Pearl Barley in the Cupboard: Some thoughts on Moving

Moving is awful. Change is always hard, but moving upsets your entire world. You wear the same things for days. You live in a world of cardboard and dust and newspapers for weeks. You eat McDonalds, Church’s Chicken and Pizza Hut in the same day, not because your entire kitchen is in boxes, or you need a “treat” to help you through the packing and cleaning and unpacking, but because the absence of a real home means you have lost your moral compass and have no shame.

But mostly, moving is hard because it is so much transition and so little rest.

I feel like I’ve been moving for a month and that I’ll still be moving for weeks to come.  In the month leading up to moving, there was all the stuff we put on Craigslist, the trips to the liquor store to get boxes, and all the food in the freezer and on the shelves we tried to eat our way through. And you learn things: People on Craigslist are stranger than you can imagine. You need way more boxes than you think. And face it, you never had any intention of eating that pearl barley.

In a way, moving forces you to face yourself and your past.  I bought the pearl barley while doing a ridiculous cleanse and had a fleeting and overly optimistic view of my new whole grain lifestyle. And quelle surprise, the lifestyle did not materialize. Why do I have this rock? This belt buckle? This horrible old t-shirt I never wear?  Am I really planning on keeping the metal sword we found in the closet of the last place? Ok, well, obviously you keep the sword.

But what happens as I look through all the things I’ve accumulated, is that I remember all the little moments attached to those things—my boyfriend picked up that rock for me on a walk, I got the orange belt buckle to celebrate Queensday in Amsterdam, and that ugly yellow T-shirt from Goodwill was Hella awesome back in the late nineties. And the truth is that if I hadn’t saved these things, I probably wouldn’t think about those memories…they would still exist, of course, but what would make me call them up? So if I get rid of them, it feels like I’m obliterating an event or devaluing a relationship or letting go of my early college years. I’m forgetting. And I’ve saved this furry pink sleeveless tubeshirt for years, how can I get rid of it now?

This is how you end up on the floor amidst a pile of boxes eating ice cream, drinking beer, and courting despair. 

It’s helpful when you start meandering down the winding path of nostalgia to have a good friend near by.  Someone who can say to you, “It’s ok to get rid of tiny pieces of pottery you have no earthly use for. Even if you got them in Kenya.” Or,“Getting rid of the sweater your sister gave you doesn’t mean you don’t love your sister.” And “Ok, keep the T-shirt.”

And the truth is that it feels good to purge. It feels great. With every bridesmaid dress, and Honduran vase, and pair of jeans-that-is-really-nice-but-I-know-I’ll-never-wear, that I threw into the Salvation Army box, I felt a kind of tingle—a sense of relief and release. So it is with letting go, I guess. And what with moving, and Spring, and it being Lent for a little while longer, I wonder if freedom isn’t the flip side of loss.

When I was young, I used to love stationery. I loved paper and notebooks and envelopes and the entire paper store. I also loved containers. I loved Tupperware and Caboodles and wooden chests—anything that could be filled.  And what I loved so much about them was that they smacked of potential—all these blank pages, all this empty space—so much could be done! So much possibility!

And moving to my new place is a little like that. I can’t wait to put things in drawers. All my clothes look so neat in their new piles. The coffee and the mugs and the filters are all in the same location right on top of the coffee maker, so that it’s intuitive and functional and my mom won’t bitch about it next time she stays over.

And I’m excited to get a silverware organizer. You heard me.

Our whole place is so open and clean, so full of possibility—because we haven’t unpacked most of our crap yet.

Secretly, I think that in this new place I’ll be a better person. It has more light, more space, no mice and it’s not drafty. So, I’ll exercise more. I’ll eat healthier. I’ll write eight hours a day.  And because my roommate and I no longer share sliding wood doors for a wall, we’ll generally be kinder to the world. I really hope that some of this is true. But mostly I know that I’m still me, wherever I Iive. 

And that’s the thing with paper, and notebooks, and plastic boxes that click shut and stack. They’re full of possibility till you do something with them.  The minute you start writing in a notebook, it’s not clean and fresh anymore. And maybe you wrote something brilliant, but probably not. Once you use a box for extra bulbs and batteries, it can no longer hold the possibility of everything.  Once you hang a picture on the wall, you have a nail hole. But if you don’t write, if you don’t hang your Van Gogh print, if you don’t fill the boxes, they’re pure—they could be anything. But also, they’re empty.

I’m happy to fully be out of my old apartment, because I’m starting to feel less transient and more rooted. I feel like I’ve landed. Less transition, more rest. We’re slowly getting rid of boxes. We found the wine crank. We’re eating food that didn’t come in a greasy cardboard box or paper bag. And I got a shower rod, so now we don’t have to wash in the very corner of the shower to protect the wood finishes. 

Moving is awful. But change can be wonderful. I said goodbye to things that were once important but had to go. I got rid of boxes full of knick knacks. I threw away all my socks and underwear that had holes in them. Ok, almost all of them. I have a lot less stuff.

Our new place has floor to ceiling windows and mountain views. We have doors that close all the way. There’s a bike room. Plus, my bedroom window opens onto a patio instead of the hallway of our building. It feels like a brand new start.

Letting go really is a sort of freedom—but so is embracing the new.

As we unpacked, Emily reminded me that every chip is a memory. And she’s right. Freedom isn’t only nothingness and infinite possibility. There’s also freedom in being able to make new mistakes. To knick the wall trying to get your dresser into just the right spot. To buy more pearl barley that will sit in your cupboard for four years, because you’re an optimist. To pour a little wine straight onto the carpet, just to get that out of the way.

Because the boxes are moved, we made a big pot of soup in our new kitchen, and once you spill wine on the carpet, you’re home.

Photos: Boxes- sireprinting.com, My Queensday in Amsterdam-From Nora Delaney, Granville Island Beer-goodlifevancouver.comThe Sower by Van Gogh-ReproductionGallery.com, White Wine-learnaboutwineonline.com

A Craigslist kind of Life

Now, I am not one of those “Secret”-y people. I don’t necessarily believe that if I focus deeply on, say, a giant chocolate éclair and post it to my vision board, that a giant chocolate éclair will materialize in my apartment.  But then, I haven’t actually tried that. I did once manifest a tall man to help me reach my keys, but that’s a story for another blog. I do post quotes and goals around me, I do spend time trying to articulate and clarify my goals, and I do believe that if you don’t have any sort of plan or goals, probably nothing will happen. 

So my philosophy is sort of “Do shit and shit happens.”

And wow, is that ever the truth with Craigslist.  When you post your furniture on Craigslist or Kijiji or facebook (or all three, just to cover your bases), you get a myriad of responses from the netherworld of internet buyers within minutes. It was amazing. Our kitchen table and chairs were picked up within hours, and I was so excited I took a hungry look around the rest of our apartment to see what else I could sell. I briefly considered my roommate.

One Emily—clean, in good condition, snores a little but makes great coffee. Laughs at all your jokes. $75 or best offer. You pick up.

It’s like magic. You post a picture, someone comes and pays you money for your stuff, and it’s gone. I don’t even care that we have to eat dinner on the floor for three more weeks till we move.

But there is a murky side. People are strange.  And flakey.  And some people have an exaggerated view of just how important a Craigslist post is in the larger scheme of things:

One series of emails over our desk ended in the man being so sorry to disappoint me, but his friend with the vehicle was too depressed about his cat’s death to help him transport the furniture. He learned never to depend on anyone and promised that next time he would buy a van. He was very sorry.

But if you’re going to reap the bounty of internet sales, you need to field a little bit of crazy. 

And really, that’s life. You do shit, you field a little bit of nonsense, and shit happens. In the past two weeks I sent out an application for a great project, and got two rejection letters at the same time. I apply, I submit, I audition. I often get no response.  I consider getting a different job or going back to school. But as I’m busy doing all these things other opportunities pop on my radar—I book a role, I get asked about my schedule in the next few months by a local theatre, I meet a wonderful writing mentor.  They’re not necessarily related in a succinct cause and effect way, but they’re borne of the process and product of doing things.

Which is, like with Craigslist, putting it out there.  And that makes me feel encouraged—not as encouraged as instantly selling my wardrobe for 125 bones, but a deeper truer encouragement. One that I can’t spend on Ben and Jerry’s.

So yes, you might get $40 right off the bat. You might have to show a lot of people your IKEA Wardrobe. You might have to filter out some of the nutjobs. But even the flakey, strange responses of people you probably shouldn’t meet alone, are something. Do shit and shit happens.  And if you have a giant chocolate éclair, post it on Kijiji and I will probably buy it.

Chicken in a Santa Hat

In our parents’ generation, if you were writing a short story for a friend and needed a picture of a Chicken in a Santa hat, you might be plum out of luck.  I mean, you would have go out and find a chicken, a Santa hat, and a film camera.  Then you’d have to take the picture, get your picture developed and physically tape it onto your story.  Not so today! 

Readers, the interweb is a marvelous thing.  With a few quick key strokes, a virtual cornucopia of Christmas-themed-poultry appear at my fingertips. Ok, I might not have gotten just the chicken I envisioned in just the jaunty hat I would have liked (so spoiled am I that this actually makes me briefly angry), but with almost zero effort I have a Christmas Chicken.

Much like the invention of the calculator, I choose to think of this as standing on the shoulders of giants—the internet saves me oodles of time.  That I use that saved time to watch “Shit Brides Say” (featuring my good friend Lucas,) or google pictures of January Jones’ baby is, I think, a moot point.

This week I was on set for a children’s toy commercial.  At auditions, at wardrobe fittings and on set, you spend a lot of your time…waiting. 

I thought I was just playing a mom, but when I arrived at my fitting the head of wardrobe said “And this will be your outfit for the Lady of the Lake.”  Now, there are many moments in Commercial-land when I wish I had someone with whom to share a sidelong glance—a knowing, amused locking of the eyes—but it’s not wise to laugh at the hand that feeds you. So I said thank you, and tried on my aqua-green diaphanous gown.

On the shoot day, I arrived at 6:45 am (via public transit because I don’t have a car and I’m super cheap.)  I got into my first outfit—the grecian-gown—and waited in front of a portable heater for my moment in the deep background.  Apparently in certain types of children’s commercials you need to have an adult present on screen for legal reasons—whether you want her there or not.  So even thought the little girl is playing with a doll in a lagoon in her fantasy, a Lady of the Lake watches demurely against the painted Styrofoam rocks.  Actually demurely was a character choice I made upon hearing wardrobe tell make-up not to do too much to me, since they “want her to disappear.”

So I wait until I’m needed, get shuttled into position near the fake lagoon, on real sand, and then wait some more until we’re ready to shoot. Then we shoot again and again and again until everyone is happy with the first 5 seconds of magic.

Then, while they spent hours getting close-ups of the little girl and the toy, I got to leave the lagoon and change into standard tv-mom-clothes and a half-ponytail.   I have never seen an actual mom wearing a half-ponytail.  I haven’t sported one myself since I was about 14. But Commercial-land is not necessarily about veritas.  It is about hair that flows, but doesn’t cover your face.  It is about warm lighting, warm smiles, unending happiness and a product will make all your dreams come true.  We’re in a sound stage. The lagoon is fake, the bathroom only has two walls, I’m wearing a pretend wedding ring, and the girl is not my daughter.  

But I digress.  My point is that I spent most of the day waiting.  Lights got set up.  Camera’s got positioned.  The little girl spent hours in the water being delighted.  “And smiling!  All the time smiling!  You’re soooooo happy!”  But I chilled by Craft services, snacked on guacamole, added some more colour-coded boxes to the list in my agenda, and waited. 

And you know what?  It was great.  It’s fun to work.  It’s fun to pretend, and eat free food, and get paid.  And as someone who works from home and is self-employed, it is a remarkable feeling to know that just by being there, I’m at work.

If you have an office job, or a teaching job, or a construction job, I’m not saying you don’t work—you work a lot and hard.  A 9 to 5 (or 7 or 11) is a taxing schedule, even when it’s incredibly rewarding.  But also, just by showing up at your place of work, you’re kind of working.  You’re at work. That’s got to feel good.  Walking down the hall, going to the water-cooler, dropping off files at someone’s desk, taking the stairs—it’s all part of work.  And sometimes, I’m really jealous of that.  At home, I don’t feel like I’m at work just because I sit down at my desk in the corner of the living room.

At home, I often feel that I’m not working enough—and it doesn’t count as work until there are words on the page.  After all, I’m in my pajamas and I’ve stopped three times to adjust the thermostat, reheat my coffee, and throw in a load of laundry.  I can’t count any of that, ‘cause I’m at home. That some of my work necessitates puttering, thinking, pondering, and yes …waiting…feels like cheating or laziness, even though I know how important it is.

And what’s perhaps worse…I never leave work.  When I leave set or even an audition, I’ve done something at a place and then I go home. Today I had a fitting for a different commercial.  The director came over to me squinting.  He said “I’m looking at your nose.”  I told him I never broke it…that’s just how the noses in my family look.  He said “Ok. I’m just trying to figure out how to light it.”  So I waited.  Awkwardly.  And briefly I felt like a Christmas-Chicken in a disappointingly un-jaunty hat. But then I got to leave that place and go home. 

When I move from my desk to my couch, the satisfaction of leaving work is not nearly he same.  Plus my stacks of paper and filing and coloured markers glare at me with beady accusing eyes while I try to watch The Daily Show.  It’s extremely disconcerting.

So this is what I’ve been thinking about this week.  Work, time, waiting and reward.  And this is what I figure.  It’s rewarding to spend time writing—crafting something that’s mine.  Even at my desk in the living room.  Even though it makes work-home and home-work.  In a different way, it’s rewarding to stand around waiting on set, dressed up like a moss-fairy, smile a whole bunch and get paid. And in yet another—but no less real way—it is extremely satisfying to find just the photo you need floating around on the internet in two seconds flat. 

So pretty much I had a great week.  Writing.  Commercialing. Chicken in a Santa hat.  Booyeah.

Chicken picture from redtiedesigns.com

On Set Shot featuring "Mom" hair-do, from my Gallery.

When I was an Assasin: Or, One Way to Deal with January

January is a horrible month.  There should be a pre-January after Christmas, before January starts, so we can all get our shit together.  A week before New Years is just enough to recover from Christmas and suddenly there you are, thrust into the New Year, pants around your ankles.

On top of the anxiety that curdles in my belly like a bad cheese at the prospect of all the things I should do this year—many many coloured boxes taunting me –it is a cold and bleary month. That’s right: Bleary.  Not because it’s dim and indistinct as the dictionary would have you believe—but because it is equal parts bleak and weary.  Spoiler alert:  If you came to the November Rain City Chronicles, you know where this is going.

When I was in college in Michigan, January was such a bleary affair—cold, snowed-in and grey—that they made something called Interim—which was essentially a one month January term between fall and spring semester. Interim was easier, it was usually pass/fail, and you were encouraged to take something outside of your discipline—go abroad, fulfill a language requirement in three weeks, or take something fun.  That way you wouldn’t succumb to total despair.  Also, we played Assassins—to keep our spirits up, one imagines.

Now Assassins goes like this.  Anyone in the dorm who signs up to play gets a target’s name.  You don’t know who has you and no one knows who has them.  Your job is to ‘assassinate’ your target with a nerf gun.  Then, you take his or her target’s name and kill again…until eventually one person emerges victorious, rising out of the nerf foam and faux-slayings a hero.  As I said, to lift our spirits.

So, Assassins has a few basic rules:

1.  Your weapon must be a standard nerf or suction dart-type gun.
2. Any kill must have at least one witness or it doesn’t count.
3. No kill can have MORE than 4 witnesses (to prevent the giant slaughterhouse the dining hall would become)
4. Classrooms are off limits—it is after all, an institution of higher learning.

Now, I am a deeply competitive person.  I once potato-sacked-raced an entire class of fifth graders and cheered horrendously when I won.  I was their teacher.  Another time, a four year old girl I babysat had a mermaid sticker board, and would insist that only she got to decide where everything went.  So when she wasn’t looking, I would move stickers around and insert new ones.  Out of spite, I think.  That’s what sort of adult I am.   So when I started playing Assassins, something dark and a little disturbing clicked deep inside of me.  I very badly wanted to win.

I don’t remember who my first few targets were.  The whole time is awash in fear and adrenaline—because I could not help but take this that seriously.  I wore cargo pants, combat boots, and a camouflage shirt to class.  I started collecting the weapons of the early casualties, so I had 2 or 3 guns on my person at a time—one of which was a tiny dart hand-pistol and one of which was a huge, semi-automatic nerf gun.  I imagined myself as a spy or covert operator.  It was kind of sexy and thrilling and fun.  At first.

Very quickly, however, intrigue turned to pure fear.  I got super paranoid.  I made my roommates enter our room and sweep it before I would go in.  I wouldn’t go down the hall to the common bathroom by myself.  I slept with the pistol under my pillow, and went to class with it tucked in my belt.  I saw danger everywhere.  But I was not wrong.

My friend Lucas called and asked me to meet him in front of the mailboxes.  He was already ‘dead’ and my friend, so I thought I was safe. That’s when I got shot for the first time.  Lucas lured me down for a floormate of his.  And while there were too many witnesses for it to count (if only real bullets worked so bureaucratically), I was livid.  The treachery!  My roommates and I went back up to our room and wrote a letter to Lucas that began “Dear Judas…” and I wrote it with a safety pin and my own blood.  Mostly we did that because we thought it would be dramatic and funny.  Mostly.

I hid in peoples bunk beds.  I tip-toed down the hallways.  I became vigilant.  And pretty soon, the only two people left in the dorm were me and Nate Karsten.  Since our dorm was separated into Women’s  and Men’s floors, there were only certain times—“Open House Hours”—where I was actually not safe in my own room, but by now the dorm had polarized and Nate had spies everywhere.  I would sneak down to the basement at one in the morning to visit with my boyfriend—it being too dangerous at other times—and immediately someone would dart out of the room.  Minutes later Nate would appear, dragged out of bed in only his boxers, and the fire-fight would send me back up the stairwell to the safety of my floor.

We had a shoot-out in the gym—until there were too many witnesses.

Nate tried to drive by shoot me from the open door of a van and I only escaped because I varied my routes to and from the dining hall. 

Nowhere was safe.  One afternoon, Nate showed up at my work.  I looked up from my desk in the business department and saw a guy hovering in the doorway—a witness.  Instinctively I pulled the dart-pistol out of my belt and jumped up just as Nate Karsten popped up from behind the front desk.  We shot and ducked around files and staplers until a professor yanked Nate out of the office and lectured him on appropriate behaviour.  Now, I’m not sure what constitutes “appropriate behaviour” when a college sanctions the imaginary slaying of classmates as a community-building exercise, but I didn’t complain because it was one more day I didn’t die. 

I was scared to leave my room.  I had a stomach ache.  I was nervous all the time.  I knew it was just a game—but I couldn’t help myself.  And I’d come so far. My friends thought I was nuts—but Nate was wily and cunning and nefarious and he was everywhere.  I decided I needed an offensive move to end this, so I dragged my roommate Katie down to Nate’s room during open house hours.  I nodded, Katie threw open his door, and there he was on the couch.  I aimed my semi-automatic nerf gun and fired, but while the bullet was in the air, Nate’s friend jumped off the couch and took the bullet in his chest.  I shit you not.   And before I could reload Nate locked himself in the bathroom.  Nate was an arch-nemesis who would not be foiled.

And that’s pretty much when I decided I wanted to die.  The waiting and the fear and the constant threat of Nate Karsten was killing me.  I wanted to win, but mostly I just didn’t want to lose. And now what I really really wanted, was for it to be over. 

Interim term is supposed to fun and relaxing—it’s supposed to make January bearable, so that maybe you can make it through February, and by March the overwhelming despair of the universe will pale enough to put you back on an even keel.  But this? This was not relaxing.  And it wasn’t fun.  It was like an exhilarating, consuming kind of awful.

So maybe I got lax.  Maybe Nate Karsten was just that good.  Or my desire for rest was more powerful than my need to win.  Because Nate Karsten shot me in the head in broad daylight outside of the Knollcrest dining hall after two weeks of our mano a mano showdown.

I was defeated.  I was embarrassed.  But mostly, I was sooooo relieved. 

Was that feeling of relief worth the three and a half weeks of extreme panic?  I can’t say.  The relief was amazing.  And Assassins was certainly a distraction.  And this January, as I find it hard to get out of bed, hard to get excited about things, hard to go outside, hard to fight the bleariness …I wonder if a distraction is exactly what I need.  

I’m not gonna play Assassins again.  Ever.  I don’t have the constitution.  But remembering my showdown with Nate does remind me that maybe I take things a little too seriously.  And that does help.  Because January won’t last forever.  The sun and flowers are coming.   So lighten up, already.  And maybe don’t use phrases like “the overwhelming despair of the universe” in your blog.  I mean for real. 

Colour me Rad: Thinking Inside the Box.

So it’s January.  A time of new beginnings…resolutions…big big plans.  And I am all about lists.  I mean, ALL about them.  I use coloured markers.  I make boxes that I can check off.  People look at my whiteboard and go—“Why don’t you just erase things once you’re done?”   What’s wrong with you?   If I erased things on my list, I couldn’t check the little box.  I couldn’t have the satisfaction of looking at a list of little checked boxes: things accomplished.  I couldn’t keep at bay (however briefly) the feeling that time is sucking away my youth and potential while I watch Downton Abbey and make off-colour remarks on twitter. 

I mean, Downton Abbey is a very good show.  But in advance of making my 2012 goals (two weeks into January, because I have not yet resolved to be on time for things), I pulled out my 2011 goals and with the exception of “get a new agent,” and  “start using twitter,” I can’t check anything off.  Now, I have started many of the things on my list, and that’s not nothing.  But I want tangible progress.  I want little boxes with big red checks.

So great is my desire for the checked box, that in highschool for a period of several weeks to several months, I made lists every night before I went to bed and they included

 Wake up

Shower

Get Dressed

Eat Breakfast

Brush Teeth

Do Hair.

I’m not kidding.  And I know it borders on OCD, but I left for school feeling like a champion.  You wanna feel good about yourself?  Set the bar very low.

I am not a naturally organized person.  In fact my sister said “I don’t know why you bother making all these lists.  As soon as they’re done, you lose them.”  And she’s right, I do.  But the writing of the list does a great deal to quell my anxiety and move the chaos from my head to the page.  Lists are plans.  Steps you can take.  Progress you can make.

Annie Dillard writes “A schedule defends from chaos and whim.  It is a net for catching days.  It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.” (The Writing Life, 32).  So too with lists.  And being that I am self-employed creative person, my need for structure and scaffolding is great. 

So I make lists and I colour-code my Moleskine Agenda.  That’s right.  I sit down in January, and put all my family birthdays in (lime green text with a baby blue cloud around it, or vice versa); I write in anniversaries and upcoming weddings (alternating orange and red); I flip to the end of every month and write “PAY RENT” two days before it’s due (colour not decided yet because colour-coding your agenda takes a significant amount of time and I’m waiting till I catch up on The New Girl.)  And I LOVE this.  I love looking at this year in front of me that starts to have some edges and walls.  It’s like the week or month or year ahead is a ski hill and I’m deciding where to plant my poles.

But that’s about as far as the excitement takes me.  It’s like buying your books at the beginning of the semester and looking at your syllabus—that part is exciting; writing the 20 page paper at the end…less so.  Or as a kid—I loved building the fort, or dressing up my sisters and brother as settlers (and once making Larissa be the horse to draw the buggy), or setting up the “grocery store” with empty boxes of cereal and Kraft Dinner my mom had saved for us…but then, I was done.  Once we were all set up, I no longer wanted to “play.” I mean, how do you even play house, or fort, or grocery store.  There are no rules!  No plot!

But just as with life, you need to play, do, improvise.  You need fill the space between.  It’s all fine and good to write “Complete Spec Script” or “Come up with a pilot idea” or “Write a blog a week”…but then you have to do that.  You need to sit at your computer and make shit happen. 

Now, I’m not above micro-managing myself…

  Sit down at desk.

  Turn on computer.

  Open word document.

But at a certain point there is the work that cannot be cudgeled into being.  That’s a real word.  I thought I made it up, but it’s right there in my dictionary: cudgeled.  You must build a scaffold, a schedule or a list…and then you must build, do, fill.  And that makes me go…eeecccgggghhh.   

And “eeecccggggghhh” pretty much explains how I’ve felt all of January so far.  All these dreams, plans, potential…I want to be excited…I want to have done many of those things…but the doing…the doing….eeecccgggghhh.  Plus, I start to think “and then what?”  So I finish my Spec Script.  So I write a hilarious short film.  So I finally finish my animation voice-over demo. Then what?  Will my life be complete?  Probably not.  But it will be complete-er.  That’s not a word.  Don’t even bother looking it up.

So I am here.  And I am writing a blog.  And then I’ll go to Yoga.  And then I’ll watch me some Zooey Deschanel while I finish colour-coding my agenda.  2012, look out.  I got me a WHOLE buncha boxes lined up.

           

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