2008: The Year of Living Selfishly

I'm not one for making New Years resolutions. It's always been my experience that tossing out empty phrases like "I'm going to lose weight" or "I'm going to quit smoking" at the stroke of midnight (usually under the influence of a few glasses of wine) has little or no effect on changing my behavior. Sure, I might do fine for a week or two, but by the end of the month I screw up and find myself staring at a very full ashtray and an empty pint of Ben and Jerry's.

Over the last few weeks, I've spent some time thinking things over. I've looked at the way I currently conduct my life, the things that make me happy, the things that upset and disappoint me. I've thought about past goals and successes as well as downfalls, about my personal choices and outside influences, evaluating where I could change or make improvements.

There's been a lot to think about. I've found things that I downright hate about myself. There are parts of my life that have been neglected (some to the point of stagnation) due to someone else or sheer procrastination. There have been events and occurences that have given me a metaphysical smack upside the head and pointed out things that need to change RIGHT NOW.

I've reached a conclusion: it's time to get selfish. As much as I joke about it, this year it really is all about me.

I know how self-centered that sounds, but I don't mean it in that way. I think it's high time that I started taking my own physical / mental / emotional well-being into account when I make decisions.

Some of the changes I need to make are minor and superficial. Some of them are bigger projects that will require quite a bit of rethinking as well as some major changes in my life.

I'm still thinking through the actual details. I've set aside the time between January 1st and the Chinese New Year (February 7th) to put things together. I'll share some of my decisions here, but some of them I will most likely keep to myself. (Sorry about being cryptic, but for various reasons there are some things that I can't share.)

More details as things develop. You have been warned.

Myo's Massive Midpoint Adventure: The Pre-Planning

So here we are again. It's that time of the year when downtown Cincinnati is invaded by musicians from all corners of the world. It's that time of the year when Main Street teems with people, actually resembling the Entertainment district it was intended to be. It's that time of the year when I pore through dozens of band websites to map out a sensible weekend itinerary, put aside my preference for Smithwick's for Christian Moerlein, and actually update my much-neglected Blogspot.

Yep, it's Midpoint Music Festival time.

I'd planned ahead this year. I requested Thursday and Friday off from work so I could write my recaps in a timely manner. I'd spent two weekends checking out MySpace pages for bands from Chicago and New Mexico and the Netherlands, printed out various color-coded incarnations of my personal schedule, and planned out hip-and-sensible outfits for each evening. (Yes, I planned my outfits. Sometimes I'm a total girl about these things.)

After an unplanned good night's sleep Tuesday night (my "short nap before trivia" turned into "unconscious until 2 am"), I awoke to predictions of scattered thunderstorms for the evening. Aw, crap, not again. (There were torrential downpours during Midpoint last year. All of the outdoor venues got rained out and I spent much of the weekend completely waterlogged.) Seeing as how the kickoff location was Fountain Square, this was a problem. (A quick check of the Midpoint website confirmed that a venue had been secured in the event of rain. Whew!)

So now all that's left is to slog through a few hours of work, grab a copy of CityBeat for their full coverage of the weekend's event, scamper home to change clothes and toss a notebook and a handful of pens into my bag, and head off to Fountain Square (or the Know Theater) for an evening of music, movies, and mayhem. Until then, I'm keeping a nervous eye out my window on the looming grey clouds.