Some pop music radio station that I listened to in my distant or recent past––I can't remember––would declare there to be "100 days of summer," which must be all of June, July, and August, and I guess a random eight days of September. Or maybe they started with Memorial Day weekend, whenever that fell. Or maybe it worked out to be 100 days from Memorial Day to Labor Day only in the summer of 1965 when Cousin Brucie was in charge of my playlist. Anyway, it occurred to me yesterday that I was on the brink of 100 days of summer, more or less. And it felt like the perfect time to start a project.
On January 1st––literally a lifetime ago––I had a similar urge. Resolutions, per se, didn't really interest me, but doing something systematically, repeatedly, compulsively, and equal parts purposeful/purposeless-ly in a neatly packaged unit of time did. Here is the idea list I made on January 1, 2011:
The year of blogging incessantly
The year of living without irony (as if)
The year of photographing all my meals (missed breakfast already)
The year of photographing/recording/logging/commenting on all my
food
waste
outfits
purchases
thoughts
writing
illnesses
fingernail clippings
hairdos/bad hair days, etc.
The year of logging progress on new year’s resolutions
The year of beginnings
The year of wondering
The year of not observing anything
The year of no facebook/internet/email, purchases from China, fat, sugar, exercise, chocolate, coffee, talking, showering
The year of taking chances
The year of taking no chances
The year of possibility
The year of not asking my children any questions (so far, so good; 11:58 a.m.)
The year of writing every day
The year of
The year of
The year of
The year of secret blogging
The year of secrets
The year of no secrets
The year of observing everything I do, in hopes that one of my actions can be recorded incessantly for a year-long blog, to become wildly popular around July, to be picked up as a book deal/movie by October
What I actually did on January 1, 2011: Installed Angry Birds on my iPod.
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| Apparently images of the game are all copyright restricted. |
But now things feel different. And 100 days is not a whole year, so "The summer of" seems much more realistic than "The year of."
When I was in elementary school, I always participated in my public library's summer reading program. You'd keep a log of the books you read, and after some arbitrary number were logged in, you'd get a sticker to put on your card. Each year there was a different theme. The one I remember best, because I kept the card for so long afterward, was the solar system. Every––what could it have been? ––5 books? 10 books? they'd give you a sticker for one of the planets. The stickers, in my memory, were not run-of-the-mill ones like you'd see now, but high-quality, translucent colored discs that somehow fit into the back of the 8" x 12" card, so that the planets showed through the die-cut holes in the sky-blue cardboard. I think there was even an "award" ceremony at the end of the summer for those of us who had completed the whole solar system.
Of course Pluto was a planet back then––what did we know.
So, so, so...my point is: I want to make lists, and get stickers, and have a cupcake at the award ceremony at the end of the summer.
But for doing what?
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