to hear all about it and also, all about the other people she met who had similar horrible random things happen to them while she was physical therapy learning to walk again.  

Holy fucking shit, Beirdre. 

So, to recap, here's who we met at our resort.

Social analysis

I couldn't figure out how we'd become such freak bait this time around - our previous visits to the resort have yielded some pleasant, superficial conversations with other couples who were content to exchange a few words and waves.

Katr, however, being smart like she is, had some keen theories as to why we'd attracted these folks:

1. We're two women travelling together and neither of us looks particularly gay. Girlfriends on a "girlfriends" or "sisters" trip are always looking to gab! Their men aren't around and they love "connecting" with people! 

2. We're fat and therefore must be either jolly and friendly and/or lonely, because fat people are reviled! We are non-threatening and are probably very motherly and also, they might be doing us a favour, chatting with the poor fat ladies, we probably have a lot of cats, etc.

Next time, we're going to have to either bring another couple with us for protection...or just be a lot more rude. You know, either way.

More photos

Katr has some delightful shots up on Flickr and so do I. There is one in Katr's set of me drunk in the pool but I'm not posting it here because you're too young to see that.

 

Hahahaha - New Year!

Oh hey, guys! Happy New Year!! Yeah, how's it going? Good, good.

So it somehow became 2012 since the last time I was here!

I hope that you all enjoyed wonderful holidays with your families, chosen and/or biological. Katr, Emmy Lou and I experienced two weeks of debauched whimsy, full of really fantastic family, friends and food...oh, so much food. Emmy could barely fit into her Santa outfit!

I hate you fatties so hard right now.

I know a lot of folks out there are super against New Year's Resolutions because a lot of the time, our resolutions are grandiose and unspecific and therefore unrealizable. And to those folks, I say FUCK YOU, LET ME HAVE MY DREAMS.

As one must, I reviewed my resolutions from last year. Here are the results.

1. No family deaths in 2011! YEAH!! 

2. Finish my stupid play that's set in the Yukon. COMPLETE.

3. Weekly blogging. HAHAHAHAA!! Okay, in my defense...yeah, I have nothing. I came out pretty strong at the beginning of the year though and I look forward to doing the same this year - blogging weekly until about...April? Then slowly slacking off until the end of the year when my only motivation to blog becomes my friend Jeba leaving real pushy comments.

4. Word of the Day writing project. NO. This was supposed to be a good way for me to noodle around for 15 minutes a day, you know, so that I could really force myself to write even when I didn't feel like it, leading to literary GOLD. You know what I found out? I'm kind of a wanker.  I managed to do this for about three months and deleted it all in disgust and decided to spent my 15 minutes more productively, by doing laundry or playing Plants Vs. Zombies on my iPhone.

5. Watch less TV. YES. This year, my best friend Padu and I started a weekly phone date. We chat in the evenings, when I would ordinarily watch TV. So thanks to Padu, I now watch at least one hour less of TV per week. Baby steps, people. Baby ste-- wait, shut up, Sister Wives is back on.

6. Smell fantastic. YES. Katr's crazy pile of philosophy products for Solstice last year kept me smelling like food pretty much up until right before this year's Solstice, where the only bodywash I had left was Candy Cane and I spent the last couple of weeks before the holidays smelling like a minty foot. Fortunately, Santa once again gifted me truly insane amounts of deliciousness this year, so I'm back to smelling like gingerbread, eggnog and cherry crisp. JEALOUS?

7. Reduce the stash. NO. This was going fairly well until Sundara Yarn brought out Water Lily in the spring. And then Porcini in the fall. And then Monet's Basilica and Grand Canal of Venice in the winter. I'M A HUMAN WITH EYES. I HAD to buy these. But hey - I DID do some good knitting this year, which I will feature in a later post, so get ready.

Photo credit: countingstitches, whose stash is epic

That's it for last year - and obviously "Weekly Blogging", "Smell Fantastic" and "Reduce the Stash" are all rolling over into this year - but what about this year's grandiose goals of unattainability? Here's what I came up with:

1. Bi-weekly Yoga. By that I meant yoga twice a week, not weekly bisexual yoga. As I mentioned in my yoga post, I was pretty sure I'd hate yoga but our teacher is adorable and we are digging the namaste. Ideally, we'd do yoga MORE than twice a week, but right now, twice a week is the number of times Jane shows up and makes us do yoga. 

2. Sugar cleanse. I'm generally against cleanses, because they make you unfun and also I suck at them. But I think that cutting out sugar for a defined period of time (say, a week) would be a helpful exercise, if only to find out how crazy I get. I will let you know how it goes, if I don't smash my computer and get arrested for trying to eat the gingerbread trim off the house down the street.

3. Become a yoga douchebag who doesn't eat sugar. Hahahaaa! Just kidding. But I know you were wondering. 

4. Brag about the iPad 2 Katr got me for Christmas, which she had engraved and everything so we'd know it was mine, even though SHE only has an iPad 1 and REALLY wants an iPad 2 but giving me fancier technology than she has is just another way she proves her love. COMPLETE. By the way, I named the iPad "Voldemort".

5. Pick something and fucking work on it. I'm not a very original person. I have many one project idea a year. And then, the year after, I have another project idea. Then I think about doing something about these ideas and have another idea. And then when I have time to DO something with these ideas, I can't decide which one to focus on. It's pretty ass and I don't get anything done.

So this year, I've winnowed it down to two ideas and I'm seconds away from deciding which one I'm going to throw all my energy into this year. Seconds away. Annnnnnnny second now.

Okay, that's what I got for now. I hope that 2012 brings all good things to all of you! Stay tuned for my weekly blog post! HA ha! For real this year, guys!