New Year, New Resolutions

I know I've been neglecting this blog recently... well okay I've never been THAT good at keeping up with it, but this time I have an excuse, kind of.

I got a new job! Like a real, I-have-to-actually-do-work-and-not-go-on-the-internet job! And I love it. Plus I'm looking to move soon so apartment hunting has been taking up about half of my non-working time.

But that's not what this post is about. FOCUS, LISA.

My New Years Resolutions:

I vow to read at least 50 books this year (and my buddies over at WD are going to help me stay accountable for that one).

I vow to complete... as in totally complete to the best of my ability... a full, query-ready novel by August. Ideally earlier but I'm a perfectionist and Arieties has been technically finished for about 3 months and I'm still in the "I hate it" phase so we'll see where that goes.

I vow to not waste my time trying to make this blog something it isn't. This is a biggie, because I keep changing what I want this blog to be based on what I think will get readers or on what I think people are interested in and you know what? That doesn't matter. This is MY blog, gosh darnit, and I'm going to write about what I like, whether you like it or not (though I still hope you like it :) )

I vow to exercise... ehhh at least twice a week for now but I want to get up to 4 times a week of solid, hard, sweat-through-my-shirt exercise in a few months when my knees stop acting up. For now I'll settle for Wii Fit Plus (LOVE LOVE LOVE IT).

Well, that's going to be it for now, mainly because our heat is broken and I can't feel my fingers. I promise to work on this blog more. Once this month settles down I'll get into a schedule and get to work. Without a schedule I'm kind of lost and frantic and I don't like it.

Hope everyone had a happy holidays and may this year be even better than the last!

***

Edited: HAHAHA OKAY those asterisks up there used to be xoL, xoL is so not going to work. It's Lox backwards and while lox are delicious I can't get hungry every time I come on here. So no more xoL. Maybe just - L for now.

- L

Is it a scavenger hunt? No, it's a bar entrance.

If I ever win the lottery, I've decided that I'm going to open something. Maybe a restaurant, maybe a bar. Doesn't matter. Point is, when I'm bored I often think about ways that I'm going to make this restaurant/bar AWESOME. I've gone through a ton of different ideas ranging from live animal shows to decorating it like the interior of an actual cave where all of the liquor comes out of stalactites in the ceiling (idea stolen from my beloved Cave Bar, aka El Chapandaz, in Madrid).

Then, as a friend and I were researching which speakeasy we wanted to go to tonight (you'll understand in a minute, maybe), I came upon this description of how to get into the subMercer:

To get there, pass the Mercer Hotel (no. 147) and enter a little nook in the wall (no. 147 1/2). You'll know you're there when you see two unassuming henchmen hanging out in front of a doorway—just walk on by and enter the industrial freight elevator. Two floors underground, cruise down a long dark hallway stocked with bathroom supplies, turn left, pass the boiler room and then turn right through a heavy red door. One more hallway filled with wine and the faint sounds of lounge music will lead you to the promised land.

Read more: http://www.urbandaddy.com/nyc/1169/New_York,_The_Submercer,_Nightlife,_NYC#ixzz1dssuTebH

HOLY CRAP, GUYS. How awesome does that sound? Granted, further research let me know that since I'm not rich and famous (yet) I will probably have a bit of an issue getting in on the weekends, but still. AWESOME. If I win the lottery I am finding some way to make the entrance to my place as confusing and sneaky as this.

Of course, further research led me to discover that I probably won't be able to get in very easily, especially dressed in my work clothes, so we'll be venturing to another speakeasy that looks like an abandoned toy factory from the front but is a baller Victorian-themed bar where they serve liquor in teacups. Apparently there's a secret entrance to another room behind a bookcase that I'm definitely going to try and sneak through. Stay tuned for updates!

The TRIFECTA of Inspiration

I had the trifecta of inspiration this weekend. Well, okay one of them didn't happen this weekend, but I'm going to count it because trifecta of inspiration sounds cool.

So first of all, I'm not the best behaved 23-year-old in church. If I go by myself I'm probably fine, but the problem is that I usually go with my brother and sister. There's just something about us all sitting there that turns us into children. Ergo, after about 5 minutes of homily I tend to space out, sometimes playing this stupid game with my brother that is way too difficult to explain on here so I won't.

This week, we went to a "family mass" at our church. Basically during the homily, the priest sits on the floor and has all of the little kids come up to the front and directs the message to them. Besides the fact that this little girl could not stop repeating her answer to "What is your talent?" (her answer was fixing the bed. Really? That's all you've got?) this message actually clicked with me.

Basically the idea was that everyone has talents and at the end of your life God is going to ask you what you did with those talents. Now whether or not you believe in God is your own business, but even if you take that out of the equation the message still kind of sticks. The priest basically asked the congregation "What the hell are you going to do with your life?"

A conversation every teenager dreads.

So, I immediately thought "Huh. I'd say my talent is writing. At least it's what I love to do." Then the homily was over and I was playing again.

Later that day, I was laying on the couch, watching some brain-rotting TV with my brother and he said "You used to write stories, right?"

"Yeah."

"I remember some of them. You should do that again."

It was such a simple statement, but combined with the priest it really hit me. I SHOULD do that again. Little does he know that I am writing, since, for some reason, I can't bring myself to let anyone know. It made me want to get really really serious about my writing. 

The third thing is the death of my friend in August. A 19-year-old, perfectly healthy person, who just didn't wake up one morning. Life is short, people. Every day is a gift.

Picture of the Week

This week's photo comes from Ben Canales' Photostream. If you have time I'd definitely recommend checking his site out, he's got some awesome shots.

Have a great weekend!

Non-Drowsy Medicine... Yeah Right.

I am really really bad at schedules. It's a problem. I think it started when I was 18 days late being born.

Anyway, I'm sick so I am totally going off the self-imposed schedule and I'm going to vent.

After doing thorough research (aka combing the internet for 10 minutes) I've discovered that I suffer from the Paradox Effect. That's the only name that anyone came up with and it sounds really cool. Other people who claim to have degrees in things like biology just explained it as the non-drowsy bit doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do. As in, making me drowsy. I should probably have started off with that, shouldn't I? Whatever, I'm delirious from forcing myself to stay awake when the cocktail of vitamins and cold medicine inside my body wants me to go to sleep.

I figured this out a little bit when I had mono in college. DayQuil knocked me the hell out for hours. NyQuil also knocked me out. I figured it was just because apparently mono makes you really tired, but I still stayed away from cold medicine. All over-the-counter medicine, really. Pretty sure it's because my pediatrician told me that if I take too much medicine it won't work when I need it to. I think I was around 8.

Anyway, I didn't really take cough medicine until I got the flu two years ago and it knocked me out again. Ditto when I got pneumonia a few months later. But those are serious-ish issues so obviously they're going to knock me out, right?

Now I have the worst cold I can remember having and I actually have a job that I have to be awake at unlike when I had mono (college), the flu (college), and pneumonia (when I was an unemployed slacker the summer after college).

If anyone has any suggestions on how to stay awake, I appreciate it. Also, I hate coffee so there's that.

Sorry for the pointless post. But not really sorry, because you've read all of the way to the bottom and I love you for it.

Picture of the Week

Here's a little break from the cold weather of this week:

Kind of has an Alice in Wonderland kind of feel to it, doesn't it? Have a great weekend!

The Scariest Part of Halloween

AHHHH IT'S HALLOWEEN!!

I love Halloween. Scary movies, jack-o-lanterns, candy, trick or treaters. Everything. One thing I don't love?

NANOWRIMO STARTS TOMORROW.

In context, I'm not freaking out as much as I would if, say I was being chased through an abandoned house by Michael Myers.

This Michael Myers would be just as scary.

So Good Luck to everyone attempting NaNo this year! Here's a list of things I did to hopefully gain me a win. I'll let you know if any of them actually help:

1. Subscribed to my Region on nanowrimo.org.  They had a Kickoff party yesterday that I had to miss because I was trapped in the frozen wasteland that was Connecticut (no offense to anyone who lives there but that place was AWFUL during the storm). I'm planning on attending at least one Write-In either this week or next week. If it's helpful I'll go back. I've never written with other people involved so it'll be a new experience.

2. Bookmarked writeordie.com. I'm considering buying the desktop edition, but I want to see how much it actually helps me for the first week before making the whole $10 plunge. Stay tuned for updates.

3. Plotted out my time in a nifty little chart based around what TV shows I would be sad to miss and which ones I can do without. Sorry, Sunday nights. The Walking Dead gets an hour.

4. Fully charged my computer so I can write on my 40 minute each way commute. I took this morning off to nap, but once tomorrow comes there'll be none of that.

5. Finished writing Arieties. Scenes are done. Handing it off to my critique group for comments. 

So I'm as prepared as I am going to be. I was going to write an outline of my story but let's face it, I'm a pantser. It doesn't work. I might write up a page about the characters I already have in my mind but even that seems like a lot of planning for me.

I now have less than 24 hours before NaNo begins. What have you done to prepare?