Monday, November 21, 2011

Activities 16-19: Read below to see what they are

Activity 16: Fill an entire sketchbook in one night
This is a strange feat. I've heard of art classes where you just draw for quantity instead of quality, just to get your mind and muscles flowing. I wasn't sure what I was going to pull from, so I grabbed a moleskin notebook, a bunch of pens, and a published sketchbook by Britney Lee for inspiration. I popped in an opera dvd and just drew for several hours. It wasn't actually too bad. First off, the best that you're going to get are rough sketches, and you're okay with that. Second of all, a lot of the sketches will look like s***, and it's important to be okay with that as well.

My brain's creativity would run low a lot, during which I'd flip through Britney Lee's stuff and copy. I think most of my best drawings were just copies of her work. At any rate, afterward I pulled out my favorite sketches and I'll post them here.

Sometimes when you draw, you get that real "aha" moment where you feel like it's going great, every mark just makes it better, and then you can't stop looking at it afterward. You'll probably hate it down the road, but it's really great to have those moments, and unfortunately, I didn't have one of those. Perhaps it's because it's detailed-oriented.

It was still a good experience, though. Perhaps one I will try again in the future.

Activity 17: Pay for a haircut

Can you believe I've never paid for a haircut??? Sometimes I marvel at this fact the way I used to marvel that I had a boyfriend when I had one. I've gone to a salon to have my hair dyed before, but this was still pretty nerve-wracking for me. I looked up a recommended barbershop and scheduled an appointment. I was pretty n00b at the whole thing- I sat there quietly, gave a few directions, and the whole thing was over in half an hour. I looked over to the next chair where the guy was having a long conversation about his life, talking about how he'd started eating healthy and doing yoga, and thought to myself Maybe I'm getting this haircut all wrong. Maybe I should be talking about my life. Who thinks that???

At any rate, I do love my new haircut. It's more precise to what I wanted compared to my attempts to shorten my hair that end up with Mrs. Brady hair. It might not be worth the money, but it was a nice kick-back.

One thing that I thought was nice was that I asked what I should do about my bangs, and the hairdresser said, "I kinda like how they are right now." And I wanted to be like, "Hey... I got something right!" and tell her about my own hair-cutting escapades. Unfortunately, I said nothing.

Activity 18: Wander around and get lost

It rained today, so I got the crazy idea to walk around. I wandered around New York and got caught in a shower, so I figured I could take it again. This time, however, there was no real destination. I decided that I'd driven through one area enough that I wouldn't mind walking there to get a little more lost and see what pops up.

In a way, this is what I love to do. I put in my music, shut out the world and just walk and walk. I feel like I can do this for miles, if it weren't cold, wet, hurting my knees, and drenching me. The rain was better in New York.

As the pain in my knees got worse, I began to think of what was the whole point of this? Sure, I was starting to see lots of shops (turns out there's a lot of vintage shops on this particularly street. Also, turns out vintage shops creep me out a little), but I felt like I wouldn't know when to turn back. The pain in my knees began to beg me to turn back, but I could already see the festive lights that meant we were in the heart of downtown. I felt like I had to go a couple more blocks.

I ended up stopping in a vintage soda shop that sold all sorts of weird flavors. I love these. I bought a couple sodas to try out (Hello, new activities!), shoved them into my bag and headed back. By the time I got back, everything was soaked and I had some pretty bad blisters. The whole things only took about 4 hours, so I still had time to dry off, take a nap, and then do my next activity.

Activity 19: A first date
Can you believe I've never gone on a first date?? I'm making exceptions for things that probably could be considered first dates but that I didn't consider first dates. For example, my ex-boyfriend's first date with me was after we'd already known each other for several years. I went on a "date" with a guy, but I didn't count it because he just asked if I wanted to go to a club on New Years. I thought he meant as friends, because in general guys aren't interested in me.

So, after some back and forth, some guy on the dating website I joined asked me out to go bowling. For some odd reason, I felt really intimidated by this guy. He's good-looking, adventurous, and seems to have a good sense of what he likes and doesn't like. Also, from the beginning I began to have an idea that he wasn't what I was looking for in a guy and I wasn't what he was looking for in a girl, but the messaging back and forth was really fun, so I was hoping I could be convinced otherwise.

I realized a few things tonight, and I think a lot of them are about what's normal for a first date (although given my sampling size, I'm still not sure). First off, he's not as good-looking as I thought he'd be (yay!). Second, he's strangely quiet and not that funny (I look for humor a lot in guys). I felt this urge to really try, though. I tend to be really quiet when I first get to know people, and I was trying really hard to break that.

What I'm trying to get over the most in my mind is that it was a pretty mediocre date not because I sucked, but that we both sucked. And not in a bad way- I just didn't feel like we had that much chemistry. It was only about 2 hours, and it was kind of nice to be treated like a lady instead of as one of the guys, but I actually rather like being one of the guys.

At any rate, the amount of fretting that I did over how bad that date was made me take a step back and re-group. I think I might take a break from the dating website and think about what I really want to do with my life. After all, this is the time to do it, isn't it?

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