How to have an awesome karaoke experience

Karaoke is generally thought of a group activity–singing with a bunch of friends the kind of goofy songs you would only really listen to on road trips. Those songs almost always include:

-Cindy Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”

-Britney’s “Oops, I Did it Again” and “Hit Me Baby One More Time”

-Sandy and Danny’s “Summer Nights”

-Madonna’s “Like A Prayer”

-Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone”

Every time I go karaoke with a group, these songs inevitably come up. I mean, I like the above songs, but I’m near my breaking point in hearing “They just wanna! They just wanna-uh-ah” shouted into a tinny microphone.

So it was refreshing to go karaoke with my good buddy J on her birthday, just the two of us. (It was at one of those places where you get a private room with two mikes and a tambourine.) I felt free of the pressure to sing stuff others would know, and was ecstatic to choose songs I actually wanted to sing. Or should I say, try to sing.

I started out with “Wig in a Box” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but trust me, that one’s song which can only be done by a transsexual rock star from East Germany. But the choice itself was so freeing, and J was not judgmental in the slightest, that I continued looking for more offbeat choices.

Here’s what else I sang:

-Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” (the “hey hey’s” are really fun to do)

-Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” (a bit of karaoke standard, but I really like it a lot, so whatever)

-Queen’s “Somebody to Love” (J joined me in this one. After attempting it, I had even more respect for Freddie Mercury performing this to tens of thousands at the top of his lungs–its frickin hard!)

But the song I was happiest to sing was U2’s “Stay (Faraway, So Close)”. I have never once seen it listed in a karaoke songbook. I couldn’t believe that such a beautiful yet slightly obscure song was even an option.

And I have to tell you: to do the karaoke version of that song was one of the most euphoric experiences I’ve ever had.

Here’s why: you know when you’re listening to a song on the radio, and you really love it, so you sing it at the top of your lungs, and it feels really good?

Amplify that feeling times ten. Because with karaoke, you don’t have to sing along with an obviously superior vocalist–you’re carrying the melody on your own, with your voice alone.

And who cares if you sound awful! Because when I was singing in a private room with just one other person who was half-listening anyway, I really able to sing with full abandon. I went for every single high note just like Bono would, and think I actually hit them some of the time. Also, as cheesy as it sounds, having the lyrics in front of me helped me really feel what I was singing about, and I got a bit emotional while doing it. There’s a huge difference between singing along with a tune, and performing it yourself. It was absolutely cathartic.

So here are my tips on how to have an awesome karaoke experience:

1) Go to a karaoke bar that has private rooms, and invite one or two kind (or hard-of-hearing) friends.

2) DO NOT pick a karaoke staple. These usually include the songs played at bars on Saturday nights, like any single by Guns & Roses and Bon Jovi.

3) Take your time to find songs that you really love, the kind you would warble in the shower if you could remember all the words. Ideally it has really good lyrics and even some emotional resonance too. I recommend ones that have a soaring chorus and some high notes you’d otherwise never go for, even in the safety of your car.

4) Let go. Belt it out. Just don’t sing loud, but try to actually sing it well. This is key. Again, don’t worry if you’re injuring eardrums; you’re probably not as bad as you think.

And I have to give props to J, because she follows step #3 and #4 all the time, whether she’s with two people or twenty. I could never be as brave as her, but I’m going to aim to follow my own advice about karaoke from now on.

General Hospital: Stop the violence

Dear General Hospital,

First of all, I’m a little embarrassed to be writing you. How am I still invested in your well-being? Why am I still watching you at your worst?

Because you used to be so, so good. Like Lost good–addictive, well-written, with characters you rooted for and invested in. (For example, I sobbed during last week’s episode when (just in case–SPOILER ALERT!) Sun went to Jin’s grave with their baby. I’m hoping like you wouldn’t believe that he’s really stranded on the island and they’re faking his death. But I digress…)

You know, soap operas like you get a bad rap. Probably because your characters tend to have evil twins, return from the dead (even when they’ve had their organs given away after they flatlined), suffer from amnesia, date their cousins, etc. I don’t mind it–they’re staples of the genre.

But what irks me about when people rag on daytime soaps is that when done right, they can be truly great. At their best, they focus on the characters and their rich, intertwined histories, pay attention to continuity between years and even decades of episodes, and show a fearlessness in tackling controversial subjects. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that these same qualities are what make current primetime faves like Lost, Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy so popular with viewers and heavily debated and dissected on message boards.

So back to you, GH. You were once amazing, and now you’re a mess. I don’t even know where to start. Okay I do: Sonny Corinthos.

Here’s a guy who was once a part of the hottest love triangles on TV ever. Sure, he was a mob boss, but he and and Brenda had just awesome chemistry, and he seemed mostly a good person, so I didn’t care that much. Ten years later, he’s barely a hero, let alone a romantic hero.

Basically, Sonny is supposed to be daytime’s Tony Soprano. But unlike Sonny, Tony had at least a bit of self-awareness and likability. A quick breakdown on what he’s been up to the past few weeks:

-His son Michael bought a gun and bullets, and then dropped the gun and accidentally ended up shooting Sonny’s girlfriend.

-The son thinks he killed the girlfriend, and because he was raised so well, doesn’t bother to call 911, just runs away because Sonny said that if he ever found him with a gun, he should “run and keep running.” So he did.

-Sonny thinks a rival mob family shot his girl and kidnapped his boy, so he kidnaps the son of the crazy head of the family and holds him in some abandoned psych hospital (because all soap towns should have at least one), and continues to hold him there even after his loyal hitman tries to reason with him that this mob family had nothing to do with it, and that there’s growing evidence of a connection between Michael disappearing and Kate getting shot.

-While his son is missing, Sonny spends lots of time hanging out with his girlfriend in the hospital, reminiscing about their high school days, and gives her an ugly hat as a “sorry you were shot because of me but I still want a future with you” gift. I swear if anyone just tuned randomly into one of their scenes, they would think Sonny didn’t have a care in the world.

I won’t go on, because you know how crappy your plotting it is. But even you have to read that and shake your head in disbelief. Because the violence that you’ve been airing is out of control. I’m tired of serial killers, mob wars, random explosions, hit and runs, miscarriages, pistol whippings, hostage takings and monkey viruses. Reading back what I wrote, the fact I tuned into watch all of the above now seems masochistic.

Instead of blowing money on CGI “special” effects so we can see a building explode, use it to bring back the Nurses Ball. And Lucy Coe. Just those two things alone would brighten up this show considerably. And if you insist on killing off characters once a month, instead of offing the doctor or sweet college student or cute cop or an unborn child, why not the people who perpetrate the violence but never directly deal with the consequences?

Because I’m super close to stop watching you. It’s just not worth my time to watch an episode looking for potential of your past glory days. Especially when a lot of your old shows are now on YouTube. And I just received Friday Night Lights from Netflix.

So get it together. It’s not like your ratings are improving anyway, so what do you have to lose by bringing some fun back to the show?

Thanks,

PCD

What I’ve Watched on Hulu So Far

Alright, like I said in my last post, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the siren call of the Hulu. So I thought I might as well fess up to what I’ve watched since then:

March 14th: I eased into the whole “free TV shows not broken up in 5-10 minute increments a la YouTube” with a classic season 1 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was “Teacher’s Pet,” where Xander fell into the clutches of a preying mantis. Truth be told, as much as I love Buffy (I became a fan through syndication), this episode was a bore. I think it’s because it was a very early episode, and the characters and the signature wit weren’t yet fully formed. Anyway, I thought after this that I wouldn’t be visiting Hulu.com that much after all, seeing as how I couldn’t even make it through the entire thing.

Yep. I was wrong.

March 16th: Arrested Development, Season 2 (minus two episodes). Once you watch one of them, it’s hard not to go to the next one, then the next one. I mean, c’mon! There’s Franklin! And Operation Hot Mother! And Mrs. Featherbottom from Blackstool! And Ann! (Who, her?)

See, unless you’ve watched the show you think I’m crazy based on like the last few sentences. But it’s super good.

Today: I was better because I did actual normal person things, like venturing outside my home. I just watched the last four episodes from this season’s The Office. I barely made it through the last two, not because the show wasn’t great, but each one was interrupted three times by the same 30-minute commercial in which a fluffy white dog nudged his pink-obsessed owner–she had a pink tank top, wall, bedding, dresser, everything–out of sleep so he could eat. It was cute like the first time. Not so cute the second, fifth or eight time. I must admit I was feeling a bit murderous toward the poor pooch toward the end of my Office mini-marathon. Hey Hulu: If you’re going to interrupt a show with commercial breaks, can it not be the same one every single time?

On a side note, I’ve resisted watching Picket Fences, my favorite drama when I was in high school. I was talking to my sister about it and she was wondering if the show could possibly be as good as we thought it was ten years ago.

I saw her point. It was a David E. Kelley show, so it was pretty quirky. And quirkiness in a TV series could easily veer off from charming to annoying. What if it was more of the latter, and we hadn’t realized it? We both agreed that we had such fond memories of Picket Fences back then that neither of us wanted to tarnish those memories by revisiting the show, at least for now.

My sis said to me, “remember that really sad episode where at the funeral they sang ‘The Rainbow Connection’”?

I said, “yeah, I think it was for the midget lady.”

“There’s no other show you could say that about,” my sister mused. I have to agree.

Was Hulu Invented to Ruin My Pop Culture Diet?

What do the following have in common:

Newsradio

Arrested Development

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Picket Fences

These awesome, all-time favorite shows of mine are now available to watch for free on Hulu.com. The sheer amount of TV series and movies hosted there are sort of staggering. A person could almost cancel their Netflix and cable TV subscription and use Hulu instead. I don’t have cable, and now with this site it seems like I don’t need it.

It’s terrible. Having so much good TV only fingertips away is going to be super hard. The writer’s strike actually had me doing the impossible: watching less television. And now new shows are slowly creeping back on (real shows, not The Real Housewives of New York City), and Lost is already back and it’s awesome and I’m already reading five blogs trying to decipher everyone’s theories about creepy Ben and the freighter people and whatnot, and…

I’m in trouble.

Friday Night Lights: I’m sorry for not watching

Dear Friday Night Lights,

I just learned via TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello that you are are perilously on the bubble after your season finale pulled in a low rating. And your fans are being urged to tell friends, family, co-workers, strangers, and alien life forms to watch the show to try to eke out another season from NBC, since head honcho Ben Silverman is being such an ass about bringing you back.

I’m probably one of those people you really want to watch. I’ve heard what a stellar series you are, and I know I would love you. After all, I loved My So-Called Life (which I wrote about here) and Freaks and Geeks–shows that were your predecessors in artfully depicting something painful, beautiful and real about teenagers and parents, families and friendship.

And yet I’ve never seen a single one of your episodes.

Why? Because I’m addicted to good TV. I just don’t watch a show and call it a night. I have to read all the recaps, criticism and interviews too. And I’ve already invested too much time into Lost and The Office and How I Met Your Mother and (until recently) Grey’s Anatomy and and lots of other shows it would be boring to list here. And I knew you’d be so entertaining and excellent that I would end up a spending a good chunk of time on you too. (After all, like the title of this blog says, I’m on a pop culture diet.)

By the way, you weren’t the only one I avoided. I made a concerted decision to not watch Heroes, despite all the buzz it generated before it premiered. And I’ve never regretted not watching that show (I’ve heard the dialogue and plot can be clunky, and a few of the actors are not so good at, um, acting).

But you’re a different story. It seems like you deserved high Nielsen ratings and awards show accolades. And now that you’re inching towards the “Brilliant Yet Canceled” TV graveyard, I feel somehow responsible.

Which brings me to this: I’ve decided to reconsider and make time for you via DVD. I know it might be too little, too late. But it’s the least I can do.

So good luck! I hope you get a third season, Emmy nominations and a better lead-in than 1 Vs. 100.

With affection and apologies,

PCD

Giants Stomp Patriots!

The New York Giants’ Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots is one of the best sports games I’ve ever seen. What makes their win oh so sweet is that they decisively beat the “invincible” Patriots (has anyone seen Tom Brady sacked that many times in a game?). The Giants simply outplayed them.

Apparently, someone was so sure that the Pats had the championship in the bag that there was a book already out to commemorate it on Amazon, called 19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Patriots. Um, jumping the gun much? Any fan of the Giants, or underdogs in general, gotta love the list of related forums on the book’s Amazon page:

“hubris”

“failure”

“cheating” (Spygate!)

“wishful thinking”

“fiction”

Love it!

Out of control

I’ve discovered the best thing for a pop culture diet (besides the writer’s strike, of course.) It is the remote control. Or, should I say, my remote control.

First of all, even though it is was created to fit perfectly in the palm of a couch potato’s hand, with contours along the sides so you could comfortably clutch the thing for hours while zapping back and forth between a Project Runway marathon and a Degrassi marathon, it lacks something pretty essential.

If you look at your own controller, you”ll see there’s a bit of plastic that you can take off in order to insert batteries. Well, mine doesn’t have that. I only discovered this after taking it out of its packaging. I don’t know if all RCA silver universal remotes are like that or mine is just defective, but there you go.

So I have to use Scotch tape to keep the batteries in place, and that’s been going okay for the past year or so. But now the AAA batteries are starting to fail. It probably has 30 percent of its juice left, so I’m keeping it going by taking out the batteries or rolling them around in order to jumpstart them to working for a little bit longer. It only works half of the time.

Yes, I know have to get new ones, but I’m putting it off for no good reason–I’ll probably cave around the time I’ll need something ten times more essential, like toilet paper or soap.

So if that doesn’t make TV watching hard enough, I have a nemesis. Its totally inescapable for anyone watches TV (at least in the NYC area), and it’s driving me CRAZY.  It is:

And it’s terrible. Oh, so terrible. I don’t know what bothers me worse: the jingle, a faux-rap about cable service compelete with annoying female chorus chant-sings the telephone number, or the random visuals that show some sort of pirate invasion complete with mermaids and treasure chests.

Okay, I know what’s worse: the song. It gets in your brain like fingernails on a chalkboard.

And that’s where my remote control comes in. When that stupid ad comes on, I immediately try to change the channel, but the triple A’s either don’t work or escape the worn tape and roll away to the darkest corners of my apartment.

Which means I’m left to to endure that commercial for thirty seconds, and that’s thirty seconds too many. Plus, it’s on All. The. Frickin. Time.  I haven’t had this much hatred for something insignificant since, I don’t know, let’s say red carpet interviews for third rate awards shows (which I might be watching on the TV Guide Channel on mute, while listening to a 2006 episode of This American Life about Amy Sedaris in a fat suit).

In fact, most of my TV watching is done these days without volume, just in case. The best way to keep my sanity is to go to a place that lacks commercials, infomercials, interstitials and coming attractions: good old books.

I just renewed Veronica by Mary Gaitskill from the library, which is supposed to be amazing and I’ve only read one page of so far (despite having it for 2.5 weeks). I guess I can do that. And maybe buy some batteries. But I think I have like two rolls of toilet paper left, so we’ll see.

And…I’m back.

So, the last post I wrote was back in November. What happened between then and now that I stopped posting? Well, for one, my computer crashed again. Right before Thanksgiving break, my hard drive imploded for the second time (2007 was a bad year for me and technology–two computer crashes and a dead iPod) and by the time I got it back, the holidays were in full swing, and then I went home for nearly two weeks, and then I came back to a whole lot of work after vacation. During that span of time I almost forgot this blog existed.

When a few friends asked me if I’d return to it, I 1) was flattered that they actually read it enough to know it hadn’t been updated in months and 2) wondered if it had outlived its purpose. Because I took an amazing writing class in December that got me all fired up about aiming to get published in big-time magazines and what not, and the habits from my pop culture diet plus the motivation of the class had me so focused that I didn’t need to keep track of how much time I wasted each week, or perform community service for the error of my ways. The first piece I decided to write was about, well, internet addiction.

I reworked it constantly over the course of three weeks, and finally finished it late Sunday night. I emailed it to an editor of a well-known mag at one AM Monday morning. Nine hours later, she wrote back: “It’s well-written, but not surprising enough.”

Ack. The response had come so quickly that it hammered me into oblivion for the better part of the week. I remember wishing she could have given me a day before rejecting it, just so I could have had longer time to feel optimistic about the piece getting published (for $1.50 per word, no less). And how did I deal with her kindly worded but emphatic “no”? By slowly letting myself return to the websites I had given up for good only two months before.

A week that began with such drive and optimism screeched to a disheartening end when I received an email on Friday from the editor-in-chief of a small but wonderful magazine I’ve been writing for. She sadly announced that her publication was halting production, at least for now. Devastated again, I took larger steps back towards my worst impulses, and satiated myself with other people’s words so I wouldn’t have to confront the failure of my own.

This weekend I’ve been musing a lot about what it means to be a writer–and how some people make it and many others do not. And I learned one very basic thing: I’m a muckety-muck who need to get her head out of her ass and push on regardless. Because that’s what writers do. It might be what truly defines all artists beyond their talent–their sheer perseverance.

See, that’s a lesson I haven’t truly absorbed yet. I knew of it, seen it preached by others a million times, yet I haven’t felt it deep enough in my bones. I think a part of me has always thought, “I’m talented, so I’ll make it big eventually.” Well, not so much. Not to put down my accomplishments so far, but in obsessing over what I haven’t done yet, I forgot how much I just love writing in and of itself.

And that’s where all the pop culture stuff came in. What was once a sincere love and enjoyment mutated into a way to not write, a way to ameliorate disappointment, a way to forget what was going on in my life. So this blog continues to have a reason to exist, in order to have one of my passions not distract me from my other, greater passion. I refuse to regress back to what I was, and I know I have it in myself not to do that. I just have to learn how to deal with rejection better, develop my armor, and keep on going on no matter what.

Here are two things that have particularly inspired me this weekend. I recommend them to anyone who wants to feel a little more in touch with person they desire to be.

-Once: Maybe you’ve heard the hype that goes along with this little indie movie that could. But it’s not hype, it’s the real deal. I’ve been dying to see this movie ever since I heard about it, and finally watched it on DVD this weekend. Made for less than $200,000, it’s about an Irish musician who meets a young Czech woman and they write and perform music together. A very simple plot with incredibly beautiful music. And really, just so moving.

The director said he named the movie “Once” because of all the men he knew who would hang out at bars and say “once I get a better job/make more money/get married/etc I’ll finally go out achieve my dream.” But they’re so busy making excuses they never just go out and actually do it.

In the movie, the musician receives the kick in the pants he needs to finally take a risk and record his songs because the girl believes in him so strongly. Their connection transcends sex or attraction to something more transcendent. To sample a taste of what I mean, watch this scene where the musician teaches the girl, a talented pianist, one of his songs, which they then perform together for the first time. To watch them play together is to watch them fall in love:

Now go out and rent it already!

-Why Greg Berlanti Writes: I’ve never watched Greg’s shows Everwood or Brothers and Sisters (though I did enjoy a few episodes of his Dirty Sexy Money), but I know he’s a highly regarded TV showrunner and writer. But he wrote an outstanding essay for the “Why We Write” blog in which TV writers, currently on strike, talk about what motivates and inspires them. I really like what he has to say about how he had to do a bit soul searching himself before figuring out why he does write, which led me to do some soul searching of my own. Also make sure to read comment #5 for really great insights too.

Signing off now. If you notice any words are missing an “s” that’s because the “s” on my keyboard is sticking. Orry!

Musical musings: Concert crazies and mixtape memories

I’ve realized what a blog might be good for, besides keeping track of how many hours I pressed the “refresh” button on certain websites: random thoughts! Thoughts or ideas too random to bring up in conversation and get the over-emphatic “I’m listening to what you are saying and find it very interesting” nod and smile in which the person humors you while you empty out your random thoughts on his or her tired brain.

RT#1: You know what is amazing to attend in person but terribly embarrassing to watch on TV? A concert. And I’m not talking about the musicians on stage, oh no–it’s the audience.

Here’s the thing: no one ever looks cool when they are enjoying a show. In fact, they look kind of crazy.

Have you ever watched the audience when the camera pans to the crowd during a show? We all love to sing along every time we hear a song we know, and hear every single person around you join in for the sing-a-long too. You feel connected to the band on stage, and the people around you. It could even be described as transcendent.

But nothing makes me cringe more but watching someone with tears in their eyes, rocking from one foot to another, mouthing the words hypnotically to the songs. Concert-goers tend to look like cult members, what with the swaying and the crying and the adulation, with people waving hello at the band, thinking they can get their attention, shouting “I love you!” over and over again. Think Beatlemania–basically adults acting like 14-year old girls. (I really tried to find an image of this online, but couldn’t find anything good enough. I recommend going to YouTube and searching for any filmed concert footage of your favorite band–you’ll see what I mean.)

Listening to and connecting music can be a really personal thing, so to see thousands of strangers sharing in that experience, all letting their guard down in a public place, can be a bit bizarre. Sort of like having lots of people’s diaries flip open and see all their naked fears, ambitions and desires exposed in the span of a five-minute song. Anyway, on to…

RT#2: My iPod died a few weeks ago. So when I took the bus to Boston a few weekends ago, I couldn’t imagine going the eight-hour round trip without music. So I resorted to finding a walkman (my Discman crapped out long ago, but somehow, my walkman lives on) and bring along mix tapes I made 5-10 years ago.

The quickest path to immediate nostalgia and memories of your teens and early twenties is to listen to the songs you loved so much, you had to commit them to tape. I mean, you really had to love these songs to take the time to carefully arrange them in a sonically pleasing way, trying to figure out which order to record the songs so they flow into each other the best, deciding what kind of mood each side of the tape should evoke (serene and contemplative, romantic, rawk out, fun and poppy, etc.)

Okay, so I spent a lot of time on my mix tapes. First, I’d write out a list of my favorite songs of the moment, and then work out an order for when each song would appear on the tape. I had a really old 6-disc CD changer back then, and it was the noisiest machine I ever owned. It didn’t come with a remote control (that’s how ancient it was), so I had to manually input each song I wanted to record by pressing these tiny buttons on this huge boombox. And each time the CD changed from one disc to another, it would make a clank wheeze bam sound like stereo was slowly collapsing in on itself. I was always scared a disc would get accidentally jammed and the whole thing would die on me and eat my CDs (it happened twice actually, and took forever for Circuit City to repair). It was really an arduous experience to make a mix tape on that thing.

So for me, looking at the tapes now, I know that I adored these songs to have committed them to cassette. It’s so funny to look back on the songs now, stuff I haven’t listened to in years. It reminds me of who I was and even what I was thinking about when I listen to them.

Just as an example, here’s the set list from one of my mix tapes I called “Satisfied Mind”. I realize now I made a huge mix tape sin by putting songs by the same artist from the same album back to back, but oh well. I didn’t know better:

SIDE A

Blue (Jayhawks)*Yard of Blonde Girls (Jeff Buckley)*Tom Courteney (Yo La Tengo)*Pablo & Andrea (Yo La Tengo)* Paul is Dead (Yo La Tengo)*Selfless, Cold and Composed (Ben Folds Five)*Steven’s Last Night in Town (Ben Folds Five)*Battle of Who Could Care Case (Ben Folds Five)*Evaporated(Ben Folds Five)*Morning Theft (Jeff Buckley)

Way too much Ben Folds Five on there, dontcha think?

SIDE B

Salisbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)*Will the Circle Be Unbroken (The Staple Singers)*Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead)*Just (Radiohead)*Street Spirit(Radiohead)*The Long Road(N. Fateh Ali Khan and Eddie Vedder from Dead Man Walking soundtrack)*Satisfied Mind (Jeff Buckley)

Analyze what you will about me from that collection of songs, circa 1999 (I think).

I highly recommend going back to your oldl mix tapes to see what you were listening to, and what kind of person you were back then. It’s a crazy and sort of fun trip down memory lane. And you’ll experience the “why the hell did I like this song” a couple times. And don’t worry, just hide the walkman in your bag, like I do. It’s pretty embarrassing to walk around with, I know, but what can you do…

Community Service (for the week of Oct. 29 – Nov. 2)

To recap: I had 8 hours to make up for wasting time online last week. Let’s see how I did!

-I prepared a real meal in my kitchen. It was my mushroom curry recipe again, but I had mushrooms I needed to use before they went bad, and plus, it’s really a very tasty meal. I could probably eat it 1-2 a week. 1 hour.

-Ten minutes doing a workout video. ONLY 10? Hey, in my defense, I was it was a 10 minute toning video that focuses on different parts of the body. I chose the abs workout, and it was great. The instructor kept cheering, “you’ll have a six-pack in no time,” and I almost believe her but not really. I Netflixed the DVD like a month ago, and have only done the abs, arms and power stretch each once. I have no excuse: it’s only a 10 minute workout video, so I gotta hold onto it for another few weeks, just to get some good stretching and muscle building out of it. 10 min.

-A long walk through beautiful Central Park yesterday. It was a really nice fall day, sunny without being too warm or too cold, and the leaves on the trees are just starting to change colors. 1 hour.

-So this is sort of a funny story. I was supposed to meet my boyfriend last night. He was going to go home, change out of his suit and into jeans, and come back to my neighborhood to do the late dinner/drinks thing. He calls at 9:30 from the subway to say he’s on his way home. He calls back fifty minutes later. I say, “where are you?” And he says 214th St. I think he’s joking because that’s just the kind of thing he’d joke about. But he wasn’t kidding–he fell asleep and woke up all the way up in the Bronx! (And just so you know he started out from 42nd Street, and was supposed to get off way before 214th.)

He did this once before, the first time he ever rode the subway, so that’s why I thought he was joking. But this time he wasn’t. He had to travel up another two subway stops to the end of the 1 line, and wait in the subway car until it started its long journey back down. So I’m super worried that he’ll fall asleep again, or he’s sitting alone in a subway car and who knows what crazy person will come in–basically being super paranoid–and all the while waiting for him to call me back and let me know he made it home okay, I decide I need to do something with my time so I don’t freak myself out. (Again, in my defense, people occasionally get randomly attacked on subways here for no good reason. There’s probably an article about it once every other week.)

So I write a pitch letter to an online magazine that relates to the writers strike. And it actually turned out really well. The magazine might not choose to go with the idea, but I’m really proud of how how it came out–I think I made a well-written and compelling argument. I don’t write pitch letters very often (that’s another thing I’m definitely trying to do more of) , so out of a stressful time came a pretty good piece of writing. And happily, my boyfriend made it home safe and sound if exhausted after such a long day. I know I need to be better at focusing to get work done, but I never want this kind of focus again! 1.5 hours.

-The above lead me to do more research into full-time freelance writing, which I read up on a lot online. 1 hour.

-I wrote my first letter for The Modern Letter Project. It’s a project designed to bring back the lost art of snail mail correspondence. It’s so much fun getting something in the mail that’s not a bill or yet another credit card application, and I really miss it. I use to stay in touch with a junior high friend who moved back to Japan via snail mail, and she used to write me on the most cute (and strange) Japanese stationary. It was a small thing, but it definitely brightened up my day.

So this is a chance to recapture that experience, except I know nothing about whom I’m writing to except for his or her name and location. Which made for an interesting letter to write, choosing what to share about yourself with a stranger. I hope she enjoys reading it; I put some thought into it. And I look forward to receiving my own letter soon, and each month after that. 1 hour.

Obviously, I didn’t make up all the time wasted, so I’ll have to tack on the extra hours (4.5 ) to next week’s community service. I’ll try to make it up later this week as well as the weekend.

Hopes/predictions for next week: More freelance writing research, more 10 minute toning, and more long walks in Central Park before the leaves go away and there’s only a bunch of tree skeletons to look at.