The End is Near

I can't believe a week from today will be T-giving. I seriously don't know how it suddenly became the end of the year. During summers, I will have dreams about it being the end of the year. In my dreams, I'm panicked because it's the end of the year and I feel nervous that I haven't accomplished anything. Then I wake up and sigh relief that it's only summer and it's still warm out. But, now those dreams are a reality. Last weekend it snowed for the first time. Luckily the sun has been out, but I can feel the bitterness in the air. It's just gonna get worse from here on out. I want to hibernate.

I feel like everything has come to a screeching halt in terms of work and projects. There are a lot of holiday orientated events coming up, but I think a lot of places are wrapping up work for the year or just can't afford to pay people. There aren't even a lot of concerts I want to go to in the next few weeks. I feel like I'm constantly waiting on things. I'm still waiting to start doing all that Myopenbar networking I've been talking about. I'm trying to organize an open bar for a concert in December and now am waiting to hear back from the venue. I don't like waiting. I just want to get the ball rolling on things. Looking back at the past year, I don't think I've accomplished everything I wanted to. I sorta feel like there were more things I could've done. Jobs I wanted but didn't get. Publications I wanted to write for, yet nothing materialized. Books I wanted to read. Places I wanted to travel. Short stories I wanted to write but didn't. All of these things make me feel inadequate. Why didn't I do more this year? Will I finally accomplish these things next year? I have a tendency to focus on the negative side because it just eats away at me, but there were a lot of things I did accomplish this year. Really great things. I will discuss those things in another post closer to the end of the year.

For the holidays, I'm venturing to OH for a couple of days. The boyfriend is coming with me. He doesn't understand why I want to go all that way for two days and then return for Christmas. He doesn't understand that I use to go home once a month for a couple of years straight. It's not a big deal. It's the holidays. We are coming back on that Friday and then entertaining his cousins, er, nieces who will be in town. It's strange because they are 19 and 23, yet they are his nieces. I think we're taking them out to dinner and then doing something else. I have no idea where to take them after dinner that doesn't involve drinking. No clue at all. Bowling? I hate bowling. An improv show? My plans for Xmas have been finalized, too. I will be spending my first Xmas ever in Columbus. My brother has caved this year and for the first time ever, has decided to host Xmas at his house. This will make everything much easier on the boyfriend and I (who also has family in Columbus.) I still hate the holidays and just want them to be over, but maybe for once, I won't be as depressed and disappointed like I was in past years.

This week, Myopenbar changed the format of their newsletter. This involved me having to add a lot more pics to it, but I did a good job. I felt proud of it. I'm a little disappointed that my writers don't want to hang out with me, or at least when I email them, hardly anyone will respond. I've been trying to coral all of the writers to get together and hang out (as not all of them have met each other yet), but no one seems to want to. I think MOB has changed a lot since two of our key staffers have moved away. It's definitely not as debaucherous as it once was (which is fine by me), but no one hangs out anymore. I'm suppose to host a Christmas party for the MOB writers, and I'm almost hesitant to do so because I'm afraid no one will come. I give up. At least I tried.

Sometimes I feel like I fell asleep in 1995 and just woke up. I've tracked down a lot of high school pals on Facebook and they're like, "so, what have you been up to since high school?" This entails me summing up the past 13 yrs of my life in 3-4 sentences. The past decade of my life can be summarized in a few sentences? Good grief. It's like, "Well, I moved to L.A, went to film school. That didn't work out, so I somehow ended up in Chicago. I write a lot. I'm not married. No kids. Don't really want that stuff. Um, yeah. Well, your kids are beautiful!" It's weird to find out what's happened to everyone. I wasn't good at staying in touch with friends and now a lot of people are married with kids. How did this happen? It's all such a blur. And what will the next 13 yrs of my life be like?

Here are some things I want for Xmas: to never sneeze again, to never have trouble sleeping, lots of money, a trip out of the country, texting gloves, to be skinnier, a computer that worked well, new clothes, to not freeze to death. Well, maybe I don't know what I want.

Tomorrow night, I think I'm going to a bar with some friends to check out turtle racing. Yes, you read that right. I hope the losers aren't made into turtle soup. I will report back with more details and maybe pictures.