A brief summary of the year so far, for my own benefit (I forget entire months at a time):
- January: I had a terrible bout of chickenpox and spent almost the whole month at home, contagious and grim-looking, while Sarah played piano for The Musical Of Musicals (The Musical) and fretted about leaving me alone so much. However, I wrote 30,000 words of a novel and got reasonably good at Guitar Hero III, so it's not like it was a total write-off of the time.
- February: can't remember. See? Sarah was working at Cap College, playing piano for their musical theatre course, this much is true.
- March: errrr... more of February, most likely.
- April: ah, now this one I know. Sarah played piano for tick... tick... BOOM! for three weeks. Meanwhile we were rehearsing for Broadway Chorus's summer show.
- May: supposedly Sarah's month off, and we were intending to relax together and be very creative regarding our in-progress musical One Plus One. Unfortunately - as if it would be fortunately, given what I'm about to describe - Sarah acquired some kind of abdominal pain, which might have been an ulcer, and is at this moment still there even if it's not an ulcer. Nine fairly-regularly-spaced trips to Emergency have proven necessary since May 1st. A big shout out to James for driving us there and back at all hours.
- June: Broadway Chorus, which was fantastic fun, but also nearly crippled Sarah (a trip to Emergency from 1am till 5am Saturday morning, between the Friday night and Saturday night shows - James and I were a bit exhausted...). And now, we are enjoying an Attack Of The Twines for the next fortnight or so.
So here is advance warning of some of the things I'm planning for myself:
- Self-image: trivial, but also important. It's really time I stopped biting my fingernails. And for that matter, ripping at my toenails. I believe I have moisturizer; I should use it. And Sarah's just given me a very nice haircut; I should stay clean-shaven, otherwise I'm going to look like a hairy egg. Never good.
- Physical fitness: inspired by the, er, inspiring (insane would also work) dedication of Kate Douglass, whose 30 days of yoga come to an end tomorrow, I'm going to try for 31 days of physical fitness. But going to the gym every day wouldn't be wise, as I understand it, so the plan is to walk to or from work every working day, and go to the gym three times a week for sure, four if I can manage it.
- Self-control: I download a lot of crap, often just for the sake of downloading or because I optimistically predict I'll have time for it, or will make time for it. All this actually does is make me look at piles of crap and feel depressed, leading to more downloading. (For downloading, read also "buying stuff", "getting books from the library", "promising to read something interesting on the internet", "playing games"... procrastination-a-go-go.) So this month: none of that. I'll put, if not a massive dent, at least a small and perfectly formed dint in the mountain of stuff that forms my life. I already have my A-Z Of Musicals listening project to continue, but all this gym and exercise time should also mean I can listen to a lot more pop music.
- Creativity: One Plus One is going well, but it already needs editing, not to mention 1/3 of the songs are still to be written. We have some plans for moving forward with it, but they need the script to be either finished or thoroughly blocked out. So, OK, that's the aim for the month: progress it to the point where someone could read the script and get the whole story, except where some genius-in-waiting lyrics happen to be missing (but at least there'll be a summary of what they'll say).
- Relaxing: Sarah is in a lot of pain. But she's right: it's only pain. Fingers crossed, there's nothing wrong with her which the correct diagnosis and then hopefully a simple operation won't fix. And then she'll be better. So I'm going to smile. Through gritted teeth, sometimes, but I'm going to look at the mountains and the water and the skyscrapers and the people around me, and remember how amazing it is that we have a life (with bonus pain) in Vancouver, rather than in England. And instead of cursing the cyclist who tries to run me down, and scowling at the people who don't wait for me to get off the Skytrain, and fearing what I might not be able to get done at work today, I'm going to breathe slowly, meditate on our general good fortune and excellence, and take the road less travelled by pandas, namely the cheerful one.
- Diet: pandas are notorious for having a bad diet. Show week also never helps... it all goes a bit Pete Tong, frankly. Add lack of sleep and the resulting "I gotta go now"-ness to the next day's life and meal-planning... hmmm. The Incredible Hercules who was the marvel of the stage a mere fortnight ago is potentially getting a little pudgy again, and exercise won't fix all of that. I'm reasonably good with the quality of my food at work (it's free, and you have to work quite hard to find unhealthy stuff) but it's easy to overdo the quantity. And then I come home, and am, frankly, a Bad Panda. So: no chocolate, less bread, something for breakfast every day, more fruit, and a Restrained Approach To Drinking With James.
We will see!
And one of the things we'll see is whether I can document it here. Vive le panda, and vive his willpower.
