Kelly Loves a Road Trip with the Small Red Dog

Indeed. Baxter and I are piling into the old Subaru tomorrow and hitting the road for a long-ish stint in the beautiful city of San Francisco. I am letting go of worry (like, will I be able to write in San Francisco? Like, will Baxter contract some gnarly disease from walking those pee-stained sidewalks for a month?) and putting the focus squarely on how great my job is. (Thank you, Nicole!)

Note that I am also planning to tweet from the road (I know, how very 2009 of me) so sign up for my tweets if you want to be kept in the loop. Mwah!

Kelly Loves Blind Pilot (But This Is Getting Ridiculous)

Seriously people, I have not listened to any album except Blind Pilot's "Three Rounds and a Sound" for six months now. It's the only CD in the six-CD player in my car. Its the only thing I listen to when I'm taking a shower. It is folk-pop perfection, and I have run it right into the ground.

The time has come. I am hereby taking a one-month hiatus from this album (after I listen to it one more time...just one more time!) and am at the same time officially.....taking suggestions.

Kelly Loves Being Someone Else for a Day

This is a kumquat. You'll understand later.

Today I did something interesting and odd: I got to be someone else entirely for a whole hour. This was a particularly good day for me to have this opportunity, for from the moment I woke up I had no interest whatsoever in being myself. Myself, Kelly, is someone who is supposed to be writing a book. And writing a book was the last thing I wanted to do this morning. I have been in a spiral of self-doubt since yesterday, when the client for whom I am writing said book gave me feedback on the two chapters I had just finished. I heard none of the good stuff and all of the bad, and suddenly I was:

1) Hopeless at this writing thing

2) A total fake who cranks out material rather than letting it be downloaded through her by God

3) Never going to make her deadline.

I called it quits after the call yesterday, expecting to get up on the right side of bed this morning. But instead of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was sullen, negative, and self-hating. Welcome to the wonderful world of writing!

So when I remembered that today is the day I got to play Amanda for the psychological diagnosis grad school class my friend teaches, I perked up.

This is the second year in a row I've been the "final exam" in Cheryl's class. Always the actress, I volunteered as soon as I heard she needed someone to come into the class play a patient. I would study a description of "Amanda," and then they would diagnose me.

Last year I was nervous, but this year I had Amanda down. She's an architect, living in Denver for six months, and she's falling apart at the seams. She's scared about nothing! Scared to be here alone, without her loving husband Carlo. Usually she can keep things together but now....

Anyway, on the off-chance one of Cheryl's students is reading this blog (right) I won't tell you what the diagnosis is. But I will say that I got a respite from being Kelly for a whole class period today, and it was like a cool breeze.

Walking out into the snowy afternoon, the fear came back. (For both me, and Amanda, I'd imagine.) Fear that I won't be able to do it. Fear that God has stopped downloading to me. Fear that I'm a hack and a phony.

Fear that I'll write more, and then I'll get more feedback.

So funny to be on the receiving end of the feedback loop after so many years of being the one giving it. It kind of sucks. But I'm trying to remember that there's a reason they call it "constructive" criticism. I talked to my client again this afternoon and she once again repeated everything she said yesterday that I hadn't heard: the structure and voice and content are all there, 100%. She just wants a little more heart.

She prescribed me 4 pages of Anne Lamott and to write a paragraph about a moment when I felt like I had really landed something I've written. It helped. Go figure. (I'm a Capricorn, and we love assignments.)

Feedback is like a kumquat. When you first bite down, you've never tasted anything so sour, so bitter. But the longer you chew it, the sweeter it gets. When you're done all you want is another kumquat.

This round, I'm still in the bitter phase. Waiting for the sweetness. Waiting for the sweetness.

Boulder is the #1 Happiest City in America!

I love it when I'm seconded by the Daily Camera.

Kelly Loves Four Years in Boulder

This morning I was driving into the Ideal Market parking lot and was on the phone with Jenna. I told her that this very week is my four-year anniversary of moving here. And I said that it really doesn't feel like four years. I remember what it felt like when I hit five years in NYC—it was a huge milestone. I made a scrapbook. I felt like I’d been through the wars; it seemed much longer than five years. But as I said to Jenna, now I’m like, “Huh! Four years! Interesting.” It’s not as much of a milestone; it just doesn’t matter. When you know you want to be somewhere for the next forty years, four years is truly nothing.

I meant that. And I’m starting to think that might actually happen. I’ve had a few question marks around where I will end up living—if I’ll ever really settle down, if it will be here in Boulder or somewhere else. But today, as I said “forty years” to Jenna, I thought—actually, that may just happen.

I should be so lucky! Boulder, I *heart* you. And I thank you for four amazing, exciting, fulfilling, transformative years. You are the very best town I have ever, ever known. Mwah!

Kelly Loves this New Yorker Cartoon

Was Gahan Wilson secretly observing my most recent psychic reading?

Kelly Loves Getting Caught Off Guard in a Bookstore By a 12th Century Poet

Perhaps

For just one minute out of the day,

It may be of value to torture yourself

With thoughts like,

"I should be doing

A hell of a lot more with my life than I am--

Cause I'm so damn talented."

But remember,

For just one minute out of the day.

With all the rest of your time,

It would be best

To try

Looking upon your self more as God does.

For He knows

Your true royal nature.

God is never confused

And can see Only Himself in you.

My dear,

Venus just leaned down and asked me

to tell you a secret, to confess

She's just a mirror who has been stealing

Your light and music for centuries.

~Hafiz (c. 1320-1389), translated by Daniel Ladinsky