All of this to say, I made some stuff. I wanted some things to hang on my wall, so I went to my old standbys: an X-acto knife and some pretty paper.

What I like about making pictures this way is that I can’t exactly draw, but I really like looking at things and breaking them down into their most basic shapes, and then making a sort of puzzle, except I’m both making the pieces and then putting them together.

I made the first thing around the time I read The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. The book wasn’t everything I wanted it to be, but I loved the cover and the image of the orange fox in the white snow (and it reminded me a bit of this that I made a few Christmases ago). Also, we had a few foxes in our yard and on our street growing up, and they’re such pretty, graceful animals. (Sometimes we mistook them for stray cats. Hilarity ensued.)

I was tempted to make Blue Boy and Pinkie foxes, but then they released the first ever footage of the giant squid, and I had cephalopods on the brain even more than I usually do. So, now it’s more like Fox Boy and Squidy, but let’s never call them that.

I hung them in these gold frames that I found at a thrift store. I’m pretty sure I made a solemn oath to not hang the frames without painting something less gaudy, but I’m also pretty sure oaths made via text message while in the throes of thrifting aren’t admissible in a court of law. Or my apartment.

I thought that how I made this last thing was sort of interesting, so I’d write it like a tutorial, because I have a deep and true love of DIY blogs. I hold that I have loved ampersands since before it was cool to love ampersands. My proof is that I searched the entire internet for ampersand-themed jewelry back in 2008 and found not a thing. Now you can buy ampersand earrings at every hipster craft fair (and believe me, I do), but I still love them and put them everywhere in my house. I considered trying to free-hand an ampersand to frame, but I had a feeling that that would be disastrous. I was going to print a template, but that would have involved a lot of wires and ink and seemed vaguely bad-retro, so I did this instead.

Using Your iPad as a Lightbox to Make a Pretty Thing

What You’ll Need:
an iPad
scotch tape
tissue paper
X-acto knife
pretty paper in two colors
rubber cement

Decide what letter or punctuation mark you’d like to make. I recommend ampersands because they are prettiest, but you can have opinions, too. Type that character into the iPad word processor of your choice in the font of your choice and in the largest possible font size. (I used Pages so I could use Apple’s default fonts, and the font I used was Didot.)

Take a screenshot of that character by pressing the on/off switch and the home button on your iPad at the same time. This gives an image to manipulate, and is much easier to deal with than an iPad word document.

Open the image in Photos. This is where the tracing and the tissue paper comes in. My tissue paper was purple and wrinkled, but this probably isn’t necessary. You could even use real tracing paper if you’re that kind of fancy. Cut a piece of tissue paper to be a little larger than the screen of your iPad, and wrap it around, taping on the back of the device. At this point, I laid my frame on the screen and adjusted the size of the ampersand. (The touchscreen still works through the tissue paper. Magic.)

Trace the image with a pencil, but be careful to keep your hand off the screen, or you’ll move the image around. If you do move the image, just move it back using what you’ve already traced as a guideline. It’s kind of like a really easy puzzle from a Nancy Drew game. You know, if you’re into that kinda thing.

Untape the tissue paper from the iPad, being careful not to rip it. Trim the tissue paper down, and tape it to your pretty paper. I like using scrapbook paper because it’s nice and thick and acid free, and you can find every color, texture, and pattern known to man if you go to one of the scrapbooker’s holy places, like Archivers.

Cut out the character with your X-acto knife. What I love about using X-acto knives is that you’re practically drawing with a knife. (But if you make a mistake, you can’t erase. Work slowly.) Be careful around corners; it’s easy to overshoot. I usually work out from inside corners, which keeps the overshooting at bay.

Glue your cut-out down with rubber cement. I use Q-tips for the small details. Trim your paper to the size of your frame, hang it, and feel proud of yourself. Text a picture of it to your mom.

So. These are some books I have read recently.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Bel Canto is the story of a Japanese businessman, Hosokawa, who cares about one thing, and that thing is opera. Hosokawa is invited to meet his favorite soprano at a state event in (an unnamed) South American and goes, knowing that the party is given in his honor, that the South Americans will expect this party to open up trade, and knowing that he will not do any business with the country beyond this party. He goes to see Roxanne Coss, the soprano. The party is hijacked by Spanish-speaking freedom fighters, who, in their confusion, kidnap everyone at the party: Russian business men, French diplomats, American Coss, Japanese Hosokawa, and his translator. There is no common language but the music.

The book feels like a dream. Most of the dialogue goes through the translator, which almost gives it the feeling of listening to a conversation through a glass against a door. (Sometimes I forgot the translator is there until I see him standing in the corner, translating the conversation I was reading reading, and then I was kind of mad at Patchett because how in the world do you do that with just words?) Relationships form around the sopranos singing, and the hostages and kidnappers begin to build a community, and the reader learns about this through a constantly changing perspective. The book is beautiful and hopeful and heartbreaking, as all the best books are. This is a book I will read again and again.

Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
Elsa Emerson has grown up in the theater her parents own in Door County, Wisconsin. All she wants is to be on the stage, and once she gets her first part, all she needs is to go to Hollywood. Elsa finds her way, is transformed to Laura Lamont, and climbs her way up to being a real-live movie star.

I like this book because it feels like I could switch out the names and it could be about any starlet. It’s a small story about a larger-than-life time and place. It’s a peek behind the kitchen curtains of the beautiful black-and-white women I’ve always watched, but it’s written in a way that feels true, not voyeuristic. I read this just before listening to Beautiful Ruins, and they were almost perfect companions. While Laura Lamont follows the story of one woman through her childhood on the stage, grown-up stardom, and (spoiler alert) eventual aging, Beautiful Ruins twists five or six storylines together to tell a similar story on a grander scale about golden-age Hollywood, success, failure, love and loss.

Around the Internet
The Extraordinary Science of Junkfood
This is how they get you. There’s nothing in here about Trader Joe’s new rocket-ship-shaped cheese crackers, probably because things shaped like rocket ships are intrinsically healthful.

The Secret Burrito
Speaking of which, this burrito is my new life goal. It’s not even that it sounds that good, it’s just that I like secret burrito codes.

Adventures in Amish Fiction
A lit fic reader takes a look at Amish fiction.

Fireside Magazine Year 2
Remember when I told you about Fireside Magazine and how it’s a fiction magazine dedicated to good stories and paying the writers who write them? Well, they’re working on funding year two of the magazine. It’s kind of a long story, but if the Kickstarter gets funded, I get a share in a pony. So, check it out and consider donating.

Happy March, happy people. This is my favorite month, and not just because I have 31 days to drink 31 shamrock shakes.

By the way, that photo is from the library at the Irish American Heritage Center, where I spent a few hours with my family last weekend. This explains why book titles are in a language you can’t read. Unless you read Gaelic, in which case we should have a discussion about how you’re supposed to tell me when you can read Gaelic.

I believe very strongly that you are what you do, not what you aspire to do. This sounds like a bad self-help book, but let me explain.

If I introduced myself to you as Jesse, a musician, you would probably, politely, ask me what instrument I play. Oh, I don’t really play anything, I’d reply. I’d like to play something. Sometimes I think very hard about how I’d like a guitar. Maybe I’ll even buy one and take lessons one day. I imagine the conversation would get uncomfortable at this point, and we’d start talking talking about the weather.

You are what you make time to do right now. You are what you prioritize. When I was little, I read books every spare minute I could. I was a reader. Do you know what makes me a reader now? That I read books. Not that I did read books 20 years ago. That I read books now.

I’m not trying to make any grand statements about identity and what it means. That’s above my pay grade. There is more to you than what you do, obviously. What I am trying to say is that if I call myself a writer, but spend all my free time organizing my cabinets because I’m too scared or too intimidated to sit down and write, then I’m not a writer, I’m a person with these great gray shelf liners that really pull my mismatched mugs together. (For real. It’s so orderly in there.)

I also don’t mean that it’s wrong to have more than one thing going on, or that it’s wrong to be in a season of life that changes your priorities or moves them out of your control. I do think that you need to be honest with yourself about why your priorities are different and if they’re really out of your control. Of course, when I say “you,” I mean “me.”

Today a friend asked me how often I write. I rounded the number up and then hid under my keyboard.

January was a stupid month. It was supposed to be a blank slate: Roommate moved back home, 2013 began, and I had a fresh start. I was going to get things done. Instead, I watched a lot of StarTrek. I was sick for a good chunk of the month, and for the rest I felt like a failure relationally, emotionally, professionally, spiritually, domestically, financially, automobily. Some things were not my fault (my car needed a new axel!), some things were (I backed into a parked car!).

I’m not totally sure what January being a dumb month has to do with being what you do, but I do know that I’m tired. I feel like a failure and like I can’t handle this stuff on my own. Like this might be what it feels like to learn humility and to depend on Christ and I don’t like it one bit.

I can’t changes my circumstances, but I can change how I respond to them. I can understand my limits. I can learn. Anne Lamott likes to say that you can start a new 24-hour period any time you like. I want to say that I’m going to apply that to my year, but not in a way that means I get a blank slate. Consequences are okay. I need to learn what I’m learning. I can’t do this by myself and I wasn’t made to. What I want is to drive a stake in the ground to mark the time when I stopped hiding and stopped moping. To take this 45 day period for what it was, and keep trudging. To do what I must do. Happy New Year. Carry on.

However, books are included in “what’s-going-on-in-my-life” and so what I am going to try to do is a sort of monthly recap of what I’m reading and what I think about it.

My current reading system is to keep my unread books on a shelf in my bedroom where they can stare me down with their uncracked spines, and then move completed books down to my spare staircase, where they can get dusty and look out the window. (Current books stay in my purse where they can have coffee spilled on them.) And so, I’m going to call this semi-regular feature “Staircase Review.” Because I’m reviewing books which I have recently moved to my staircase! And my blog’s name is “Staircase Wit”! It’s all making sense now! Right?

This won’t be a complete list of everything I’ve read, but it’ll cover the highlights. I’ll also talk about some of the articles I’ve read, because, well, I tend to read a lot of those.

Quiet by Susan Cain (audiobook)
In my last post I mentioned that I spent most of my Christmas trip home talking about introversion and extroversion. This book is why. Cain spent much of the book making it okay to be in introvert. She explained an introvert’s value and how modern society has pushed that value aside. It was encouraging, but after a while I wanted more practical ideas on how to function as an introvert in this extroverted world. (I imagine that someone who grew up in a less supportive household than I did might appreciate the encouragement more.)

There were three points that Cain made that I thought were particularly interesting (which means that I thought they were true of me): 1) Introverts will “go extrovert” for things which they are passionate about, 2) the American Church values extroverts, often overlooks introverts for leadership positions, and has pretty much thrown out quiet and reflection, and 3) that introverts like collaborating online and often have an easier time expressing themselves internetly, to which I said, “well hello, all of my Internet friends.”

Overall, I thought this was a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who’s ever been told that they’re a little too quiet.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
I wanted this book to be perfect. It’s a fairy tale about snow, and that should be my favorite thing. It’s a retelling of a Russian fairy tale about an old childless couple who build a baby for themselves out of snow.  Ivey set the book in 1920s Alaska and made the old man and woman a quiet and sad mismatched couple from the east coast. It seemed that Ivey was trying to keep a balance between a dreamy fairyland and a hyperreal claim town. Instead, it felt like she teeter-tottered: Magical snow storm! Thump. Let’s gut a moose! Thump. Sullen man-dialog. Thump. Let’s make this chapter italic! Th-thump!

I thought Ivey’s use of geography was confusing. For example: the main characters moved wayyyy out into the middle of the wilderness to be alone and sad together, but they’re close enough to their neighbor’s house for dinner. Everyone is terribly far away, but just close enough to come set a spell. The snow child would run far, far away, but then it would only take a few minutes to get her home. Maybe this was supposed to add to the mystical feeling of the Alaskan wilderness, but instead I just had a difficult time getting a picture of the place in my head.

It’s possible that I wanted this book to be something that it wasn’t supposed to be, so it might not be fair of me to be so harsh. It was a pretty story and I learned a lot about how to clean game that wasn’t covered in Little House on the Prairie. While I couldn’t get a decent map in my head, I did love the cold, open atmosphere of the book and the sad, quiet feeling with which it left me. It isn’t a perfect book, but it is perfect for the snowless winter we’re having in Chicago.

Fireside Magazine, Winter 2012
This is the third issue of Fireside Magazine, and it is most certainly the best yet. Fireside Magazine was started by my friend Brian White when he decided there should be a place for fiction writers to publish good stories…and also get paid well for them. Each issue has four short stories and a comic. The first story, and my favorite, “Form and Void,” takes place in futuristic world where humans, at least the wealthy ones, have the ability to splice their genes in order to shape their bodies and download their memories into precious stones. I love the image of the spoiled girl adorning herself with all her memories of past slights. It’s worth the price of the magazine. The rest of the stories are terrifying, thought-provoking, maybe a little absurd, and good.

Around the Internet…

Downton Abbey, Season 3
Seth Stevenson has been one of my favorite columnists for years, and just because he loves me back, he’s writing recaps of Downton Abbey every Monday.

Why The Atlantic’s Scientology Advertorial was Bad
The Church of Scientology bought space to run an article praising the Church of Scientology in The Atlantic. Then The Atlantic deleted any comments on the article that were critical of Scientology. This was bad. This article by Erin Kissane explains why.

RIP, Aaron Swartz 
The very sad end of a very smart man. This isn’t about me, but there is something unsettling about the tragic death of someone who is my age, who grew up in my city, and whose work wasn’t finished.

Moths Drink the Tears of Sleeping Birds
I thought you’d want to know, is all.

I’ve said it before: I am not big on Resolutions.

I don’t like capital-R-Resolutions because I spend so much of my time making up everyday resolutions (the small ones like eat better, exercise, get enough sleep) that I can’t keep that the idea of making and breaking a Big, Important Resolution is frightening.

I am in a constant state of attempted self-improvement. Somewhere in a description of my particular Myers-Briggs* profile, it says that INFJs “constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives” and “put a lot of energy into finding the best system for getting things done.” Imagine, if you will, trying to find the best system for accomplishing a constantly changing set of priorities. It’s not just trying to hit a moving target, it’s trying to design a prettier target while wearing roller-skates.

Because I know that I have this weakness for trying to be better, I usually avoid making big goals. The small ones take up enough brainspace, thank you very much. For the last two years, my Big Goals and Capital-R Resolutions have been very general: Have More Adventures, Be Less Afraid, Read More Books. These are very good resolutions; I’ve had two very good years. I’ve traveled on my own and with others. I’ve met and loved lots of new people and I’ve learned that sometimes friendships need to end. I’ve learned how to read again, and I’ve had so many good conversations.

Like I said: these are good. Maybe I needed two years of these inward, almost selfish goals so that could I learn how to belong to myself. Now those goals hardened into character traits and I need to move forward.

So, I’d like to announce that 2013 is The Year of Getting Stuff Done. (I don’t mean that this is a year dedicated to the David Allen book. Although, I imagine that might help.)

What does this mean, exactly? This means I’m going to do what I say I will do. I will answer emails and finish blog posts. I will get enough sleep to be able to function as a real human. I will eat like a grown up. I will stop confusing myself with changing goals and shifting priorities and I will focus on what I really need and want. I will do the things I must do, even if they are in the morning and even if that morning is on a weekend.

I know. This is some serious shoot.

OH. I almost forgot. I’m also gonna get a cat. It’s time. That means either have to talk my landlords into letting me have one or move out of my cute little apartment. I know. That means I want a cat more than I want to stay in the apartment I’ve spent the last two years cutifying. I told you this was serious.

In sum, this year I will get:

1) stuff done.

2) a cat.

This is going to be a busy year.

*I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking about Myers-Briggs profiles. It’s done quite a bit in helping me understand myself and other people. If you don’t know your type, I highly recommend figuring that out. Here’s a link to a test, but I haven’t taken this particular one and can’t vouch for the results.

Once the kids left, I took my book and walked the path around using the motion of my walking to force myself to concentrate on the words. It’s a small park with a lot of low-hanging branches. I got really good at ducking. It was almost like exercise, I imagine.

The reason that I was so intent on my walking and reading was that, for about 18 months, I suffered from a reading slump. I couldn’t concentrate, I DNF’d a dozen books, and I didn’t particularly enjoy anything I managed to finish.

I don’t really know what the issue was. I’ve never gone a protracted amount of time without being able to read.

Eventually, I complained to a friend, and he did what friends are supposed to do in such circumstances: he lent me a really good book. I finished the book on an airplane, and bought a second on my layover. I finished that one and started a third book. This doesn’t sound particularly revolutionary, but I hadn’t done anything like that in a very long time. It felt great.

Since then, I’ve been slowly building up my tolerance.

I would classify myself as mostly cured. It’s been probably six months since I’ve felt any sort of dread about reading, so I’m going to say I’m doing ok. As such, I thought I might make a list of the things I’ve done to help me return to being a reader in the hopes that it might help anyone else out there who is going through a similar trial.

1. Social Reading
If I were to list my favorite discoveries of 2012, the list would probably look like this: 1) Peanut Butter Shakes, 2) Book Clubs.

Book clubs provide this unique environment where you sit in a room with a bunch of people you like (preferably) and eat snacks (essential) and everyone must talk about the book which you have all read (usually).

Those are the rules. I didn’t even make them up. I know.

It brings me this feeling of glee that I haven’t had since I was six and made all activities into clubs. Back then I had to rig elections and make myself president in order to make rules that good. (Side note: both neighbor kids would have made terrible presidents. I was being kind.)

Book clubs provide a gentle accountability. No one’s going to throw a heavy volume at your head if you don’t finish your reading, but if you don’t read, you miss out on fun discussion. Through the magic of book clubs, I’ve finished two longish books this year that I might not have finished otherwise.

2. “Social” Reading
One of the other great joys of this year has been my very serious implementation of GoodReads. I followed Roommate’s lead and started listing my books by years read, and this created a small obsession. (It was a large obsession for a few weeks. Don’t worry, I have everything cataloged back to eighth grade. I stopped there for my own sanity and also because I was getting worried text messages from GR friends.)

The act of adding a book to my list and watching my 2012 numbers grow is extremely satisfying.

3. Book Polygamy
When I was little, I abhorred the thought of reading more than one book at a time. I didn’t think it was possible to love more than one book at a time, or to give them the attention they deserved.

This is silly: I’m not sitting on my couch, left eye on Kavalier and Clay, right eye on Travels with Charley. That would give me a headache. What I am doing is reading K&C at a pace that works with my book group, and TwC between times. It also gives me the freedom to get bored with something I’m reading, to set it aside, and to come back to it later.

4. Audiobook Listening
Listening to audiobooks is the grown-up version of having bed-time stories read to you. Then, you used bed time stories to put off the very unpleasant task of going to sleep. Now you can apply that same principle to make just about any activity better. I like to listen to audiobooks while washing dishes, driving in traffic, and cleaning out terrifying closets.

During my reading slump, audiobooks were just about the only way I could make myself pay attention to a story. I am indebted to them.

5. Reading Aloud
Here’s a secret: I really like reading aloud. To myself. Alone. I know this sounds incredibly narcissistic. Possibly weird. However. It’s true. I don’t like reading poetry any other way. If there’s a book I really love, sometime I have to read it aloud just so I can experiences it through more than once sense. I’ve also found that I can pay better attention when I’m physically engaged in the book (this is sort of the same as the walking and reading thing I talked about earlier.)

If you don’t believe me, rent your self a little apartment, make some tea, and try it. It’s probably my favorite way to spend a Sunday evening.

There you have it: Those are the five things I did to end my terrible, terrible slump.  I hope they can save you from the same.

Also, now I’m curious. Have you ever had a terrible, horrible reading slump? How’d you get over it?

This means that I have to pull all my “living alone” skills out of corner of the attic where I’ve been keeping them since she came along.  I’m listening to music without headphones and without guilt. I’m back to saying “hello” and “good-bye” to my apartment when I come and go. I’m vacillating between frozen dinners or an overly elaborate crock-pot stew for the weekend. I’ve got a new audiobook for doing dishes to. Heck, I’m even going to do the dishes.

Last time the Roommate was gone for a few days, she went to ComicCon. Not to be outdone superhero-wise, I invited the Cap and Thor to hang out here with me. I’ve recorded our activities here for posterity.

 ***

Thor said the stringy Swiss cheese reminded him of his flowing locks. Cap insisted on calling it “freedom onion soup.”

***

As I flipped through the blogs, catching up on Young House Love and Yellow Brick Home and some others, I wondered if Make a Wish granted wishes for people with very bad colds and if Mindy Kaling and Emily Henderson would cooperate with them to grant my wish and we could all spend the day together antiquing in LA and then become the very best of friends and I’d miraculously recover from my cold and but we’d already be best friends and promise to reunite every fall for a good ol’ girls weekend. I actually have this day dream quite often.

I opened a post from Emily Henderson. In it, she had to figure out how to fill a giant shelving unit in a cohesive, inexpensive way. (As I write this, I understand that it might not sound very exciting. I think it probably sounds that way to you because you don’t read enough interior design blogs. You should really adjust that.) To fill these shelves, she decided to paint the insides of dozens of mason jars in gradient shades of blue and spray paint the tops gold. Instant (almost) art installation. “Hey, it’s like a cross between the tomato soup guy and the guy with the gold statue things!” I thought to my sick-self. (My sick-self is even worse than my well-self with names.)

I lay on my couch in my stuffy-headed stupor. I wished that I had a giant antique shelving unit that needed to be filled with painted jars. Alas, there was no room in my tiny apartment for even a small shelving unit that needed to be filled with painted jars. I pulled my afghan over myself and started to burrow into the couch.

There is only one window in my living room. It’s tall and narrow and faces south, so the room gets direct light for only a few hours a day. At the moment I was settling in to sleep, a shaft of light hit the shelf above my couch. I had hung the thrift-store shelf back in March, but never really knew what to put on it. I had filled it with odds and ends, but was generally annoyed with the placement and that I couldn’t get anything to be the right scale, and I knew that when Emily Henderson came over to hang out, she would see it and it would put a dark mark on our friendship. When the light hit that shelf, a light went on in my addled brain. I knew that this was deeply significant. “Tomorrow,” I said to myself, “tomorrow I will feel better and paint jars.”

The next morning, I still felt terrible. Terrible and determined. In my attic, I had a box of old lab bottles that my uncle gave me when the chemistry plant where he worked was remodeled. They were all sorts of shapes and sizes, but whenever I tried to arrange them on a shelf, they just looked blank. But never again: my muddled mind had made the connection between Emily Henderson’s jars, my uncle’s bottles, and this post from Yellow Brick Home, and my muddled mind was ready to get some work done. I collected my strength and shuffled into the attic. I found the bottles, sorted, and washed them, taking breaks to throw myself dramatically on the couch.

This was about all I could manage on Saturday. Well, this and fevered proclamations to Roommate that I was going to gold leaf everything in the apartment. I alternated between watching episodes of Secrets from a Stylist online and imagining each individual thing in our apartment gold-leafed. It was highly therapeutic.

By the time Sunday rolled around, I was done being sick–at least psychologically. Around 4pm I dragged myself out of bed and to the craft store. This might not have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Have you ever been to a craft store just before Halloween when you are sort of dizzy with the flu? I felt like I was having a bad trip and I don’t even know what that means.

The actual painting process only took a few minutes. I was going for a “dipped” look, so I eyeballed different paint heights for the three identical cylindrical jars. I thought painting a straight line on the super-cool triangley flask one would be boring, so I grabbed a dry erase marker and traced a sort of cock-eyed shape onto it. (I just rubbed the dry erase mark off with my finger when I was done painting.) I just painted the little stopper of the red jar. (I propped it up in my empty box of Gypsy Cold Care Tea. Nothing makes you feel better than tea made by Gypsies.)

I let the jars dry and did a second coat. The paint was really fumey, so I kept them by an open window until they stopped stinking up the place. (I try not to give Roommate cancer.)

This was only a very small project, but the reason it felt blog-worthy was that it was the first time in ages that I felt compelled to do something with my hands. This summer I felt like I didn’t have the brainspace to keep myself fed and watered, much less make cute things. The fact that I just had to get these jars painted felt like a return to myself. It was a decided end to my stressful summer. It was nice.

So…takeaways from this blog post include:

1. Read more DIY blogs.
2. Don’t go to craft stores unless you’re feeling at 100%.
3. Make time to do the things you love to do.
4. Paint everything gold. For real. It’s so pretty.

Once again, I have instagrammed all the photos. I’ll stop when I get all the coffee grounds out of my real camera.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the second annual post in which I reward myself for surviving a year as a grown up. Each year, I try to set aside some time to pat myself on the back for not completely failing at being an adult.

Two years ago today Wednesday, I moved into my own little apartment. This was shortly after getting my firsts real grown up job and shortly before calling my mother in a panic because there was a bug in my apartment and would some one please come and remove it?

Anyway.

I do very well with award-based systems. I like concrete rewards for a job well done. (You should see my box of Awana trophies.) One thing I noticed when I hit adulthood was that you stop getting things like stickers as rewards. Instead you get intangible things like “self-respect” and “confidence” and “not being evicted from your apartment.” That’s dumb. I want stickers.

Since I have now spent a total of 732 days living on my own, I thought I should give you an update.

Last year, we covered a wide variety of grown up activities, including such diverse topics as Customer Service Purgatory and Baby, It’s Character Building Outside. This year, we have a full round of awards, but for the most part, they’re in different categories. (It’s like I’m growing as a human being or something.)

This year, I performed honorably in the following categories and earned the following rewards:

The My Love for Minnie Mouse Does Not Extend to Other Mice award

By far, my greatest trial this year was my mouse infestation. I became a prisoner in my own home. The war waged was dramatic. I used traps, chemicals, and prayer. The wee mouses? Their weapons were more psychological. And also they ate a whole bag of chocolate chips. Who won this war? Currently, we’re at a stalemate. They recently threatened me with a can of tomato paste.

Next year I hope to go for the No One Lives in My Apartment Unless They Contribute to the Rent award.

***

The Looks Like I’ll Have to Import Someone from the Internet award

I lived all by myself for just over a year. Throughout that year, I developed the habit of calling Twitter my roommate. I made Twitter pay attention to me when I was bored. I watched television with Twitter. Sometimes I sang to Twitter. It was only appropriate, then, when I actually got a roommate, that I got her from Twitter.

Roommate, as I call my roommate, is great. We live in this harmonious world where we share a room and trade meal-making duties and she shakes her head at me whenever I refuse to watch a movie that wasn’t written by Nora Ephron.

Next year I’m going for the Whoops! Austin Disappeared! Guess You’ll Have to Stay in Chicago! award. Don’t tell Roommate that it’s a hoax.

***

The It’s a Bed with a Ladder–You Can’t Beat That! award

You may remember that I live in a tiny apartment. You may wonder how I fit myself and my new roommate into this apartment. Here is how: loft beds. A loft bed is like a bunk bed, but instead of a bottom bunk, there’s a space to store your stuff. Instant room-for-roommate. The only drawback is that if you live in an older apartment, you might only have eight-foot ceilings. Loft beds, at least the ones from Ikea, really need ceilings that are at least nine feet high. This means that you might never be able to sit up in your bed again, and getting in and out of it every day is sort of like that one scene from Entrapment only even more ridiculous.

Upon setting up your too-tall loft bed in your too-short apartment, you might sit down and cry a little bit because you’re 26 and you thought sitting up in your bed was a given and you’ve just spent four hours setting up that stupid loft bed and you haven’t eaten dinner yet, so your roommate suggests Chipotle and you arrive just before closing and Chipotle gives you free chips and salsa and suddenly the whole world is brighter and Catherine Zeta Jones is kinda ok, too.

Let’s not bring up the two dozen cans of spray paint it took to make the loft beds look less like prison furniture. At least not without a Chipotle run first.

***

The GIANT HAMMER OF THOR award

I’ve said this before: when I was little, I went to Harry Potter book release parties, but I didn’t dress up. When I said this, what I meant to convey was something like “Yeah, I’m a fan, but not a crazy weirdo who owns Hogwarts robes and and a custom wand.” This is because I didn’t want people to be able to guess how enthusiastic I was.

Here is what I am learning as a grown up: not only is enthusiasm not something to be ashamed of, it’s something to be celebrated. It’s also pretty contagious.

So when my roommate said she wanted to dress up for the premiere of The Avengers, I said “is that that one British show?” Then I said “Can we make our costumes out of cardboard and construction paper?” Then I gave an enthusiastic “yes.” It was a pretty fantastic night with two of my favorite people, and I got a few compliments on my GIANT HAMMER from some little girls who might just remember us when they’re older and trying to decide just how enthusiastic they want to be.

Oh, and I recently acquired a wand: 8 inches, holly. I keep it next to my sonic screwdriver.

Next year’s award? It’s the usual toss up between the award for “The Age of Not Believing is a Scam” and “Is that a TARDIS in My Backyard?”

***

The Reading Rainbow award

Last year, I had something quite strange happen to me: I no longer enjoyed reading. It’s not that I didn’t have time to read, or that I didn’t read. In fact, according to GoodReads, I read 32 books in 2011. That’s not bad for someone who’s not enjoying herself. But in that whole year, I never found a book I connected with. I tried reading different genres and different formats, but I couldn’t shake my horrible book ennui.

I did get to say things like “book ennui,” though, so it wasn’t all bad.

There is more that I want to say on this subject, so I’m going to stop here and save my material, but I just wanted to say, glory hallelujah, I can read again.

Next year? I might set myself some sort of reading goal. Probably “I Can Read 50 Books!” Not because that’s a difficult number of books to read, but so that I can make Cool Hand Luke references all year long.

***

That’s all. Show’s over, folks. These things used to be longer but it’s hard to find sponsors and all the kids on the Internet don’t have attention spans like they used to. I’d like to thank everyone who made this year possible, including my parents, my sisters, the Roommate, my employer, the fine coffee roasters at Intelligentsia, Instagram, Twitter, people who shared baked goods, and you.

Once again, all award badges were drawn by me and run through an Instgram filter on my iPhone. We only use the highest forms of technology here on Staircase Wit the Blog.

If you use an RSS reader like Google Reader to subscribe to this blog, you need to update your subscription.

Please change it to: http://www.staircasewit.co/feed/

If you don’t use an RSS reader like Google Reader, if you subscribe by email, or if you read my blog when I sent you a text message telling you to read my blog, you don’t need to take any action.

As a thank you for reading this very boring post, here is a photo of my mom’s dog Tuppence as a puppy doing the “Thriller” dance:

Thank you for your time.