It was a very good day in the studio.

I think I may have completed 2 small watercolors for the Santa Monica Museum of Art's Incognito exhibit. I'll have to let them sit overnight and take a look tomorrow. 

I go crazy if I go without painting for too long. I mean, grumpy, world-can-go-to-hell-in-a- handbag nuts. I know this because 1) I start getting grumpy and crazy and 2) when I finally get in the studio, it's like Stargate has opened and I am teleported to a place where all is well and there is only peace and happiness. The effect is immediate. The work may sometimes be about struggle, but I do not struggle while painting. Watercolor painting, especially, is so soothing. It focuses me. I bet if everyone knew how to watercolor paint, we'd have world peace. There is no way to be angry, confused or disgruntled, or hell- even sad, while working with watercolors. 

(Ok, maybe I lie. maybe I have been sad, angry or confused when working on a watercolor, but not for long.)

***

I have to clean house, finish painting the utility room and prep a work for shipping. My to-do list keeps growing, but I'm knocking stuff off a little at a time. February is a big deadline month. 

***

And there's other stuff, which I am certain I will post briefly about soon enough. 

If I remember, I will stealth post the watercolors tomorrow. 

As soon as my overalls come out of the dryer, I am walking out to the studio to paint.

I think I have a studio... let's see, where is my studio?

I'd rather be dictating this post to one of my minions because I think I might need new glasses and my eyes are very tired.

This time last year I was knee-deep in 6 large canvases and prepping for a solo show. This year, I am painting interior walls prepping for the appraiser to come in on Friday and appraise the house. Fire Ice is my nemesis. It is a color I picked out while temporarily insane. I have tried 2 walls with it. It is truly the spawn of the devil. I am putting it out on the curb for someone.

Here's a couple of fun facts about me:
1. I don't like choosing frames for my work.
2. Apparently my tastes in colors and decorating schemes is really bland. Not entirely true. In theory and in my fine art practice, I'm excellent with choosing color combinations, but put me at Home Depot in front of the paint chips and I'm suddenly paralyzed.

It's like outside of the studio, any kind of creative decision is like, waaay too taxing for me.

I am still in the middle of a fellowship application, a public arts application and am building my etsy site, very slowly.

Tomorrow I am determined to work on a couple of gouaches for the Santa Monica Museum of Art's Incognito show.

This would be tagged as strictly "Life".

FB is really quite amazing. A childhood friend and I reconnected yesterday afternoon. Instead of it being the FB friend thing where we said hi on each other's walls, she asked for my number and called me within about 5 minutes. We probably hadn't seen or talked to each other in 20 years. We were neighbors and ran around from the age of 10 until sometime in high school. I had been hanging with all the boys in my hood until I got tired of them. I heard there was a girl that lived down the street, so one day I walked down to her house and asked if she wanted to play. And voilá, we were friends. Her brother teased me way beyond what would be acceptable nowadays and broke my nose with a football, but that's another story that I won't go into. The amazing thing is that we were able to have a super real conversation yesterday as though no time had passed. I guess when you share experiences as 10 year-olds, growing up in the same neighborhood and know each others families, you can talk about anything like it's no big deal.

Quick report on the workshop

Informative workshop hosted by the Los Angeles Civic Arts Program. I've been vetted for a public arts program in the past, but was not a finalist, so it was good to get some more information on how to make a stronger app. I've been doing some things right.
√ Sincere letter of interest
√ Strong work

What I did learn was what to include on the resume and what to leave off. They could care less about group shows. They want to see your teaching experience. They want to know from your references that you can work well with others and meet deadlines. I'm pretty sure my references will back me up on that and now I can highlight my teaching experience rather than mention it at the end. And lose the majority of group shows. They were useful when I first moved to LA and when I returned to painting, but they've probably served their purpose now.

They're really open to gallery artists who have NOT done public art before, so that's not as big a deterrent as I thought. They also showed some examples of some projects and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but in a million years I never imagined simply painting a supergraphic on building or a wall would be considered public art. I know- murals, where have I been? But again, in my mind most murals are narrative like the amazing examples I've come across in post offices. Think Diego Rivera or Thomas Hart Benton. Seeing abstract painted buildings totally opened up my world of interest and ideas. As a gallery artist, (that's the term the commission used) I kept limiting myself to what I considered public art. You know, traditional outdoor materials, large scale, sculptures or intricate bronze work, stained glass, etc. My biggest obstacle was figuring how, as a painter, to make public art. And on top of that, I had mistakenly assumed that abstract art would be dismissed for not relating to a broader community. So, yep. excellent use of 2 hours of my day, not including travel time. They even reimbursed for parking.

Behind the Scenes.

Things I do:

I teach.
I've been teaching consistently since 2001. At first I taught 3 classes a semester, then I went down to 2, then 1 or 2 depending on budget cuts and enrollment. Not to whine, but I was making a round-trip trek of 140 miles to teach a couple of classes at a college I really liked, and the distance and traffic got to be a bit much. Once in the rain it took me 4 hours to get there. I had planned ahead and was only an hour late. My students were still there. All of them, even the ne'er-do-wells. Pretty amazing. I had a really bad car wreck on the way home one day and decided I couldn't take the commute any more.

I paint.
Not much to say about this that I probably haven't already said, and yet, I'm sure there's stuff I've never said about painting. That's why I like painting. There's still so much to say.

I make stuff.
Not really hobbies, but it stems from when I was a kid making crafts with my mom. Decoupage was huge. Purses, plaques, etc. You name. we shellacked it. My dad had asthma, so eventually the fumes got to be too much and we stopped. I knit. I do wood burning, aka pyrography, and leather-tooling. Every so often I am motivated to sew something. Furniture rehabbing- some people take in stray dogs, I pick up chairs I see on the street. Sometimes desk and tables, but always chairs, benches and stools. Occasionally I am reminded of my DIY roots and I make an effort to market my crafts and cultural wares independently. I finally opened up an Etsy account last night. It's not under my name. I wanted it to be separate from my studio practice. It's not up and running yet, but if you think of a really dry but functional name, you could probably find my page. When I get finished pimping it, I'll post it.

I apply myself.
I like to keep things in motion. I apply for at least one grant every year. I think I'm on my 3rd year applying for The California Community Foundation Grant. It's there. I apply.

I also apply for public arts projects when I can envision my art fitting in with the proposal. Being an abstract artist and a non-designer makes this a little more challenging, but I still apply. A lot of grants want to know how your art will engage a diverse community. I think my art engages a diverse community, but I'll hand it to representational art for getting the point across in less time and more directly. Still, I apply because I believe that abstract art can communicate.

I brainstorm.
I do this a lot. Probably too much. In Chicago, an artist friend pulled me into a easy money gig. We sat in a high-rise building in Chicago and thought of product names for a couple of hours. I like to think. I took Latin. I like inventing things. I do this in my studio, but no one pays me and I don't have a view of Lake Michigan.

I'm not sure the relevance of today's post. I'm angsting about money. CAA is in a month and my heart's not into applying for teaching jobs all over the country. I'm getting ready to go to a workshop on how to generate a strong application for Los Angeles Civic Arts Program. Last time I attended a grant app workshop, I learned absolutely nothing new, but since public art is something I'd like to consider, I'm opening to the possibility it will contain useful information as opposed to tips on how to write an artist statement or how to shoot your work. At which point I will make the little motion of a gun to my head if the workshop leaders deem that relevant information worth driving downtown for. When I get back, I'll work on my cv and make an effort to look for teaching jobs all over the country, just so I can get depressed and wallow in self-pity. I'll upload stuff to etsy, finish a couple of apps and commit to working on a drawing/painting and reading another chapter of The Gift before before bed.

Lost was a little lame last night The whole, Flash! We're in the future, Flash! We're in the past, Flash! We're in the future, Flash! We're in the past, got old pretty quickly.

Still doing office work, but there is a new watercolor to view..

Well, the inauguration was this morning and wow! By the time I awoke and was onto coffee, the parade was just starting. I never watch TV during the day. No morning news, nothing.  Never, unless I'm sick. It took a few moments to relax into the history making of it all without wanting to make chicken soup and crawl under a blanket as a reflex. Fortunately it was sunny here and I have a ton of work to do, so after the hoopla, I was back in the studio, but only to work on computer stuff. Still uploading images for some upcoming grants opps out here and a few props I promised myself I'd do, just because. Am also considering the etsy thing, but I can only do so much in one day.

I did however upload another work to Smaller Works, so in times of lean posting, I may just link over there. 

***

I'm doing fairly well on some 2009 goals: 4 openings in 2 consecutive weekends is a record for me. January has a few more good things, like the art fairs and then Feb. is the CAA conference which is just a bit pricey for me this year, but it looks so interesting. I'd rather be working in the studio and figuring out my next move, but maybe it's time to be social for a spell. 

Extract from the address by President Roosevelt at the dedication on March 17, 1941 of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

I'm posting other people's findings of other people's words today-

"There was a time when the people of this country would not have thought that the inheritance of art belonged to them or that they had responsibilities to guard it. A few generations ago, the people of this country were taught by their writers and by their critics and by their teachers to believe that art was something foreign to America and to themselves - something imported from another continent and from an age which was not theirs - something they had no part in, save to go to see it in a guarded room on holidays or Sundays.
But recently, within the last few years, they have discovered that they have a part. They have seen in their own towns, in their own villages, in schoolhouses, in post offices, in the back rooms of shops and stores, pictures painted by their sons, their neighbors - people they have known and lived beside and talked to. They have seen, across these last few years, rooms full of paintings by Americans, walls covered with the paintings of Americans - some of it good, some of it no good, but all of it native, human, eager and alive - all of it painted by their own kind in their own country, and painted about things they know and look at often and have touched and loved.
The people of this country know now, whatever they were taught or thought they knew before, that art is not something just to be owned, but something to be made; that it is the act of making and not the act of owning which is art. And knowing this they know also that art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another country, but part of the present life of all the living and creating peoples - all who make and build; and, most of all, the young and vigorous peoples who have made an built our present wide country."

Reportage

Complete sentences are not my friend. I don't feel like crafting words and dealing with sentence structure. Reader beware.

I worked on some oil paintings yesterday. Three. I started them at the end of last year and then left them in various stages while I dug into making some new works on paper. As I work on the watercolors and gouaches, I sense I am neglecting the paintings. For some reason I always consider the oil paintings (or whatever other mixed media stuff I use on canvas) more "serious" than the watercolors. They're not. The watercolors are as serious, but there's a lightness to them that is in direct correlation to the heaviness in the oil paintings. The canvases have their own gravitas- oil, sludge, opaque murky hues that in a watercolor seem counter instinctual. Water flows, Paints sticks.

Two of the paintings are 20" x 16". I like this size. I feel like I am now understanding these dimensions. I have a relationship with the canvas that feels like what a portrait might include-head, bust, partial torso. I'm suspecting that they're self-portraits. The third canvas is 24" x 30". I wrangled one of the 20 x 16's into a good place yesterday. I can leave it alone for a day or two, I think, without feeling compelled to attend to it.

I noticed I used the word, 'feel' and other words dealing with intuition 7 times in my post. This is telling.

Some notes on The Gift, the book I'm reading. I have trouble reading sometimes. I tend to scan, even when something's riveting. If there's any kind of a speed bump in the reading, I go into extreme scan mode, quickly looking for a sentence or concept or something to latch me in again. Then I feel guilty and try and re-read every word I scanned over. You'd never believe that I wrote poetry in my 20's. I barely believe it.

I'm getting a tad tired of wading through the all the anthropology, yet every page has some gems. Last night I came across his reference to the folk tale of "The Shoemaker and His Elves." I've always loved that tale and had forgotten about it at a conscious level. Hyde has mentioned more than a couple of times the uncanny concept of the artist disassociating his/herself from the making of the work, so that after the work is complete, there is a strange feeling that the "I" did not make the work. I do this all the time. I look at things I've painted and although I am fully aware that I did indeed paint them, (Proof: there's still paint under my fingernails this morning.) I feel like the shoemaker's elves have come in and finished them. I lose track in the gap between some moment in the thick of it when everything's a mess, to the moment they reach the other side.

Fang's asleep in my studio. He's been content to hang out and sleep in here more and more lately and it's comforting. I tell him he's got the day off from guard duty when he does this. (He's a shepherd mix, so he's usually by the gate playing sentry during the day.)

I have downright lied today.

I have not worked on my cv (okay, I did open it up and add a couple of things) nor have I put my nose to the grindstone to look for additional work outside the studio or more classes to teach. Why? Beats me. Money's tight, so it would seem that throwing myself in front of a real job would appeal to me, but I wasn't able to focus on that today. Instead, I had a nice studio visit with a former student this morning, sold one of the grab bags, talked on an apparatus known as the "telephone" to two people, cried, brainstormed about some studio ideas with one of those people, walked Fang, ate an entire jar of pickled beets for lunch and stared at my Linked In account, not really understanding what to do next. It's so IBM looking. In fact some guy from UIC hunted me down as my first contact. He's in software, Enterprise Development. (I'm making the 'over my head' gesture right now.) I composed some emails and here I am.

I have a meeting tonight at 7pm and then afterward I intend to sit down and READ one of the two books that came in the mail yesterday:
The Gift by Lewis Hyde, a book that has escaped my radar for 25 years, which is about how long I've been calling myself an artist, and The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton.

It seems like a good time for me to read both of these books.

Some Things.

The art world is super small, crazy small. I'm not talking about the online arts community or any of that, I'm talking about the nuts and bolts world of people who buy art, people who sell art and people who make art, and at some point those paths cross in the physical world.

Like this past weekend, which is how I discovered that a painting I thought was hanging 2000 miles away in a private collection is actually hanging here in Los Angeles in a private collection. I was at an opening and dealer I know showed me a picture of my painting on their cellphone. And, in an even bigger coincidence, the collector was at the same opening, so I had a chance to meet him and chat with him about how he acquired my work. It was a nice conversation. He's an amicable gentleman.
Everything's legit, apparently just some really bad timing and delayed correspondence. And I might add, an error in judgement on my part, for which I am now wiser. If the sale had taken place in California, then this link would have been useful.
(Addendum: I'm still open to the possibility that there was no error in judgement and no bad timing and that things happen for a reason, and I'll leave it at that.)

***

And then this morning I read where my comrade in a parallel universe, Steven LaRose has decided to fizzle out his blog. At first I was bummed. I mean this is not a eulogy or anything, but there are certain artist/bloggers who, whom I was particularly simpatico with and LaRose is one of them, and so I will miss the dialogue. FB is just not the same.

***

I may be posting less as well, not as an intentional desire to quit writing, but when writing about things such as life and art, and art and life, it seems that messy things are well, messy and best omitted from the public spheres. And when I start having to omit the messy stuff, then I feel self-censored, which is obviously my prerogative since I am the self doing the censoring, but there's a fine line between revealing what I had for breakfast, what I'm doing in the studio and how I'm managing a couple of difficult things in my personal life. It's hard to pull the strands. My goal is to keep working as I'm working, work a little more than I think I'm working (see Perceived Exertion scale), try and be more fearless and have some faith.

I'll place the twitter feed in the side bar. Just in case...

I am so procrastinating on some stuff, but it's a good year so far.

The last couple of days have been great. I've received some good new concerning some shows, which is always good for my ego, and I uploaded some images which turned out to be another subtle way to get some attention. A few strands of conversation here and there with people, and then right before bed I got an email from someone who had seen my work in a collector's house over the holidays. Unlike 99% of the artist population, I am always amazed at these things. Simple things, like someone buying my work and finding out they hung it in their home or office. As opposed to say, U.S. Storage, which seems have the largest comprehensive collection of my work.

There are lots of openings in the Metropolitan Los Angeles today. Timing is tough especially if you have to keep getting in and out of the car and dealing with traffic and parking. Matt might have to work late and if so, I may take the motorcycle if it's not be too chilly. It's a gorgeous day here in beautiful Culver City.

Along with a veritable slew of other openings...

Kristi Engle Gallery is having an opening with Ted Apel in Highland Park.

Lisa Adams at Lawrence Ascher Gallery on the Miracle Mile

Lester Monzon at Kinkead Contemporary in Culver City

Elana Kundell is in a group show at The Loft at Liz's near the Miracle Mile

That list is pushing my limit of how many shows I can see in one night. I'm planning on seeing the work at Kristi's next week.

Oh gosh, PS. Matt cut a film for director, Jason Wulfsohn a couple of years ago that's been screening in some festivals and it's going to screen here in L.A. tomorrow night-

Tracing Cowboys
at the Downtown Independent Theater
Sunday Jan. 11, 7 pm.
251 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA
Cast and crew will be in attendance.

http://www.tracingcowboys.com/reviews.html

Lesser Bloggers Might have Given Up By Now.

I have been blogging consistently since October 10, 2005. Based on the anonymous info that sitemeter sends me I had three visitors today. One person was looking for the 'Feudal System' and another was looking for 'Banksy'. Usually I would have a fourth visitor hoping to garner information about 'My routine.'


I'm so laughing.

But the big news is that..... ta-da, today marked the first watercolor of 2009. I say first, because I started and finished it today. I've worked on finishing up some 2008, 2007 watercolors thus far in the New Year, but yep, this was the first brand new one, though it doesn't scream 2009. I need to take some time to consider what 2009 should be about.

Mary Addison Hackett, Not yet titled, 2009, 6 x 9in. watercolor and gouache on paper

Also I think I may have done a social networking faux-pax. Someone mis-quoted a Kandinsky quote and then attributed it to Paul Klee. I chimed in that it was a Kandinksy quote. I wasn't trying to be a know-it-all, but it's one of my favorite quotes and I have it on my studio wall. I was pretty much ignored after that, so maybe I shouldn't have been such a quotation cop.

I'm wondering how many people actually understand my sense of humor.

By the way, it's not a conceptual project, it's an act of commerce.

I spent yesterday in the studio and I will spend today there too. I worked on some drawings and uploaded some work to Smaller Works. It's not a very original name, but it's functional. I had another name, but it was too twee and 90% of the population would have loved it. Plus, I like the idea of 'works' being a verb. You know, like, "Smaller Works hard for a living," or "Smaller Works so you don't have to," or "Smaller Works to help Mary Addison Hackett participate in the global economy." That kind of thing.

I tweaked some links on my website contact page, managed to come up with at least 3 more things I'd like to do in order to expand my artmaking and financial empire, and right before bed, I eliminated my rationale for making the work that I do, in the sidebar on the Smaller Works page. Then I showed Matt the site. The first thing he did was laugh and asked why everything I did had to be conceptual art. I think the Grab Bag image was what triggered his response. I laughed too, because it's true, even though I didn't intend for the store to be an art project. It's just how I put things together. There always seems to be a loose thread that reveals something slightly irreverent and inherent. Making things too serious or uniform is not my strength. I know this about myself. When everything I do has the consistency of being inconsistent or slightly off, I'm confident and good to go.

I'm scheduled to teach a drawing class in February and I'm in the process of putting two portfolios together, design and illustration, because I sense that when someone needs some design work, hiring a painterly abstract painter is not the first thing that comes to mind and I figure I may as well be open to those possibilities as well. So yes, this is an open call to hire me now.

Good news. Yes, it is.

I don’t like to admit when I’m in a slump, but I know I am because even an email from the Fellows of Contemporary Art hasn’t pulled me out if it. Normally any form of external validation is good for at least a day of being disproportionately elated, but right now, it’s just a nice appointment to look forward to. I knew I was tentatively on the books through some phone tag, so it’s not brand new news, just more confirmed. An artist friend recommended me, and I in turn, recommended another artist, so that part feels good. It’s scheduled for mid-June.

And with that, I will recreate some of my 2009 goals, which were blown away in an accidental delete. My personal goals are personal, but I’ve had some wonderful people in my life when I least expected it and intend to keep paying it forward.

Goals: 2009

(Well, it wasn't deleted after all. The post time was set to January 1, 2008, instead of 2009...)



I'm listing some studio goals I'd like to accomplish in 2009. Personal goals are personal, though finding balance is high on the list. That and exercise. Whenever I get a wee bit depressed, I think I'd like to let it all go and eat myself into a sugary slothdom. I don't, but it crosses my mind. Then I envision myself in a fat suit and snap out of it.

Art, Exhibition, Project Goals:

1. Lining up a solo showor two of new paintings. Sure, I'm disciplined enough to work in the studio without a fawning audience, but why torture myself. I thrive best on flux. (Yes! One down and possibly a group show. 1.07.09) √ Solo at Kristi Engle schedule. Four group shows already scheduled. Had to turn down another solo show due to scheduling.
2. An installation project in a project room. Artmaking, freestyle. It's like being able to flowchart and parse away to my heart's content using anything and everything I see fit. This would segue with the book project listed below quite nicely. (see 2010)
3. Continue to make connections with galleries, curators, museums and exhibition spaces, both here in L.A. and elsewhere. See #1, #2 above. √√√
4. Making a book, limited-edition magazine or accumulation of stuff into a compact, bound object and making it available for sale. This has been on the list FOREVER it seems. The Series 100 cutouts have been waiting for this, as have some of my collages and ephemeral drawings. Kind of like Richter’s Atlas. Would segue nicely with #2 above. (see 2010)
5. Making a font of my handwriting. I already have a name for it, but I’m not telling. Nope. Not yet.
6. Take some time to write about the work. Things shift. I might be surprised. Oh boy, did they.
   

Workshop & Design:

1. Making semi-functional stuff for everyday use. I made some notecards. They were pretty.
2. Selling semi-functional stuff for everyday use. Made a half-ass attempt.
3. Working on designs for better living and testing them out in real life. I filed for divorce.

Honing My Skills and Developing New Ones:

1. A printmaking course. Nope.
2. A web design course. I've taught myself some code and a few things here and there and I can read a book, but I think a class might be good. Nope.
3. More au plein air painting on a regular basis. It's good hygiene. iPhone Brushes app. Yes, it counts.
4. Applying for residency. It's been awhile and I love residencies. Opens me up to new ideas and people. √ Accepted to Vermont, but had to postpone.
5. Continuing to apply for suitable public art projects and grants. √√ Applied for Pollack-Krasner and C.O.L.A. grant. First time to apply for either.
6. I'd like to develop some software apps in my sleep. Maybe I did.
7. NEW: Take time to LEARN Aperture properly. ROTL.

The Business Side of Things:

1. Organize my flatfiles and inventory. Implement a better database program. ....maaaaybe.
2. I will use a tripod to document my work. I have 3 tripods. I have been lazy. Sometimes.
3. I will follow through with interested parties and not rely on chance encounters and scraps of paper with numbers. √-. Just remembered two things I did not follow through with.
4. Remember that studio time and office time are not interchangeable simply because the desk is in the studio. Tough call.
5. I will be less flexible, in a good way. This is not as mean or selfish as it sounds. I tend to be one of those people who thinks because I set my own schedule 80% of the time, I'm 'flexible' for appointments, lunch, meetings etc. The problem with this is being 'flexible' with several people within the same week. Not good. Good for yoga, not good for scheduling. Not sure how I fared on this one.
6. I will follow through on ideas, mine and the good ones suggested by other people. √
7. I will entertain not-so-good ideas made by others briefly, and see if I can find any merit in them. √
8. Brainstorm and create opportunities for myself. √ (okay, more like, see 2010 for the big stuff.)
9. Have a studio sale. Novel idea. Technically, I participated in a studio sale, though not at my studio.
10. Update the Smaller Works site every other day, or at least once a week on a regular basis. Um, no, though I breathed life into again toward the end of the year.
11. Publicize the Smaller Works site. √ Only because I got a prompt from Tracy.
12. Remember that blogging, Facebook and Twitter are useful tools, not manacles. √-

Social/Community Goals:

1. Scheduling more studio visits. They get me out of my studio and are inspiring. √√√ Had a few great studio visits this year.
2. Inviting people over to my studio for coffee and conversation. Feedback about the work is great, but what I really like is finding common ground with others. Also, it’s an excuse to bake. √
3. Lunch or coffee with another person. Leaving the house for the occasional low-key social engagement every other week seems like a good goal. It’s similar to #2, but involves me leaving the house and talking to someone other than Fang. Working on it.
4. Openings. I try and support other artists on a semi-irregular basis, but it takes wild horses to drag me out on a Friday or Saturday night. Los Angeles is chock full of openings and I have neglected to get some friends’ openings due to traffic, time constraints etc. It is what is it, but I will try harder this year. √
5. This wasn't listed as a goal, but, it counts.

Bigger Picture Goals:

1. Helping other people. I think I helped a couple of people this year.
2. Be totally self-supporting through the studio this year. That’s a big goal, but I’m putting it out there to see how close I can get. I’ve also got a sneaky suspicion that everything else I’ve listed as a goal might feed into this goal This requires being open to opportunities I might not have taken a few years ago, either out of fear or disinterest. The fear was that I'd get stuck doing something I didn't really want to do. I'm more mature now, plus I've found a way to love everything I do. And it's not freakishly optimistic or mystical, I just do everything as though I'm doing it for myself. If I like it, I'm confidant someone else will like it. If I don't like it, I don't care whether you like it or not. If I like it and you don't like it, I've hit a snag, but will apply #8 above before I open my mouth or stare vapidly into space. I had some moments where it looked pretty good, but some deals went south. (See 2010)
3. Ask for things directly. Sounds simple and yet, I sometimes still have this outdated idea that if someone asks me first, it’s better. Maybe it has to do with where the perception of power lies. I could argue it both ways, but I don’t care anymore. Asking for things is good. (√ in progress)

Other:
Lose those 5 pounds I just put on. Curse that Red Velvet cake. Curse something else- like chocolate.

I will update this list and track my progress throughout the year, adding and deleting things.

Super Powers Unite. Not. Yet.

I have wasted more than a couple of minutes trying to configure my Facebook account to be accountable for my entire social networking experience. It sounds like a good idea, but then so do lots of things which I later regret. I like the idea of having a little privacy, if you can call it that. This would seem to contradict the whole point of social networking and self-promotion, but so be it. I attempted to feed my Process blog into Facebook, but ended up blasting my profile with umpteen previous posts instead of just the current ones, which felt like the Internet equivalent of spilling the contents of my purse on the floor, so I deleted that app and thought I'd try the Flickr app, but it didn't behave very well either. I'll try again later. 

****

On New Year's Eve day, I wrote out a list of my 2009 goals to share. Blogger had some issues and when I went back to post it, they were gone. All gone. Because I am a goal-oriented person, I will rewrite them tonight after dinner and post again.