forty questions about 2007

Here is yet another year-in-review meme. Again, I will get to a proper review one of these days … What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Traveled abroad for work. Auditioned for a game show. Went on an 8.5-mile hike. Rented my own apartment in San Francisco. Acted in an independent film. Led a team on a year-long project. Went geocaching. River-rafted (or, rather, laid very still on a raft while others rowed). Rode a bike in Golden Gate Park. Sang karaoke, twice at private parties and once at a bar in front of strangers. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn’t make them, and I don’t think I will anymore. Every day will be a resolution day, and that resolution...

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Posted on 29 Dec 2007 | 3 comments

year in review

Because I haven’t finished my full-fledged year-in-review post, here is that meme that’s floating about the tubes: take the first line of the first entry from each month for the last year. January The party last night was a success. February I am so frustrated with my computer right now. March How it begins: someone sends a fascinating email or an interesting voicemail. April The yay: Making it through an all-day offsite meeting and somehow giving a presentation in front of what felt like eleventy billion people but was in all probability only 40 or so. May I am settling into being mediocre, between genres, unfinished, and not a genius. June Usually it either takes hours or moments for me to write something here. July If you are unsure, holding a hand...

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Posted on 28 Dec 2007 | 2 comments

would like to know your birthdate

She said, “I would like to know your birthdate, and also other things about you, like if you had a good-luck charm as a child, and if you named it a secret. When you walked home from school, did you touch the trunks of trees in order? Or did you skip home, scuttling over cracks? I would like to know if your eyes were always that blue, what your guts felt like when you first kissed, and if you were the cowboy or the chief. Did you always drink your milk? Did you blush when yelled at? Which freckle have you always had, and which have you lost? I would like to know your first favorite color and all the favorites after that – dogs, songs, shoes, rooms – and if you don’t have time to tell me now, then I would like twice as much time.”

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Posted on 18 Dec 2007 | 3 comments

more words

My year-long work project launched on Thursday-then-Friday. I would say that I’m proud and relieved, except plans for its second phase are already underway, which is blindingly common and unsurprising and all of that wonderful stuff but still deflating. Working in such an intangible capacity every day is so strange for me. It’s been 15 months and I’m still not used to it. When I worked at a library, it was clear when I was doing something, improving something: books got reshelved, people found the sources they needed, sometimes I’d even see the “a-ha!” look and know I had witnessed a connection of knowledge to experience. And now? More than twenty people spent a year on a project that, if we did it right, most people will...

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Posted on 15 Dec 2007 | 4 comments