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

Kelly Doesn't So Much Love Learning about Blogs (But She LOVES Jon Hamm)

I just put this photo of Jon Hamm here so this entry wouldn't be so boring

Tonight, for my mass display of learning, I looked up the word "blog" on Wikipedia. Here's my top ten list of things I learned:

10) There are such things as blog search engines. Seriously! You can search blogs at Technorati.com, blogscope.com, and bloglines.com. FYI, this blog does not come up during searches on any of these sites, even with carefully tailored search terms, so no need to try it out. Just in case you were going to.

9) The Gaelic language is benefiting from the blogsplosion, as blogs have allowed native speakers in the real-world diaspora to come together in the virtual world and, you know, talk.

8) The first known use of a blog on an official news site took place in 1998 (well before this blogger knew what a blog was) and was used to track Hurricane Bonnie.

7) Blogs as a thing to learn about are rather boring. I'm bored of this Top Ten list. I am finding myself thinking about Mad Men as I write it. (Now there's an interesting topic. Maybe I'll learn more about the hotness of Jon Hamm as my assignment tomorrow. For now, I'm going to jump straight to #1.)

And the #1 thing I learned about blogs on wikipedia today is....

1) There are many different types of blogs, including personal blogs, corporate blogs, fashion blogs, art blogs, and so forth. This blog that you are reading is, I have surmised, a personal blog. The way I discovered this was when I read that, and I quote, "Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read."

Yep, this is a personal blog.

Kelly Loves Getting Bossed Around by Spirit Guides

The spirit world digs wikipedia, apparently

Today I had the pleasure of a phone call with the one and only Ainslie MacLeod, psychic author extraordinaire, and his Greek chorus of spirit guides. I have the honor of being one of the chosen few for whom Ainslie's guides have instructed him to give free readings indefinitely. The reasoning in my case is that after numerous editors blindly turned down the opportunity to publish his first book, The Instruction, I picked it up for Sounds True. Ainslie and I got along famously from the start, and he's been giving me good advice from the other side ever since.

But never in my time with Ainslie have I received as much homework from the spirit realm as I got today. The to-do list is long. And while some of the tasks are one-offs (write a business plan for my new venture--apparently the Guides are all about the planning phase), some of them are ongoing.

Like this one. In order to counterbalance my past-life fear of failure, I am supposed to actively learn something new every day. Now this doesn't seem like much trouble--pay the teensiest bit of attention and you, too, will learn something new today. But the otherworldly instruction is far more specific. At night, before I go to bed, I am to learn something new. (The Guides suggest Wikipedia. How cliche.) And not only am I to learn said new thing, but I am to write out what I learned.

Longhand.

Um, yeah. So, I promised to give the learning and writing thing a shot, but I crossed my fingers when I agreed to do it longhand. For I have discovered that one has only so many hours in the day, and I have a blog to write. If I'm going to learn something new every day, you'd better believe I'm going to get a daily post out of the effort. So here goes nothing--I'm off to get me some learnin', and then I'm going to post about it here.

Kelly Loves a Report Card (Even a Failing One)

Well, the end of the week is upon us, and if you'll recall, I had planned to write 50 pages of content for the book I'm writing by the time I went to dance class earlier this evening. So....did I make the grade?*

The answer is a big, fat NO! I did not write 50 pages this week. I wrote more like 20 pages this week. Can you BELIEVE it? I failed to make good on my report-card promise. Me, whose only B in high school was in Gym class. (And okay fine, also one semester of Algebra 3, but there was the cutest, funniest guy who sat next to me in that class....)

But fear not, loyal readers. (Yes, the beloved three of you.) My failure to hit the target wasn't due to slackage. Not entirely, anyway. As it turned out, there was a bunch of reading and sorting through content that took my attention off the actual content creation. But, I did make progress. And not because I have anything to prove or anything, here's what I did this week:

• Wrote 20+ pages of new content
• Sorted through the notes from all my phone calls with the author from the past 4 months
• Sorted through various documents sent by author over the past 8 months, to see where content would fit in the book
• Phone call with author
• Emailed numerous questions (and received responses!) to both author and her second-in-command
• Read 1/3 of The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, both to steep in his voice (which my author loves) and because there's really good stuff in there about, well, desire--which is the subject of our book as well
• Thought a lot about scrapping the entire out line of the book and starting over. May still do this, but not until next week
• Test-drove new tea shop called Atlas Purveyors, down on East Pearl, as writing location. Grade: B. High marks for nice owner, good tea, good people-watching out the front window. Low marks for draftiness and good (read: distracting) people-watching out the front window.

See? I was very, very active. Next week I hope to be more actively productive as well!

*Yes, sister Stacy, that one's for you! Mwah!

Kelly Loves Hazelnut Crack. Er, I Mean Butter.

A tub of delicious amazingness. Okay fine, half a tub.

So last night Julia and I were leaving Alchemy of Movement, fresh and sweaty after a great hour of dancing with Maria, when what should catch our eye but that Alchemy has a new neighbor. And a famous one, to boot. Our humble little strip mall is now home to none other than the offices of Justin's Nut Butter.

Now for those of you who aren't familiar with the deliciousness that is Justin's, get thee to your nearest Whole Foods and partake of either the Cinnamon Peanut Butter (yum!) or the Maple Almond Butter (yum yum!). While the company has risen to fame for it's ingenious packaging (individually portioned packets you can take with you skiing, on a hike, or on a meditation retreat--I speak from experience on all three counts) it's what's in the packet that you really shouldn't miss.

Julia and me, we're the intrepid types. As soon as we saw it was Justin's, we walked right in the front door. Turns out the very tall, very cute guy who was sitting just inside was none other than THE Justin of Justin's Nut Butters! Go figure! He's ingenious AND tall AND cute. That seems to be more than any one person's fair share, don't you think?

Now as you can imagine, there was perhaps just one thing on the planet that could have taken my attention off tall, cute, ingenious guy. And wouldn't you know it? That one thing was sitting right there on the counter in front of him. My attention alighted on a tub of his new Chocolate Hazelnut Butter, and I saw Justin no more.

All natural. 60% less sugar than Nutella. If it had been organic, I might have died on the spot.

My excitement must have been obvious (maybe it was all the jumping up and down) because Justin disappeared into the back room and returned with two tubs of said all natural 60% less sugar than Nutella chocolate hazelnut crack. I was only slightly disappointed when he said I had to give one of them to Julia. (She bought me dinner later, which made up for it. Kind of.)

As it turns out, he's nice to boot. Who'd have known?

Kelly Loves Setting Goals Part II: New Year's Edition

Last night we had our New Year's 2010 edition of Circle. After eating (more than usual) and drinking a nice bottle of wine (thanks, Jean) we opened up the goals we set for ourselves last year, which had been safely stashed away in a little box in Chantal's care.*

We'd each made two lists: our "internal" goals and our "external" goals. To my own surprise, I could literally say that all of my internal goals (four of them) had been reached. They ran something like this:

1. Feel more contentment, more of the time.

2. Start practicing again.

3. Learn to trust my intuition even more.

4. Feel more and more in the flow of my own life.

Numbers 2 and 3 are certifiable. Ever since my harrowing visit to Bobby Wood back in July, I sit nearly every day now. And the fact that I have started giving Tarot readings to total strangers this year is testament to a significant increase in my intuitive trust. Numbers 1 and 4 are less quantifiable, and are the work of a lifetime. But movement is being made, if proven only by the fact that I didn't feel the need to include either of them on my list for 2010.

My "external goals" were less reliable over all--I didn't get an unexpected windfall and I am not in a rocking relationship--but that feels okay to me. Several of them

were on the theme of finding new ways to make a living outside of my (then) current job at Sounds True, which of course has happened in a big way. Oh, and one of my goals was for Baxter to be calmer when I had company over. As I read that I looked up and saw him sitting on the couch between Jenna and Chantal, looking nothing if not the perfect gentleman.

In other words, sometimes miracles do happen.

*Note to Jenny, Haven & Tara: I have your goals and will be sending them to you!

Kelly Loves Setting Goals

Once again inspired by The Four Hour Workweek, and Tim Ferriss's suggestion that work expands or contracts to fit whatever time frame you give it, I have now set a big goal for a short period. By the time I go to dance class at 5:30pm on Friday 1/8, I will have 50 pages of content for the book I'm currently ghostwriting down on paper. (Or on screen, as the case may be.) (And backed up onto an external drive. I shiver at the thought.)

We're not going to worry about chapters and outlines and such at this point. It's just write it down, write it down, write it down. Organization will come later.

I will report back on Friday. Wish me luck!

Kelly Loves the Four Hour Workweek

It's official: I'm in love with Tim Ferriss and his theory of lifestyle design. I realize I'm not breaking new ground here--everyone seems to be on the bandwagon these days. To wit: when I asked if the revised edition of The Four-Hour Workweek was in stock at Big Hat Books in Indy last week (it wasn't--had to order on Amazon), both the bookseller AND the woman behind me in line started waxing rhapsodic about Tim and his blog.

At which point I had the familiar feeling I've been living under a rock (or more accurately, in the pop-culture-free Boulder bubble) since I myself had only just heard about him. I heard about him because he's writing a new book on how to be a superhuman, and the sex chapter features the author I'm now officially working for. I had no idea, though, how much I'd end up loving his philosophy.

This morning I filled out his Dreamline Worksheet, and one of my "starred items" was to blog every day. The "today" action item? Write a blog post. This is that post.

See you tomorrow--I'm going skiing!