How is There an Overage?*

An aside first. This entry will be our 707th entry for the year. There are 365 days in 2009, which should equate to 730 entries between Kate and I by years end. But starting tomorrow we have 24 more day in the year. That's 48 additional entries added to the 707 already existing, for a grand total of 755 entries. To my knowledge we've never written extra entries. In fact Kate missed one or two while traveling in New York a few months ago without a computer or internet access. So how did we manage to write 25 extra entries? That's just over two extra entries a month (which I guess is potentially just one extra entry a month from each of us.)

I thought we'd been keeping pretty careful track of entries, making sure not to miss any if at all possible. I guess in our effort to stay current we ended up unwittingly writing a lot of unnecessary, extra entries...actually...hold on one second. I'll be right back.

[Jaunty music, popular in your day plays while you wait.]

Okay...nevermind. I'm not going delete everything I've just written because I took the time to write it, but it's totally wrong. It occurred to me (right before the jaunty music started) that there might be some unpublished drafts hanging out in total, and there were. And 28 of them were copies of the same draft that resulted from a Blogger error months ago. There were 33 total drafts, dropping our projected total at the end of the year to 722. So in fact we've missed eight entries for the year. Surprising, but nothing to feel disappointed over, considering the total number that were written. I feel better now. The riddle has been solved and I've set history straight.

On to my positive for this evening...

We've only missed eight entries out of our 730 entry goal (assuming we don't miss anymore, and I don't think we will)! I feel pretty good about that.


*There isn't. And I guess the above "aside" wasn't an aside at all. Sorry for all the misrepresentations. I'll turn the music back on if it will make you feel any better.

Next Blog Already...

I'm excited to start a new personal blog after this initial one has ran it's course come January. Don't get me wrong I have really enjoyed writing this one with Jason, but I just feel it's time we went our own way and wrote our own personal blogs this next time around. Jason is an extraordinary writer who deserves his own spotlight and I am not the best writer and would be better at doing entries involving recipes, crafts, or introspective journal type prose. I would love to start writing poetry again and hope I'll feel the inspiration to do just that. I'm exciting to start this new journey, one that is all mine. I really don't care if people read it or not.

I feel this blog has been truly therapeutic and continuing this brain download with another one will only further benefit me mentally and physically.

Thanks, whoever you are, for continuing to listen to our rants.

Shout it Out Ellen!!

Alright, I finally did it! I sent a letter to the Ellen Degeneres Show about our blog. It feels good to get it out there, how wonderful it would be if she talks about it on air. Even though a lot of my entries are boring I still think we both have accomplished an amazing feat by keeping this going so long. I feel more positive and confident and would love to see others try this out. It's a great way to get each day going on a positive note.

Here's the letter. I wish I had cracked more jokes, like "check out my awesome entry on cheese" or 80s music for some deep thinking.


Dear Ellen,
Hi my name is Kate and like many I am a huge admirer of yours and your show puts a smile on my face everyday.

I wanted to share with you something my boyfriend, Jason and I have been doing for the past 9 1/2 months that has really changed our perspective on life. Jason had the idea of starting a blog that we would begin the beginning of 2009 where everyday each of us would write an entry about any positive aspect in our life. The entries can be any length. We've now written over 500 entries and it's really remarkable to us that we've kept this going so long. We've both really grown through this experiment. Jason has really grown as a writer and even through my writing isn't up to par with his I do feel I've grown into a much more happier person. Our subjects range from our entertainment loves (you've definitely been mentioned in a few of mine), to our food cravings, to how grateful we are for our wonderful family and friends, to overcoming life challenges (such as losing my job six months ago). Jason's entries can be crazy scientific sometimes, but that's what he loves and why I love him. It would be amazing to see Jason's entries published one day, his writing is very profound.


I wanted to share this life experiment with you and with as many others as I can. It's been a challenge to think of a new topic everyday, but we somehow find positivity in something everyday. I feel if life's getting you down, this is a great way to test yourself in becoming a more positive thinker.

Thanks so much,
Kate

The address is:
http://positiveyear.blogspot.com/

This Blog Should Be Counted

I think it's safe at this point to make a comment about the progress off this small experiment, as we're nearly eight months in. And I definitely think it's fair to place this blog into itself as a uniquely positive experience.

Is it positive in the way we expected? I won't speak for Kate. For me, the jury's still out. I don't know that I'm generally more optimistic than I was before we began. I always imagined, when we started this, that we'd be searching for our topics each day, throughout the day, thereby creating a habit that would continue on after the year was complete. That doesn't happen. Generally Kate and I come up with our topics sitting in front of the computer. Not always, but most of the the time. And that is a practice that will end when the year is finished. So I'm not sure that the sort of lasting benefit we imagined at the start of this blog will be realized. At least not in the totality we were hoping for.

However, there are several other benefits that we didn't expect that we've reaped in spades. For me, the opportunity to write everyday has been enormously beneficial. I feel like I've grown a good deal (I hope) in my writing abilities, in my understanding of the process, and in my ability to share my thoughts. Never in my life have I had the opportunity to do so much writing on so many topics. Nor have I ever had the proper motivation to do that sort of work. Writing, in the past, say in school or at work, has often felt like a chore. And while I've always been good at business writing, I've only recently had the chance to develop a more conversational style. I'm really liking it, and I'd like to continue blogging in some form after this year is over.

Another benefit has been in our relationships with friends and family. I feel like we've gotten closer to a lot of people through this process, as we share pieces of ourselves. I can't tell you how often one of us has started a story with someone we know, only to realize that our friend's already heard about it because of the blog. It's really nice to know that people are reading it and that people are enjoying it. It would be much harder to do this everyday if we thought we were writing to a brick wall.

But probably more than all of these, writing the blog has helped clarify things in our own minds. It's been a good tool to shed light on ourselves for ourselves. I always laugh at the concept of "getting to know yourself". If there's anyone you should know everything about, it's you. But it's just not the case. Your brain has a way of obfuscating and muddling your own thoughts in such a way that sometimes you can't really be sure how you feel about things. But the truth is that you do know. You simply, for one reason or another choose to fool yourself. But getting things out on paper helps peel away the layers and get at the heart of things. Writing can be a great tool for self-discovery or, more precisely, calling yourself on your own shit. By writing daily on positive things, it's forced me to look at what I really love about life and what doesn't matter. That's probably the biggest benefit of all.

More Than Halfway There

I was sitting here, brainstorming entry ideas when it occurred to me that eight days ago Kate and I passed the halfway mark in our year-long experiment. That's six months worth of entries for each of us, one entry a day, 362 entries total, without fail. Not to toot our own horns, but I think that's pretty amazing. Not a single entry missed (and only one or two that I'd consider throwaways) in six months is a testament to the power of commitment. I'm not sure I can speak for Kate on this, but for my part, interestingly enough, I never thought we wouldn't be able to do it. But I wasn't operating from the stance that we'd try it for a few weeks and see if it stuck. I was working from the position that this was something we were doing every day, for a year, and that missing a day wasn't an option.

That's why it's not surprising to me that we've kept up with it. I've never doubted that we would. I think it's safe to say that if we had approached this with a "try it and see" attitude we would have stopped writing regularly, if at all, months ago. It hasn't been easy staying up later at night or getting up early to fit in an entry that usually takes at least a half hour to write. The brainstorming process itself can be somewhat taxing. A new original entry everyday, some organically born from that day's experiences but many cogitated out of thin air, is something of an endeavor.

Obviously we're enjoying ourselves. If this process felt like a chore all the time (sometimes it does) we'd have a harder time sticking with it. But taking on a project like this requires commitment. Like many things in life, committing is the hardest step. Once that's taken care of a lot of the rest of the work feels less like work. Quitting goes off the table as an option and no longer looms over your head as a decision you have to struggle with. That constant tension of "Should I continue? Can I continue?" goes away because you are continuing. You're doing it, every day.

If we hadn't committed fully to this project and we hadn't stopped yet we'd likely be counting the days till completion. As it is though, the halfway mark came and went without a whimper, without being noticed. I think that's pretty cool.

Thanks to those of you who have committed to reading us on a regular basis. It makes our work much more fun, knowing that there are sentient people on the other end of this mostly one-sided communication.

The Pros and The Cons

When faced with a difficult decision, I'm a big fan of the pro and con list. It's a quick device to help focus your thoughts and bring your choices into perspective. Here's an example of an pro and con list in action.

Should I write a blog entry about pro and con lists?

PROS

1.) My attitude toward topic fits the general sentiment of blog.
2.) The generalized nature of the entry affords a wide latitude for treatment and many opportunities for jokes.
3.) Thinking of another topic will take time and likely cause my brain to bleed.
4.) I'm nearly halfway through the entry already.

CONS

1.) Less inspired than my entry on Sharpie markers.
2.) Likely to bore everyone but accountants, lawyers and insurance professionals, of which none read this blog.
3.) May be misinterpreted as a discussion of the relative merits of professionals versus convicts. (The real professionals don't get caught.)
4.) I just thought of a much better topic.

So in this case, the pros win out. But listing all the positives and negatives associated with a given problem, and then rating them in order of importance doesn't necessarily make your decision easier. Unless you're willing to give up your emotional attachments to one side of the decision or the other and give yourself over to the logic of the list, you may still find choosing difficult. In this case, you could take a different lesson from your pros and cons. If, after weighing everything you have an issue with the choice your list is telling you to make, then you now at least know for sure which choice you want to make, which means something.

Flipping a coin to make a decision has this same illuminating power. Let's say you can't decide between watching "A Clockwork Orange" and "Dude, Where's My Car?". You flip a coin, and the result, heads, indicates one of them. Based on your reaction to that result you can now at least be sure what you really wanted to watch all along.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to make the best choice possible, take the time to make a pro and con list. If you just want to do what you really want to do, and damn the consequences, flip a coin.

I flipped tails, so I finished this entry.

A Big Old Comfortable Chair

I was at pains to come up with a suitable entry tonight, when it struck me that I was sitting right on top of it. Our computer chair has been with me since my first apartment, thirteen years ago. My neighbor at the time, Mark, an affable but slightly smarmy guy owned the chair before me. It didn't surprise me when, one day coming home from work, I found all of Mark and his wife's possessions out on the front lawn. I guess they'd been having financial problems, hadn't been paying rent, and, as I learned later, fled.

Point is, Mark's already old but very roomy office chair was now sitting in the grass outside my apartment. I decided to give it one day, and if it was still there, I was nabbing it.

I nabbed it. Made sure to spray it really well with Lysol and flea spray first (affable, but smarmy...can't take any chances.) And here it is now, thirteen years later, with a new (used) wheel base (the original legs broke), a good bit rattier, probably somewhat filthier, and just as comfortable as it's ever been.

I can't explain it. I know it's ugly. It's cat-clawed, mangy fabric is barely clinging to the skeleton in a few places. The padding is worn out, and the springs squeak a bit when you pivot. But it fits me. It knows just how to cradle that nagging spot in my lower back, and how to support my head when I'm stumped for blog ideas (tonight is probably the first night that's happened).

I've seen many potential replacement chairs, and none of them have the "it" factor. And I don't think it's likely any ever will. An old comfortable chair is as much a part of you as your spleen or your liver. Maybe your appendix or one of our kidneys is a better analogy. I could live without my old chair, but I'd be losing a part of myself, and I'd never get it back.

And a chair is too big to fit in a mason jar on your mantel.