It’s been awhile since we’ve hung out together. I’ve missed you. All that get-stuff-done urgency and distraction energy this past week of getting ready for Retreat got between us.

My bad.

Before arriving at the Retreat, I spent the night at my friend Amy’s house — an hour’s drive from home, and a 12-hour decompression chamber between “normal life” and Retreat. While I was in that space between exit and entry, I must admit I had a lot of resistance to letting go of being connected. My iPhone addiction went a little wild…

The voices said:

You’re missing stuff! The world is turning without you! You’re going to be left behind!

My grounded self reminded me that although yes, my inbox will be overflowing when I get home, 5 days is probably not going to break me, or make me somehow “lose the race.”

What race? (My grounded self asked.) There is no race. If I came along for the first time tomorrow, I’d still have every possibility open before me.

The fear is that if I don’t snatch it (whatever it might be) right now, somehow it will spell disaster or devastation due to lost opportunity.

The truth is that the loss of one opportunity merely means the gain of another.

It’s all good.

I am where I am. Be here now. (Not wishing for there, but really being here.)

Present time.

The beauty of Retreat is that it gets me into present time for a longer chunk than is my normal m.0.

I’m so future-oriented! (Futuristic is one of my top 5 Strengthsfinder 2.0 strengths, so no big surprise there.) Always building, growing, aiming ahead.

I’m not so practiced at now.

Yoga class — yes. Walks — yes (but then, I’m often dreaming and scheming while I’m walking).

So. One of the blessings of Retreat: The Now.

Treasure treasure treasure the moment. The Now.

So, Journal, I’ll meet up with you again tomorrow. Now I’m off to be in The Now with the other creative souls here in this sacred place, and then it’s time for bed.

Ahhhhhh. Three full days (plus a morning, before heading to my gig) to fully indulge my creative whims and be in The Now.

I’m here.

If you’re ready to work on indulging your creative whims, without having to go anywhere, sign up for the free tele-party that I’m co-hosting with my fellow Poobah of Play, Kelly Hevel, on March 7 — Living the Creative Life: Fact vs. Fiction. (And yes, there will be a recording, in case you can’t make it to the live call, but you gotta register to get the recording. All registrants will also get $100 off our upcoming course, Playing Around Online, and you could even win a full scholarship to the course! Click here for full details.) 

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

To recap, inspired by this post by Jacqueline, I’ve committed to taking on a new challenge every month of this year. It may be a goal I’d like to integrate as a permanent habit, or it may be something I’m trying out just for the month.

Either way, you’re invited to join me!

For January, I took on two big commitments, one very publicly, and one which started as a stealth challenge, and then later became public.

Let’s review!

Commitment 1: The Great Bedtime Experiment

My challenge was to get to bed every night this month by 11pm. Lights out.

Given that my previous M.O. was 2am (or later), this represented a pretty radical behavior change. Honestly, I was not sure I could do it. I’d tried — and failed — to move my bedtime up many times in the past, and knew that this could be just one more failure in my logbook.

So, how’s it going?

I’m truly delighted to report that the Great Bedtime Experiment is going glowingly! It has had, however, some rather surprising results!

Unexpected Results: Increased Stress!

I was surprised and rather amused that the first few days of the GBE actually increased my stress level.

Huh?

Previously, if I didn’t finish everything on my to-do list, I’d just stay up later. There seemed to be no real “end” to my day. Of course I’d always get to bed eventually, but my perception of my day was that it was kind of limitless.

Not done? Just keep working!

This vicious cycle kept me up late most nights, which left me wrecked the next day, which was, of course, the big impetus to try a new, more self-compassionate way.

Now that I “had” to get to bed by 11pm, suddenly my work days had a “hard end” to them. I couldn’t just keep going like the Energizer Bunny, and that knowledge stressed me the hell out for a few days. All day long I’d be anxiously watching the clock, knowing I had to get X, Y and Z done, and myself into bed, by 11:00.

But of course it was just a head game. The reality is, I never got everything on my list done, no matter how late I stayed up. Now I was just more conscious of prioritizing. More mindful of having to let stuff go for now.

That unexpected rise in anxiety only lasted a few days, as I mentioned, and then I experienced an energetic shift that felt quite easy and natural. I actually took to the new regime quite happily, which was something of a surprise since previous attempts at earlier bedtimes had always resulted in such dismal failure.

Anticipated Results: Better Prioritizing!

Several times in the past 4 weeks (practically daily, in fact), I’ve had to let go of something I’d wanted to get done because it was time to shut down. Without the Great Bedtime Experiment commitment, I would have kept going — and suffered for it the next day. Instead, I was able to see that all that suffering simply wasn’t worth it. Very few things, it turns out, are really that urgent, no matter how much they might feel like they are.

(Granted, I didn’t have any major product launches or big client deadlines — thank god — so my resolve has not yet been tested as strongly as it might have been… and probably will be at some point…)

Blog post not done? ArtSpark* not loaded and scheduled? You know what, that sucks, and it’s definitely not good to not maintain consistency, but I made the decision that my priority is health and sanity — I’m on the Way of the Peaceful Entrepreneur, after all. Nobody was gonna die (always the ultimate gauge of relative importance), so I went to bed.

And life went on.

Lo and behold, with a “hard end” to my day, my ability to prioritize has (largely) gotten better! And my ability to just let stuff go altogether is improving too, which is, of course, part of my ultimate goal of living a more humane, Self-Compassionate life.

So yay me!

Anticipated Results: Melissa Pushes the Limits!

I confess I have (not surprisingly) learned exactly how far I can push the end of my day and still follow the letter (if not the spirit) of the “law.” I originally set my ideal computer shut-down time as 9:30, or 10:00pm at the latest. That allows for a gentle, meandering wind-down, plenty of time to do my getting-ready-for-bed ritual and toilet (said in a French accent) in a relaxing manner. Even engage in some pillow talk with lights out well before 11:00, and sleep soon thereafter.

More common lately, I’ll confess, is a rushed 10:30 (or later!) shut-down, which has me racing to beat the clock into bed and still fussing with my iPhone after I’ve achieved a “technical” lights-out (but not devices out).

Yeah, skirting the rules, for sure, and I know it! I’m thinking it would be a good idea to set my Mac to automatically shut down at 10:15, or even 10:00, instead of 10:30. (Turns out the Mac gives you a 9 minute grace period. And fyi, it isn’t truly an auto shut down, because most of the programs I run have to be manually quit out of, otherwise they’ll prevent the computer from shutting down.)

So, I’ve learned (or relearned what I already knew) that I’ll push the limits. Better, then, to hem those limits in a bit, I think…

Other results: No Cures, but Improved Quality of Life Nonetheless

Though I was hoping the Great Bedtime Experiment would cure my tendency toward insomnia and migraines, I’ve had no such luck. It doesn’t seem to have affected them one way or another. But, on a positive note, the insomniac attacks have not left me as utterly destroyed as in the past. I’m still exhausted and tired, but before the GBE I was wrecked. And virtually guaranteed a migraine sometime during the week.

Now, even if I’m awake for 4 hours in the middle of the night, the very fact that I got to bed earlier in the first place has established a foundation of sleep that my body likes much, much better. Tired, yes; utterly destroyed, no.

So that’s an improvement.

The Upshot

I LOVE this new way of being (which, by the way, is also helping me open up to taking time for R&R in other ways — a good thing!), and fully intend to continue with my 11pm lights-out general rule going forward.

Commitment 2: Daily Clutter-Busting

Tackling my long-held clutter issue started as a stealth commitment. I decided to try out doing one thing to bust clutter every day, and just see how it went. No need, I figured, to broadcast to the world that oy vey I would really like to clear up my clutter problem!!!

So I’d do it quietly.

I’ve tried similar projects in the past, but never managed to keep it up. This time, though, my persistence has been nothing short of miraculous.

What helped?

First, rather than set a daily time commitment (ie, 15 minutes a day), I made my commitment to “do one thing.” Sometimes my “thing” was tiny, like sorting and filing all the papers in a small pile, and sometimes it was more dramatic, like purging an entire drawer or cupboard, but making the discrete commitment requirement open-ended like this seems to work better for me.

I also intentionally made my clutter-busting commitment just for the month of January. I will absolutely be re-upping at the end of the month (and I expect to do so every month throughout the year), but rather than making my initial commitment indefinite (which makes it feel overwhelming, annoying and downright painful), I’m taking it one month at a time (which makes it feel more like a fun game!)

Meanwhile, once I’d had a week or so of experiencing some real positive change, I decided to pull out another tool that I know from experience is always helpful for me: the power of community.

Let me back up for a moment and say that several months ago I thought of leveraging my ultimate success — complete with Before and After pics — into some kind of paid program (the ability to turn my personal projects into a way to help other people and earn some income always being a positive incentive, after all!) But there was a problem with this idea. I couldn’t possibly lead some sort of home/studio beautification project (I thought) if my own space were a chaotic mess! I needed to achieve, if not perfection, at least massive improvement (I thought) before I could even consider it. And since that felt impossibly far off, the whole thing was a bust.

For some reason, though, I was able at the start of this year to break out of my in-the-box thinking. Thankfully, it occurred to me that (duh) I don’t actually have to be a model of perfection in order to be an effective leader!

In fact, my leadership style has never been one of “I have all my shit together, so follow me,” but more of “I’m trying out doing this interesting thing, wanna join me?”

I knew from experience that my Playshop format of checking in via phone/Skype/web conferencing, then working individually, then checking in again, really does make a difference — Playshoppers have told me as much, and I know there’ve been times when the only thing that got me to do a designated task was the very fact that I was on a call with other people who had set aside the time for that very thing.

Why not, I thought, create a similar group for busting clutter?

ClutterBusters was born.

Currently still a pilot program, I’ve been leading two clutter-busting sessions a week — Mondays at 5pm PST and Fridays at 10am PST — plus there’s a private Facebook group just for ClutterBusters. The pictures here show you some of what I’ve personally accomplished, and the success stories from the members of the pilot program have been so inspiring!

Bathroom drawer before ClutterBusters

Bathroom drawer after ClutterBusters

Under-sink cabinet before ClutterBusters

Under-sink cabinet after ClutterBusters

(Want in? There will be a membership fee at some point, probably in the next month or two, but you’re welcome to join the pilot program now for free if you want — click here for more info.)

What’s up for February?

Now that January is almost at an end, it’s time to set my #12in12 commitment for February! I’ll be continuing with the Great Bedtime Experiment, and with daily clutter-busting (yay ClutterBusters!). To that I’m adding a new commitment I actually started this week: to write a minimum of 750 words a day on the book I’m working on. (More on that later. For now, suffice it to say that my first ebook, Creating Happiness: 9 Essential Secrets for Creative People (and Everyone Else) is in the final edits and slated to come out via aspindle.com in the middle of February, and I’m now working on a new book.)

I’m also toying with the idea of restricting my time on email to twice a day.

Which honestly makes me break out into a cold sweat.

Which makes me think I really need to try it.

What do you think?

Wanna join me with a month of daily commitment? Have you made any interesting changes so far this year? What challenge will you be taking on in February?

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

*As part of practicing Self-Compassion, and in keeping with my Stovetop model of life design for Passion Pluralites, the ArtSpark is currently on vacation while I work on my book. Time to rotate the pots on the stove, in other words. I reserve the right to make art any time I damn well please, of course, but my daily commitment to playing in the “Creative Sandbox” is now a commitment to writing, rather than splashing paint and ink around. If you’re a blog subscriber and/or ArtSpark subscriber, I will, of course, keep you posted when the ArtSpark returns from its travels! (I’d actually like to know where it’s headed — maybe Istanbul? — but it’s been mum on the subject.)

Specifically, I’ve committed to getting to bed, lights out, by no later than 11pm every night this month — a shift of 3 full hours from my usual 2am bedtime.

I call it…

The Great Bedtime Experiment Debrief

It’s been a week since I started the Great Bedtime Experiment. How’m I doin’?

I’m pleased to report that I’ve succeeded in keeping my commitment, and it is dramatically helping my energy and quality of life, as expected.

What I didn’t expect is the “side effects.”

To wit: for the first couple of days, I was surprised to find my tension and stress level much higher throughout the day than normal. My usual M.O. has been to just keep working as late into the night as necessary, until I literally had to stop. Now, with a “hard endtime” to my days, I no longer have that “luxury,” and the perceived limits on my time added some extra felt-pressure — “gotta get X,Y & Z done, NOW!” — that I hadn’t felt before.

I swear my blood pressure rose several points for a couple of days there.

Thankfully, that began to stabilize as the week went on, as I kinda figured it would.

The ritual of shutting down started to become normal and my perspective on the shape of my day began to adapt and adjust.

I’m much more conscious of planning ahead, and though I’m still in major catch-up mode (inevitable, when you’ve been living in last-minute, push-til-the-wee-hours-whenever-necessary land for as long as I have), it’s shifting, and it feels great!

Surprises

One thing that’s really surprised me is that the Great Bedtime Experiment has revealed how seriously overextended I am.

Let’s be clear: I knew I was overextended, but somehow pushing late into the night had masked just how overextended. There’s no hiding when you face a hard-stop at the end of the day, and 7 items are still staring at you from your “must get done this week, preferably today” list, uncompleted.

I knew I had a tendency to overestimate just how much I could get done in a day — I just didn’t realize how much I overestimated.

So.

What to do? It’s a situation that cannot be sustained.

Reality Bites

I started by writing down every single thing I do on a regular basis that takes up my time. Then I looked at that list. Something has to give, but what? I honestly don’t want to give any of it up! I still haven’t come to any happy conclusions, beyond possibly posting less here on the blog…

I have, however, allowed myself to drop some planned projects from my “foreseeable future of 2012″ list — such as my long-held dream of creating a Uke Diva site, with video tutorials on how to play my original songs on the ukulele.

…which I’d hoped to have up by the end of 2011

…which obviously didn’t happen…

Yes, I’m still very eager and excited to do this, and I’m not letting it go entirely, but I just have to be ruthless about my priorities, and with only space for 4-5 pots on my stove at any given time, this pot is just going to have to wait. I’ve got other bubbling pots to attend to right now, which are threatening to burn or boil over if I’m not careful!

So.

Meanwhile, my sweetie and I are in agreement that this new, earlier bedtime regime is working very well. We’re both much better-rested (though I still seem to be a lot sleepier than I’d like [what's up with that?]). I’m no longer totally steamrollered when I get up, and come to think of it, I don’t feel on the edge of a migraine all the time.

Unfortunately the Great Bedtime Experiment hasn’t yet eliminated my tendency toward insomnia, but the month is yet young.

The Other 2 Words

Meanwhile, I’m also very pleased with my attempts to integrate my other 2 words for 2012, Practice and Untangle.

Mornings are highly creative times for me, and I love to spend the first hour (or more!) of my day sitting up in bed, writing in my journal. I do some “morning pages”-style brain-dumping, but my journal (good ol’ paper and pen) is where I strategize, brainstorm ideas, and more often than not, pen drafts of blog posts (like this one!), sales pages and emails.

It feels like Lazing Around Time, since I’m sitting in bed in my pajamas (as opposed to sitting in front of my computer in my pajamas), but in fact, I get some of my best, most important work done there!

It’s a practice I’d let slide, and although I’m not able to do it every day, it feels good to be incorporating my morning strategizing/writing time back into my days.

Two other rituals I’ve started (or, rather, re-started) are going well too:

1) My Write-Ride: Every day, usually in the morning, I hop on my exercise bike-cum-satellite work station and write. Yes, I sometimes pop over to email, Facebook, etc., but one of my big goals for 2012 is to publish, and I’m committed to working on something for publication every day, with a target of at least 700 words, or an hour on the bike. (Sometimes the Write-Ride is more of an Edit-Ride, which is why I decided not to be a total stickler about the number of new words produced.)

This commitment has helped me bust through a block that had kept me stuck for weeks on my e-book, and I’m finally at a point I thought I’d never reach: actually looking forward to my writing time each day!

On the down side…

2012 is shaping up to be much more focused on writing than on art-making, and I confess I’m sad about letting my art time slide, but I remind myself that whatever mode I’m creating in, it all counts as time in the Creative Sandbox. (Fellow Passion Pluralites, remember, you can do it all, just not all at once!)

I’m also taking steps to make teeny-tiny little art-making moments more likely to happen: like clearing off my drafting table, and stretching a sheet of watercolor paper to have at the ready for a spontaneous moment of smearing/dribbling/brushing paint/ink/gesso.

2) And last but not least…

I made a secret commitment to myself at the start of the week that I would try out doing something — one thing every day — to rid myself of clutter.

My thoughts are very organized, but my environment, not always so much.

Now that I know some tools that work well to keep me motivated, I thought I’d put them to work on a big goal that has been all-too-easy to put off for way too long.

Here are the drivers that I know work for me:

• Time-limited commitments. “Every day forever” feels impossible, and makes my inner rebel want to run for the hills. “Every day or one month” feels like a fun game!
• Public accountability. That public may be a single client, waiting on a project; or my ArtSpark subscribers, who expect art delivered in their inbox on a particular schedule; or it may take another form. As long as there’s an element of wanting to avoid letting people down, my ego is vain enough to kick me into gear so I don’t!
• A tribe/gang/team facing similar challenges. There’s some overlap between this driver and public accountability, but a tribe, or community, or support group is more than just an accountability group. Our successes inspire each other, and counseling each other through the times when we get off track helps strengthen our own resolve.

These elements are part of what make my Creative Ignition Club and Creative Ignition Circle so powerful. (There’s still room in the next Circle, btw! Starting Tuesday, 6pm PST. Click here to snag your seat.)

Soooo… Knowing all that, I decided to try yet another experiment this month:

The ClutterBusters Pilot Program

I have to admit, I’m a bit giddy about this one. I’ve already cleaned out a desk drawer and purged & sorted my crammed-full bathroom mirrored cabinet, and tomorrow at the first ClutterBusters session I may start tackling my file cabinets.

It’s going to take a big change — and change is hard — but I am dedicated to creating the uncluttered home and studio of my dreams. And if you’ve got your own Closet of Doom, you can join me!

You can read all about it here. No charge for the first month, except the request that you offer your feedback whenever I send a survey.

And now, as this review-of-the-week-that-was has gotten long, I’m going to sign off and turn it over to you.

How was your first week of 2012? Have your intentions colored anything in your life so far? What’s going well? What are your challenges?

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

Here’s what happened:

Friday morning I flew to Portland for the much-awaited World Domination Summit (#WDS), where 500 unconventional souls – bloggers, travel hackers, entrepreneurs, writers, artists and creatives of all kinds – gathered to meet, get inspired by each other, and basically charge our mutual engines to change the world.

Why, when there are so many pressing demands on my time and money, did I spend hundreds of dollars and four precious days at an unconventional conference?

Because although the digital world is wonderful…

Nothing can compare to actually being in the same room with other people.

I know from experience that something magical happens when you’re in the real-life presence of other real-life, warm-bodied, flesh and blood human beings.

Online courses are great (I’ve gotten more from Action Studio than I can possibly articulate).

Facebook, email, Twitter – all of these have brought me new friends and opportunities.

I’ve listened to dozens of recorded interviews over the past year (not to mention conducting them), and been inspired up the wazoo by them.

But none of these can hold a candle to meeting people in the flesh.

Which is exactly why I was among the first batch of WDS registrants when Chris Guillebeau opened the shopping cart last year. I had no idea what the conference would be like, but these things I knew for sure:

1. A conference produced by Chris would be excellent, guaranteed
2. A conference produced by Chris would draw amazing, fascinating people

I was right on both counts.

My only gripes about the event itself were on the level of “Gee, it would be nice if the info on our name tags was printed in larger fonts, to be easier to read” and “Gee, it would be nice if our name tags also included our Twitter ids, since that’s how I know so many folks!”

Everything from the venue, to the mid-morning snacks (yogurt parfaits with blueberries! mixed nuts! bamboo skewers of fresh fruit!), to the line up of inspiring speakers (my notebook is full, and I’ll be processing for weeks), was well-thought out and executed with excellence. Not to mention unconventional.

Check out the view to my right when seated near the stage of of the main meeting hall, for example:

(Seriously, what other convention hall have you been in with such a great rear view?)

But the biggest gift of the conference was the people.

The magic of attaching bodies to Twitter avatars I’ve known for months. Of sharing oxygen and connecting with people I knew from online, and people I’d never heard of before.

Chris could easily have brought all the same people together online for a telesummit, and the messages would have been inspiring. It certainly would have been a whole lot easier and a helluva lot less expensive for him and his entire team of volunteer ambassadors.

But Chris knew that in-person would be more powerful, and I’m profoundly grateful that he did.

When Andrea Scher and Jen Lemen of Mondo Beyondo passed out Sharpie markers and asked everyone to draw a word on their skin, the energy in the room was electric. Drawing a temporary tattoo on my hand wouldn’t have had nearly the same power in the isolation of my studio. Plus for the rest of the day, I mingled with 500 other people with their own unique Sharpie tattoo – an instant conversation starter.

When DJ Prashant got the entire crowd up and doing Bollywood dance moves, well, let’s just say this scene would be impossible to reproduce with a telesummit (video courtesy of JD Roth):

And hugs from the likes of Pam Slim, Danielle LaPorte, Pace & Kyeli, and Chris Guillebeau himself? Nope. Not happening at a telesummit.

But yes, so totally happening this weekend. And a lot more hugs besides.

Which may, by themselves, be enough of a reason to go to that next in-person event you’re considering. Yep. The hugs. Simply cannot be beat.

They even made the painful catch-up that I’m in the middle of now that I’m back home worth it.

I’ve already signed up for next year. And I already have my goal in mind: more hugs.

I just spent a week in a time machine.

At least that’s how it felt. The past seven days have gone by in a flash, but on the other hand it feels like last Monday was about a month ago.

Why? Well, Monday marked the start of Action Studio, an intensive course with Sinclair of Self-Activator to hone in on your brand and build a new income stream in 30 days.

Since then I’ve been immersed in exercises to discover my primary and secondary brand archetypes (Creator, flavored by Caregiver, Sage, Every Woman and Lover, if you’re curious), and wrap my head around how that applies to my business.

All with the support of the most loving, brilliant community of women + one guy I’ve ever encountered.

Did I mention it’s intense? Let me tell you: it’s intense.

As in epiphanies popping like popcorn. As in rethinking every single thing we’re doing, from the ground up. As in “cast members” regularly admitting to liberal doses of tears in between the excited revelations.

Yep, major shifts are happening, and it’s a glory to behold.

Want the inside scoop? Check out the gossip from the set, posted Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays by three of my amazingly talented fellow cast members over at the Action Studio site.

The downside of popcorn epiphanies

All this intensity has me bouncing off the walls with excitement as I bubble over with a new sense of clarity of purpose, direction, and ideas.

It also has me utterly exhausted, because when I get in a super-creative phase like this, my insomnia kicks in.

Insomnia. Sucks.

Sometimes, however, exhaustion is a gift. Kinda like getting walloped upside the head with a 2×4 by the Universe is a gift, if you’re willing to take the lesson such wallops are there to teach.

In this case, I’m getting clear that the overextended schedule I’ve been scrambling to keep up with is simply unsustainable.

Yes, I like being engaged in lots of projects. Yes, I prefer being busy to being bored, but this is ridiculous.

So tonight I made some decisions that have been brewing for months. Decisions I’ve been in conflict about, not yet ready to implement.

All of them aligned with my new, clearer-than-ever understanding of exactly what I want to be doing and with/for whom.

Do you know what it feels like to stand on bedrock? To stand right in your sweet spot?

Thanks to a mere week in Action Studio, that’s where I am on the inside. Finally.

It feels amazing.

Now my job is to bring my outside into alignment with my inside. In other words, I have a lot of work to do.

And given that I already have more work on my plate than any sane human would try to juggle at one time, it’s really, really clear that something has to give.

Destruction makes space for generation

Letting go of something (“destroying”) is always hard, even when you know it’s to make space for a bigger dream. But when your goal is to live the life you really, really want, not just the close-but-not-quite life, it’s gotta happen.

The only way to rock out the great is to let go of the good, dump the “almost right but not exactly.”

Scary, and painful, but true.

So watch for changes in this space.

And now I’m off to see if this is the night I finally beat the insomnia dragon. Hold a good thought…

Even less often, I’d imagine, that said hero, upon meeting you for the first time in person, says, “You’re awesome.”

(I’m awesome? Can you say “disarmingly charming”?)

But Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Nonconformity (the book and the blog), is known for being unconventional in most things, so no big surprise that he’s also unconventional in his approach to hero-dom.

A Hero of the People

The very term “hero” conjures up images of someone apart from the rest of us. Chris, though, doesn’t set himself apart, but instead endeavors to make every single one of his followers and fans feel special.

I daresay he does an awesome job at this, which is one reason why he’s my hero.

The Unconventional Book Tour

At the time of this writing, Chris is still in the middle of his Unconventional Book Tour, visiting 63 cities in stops in all 50 US states plus all Canadian provinces on a self-funded tour to spread his message of unconventional living and changing the world.

A week or two before his San Francisco meetup last Wednesday (where I got to meet him), I opened a hand-addressed envelope to find a notecard with the following message on the outside:

You=Awesome

And a hand-written note on the inside:

Melissa –

So glad you’re coming to #WDS! (And thanks for being so amazing.)

CG

How could I not be totally inspired and impressed? The guy just has class.

Walking the Talk

If you’ve read much on this blog, you’ll know that Chris Guillebeau is a big reason why I’m finally on the path I’m on, following my evolving Bliss(es) instead of settling for what Tara Sophia Mohr calls a B+ life.

Truthfully, any number of amazing people could have served the function of setting me off on my Right Path, but Chris landed on my radar at a time when I was primed to leap off a cliff. He provided a model of how that leap might actually enable me to fly, rather than face-planting, and a model was exactly what I needed in that moment.

A model of doing what you love, and making a good living.

A model of doing what you love, and making a difference.

A model of not settling for B+, but really living full-out.

Ten months later and I’m well on my way to doing all of the above, so of course I had to make it to the Unconventional Book Tour / Art of Nonconformity Road Show!

“He looks about 12!”

I invited my friend Fawn, who knew nothing of Chris Guillebeau or the Art of Nonconformity (except what she might have heard from me).

Her tweet from the event:

At the Rockit Room with @a_creative_life for a reading by someone who’s apparently a major blogger. He looks about 12! It’s v cute.

“Apparently a major blogger!” Ha! In my (admittedly narrow) view, that’s kind of like saying the Beatles are apparently a popular rock band.

An Adult Fan-Girl

Knowing there’d be a crowd, I insisted we get there early, and was able to snag front-row seats upstairs in the bar where the meetup was held. A quick glance around the room revealed some A-list bloggers (whom Fawn also knew nothing about) making me feel like a fan-girl extraordinaire.

Ah, what ten months in the blogosphere will do to a girl…

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits did the honors of introducing Chris, and except for the fact that we were all in jeans in a dark bar rather than black tie in a fancy Hollywood theater, I might as well have been a bit player in the audience of the Academy Awards.

Heroes! Heroes galore!

Then Chris took the mike and gave his “ADD-Friendly” 15-minute talk about the Art of Nonconformity, in which he addressed several of us in the audience by name, called a few other people up to speak, and referenced the importance of connecting with the amazing people in the room probably more times than he referenced his own work in bringing us together.

Did I mention he’s my hero?

And he’s right, too: the people that I met that night played as much a role in the specialness of the evening as meeting Chris did. I met three very cool women, Michelle, Sophia and Shanna, bloggers all, each of whom was excited to write a guest post for my site-in-progress, 365 Days of Genius.

Hot damn!

The Introvert Effect

During his presentation Chris talked a bit about being an introvert, and how these kinds of gatherings have stretched him.

Yeah, I get that. Though many people have done their damnedest to argue with me on this point, the truth is I’m an introvert as well.

(Yes, it’s possible to be a “people person,” and a performer, and also be an introvert! If you don’t believe me, you just don’t know the true meaning of the word.)

So, at the end of Chris’s talk and my mini-schmooze, when I turned to face the specter of the very long line of folks waiting for Chris to autograph their books, my Inner Introvert told me in no uncertain terms that she was done for the night.

I felt kind of badly to miss out. I knew I could have dived into the crowd and met a whole slew of other amazing people, not to mention getting Chris’s signature in my copy of the book.

But the prospect of trying to penetrate the crowd was just beyond me at that moment. It’s something I’ve learned how to do, and even do effectively, but it drains the hell out of me when I’m fresh, and I was fully cooked.

So Fawn and I meandered off for a cup of tea at her place (while ogling shoe porn on her laptop) before I hit the road down the Peninsula to my own comfy bed.

A Summit of World Dominators

I confess, part of the reason I was able to concede to my Inner Introvert’s needs over my Fan-Girl’s desires was that I knew I’d get more opportunities to rub shoulders with Chris and a passel of fascinating, unconventional people in the not-too-distant future.

Six months from now, in fact, when about 400 of us will converge on Portland, Oregon for the World Domination Summit.

I’ll pack my copy of The Art of Nonconformity in my suitcase, and maybe I’ll get an autograph then.

Or not. As Chris so wisely pointed out, it’s the interactions that matter most. The other stuff is just frosting.

Yeah. Heroes.

So. I’ll just come right out and say it. Yesterday morning, my three-year old beloved monkey of a cat, Louis, suddenly died.

[Time out to cry a bit.]

The night before, my friend Michele had brought over dinner from Whole Foods. There was girl talk. There was laughter. There was flirting with Nika, the fluffy girl kitty (aka the Evil Queen, because she’s such a %$@&ing bully to Louis. Plus the fact that she pees on the bed).

Michele asked where Louis, my other kitty was. Most certainly upstairs, I said. Shy, that one.

But when Michele went to leave, there he was, half-way down the stairs, looking out between the bars. Charmed by his handsome face, Michele stepped over to introduce herself. And much to my delight, instead of escaping to a safe distance at the top of the stairs, Louis investigated her finger, and proceeded to spend the next ten minutes flirting outrageously.

He rubbed his cheek against her finger. He plopped over on the step. He rolled onto his back and looked at her upside down while batting with soft paws at her finger. In short, he pulled out all the stops on his “Louis the monkey-cat” routine.

He had us all in the palm of his little paw.

A few minutes later Michele said goodbye, I went to bed, and although my knee is still pretty messed up, all was well in the world.

The next morning everything changed.

I had just woken up, when I heard a loud THUMP, as if something heavy had fallen from a great height. When I left my bedroom, there was my beloved Louis, lying dead on the floor, apparently from a seizure or a hidden heart condition.

Louis, oh Louis. How could you go? I was expecting you to co-star in my videoblogs for at least another decade. I planned a series of “X minutes in the life of Louis the Cat” videos. (Plus, vengeful spirit that I am, I lived each day in anticipation of a time, years hence, when you might grow some balls and the Evil Queen, old and arthritic by then, might finally get her comeuppance.)

Why do the good ones always seem to get taken much too soon?

[Time out for another crying jag.]

Louis, I miss you.

Here, then, is my little memorial to you, dear Mr. Boo, my monkey-kitty. Even though you sometimes annoyed the hell out of me, I miss you and I want you back, goddamnit. I love you, sweet kitty, and I always will.

Louis the Cat
July 15, 2007 (approx.)-October 14, 2010
In Memoriam

The beginning

Three years ago today (exactly), my neighbor, Brendan, sent around an email with a photo of a kitten he was fostering:

Hello.
If you know of anyone looking for a male orange tabby kitten, let me know, I’ve got one at my house, one picture is attached.   ;)

This little guy was howling in the bushes at work last week, but a really nice guy named Ivor from a place called Fat Cat Rescue met me there on Saturday, and caught him in about 10 minutes.

…

He sat on my lap for two hours last night purring, he’s pretty tame, so I think he was dumped in our business park, seems too civilized to be feral. I haven’t heard him meow once since we caught him, which is kind of weird, and he uses the litter box too.

Cheers,
Brendan

The decision

As it happens, I was actually considering getting a second cat, and if I were to get another kitty, I knew I wanted an orange male tabby (since they tend to be such awesome guys).

Now the Universe was handing me an orange male tabby for the taking, if I wanted him. How could I turn down such an offer from the Universe?

But I was conflicted. My other cat, Nika, was hypo-allergenic (a Siberian, the result of a relationship with an allergic boyfriend), and now I was single again. Adding a “regular” cat to the menagerie would effectively defeat the purpose of having a hypo-allergenic kitty – in one fell swoop effectively eliminating all cat-allergic men from my dating pool.

What’s a girl to do?

I replied to Brendan’s email:

I don’t know if I can adopt him, but I want to meet him!!!

Ha. Famous last words.

Love at first hiss

Louis, you hissed at me from your corner in the cat carrier in Brendan’s bathroom, but within a minute or two your hisses were accompanied by a background of loud purring. And a few minutes later you were rubbing against my hand. Then out of the carrier, and it wasn’t long before you were climbing up into my lap!

It was meant to be, Louis. You and me, redheaded soul spirits. Here are some of my memories of you:

Because Nika was such a %$*&ing bully, you spent most of your time in my studio with me, while the Evil Queen owned the downstairs. You were my studio friend, my familiar. The windowsill was your favorite perch, though you also wore me down in the battle over the drafting table, and co-starred in a number of my videoblogs either napping or bathing or roaming around on its surface.

I shrieked at you on a number of occasions when you ran across some artwork I was creating for a client, but somehow you thankfully managed never to damage anything.

I miss you coming to visit me at my computer, looking up at me with your big, loving eyes. Words cannot express how much I loved feeling your little body leaning against my calf, your tail twining up my knee.

On the other hand, you also took small chunks of flesh out of my thighs when you leaped into my lap and didn’t quite make it all the way… And you drove me crazy walking to and fro in front of my monitor when you wanted to be fed. Nutty kitty.

No longer will you climb onto the back of my computer chair and lick my hair.

No more will I worry about tripping over you on the stairs. (You never moved, you crazy beast! You’d just lie there, tail directly in the path of my foot, looking up at me. Not a day passed when I didn’t almost smoosh you on the way up or down the steps. You weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes.)

I miss you being in my way, Louis. What I would give to have you blocking my steps on the stairs again.

You made funny clicking sounds at birds in the tree outside. You had the funniest way of shaking your head that I’ve never seen in another cat. In the mornings, when I’d finally emerge to your piteous cries of “feed me,” you’d turn tail and run just like a character in a cartoon, leaving part of your body behind for a moment.

Of all the cats I’ve ever had, you also had the most expressive voice, and cracked me up on a daily basis.

I have way too few photos and videos of you, but I’m glad I’ve got this one, which captures your monkey spirit, and your one-of-a-kind voice:

In the past few weeks you were even getting some cojones, making inroads into Nika’s territory, even teasing her on occasion. Sometimes she even backed down! (I always cheered for your team.) I had hopes that maybe you’d tilt the hierarchy in your direction and give the Evil Queen a taste of her own medicine. But maybe you were too sweet for that.

I wonder if I could have saved you if I’d gotten outside my bedroom faster. I like to think you went too quickly for that, quickly and without pain. I like to think you didn’t suffer. I like to think you knew how much I loved you.

Louis, I miss you. I’ve been pretty nonfunctional for the past couple of days, and I feel like I can barely string a sentence together. Sorry if this memorial isn’t up to snuff. I know you’ll forgive me though; you never required anything of me but love, and two meals a day.

Rest in peace little buddy.

Blood-filled syringes, for one. The sports med doc used an enormous syringe to drain 60cc of blood out of my swollen knee today. (Apparently this is equivalent to 2 oz, though I swear it looked more like a pint from where I was sitting.)

Pretty gross, but I can’t tell you how much difference that made! Instead of a grapefruit, my knee now looks more like a large Fuji apple. Plus I can actually bear weight on it, and lift it without using my hands to help. I’m now getting up and down the stairs with one crutch, meaning I feel much less like I’m liable to topple over and add a broken neck to the dislocated knee.

This is a huge improvement.

I’m also grateful for cadaver parts.

The last time my kneecap decided to take a powder on the side of my leg for a few hours, the technology available for repairing such mishaps was pretty Dark Ages compared to now. Looks like this time around I’ll get a brand new (to me) tendon from a cadaver, giving me (after a grueling 6-month recovery period) a knee far superior than the previous model.

At least that’s what they say, and I’m choosing to believe it.

Meanwhile, the outflowing of support from friends, family and acquaintances has been nothing short of amazing. Some people in particular (you know who you are) have gone well above and beyond the call of duty to make me feel safe, comfortable, taken care of and loved.

I’m seeing the true nature of people in my circle, and I’m speechless with gratitude and appreciation.

I’m really not looking forward to the surgery and its painful aftermath or grueling recovery, but I feel fortunate indeed. Yes, in an instant everything changed, and not in a good way, but it could have been a lot worse.

I could have been struck by lightning and killed. I could have been downed by a stroke or an aneurysm. I could have had my foot and shoulder mangled by a scooter accident, like a client of my life coach’s, who was in a wheelchair with metal rods sticking out of her feet for 3 months. I could be one of the cadavers donating my good knee’s tendon to someone else.

I’m choosing to focus on what I can be grateful for, and what’s going well. I’m choosing happiness.

And you?

No, it was supposed to be a triumphant day at the To Life Jewish Cultural Street Festival, showing – and ideally selling - gobs of new art, prints and cards.

Apparently the Universe had other ideas.

A pain in the butt

If you’ve ever exhibited at a street festival or open studio, you know how much work goes into it. To put it bluntly, it’s a pain in the butt.

Much as I enjoy interacting with the attendees (hell, it never sucks to have people rave about my work), with primarily wedding-related art to display (ketubot and invitations), I’ve never had enough inventory of  “ready-to-buy” stuff to make the considerable time and energy investment pay off financially.

In fact, my mantra for the past decade of doing the fair has been “I’m never doing this %$*@#%& street fair again!”

Famous last words.

The thing is, several years back the festival organizers held a competition to design the logo for the fair, and I won. And though they hadn’t planned on any compensation for the winner (exploiting artists being so ubiquitous that even directors of non-profits assume it’s standard operating procedure), I negotiated annual free booth space. Plus a yearly license fee to use my design on T-shirts, etc. (A fact of which I am still particularly proud.)

And since the space was free, I kept going back, hoping that this year might be different from the last.

It never was, but this time, 2010, I was hopeful it really might be different.

I had some good reasons for my hopefulness:

• I had a whole slew of new ready-to-sell designs to show.
• The van was packed at 7pm last night – a record!
• Even more amazing still, I was in bed, with the lights out, at the unheard-of hour of 10:30!
• And the kicker: I slept straight through – no insomnia!

Until 7:03 this morning, I was on track to have the best street fair exhibit ever.

The Universe throws a monkey wrench

Then I slipped while stepping over the rim of the tub after my shower, and the next thing I knew, my kneecap decided it wanted to try hanging out on the side of my leg for a change.

In case you were wondering, this is not good.

In a split-second, the trajectory of my day took a sharp detour.

Instead of a face frozen from smiling nonstop and a voice sore from talking to fans, I would have a face frozen in a grimace of pain, and a voice sore from screaming and moaning.

I won’t tell you about the EMTs and paramedics who managed to get me down the stairs and into the ambulance (the morphine might have helped).

I won’t tell you about waiting three hours for the doctors to pop the kneecap back in place (after the first set of x-rays, mind you). Or how surprisingly easily the kneecap slid back (if I’d only straightened my leg all the way in the bathroom, could I have avoided all this mishegas?)

I won’t tell you about my schizophrenic ER neighbor, who kept “hearing” her daughter in the next room.

I won’t tell you about the river of tears of pain, and how it mingled with the river of tears of frustration that I’d done 95% of the hard part of the street festival, and would be getting none of the payoff: no “oohs” and “ahhs” over my art, no sales, no orders, no new names on my mailing lists.

(And did I mention that they changed logos this year, so I actually had to pay $200 for the booth space I never got to use?)

Instead I’ll just tell you that I’m putting more and more art up on this site, and I’d very much like to find good homes for all of it. I will soon be installing a shopping cart, but in the meantime, an email or phone call is all it takes to get a lovely piece of art wending its way straight to you.

So if you like my work, or you know anyone who might, contact me and I’ll hook you up.

And now the question is, was today’s misadventure a final notice from the Universe that it’s really time to say “farewell” to the To Life festival? Is it an indication that it’s time to put all of my energies into showing my work online, and just give up entirely on 3D/”real world” shows?

The Vicodin may be affecting my thinking, and I guess I don’t have to make a decision one way or another right now. But it’s sure feeling that way at the moment.

What do you think?

The week started with a podcast interview, ramped up to a singing gig on Thursday (my first with my ukulele!), and wrapped up with art-making, a party filled with music-making, and finally girls’ night out to see Eat, Pray, Love.

Considering that the life I really, really want is one in which I’m regularly creating, making art and music, and spending time with friends (among other things), I’d say I’m doing pretty well this week!

Add to this the discovery of an excellent new auto shop just around the corner (and much less expensive than the dealer), and hot dang, life is good!

Still, I got hit this week by a couple of days of blues and blahs, and a post by Dave Navarro on Why You Need to Abandon Your Rescue Fantasy was just what the doctor ordered.

The curse of the rescue fantasy

You know that fantasy that a sudden windfall will magically disappear your debt? Or that your art/music/writing will be magically “discovered” and catapult you to fame and fortune? Or that you’ll win the lottery (even though you never buy a ticket) and all your money woes will be forever gone?

I confess, I’m as tempted as the next person by the lure of such rescue fantasies. Face it, life is hard, and sometimes you just want it to be magically made easy.

The problem is, dwelling on rescue fantasies keeps you immobile, and that stuckness provides very fertile soil for blues and blahs to settle in.

The solution: accepting responsibility

Awhile back I made a piece of art to address this victim trap, and to remind myself that I am:

However, I’m also as susceptible as the next person to drifting off track, and this week I had to face the fact that for several weeks I hadn’t been making art (except for clients, which is a different animal entirely).

Not making new art has been making me feel loser-ish and downright cranky. It was high time for a course adjustment.

Inspiration from corners both concrete and virtual

Thankfully, right at the height of my loser-ish cranky feeling this week, I stopped for tea at my friend Amy & Joe’s house, the walls of which are graced by Joe’s fabulous, fun and whimsical paintings. “Oh yeah,” I thought, “now I remember: I want to do that!”

Just a day or two later I discovered two cool websites, Scoutie Girl, an outside-the-box manual for creative living & mindful spending, and Creative Thursday, home of artist/illustrator Marisa Haedike, who (among other things) has a line of totally adorable daily paintings she’s been creating since 2006.

Wham! That was all the inspiration I needed to pull out one of the canvases I bought months ago and finally crack open some languishing tubes of paint.

And you know what? Even though I’m not utterly delighted with what emerged, I am utterly delighted with the experience I had creating it. And that’s what really matters.

I’ve been wanting to paint on canvas for ages, and can’t wait to play some more! (I’m this close to committing to making a daily painting, like Marisa of Creative Thursday… but not quite. Stay tuned…)

Juices are flowing again, and my Blisses back in sight.

For now.