She would probably laugh at being quoted as an inspirational messenger, but Mimi Smartypants is right on (as usual) and that is all there is to it.

This is a commission I did for my friend Marlena’s Christmas present to her husband.  She and her family went to Japan last year and when I saw the picture I thought *oh yes please* let me draw it!  Marlena’s initial idea was to do a portrait of the three of them, but I love that she decided to do something different–a moment in their family’s life instead.  I think this picture is the closest I have come to Herge greatness.  Tintin remains one of my treasured influences from childhood.  I always wanted to draw like Herge, but could never get the details or crisp color in even ONE picture, never mind a page of SEVERAL pictures.  When I finished this picture I thought: “Blistering Barnacles!  If only my 11 year old self could see me now!”

I’ve never done commissions before and I have to say they are some of my favorite things I’ve done artistically.  I love helping people tell their story.  I never realized that illustrated portraits could do that–but it feels like a key into my heart’s work. I am a story person.  I write stories, I draw stories, I love listening to stories, and reading stories.  Among all that I think my “philosophy” that has shown up here and in my two books is so much about acknowledging and seeing what IS happening in our CURRENT lives instead of the potential of what we hope for in the future, or what we see other people living.  My illustration work has come to encompass that in my own life, but now I see it in other people’s lives through the commissions. I think this is what I want to do when I grow up–to help people tell their stories.  It feels so exciting to me to think that maybe I can.

Thank you to Marlena for letting me help tell this story and to my other clients this last year.  Anybody want help telling their story?  Just drop me a line.

My latest piece is up on the Huffington Post and it’s about FLUFF.  Can you tell?  It’s also kinda about my hoarding disorder inspiration and love of vintage packaging.  Check it out!

Happy Birthday to my dear dear dear DEAR friend Judy, who turns the SOPHISTICATED number of 40 (or as I like to call it: 29 for the 11th time) today.  This is us yesterday in my favorite photobooth after a giant lunch of all things bad for you.  I’ve known Judy since the 2nd grade.  I’ve already Birthday Tributed her here before. I reread that olde post before writing this and it all still remains true, but somehow it doesn’t scratch the surface of how much I love her and feel honored to know her.  Some things cannot adequately be recorded in a sarcastic humorous jaunty blog post.  Then again, some things CAN be recorded in a photobooth.  How much FUN she is, and how I can disintegrate into the most JUVENILE and PLEASURABLE behavior when I am with her can apparently be captured ACCURATELY with $3 and 10 minutes.

Right now she is on a beach somewhere in Puerto Rico, which is as it should be.  Out of everyone I know I think Judy deserves a private beach in Puerto Rico.  I think she deserves anything and everything good.

Here’s to many more 29th birthday anniversaries.  May we grow old together, but never never grow up.

Some of you have been sharing your versions of the 100 list and all I can say is: GO! GO! GO!  Okay, I can say more than that.  I can say that lists tell a story down to distilled moments.  I have been LOVING reading those stories that you want to be living and ARE living.   Barb Skoog for her 41st year wants to get back on a motorcycle, hike Vasquez rocks, and finish a quilt among many other adventures.  Erica plans on going horseback riding, visit her great-grandma, and vote among other things.  Julie is taking it a step further and doing 37 good deeds (so moving!).

What is great about ALL these items that I’ve listed here and the lists I’ve come across through the last year is that ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE DO-ABLE.  They are filled with chances, luck, and romance.  They are also filled with practicality, health, well-being, community, and place. They are the stuff of life–REAL life.

What I like about the idea of this list is that it’s all in the IMMEDIATE.  While I adore the idea of life lists and beyond-your-wildest-dreams lists, those things for me lose urgency.  I am a Virgo, child of hippies–which means that I do well with DEADLINES and SPECIFICS.  In other words, BOUNDARIES.  Life Long and dreaming big are wonderful, but I get lost in all that space and so does my intention.  Making the list was about discovering the things I not only want to live, but that I COULD live them.

If you are drawn to this idea there are some things that helped me along the way that might be of help to you:

1. Be SPECIFIC

Avoid using terms like “every day” and/or “as much as possible.”  Put a NUMBER ON IT instead.  Write 10 times in the month of January.  Go to the gym  3 times THIS week.  The minute you don’t write “every day” you will feel like a lost cause.  Do not throw the baby out with the bath water.  Put a number on it.

2.  ADJUST when necessary

This is especially true with BIG things on the list, like going to Paris or publishing a book.  Sometimes time, money, and effort get in the way.  It’s okay to shrink your focus on these big items.  Maybe you can’t go to Paris this year or in the next 6 months.  Don’t let it get lost.  Make it smaller: have $400 saved towards a plane ticket by June.  Contact 3 agents by April about the book.  Again, whittle it down to something specific and put a deadline on it.

-OR-

2.a DO AWAY with it all together and replace it with something else

One of the things I realized when embarking on a large list is that things shift and change as you do. In April I had plans to go to the MoCCA festival, but when the time came–there wasn’t anything I was really interested in seeing.  So I replaced it with something else.  That’s totally okay!

3.  Make your list VISIBLE

Put it up on your blog/facebook and/or put it up on your wall where you can see it.  Get it out of the journal, the computer file, wherever you might keep it.  Putting it in a place that can be seen will keep it ALIVE for you and when you VISIBLY cross things off, you will want to do MORE.  When in doubt remember this truism: Acting on your ideas, creates room for more ideas.  This is totally TRUE!

4.  When you get stuck DO THE NEXT EASIEST/AVAILABLE THING on your list

Haven’t crossed an item off your list in awhile or even YET?  What’s the most accessible and easiest thing on the list yet to do?  For me that might have been sew buttons on my sweater or draw a picture of the Joy of Cooking.  These were things that didn’t require any preparation or even for me to LEAVE THE HOUSE. What is easy to do?  What is free?  What can you do right this second? Why? Because acting on your ideas creates room for more ideas that’s why!

5.  Don’t do it all alone

Ask friends, spouses, relatives if they want to do items with you.  This is also a good reason to post your list in a public place like a blog or Facebook.  Send out an e-mail alerting folks to your project!  Not only will it give you accountability, people you know will read it and will sometimes want to be a part of it.  I sent an e-mail out to my list and my friend Josh wrote back and said, “Let’s do Babka and Katz’s Delicatessen together!”  We got our friend Ben in on it (who also happened to be on my list) and did it one sunday.  It was great.

6. Break It Down

Sometimes 100 things or 41 or 20 (whatever number) is overwhelming.  Sometimes we can get lost on the things we aren’t able to do right away, that we don’t do any.  This is when breaking the list down in chunks helps.  In the next month do TEN things or do FIVE.  Make a separate list and say THIS is what I am going to do in the next week or month.  Then when you are done with that, go back to the list and assemble another list of 5 or 10 things to do in the next _ months.  Break it down into manageable chunks.  Use your big list as a MASTER list and work off of smaller lists in shorter periods of time.  This is actually what I am trying out this year–25 things in 12 weeks.  At the end of 12 weeks, I’ll do a check-in and either move items forward or let them go entirely for the next round of 25 things.

7.  Do not throw the baby out with the bath water

Acknowledge what you ARE doing instead of focusing on what you are NOT.  We all do this, but it’s just not helpful.  If you wanted to write 3 times this week and only wrote once–that counts!  ONCE is MORE than ZERO, dagnabbit!  Acknowledge your efforts and you will surprise yourself with how much you ARE doing!

8.  Remember you don’t have to do any of what’s on your list

It’s totally up to you and if you feel more pressure than joy, screw it!  It’s what you want to do, not what you HAVE to do.  Enjoy the process!

Hooray!

UPDATE: Cancel the airfare!  I have been BUMPED from the reading–too many cooler people want to do it, so I am only doing the reading on the 26th in Greenpoint.  I have been promised drinks as comeuppance, which I am taking to mean that I don’t smell.  I am just too INDIE for this crowd!  I’ll be there anyway as part of the BROOKLYN TEAM (and we all know who’s more LEGIT these days in literary street cred–it Brooklyn, people!).  Come on down!

And speaking of The Moment and BEING SO COOL:

Last week I got many Facebook, phonecalls, and text messages on Monday afternoon because (unknown to me) my story had been DISCUSSED on TALK OF THE NATION on NPR!!  Larry Smith, the editor of The Moment was a guest of Neal Conan’s and my story was one of the moments they discussed.  When I heard it later I almost PASSED OUT because Neal Conan called my story “a lovely piece.”  You can hear the whole segment here or just read the highlights!  SO THRILLED!

I have been overwhelmed lately with visual inspirations:

I was in bed with migraine recently and rewatched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and was so taken with this scene.  I love everything about it.  I want her orange coat and their masks.  I want to LIVE in that Five and Ten store. Why can’t the 99 Cent stores these days be like THAT?

Thanks to this American Masters film, I am also newly interested in Charles and Ray Eames.  I had heard of them of course, but actually knew very little.  Their home is MOUTH WATERING.  Now I want one of these chairs.

I am crazy for the art of Jane Hammond.  Especially this piece.

And the illustrator Jen Renninger.  Gorgeous and inspiring.

In a bookstore a few weeks ago, I came upon Julia Rotham‘s book Farm Anatomy.  I’d be jealous of it, if it weren’t so beautiful and such a DREAM PROJECT.  Now I know that something like this CAN exist.  Awesome!

Graham and I have been re-watching Twin Peaks and I can’t believe that a) they ever made this series and b) how freaking GOOD it still is!

David Lynch should make another series.  Screw three hour unwatchable films!  The time is RIGHT.  Think HBO, David!

Hey!  I am in this book!  It comes out TODAY.  You might want to get it.

From Smith Mag editor Larry Smith comes this anthology of 125 moments that changed EVERYTHING.  It has Elizabeth Gilbert overhearing her parents upstairs which launched her into a new way of looking at existence; It has Dave Eggers getting a note that planned out the trajectory of his life; It has Jennifer Egan having what she thinks are acid flashbacks, but are actually panic attacks on a trip in Europe.  My two favorite moments so far are from a 100 year old retired journalist who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and a novelist/artist who also lives in Brooklyn.  One of them has to do with being on a boat with refugees, another has to do with Lionel Ritchie.  That’s all I’ll say because you HAVE TO READ THEM FOR YOURSELF.

I was in the original book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, also edited by Larry Smith.  I like that book and its idea, but The Moment goes MUCH deeper and is an addictive read.  Graham was putting Gus to bed the night I received my copy and started reading it.  I honestly can say I could not put it down.  It’s powerful and moving and I am thrilled and PROUD to be a part of it.

For those of you in the New York area I am doing the TWO readings around town (with projected art and everything!).  You should come on down and share your moments:

January 9, 2012, 7:00pm:

McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street, Manhattan

-and-

January 26, 2012, 7:30pm:

Greenlight Books, 686 Fulton St. Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Hope to see you there!

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