My 101 of 1001 days from 2010 - 2013

Here is a list of the top 101 things I would do, if I could do over the next three years in no order of preference

The 101 List for 1001 days

1. Love
2. See Iguazu waterfall in Argentina
3. Go to Japan
4. Finish and publish a novel
5. Paint my bedroom walls
6. Grow my hair waist length
7. Own a scooter
8. Keep a plant alive
9. Take singing classes
10. Learn a martial art
11. Run a marathon
12. Live in Montreal
13. Get from poor to pretty good at snowboarding
14. Get from above average to excellent at surfing
15. Ride around Europe on a scooter
16. Eat spaghetti a la matriciana in Italy
17. Learn to paint
18. Ski in the alps
19. See the sunrise in Antartica
20. Play piano
21. See a Panda bear
22. Learn to play guitar
23. Flip a house
24. Master riding a horse
25. Plant a vegetable garden
26. Learn to hip hop dance
27. Read every penguin classic
28. Learn to shoot a gun
29. Go on a mission trip
30. Go to The Rose Bowl Market in Pasadena
31. Produce a documentary for a film festival
32. Go up in a hot air balloon
33. Ride on a camel through the Sahara desert
34. Bungee jumping in Queenstown - The Nebis
35. Skiing in Whistler
36. Camping in Yellowstone
37. See the Grand Canyon
38. Learn to cook traditional Morroccan food
39. Pyramids in Egypt
40. Dye my hair pink
41. Try a raw food diet
42. Shoot under 100 on an 18 holer
43. Like bowling
44. Learn art history
45. Operate a camera manually
46. Live by the beach
47. Live in the snow in a log cabin
48. Get married
49. Throw an egg at someones head
50. Visit Ben and Jerrys icecream factory
51. Wineries in the South of France
52. Get a dog
53. Hot springs
54. Go paintballing
55. Get a loomi loomi massage
56. Learn to do cartoon voices
57. Go on a safari
58. Learn to cook my mother's Nasi goreng
59. Cook a pandan chiffon cake
60. Play a lead in a blockbuster action movie
61. Go to a Drive In
62. Eat at all of David Thompson's restaurants
63. Make a personal website
64. Learn Spanish
65. Learn Chinese
66. See my cousins Peter and Matt
67. Meet Madonna
68. Pray
69. 30 day challenge for bikram yoga
70. Write a screenplay
71. Host a travel show for Travel Channel
72. Develop "The Starving Artist LA" blog
73. Blog here once a week
74. Teach kids to read
75. Pick berries one summer in New Zealand
76. Pick apples if I cant pick berries in an apple orchard
77. Swim with a Great White Shark
78. Go indoor rock climbing
79. Find a female mentor
80. Interrogate my Malaysian grandma about my mum in chinese
81. Take family portraits
82. Learn about my family tree
83. Keep a dream journal
84. Sew the ribbons in my unworn shoes and take a ballet class with real classical piano music
85. Spend time with my younger cousins Tamara and Caity
86. Make a coffee table scrapbook of my travel photography
87. Get a clear white tattoo of the Care Bear heart on my ass
88. Change my signature to something novel
89. Go on a dinner date at Moonshadows in Malibu
90. Learn to make voices for cartoons
91. Test my Noni Juice theory
92. Start or be involved in developing an NFP
93. Go to this amazing Day Spa in Palm Springs
94. Go wine tasting in Napa Valley, CA
95. Go wine tasting in Margaret River, WA
96. Enter the annual Raft Race in the Amazon River
97. Write or receive a poem
98. Watch a ballet
99. See a pro ice hockey game
100. New Years Eve in New York City
101. New Years Eve in Byron Bay, Australia

Food for thought: passion fruit

The following is a racist entry based on a generalization... 

Passion. Thats what's missing from American culture. I finally put my finger on it after five years of feeling like something was missing.  

I went to see the Fine Art Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina and it brought me to tears. There was something about the color and intensity of all the pieces that resonated so deeply with my heart. Argentenians (and Latin Americans in general) are such fiery, passionate people. They feel something and they express it. They build up simple things and live the drama. Spend a day with Argentenians and you will see that these people are interpersonally fascinated; the highs and lows of live in Argentina are experienced unabashedly.  

I think it took a trip to a culture where it was ok to express yourself in a colorful way for me to realize the thing that I have missed most  since moving to Los Angeles five years ago is some plain and simple passion around me. I miss the collective permission to express intensity. Albeit, Hollywood is a place where people make a good living of creative expression of emotional complexity. However I dont believe that American culture is at ease with this. I think people are comfortable with passivity due to a desire to fit in. 

Its no wonder that Americans suffer from the highest levels of depression and anxiety. They are bottling all their stuff up to stay normal. "Crazy" is the name people who are passionate are labelled in a country where no one speaks their mind. I think its sad that "crazy" has become synonymous with passionate. From personal observation I have learned that many Americans feel if they unleash a little passion in their lives they will self destruct. 

I have noticed a distinct difference between the blunt and honest expression  of Argentenians and people I know in LA. People here just say what they feel when they feel it. They are constantly in a flux of full fledged reaction without apology. I think Americans can learn so much from the Latins. Putting up a fight with some real Latin kinda gusto may be the only thing that bolsters the economy from insecurity. 

Im wondering if the pursuit of an artistic lifestyle requires a mandatory commitment to protecting passion at all cost. From what Im seeing its the difference between what's good and what sucks. Makes some sense. What makes the heart move is what keeps it going.  Do you agree with my theory? 

 

Surrogate decision making

I can never make decisions.

I particularly enjoy restaurants that have a limited menu because it significantly reduces the amount of time I need for making a choice about what I would like to order. I am afraid of places such as The Cheesecake Factory and Jerrys Deli. They have everything you can conjure up in your head. They extend you ten pages beyond the club sandwich and chicken ceaser salad. Yet somehow I always order the club sandwich.

I have a lot of dissonance about decisions. In marketing school they teach you about post purchase dissonance. It is when the buyer starts to rationalize and justify their purchase making by finding clues and evidence to back up their decision. I spend a good deal of time doing this. I ask people for their opinions and I read into street signs. The other morning I was making a decision based on a quote I pulled out of thin air about "we" and "me". A lady jogged past me and was wearing a tee shirt that read "Its about the "we" not "me" ". Case closed. If thats not a sign that you're on the right track then what is?

There is a possibility that selective attention has a lot to do with this. Its as if its Easter and I hid all the Easter eggs in my own garden and I am deliberately picking out the places to look that I know I will find the eggs. Im squealing with delight but really I knew the eggs would be there. Do you believe in selective treasure hunting?

So what do you do if you know you're being selective with reasoning and you want to find the truth? How do you know if you are making the right decisions?

I think there should be a place you take your decisions and submit them. It should be a box and look like a sweepstakes barrel. You write your decisions on little A5 pieces of colored paper. You label their urgency and category. You place a return address and you post it. You get to pick if you would like express mail or regular post (sometimes you dont want to see the "correctness" of your decision for a few weeks) There is a panel somewhere - TBA - that assesses and weighs your decision merit. It responds with feedback that gives you the truth about the consequences of your choice. You get a score (its out of 100%) and you will know for a fact whether you made the right choice. The closer to 100% you get the better your decision was. Lets just say you scored poorly, you get a chance to retake the test and make a different choice next time. If you choose expedited service maybe you even get to postpone making a decision until you can be certain you're aware you're making the choice with the best possible outcome.

The reason i like this quantifiable and qualitative way of measuring decision making is that it gives the decision making power to something else to handle. Oh have you seen that movie, "The Surrogate"? Is it a movie or a TV show? I really dont watch TV but I do see the posters and billboards everywhere. This Surrogate idea is ideal. Someone else lives your life. You get to tell them what to do and they take the weight of the responsibility for you. I think this is also a very good idea to couple with the decision making submission box. Perhaps the surrogate submits the decision on your behalf. That would be even better.

I need to make a decision. Life is too short to keep waiting for someone else to make one for you.

A Return to Baking

I am inspired to bake cupcakes again. 

There is a craze in the United States of America right now. It is very cool to open a Food Truck business. A Food Truck is a restaurant or cafe on wheels. It parks off street for lunch or dinner hours and serves food to pedestrians at cheap prices. They come offering all sorts of inventive foods; Korean BBQ, Vietnamese, french fries and cookies, sweets, grilled cheese sandwiches and hotdogs. 

I had a cupcake from a Food Truck on Thursday evening and it blew my mind. During the 30 seconds that I consumed the cupcake I was just in awe at the skill of the baker who created it. I love simple pleasures like a tasty home baked dessert. The couple that owned the truck were aware of their talent in the baking department. They were this sweet Asian couple that were busy as bees flitting around making sure that cupcakes were coming out of the ovens in perfect timing and that icing was being completed simultaneously. There was so much love going into the careful decoration of each individual patty to ensure it looked appetizing to the customer. I noticed the customers that were lining up to purchase their delectable offerings were also as pleased with the cupcakes as me. The people who owned the truck looked so proud of their business and happy to serve the people who wanted them. 

The whole experience of watching this shook my heart. I want a slice of the pleasure that this woman took from baking cupcakes. I want to serve people and enjoy the pleasure on their faces as they express sincere gratitude and excitement at something I helped to create. 

My mother was a fantastic baker and when I was growing up my brother and I would spend hours and hours in the kitchen busy copying her baking recipes. We would prepare a cake batter together, make an obnoxious mess about it and my brother would secretly putting green food coloring so it would come out green and blue when baked. Some of my happiest memories are helping my brother bake in the kitchen. 

I really want to bake cupcakes again. 

Neuro Framing

Have you seen the film "Momento"? Its written in a non linear fashion and tells of one mans struggle to recollect important facts pertaining to a murder impaired by a severe memory disorder. The character tattoos details of his identity into his skin in order to assist him in retention. His identity at any given moment is defined solely by just how much information is recorded in his skin. As you watch the film you find yourself drawn in by his fascinatingly repetitive act of finding himself.  

I lot of people I now are going through trying times of personal discovery. The label I hear commonly used to categorize this period is usually something along the lines of "finding oneself". I believe that memory can be a powerful trigger of personal identity. And I believe that a distorted memory can lead one towards a distorted sense of self later in life. 

Its difficult to retain every single bit of information we ingest on a daily basis. Yet, over years and years we are selective with which memories we retain. I have noticed through the act of journaling about my personal history that memories that have been squashed down for years have popped up. I will admit not all my memories serve me in a positive manner. And for that reason I truly attest to the power of using memory to shape a more positive future. I believe you can change certain negative views about your current personal identity through a regressive technique of revisiting memories and healing them through introducing a positive interpretation of their true meaning. 

Ill share one of these memories as an example. When i was younger my parents kept a display cabinet for our trophies and photos from sports and extra curricular activities. I remember that inside this cabinet was a picture of my brother and myself wearing different placed pins from a sprint race for the "green team". I am wearing a 2nd place ribbon and my brother a 3rd place in the photo. The photo has stuck in my mind for a very long time as representative of my achievement in sports as a youth. Im a much better athlete as an adult but it takes a lot of moxie for me to compete against others. 

Recently I found a dog eared photograph of my brother and i which was taken during that same primary school sports day afternoon. In the photo im wearing a pin that shows a 1st place ribbon. The picture is special to me because it was never one that was displayed in my house. The moment I discovered it I felt released from this jaded view of my sporting ability. 

Imagine if I had revisited the first photograph with humor and contradicted my negative attitude by remembering the second. I think its pretty magical how one impression can color your history and simultaneously change your future.  

better get reading

Jane Goodall believes the only real difference between humans and apes is our sophisticated language. As scientists continue to teach chimps to become smarter, more intellectually proficient we as a society are regressing to a culture of digital emoticons and urban abbreviations. Its only a matter of time before we are culturally conditioned equals. 

imagining a life this beautiful

i love nature. when i was a little girl i would climb a huge apple tree adjacent to my dads tool shed and just sit up there for hours daydreaming; i would muse over ideas and significant people in my life. i remember i used to even bake little tea cakes for snacks so i could stay up there even longer. i hated when the light got dark. it meant i had to climb back down to reality. my parents always wondered where i had got off to when i would climb up in the tree because it was quite hidden from the house and a difficult one to get up. i would be so quiet when i was up there because i enjoyed thinking that they had no idea about my secret world up there.

been backpacking/camping around new zealand for two weeks now and i find myself taken aback by the sheer majesty of beauty that this island has to offer. some of the backdrops ive experienced in the south island are the most beautiful things ive seen in 27 years of my life. im also wondering how come it takes me to go all the way to new zealand to be inspired to see beauty!

i have always felt drawn to travel. when i was a kid my brother and i would pack bags as if we were going on a long journey and pretend that our backyard was a trek through different continents. i even would bake cakes and store them in an airtight container inside one of our backpacks in case we needed sustanence along the way. i remember gaining inspiration from the tv cartoon series "The lost cities of gold".

Anyway its hardly different now. As im packing my bags to go somewhere new, i find myself with the same eager anticipation that i did when i was faking it at 7 years old. i think i was so curious about my backyard at that point that over the years ive just continued to recreate that experience in my career. i remember my little heart beating as i convinced myself i was about to uncover a huge treasure near dads passionfruit plant. i think i was desperately wanting something new but content creating it in the same place. its sad to think that i never needed to leave my backyard because my imagination was enough as a child and now that ive gotten older i need to physically take myself away to believe i can be inspired? i dunno...

why do people forget the simple pleasure of seeing new things or things theyve already seen in new ways? how come its so easy to get disenchanted or numb to the beauty we know in our daily surroundings?