2011: My Ideal Woman in Review

New Years Day always gives us a chance to reflect back on the things we did in the previous year.  One big thing I did was create this blog.  I’ve been a writer at heart since I was in middle school, with dreams of being a published author, and years later, dreams of being a screenwriter.  Things didn’t work out that way (as of yet) but I did get into writing about a hobby of mine, and have proudly been a paid professional hobby writer for well over a decade.

Even though it’s a lot of fun to write about a hobby you love, it’s a pretty narrow niche potential audience, and it occurred to me last year that starting a blog might be a good way to stretch my writing chops and expand my audience and network of readers and other writers.  When I was contemplating what to write about, the fact that I was going through a divorce and needing to start my life over seemed like the perfect thing to write about.  Not only would it be much more accessible to readers, but it could also be cathartic to write, providing me with a way to shape my thoughts and feelings going forward, to help me learn from mistakes in the past and focus on the sorts of people I want to be in my life going forward.

The concept was that the blog name “My Ideal Woman” be the first part of an affirmative sentence, with each blog post title “… She’d be (something something)” as the second part of the sentence.  Eventually ideas for posts came that didn’t exactly fit the paradigm but that was my original framing.

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Following The Pixies

The “Take Back My Life 2011” master plan has taken longer to come together than I had hoped.  For those who might not have read about it, here’s the quick rundown:  basically, I’ve been on an insane roller-coaster ride for years now where just about all I do is work, work, work and sleep, holding down a full-time job, a part-time job, and a weekly writing gig.  Every other weekend I get to spend time with my wonderful two kids, but on the other weekends I work at my part-time job for 8-12 hours each day.

This is me

Occasionally I squeeze in a little me-time during each week, but it’s often at the expense of rest, which is obviously not a very healthy way to go.  Something needs to change, and this year various things were set in motion that I believe will lead to a much needed change.  Making sure my kids are taken care of is a high priority, but living alone is an expensive luxury I just cannot afford.  Thus–fingers crossed– I will soon have a roommate and can begin dialing down the hamster wheel of endless work I’ve been on and reclaim some time to rest, relax and have a life outside of the hamster wheel.

It’s going to be happening soon, so soon that I can taste it, I dream about it, I’m even starting to tentatively plan around it.  But there are things passing me by now because it’s not happening soon enough and it’s driving me just a little bit crazy.

One of those things is following The Pixies.

Not long ago I found out that The Pixies have been on tour performing the Doolittle album.  They’ve actually been touring since October 2009, hitting Europe, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, then back to Europe and concluding in the U.S. this past spring.  They’ve basically been touring during the time period I’ve been least able to go to their shows since I first discovered The Pixies in the late ‘80s, and I didn’t even hear about it until the tour was over!  And yet… they recently kicked off a “Lost Cities US Tour” continuing the Doolittle performances this Fall and Winter, concluding November 21 in Santa Cruz California.  The closest they’ll be around here is November 6 in Wilmington Delaware, and November 8 in Greensboro North Carolina.

So my window for catching either or both of these shows is less than two weeks away… and still no roommate.  Damn it!!

The Pixies were one of the pillars of my music renaissance (which I talked about here, in …She’d Envy my iPod (pt3)).  They were one of three cassettes I bought one Saturday afternoon on the recommendation of a lovely girl I was dating at the time and it knocked my socks off and totally reoriented what I knew about good music.  One was Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth, one was Hunkpapa by Throwing Muses, and one was Doolittle by The Pixies.

Doolittle, quite the eye-opener

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