In the New: The Movie! Sort of!

More than a year after the year of New Things ended, ten months after the August of New Things ended, and two months after the 31 New Things I did before I turned 31, a super talented filmmaker/editor/artist/graphic designer/professor friend sent an email asking if I'd be interested in being the subject of a multi-media video project detailing every New Thing I did before I turned 30.
Um...
YES!?
So in preparation for my New Things to be drawn, animated, videoized and generally made a whole lot cooler, I met Filmmaker Lady and two of her crazy-talented students in New Jersey for a six-hour photo shoot. We re-created a lot of stuff, and I got to run around FL's fancy apartment building wearing, among other things, a full ballerina costume, yoga clothes and a bikini. It was an exhausting blast, and I can't wait to see the finished project. Release date is TBA, but below are some exclusive photos:

NT 31/31: Mini ME!

Birthday! In honor of turning 31, I decided to combine several of my favorite things: doing new stuff, shopping at Nordstrom, retro-futuristic autos and That Guy, so That Guy and I rented a Mini Cooper and drove to the Nordstrom in White Plains. I absolutely love the design of the Mini- like the Pixar film The Incredibles, the design seems largely based on a vision of the future as conceived in the 1950s. Lots of white, chrome and orange, with curvy knobs and spaceish controls and dials. The radio was so groovily indecipherable that it took almost fifteen minutes for two smart adults with three degrees between us to figure out how to adjust the volume or change the station. For the hour-long ride, I alternated between being baffled by the console and being terrified that we would be crushed like bugs in this stylish little tin can if anyone's vehicle decided to misbehave in the light rain. Obviously, we reached all of our destinations just fine. And my spree at Nordstrom was a hit, thanks to some generous parental financing, light crowds and a boyfriend who doesn't mind watching me try stuff on.

NT 30/31: Places I've got to see

This is something that was on the list last year, and didn't happen, and so I rolled it over to this year's list, and it still almost didn't happen. And it's not because it's so hard to come by or elusive or guarded by dragons. It's perhaps one of the easiest, most prolific things that someone who knows the peple I know could have picked, but it was so easy that I needed to up the ante a bit and only do it under fantastic circumstances. I played Guitar Hero, but I didn't just "play guitar hero," in somebody's living room. I played Freebird, which I'm told is one of the most difficult GH songs, in an art studio while standing in front of a greenscreen, which will later to become any conceivable location where my inner rock star would like to play (I've narrowed it down to a 1950s hat store, the main entrance of the Met, or Dali's Persistence of Memory), thanks to this awesome video project. I've delayed writing this post in hopes that I could turn up a picture (they're either stubbornly ensconced as videos in Kevin's phone, or eluding a card reader), but I'm sure you all have an imagination- just imagine me standing in front of a greenscreen, a fancy video camera pointed at me, and a look of abject terror on my face as I try to learn to be a genius while doing.
In other words, imagine this is a lady and that lady is me and me is much more uncomfortable:

NT 29/31: Watching the dandelions grow

This is one of those long-term new things that will be good for me on several levels, but won't produce any results for a while: I signed up for a softball league. I'm actually pretty excited about this! I'll get exercise, learn some new skills and meet people who can tan. KMD and I both put our names down after a friend mentioned it on his Facebook profile, which makes more sense for both of them than for me. K will probably be really good. I run kind of fast. Now all they have to do is teach me to hit, catch, throw, not duck when being thrown to, and, unless I've matured more since fifth grade P.E. than I think I have, not search the outfield for four-leaf clovers while the other team is at bat.

NT 28/31: Fakenant

Today I walked around wearing a fake pregnancy belly! Friend Stephanie came over and we went to brunch and took a walk around my hood. It's amazing how differently people, even New Yorkers, treat a lady with a bean in her belly! At the diner near my apartment (from which I ordered a hamburger just last week and picked it up while sporting a completely flat tummy), we were seated sooner than a non-childbearing couple, offered water faster and allowed to move to a bigger booth when the kids near us (there with their super pregnant mom) started driving us nuts. The couple across the aisle smiled sympathetically as my giant torso and I slid into a new booth. I was absolutely desperate for some coffee, but went without for the sake of authenticity. I caved to the craving on the way home, and ordered some from the bodega guy who sees me almost every day, yet took no visible notice of my suddenly enormous midsection. The lady paying next to me, however, baldly gawked at me, perhaps shocked that I was ordering coffee, or in disbelief that I was skinny everywhere else and freakin' huge in the belly. (I later told Stephanie that had anyone asked, I would have said I was at 36 weeks. She said I looked more like 47 weeks.)
In the days leading up to this, I poked around costume shops and theatre message boards to see if anyone knew where I could buy or borrow a good PG belly, and came up with nothing. As of this morning, I still had no idea what I was going to use, and a trip to Duane Reade for something "round, but flexible, and with maybe a flat part?" was a bust. BUT when I headed over to Gristedes, the first thing I saw when I walked in the door was a box these vile, gelatinous inflatable spiky ball things (there is no graceful way to describe them) thrown in amongst other garish Easter gift miscellany. I grabbed one, jetted back home, wrapped it in a pillowcase to flatten the undulating spikes and used a Butter sash to secure it underneath my loose-fitting Butter shirt.

I later gave birth to a beautiful, healthy Whatthecrap!

NT 27/31: Send out the clowns

If you're one of those people who hates clowns, you'll like this. I punched a clown. It wasn't as violent or angry as it sounds; this particular clown, Bozo 2, has gone willingly into the punch-me-I'm-a-clown profession, so we can only assume that he wanted me to punch him. I was happy to help fulfill his destiny, and happy to have been connected, if ever so slightly, to this. Take that, you crazy-faced nightmare-inducing bag of air owned by really awesome people!

NT 26/31: I got rhythm!

I've been a singer my whole life—I've done classical, musical theatre, opera, rock and standards. And my significant other is a jazz musician, so I've learned a little about the sounds and rhythms therein, but it's still a totally different beast. I can't play any of its associated instruments (yet), but today I learned to make a 3:4 rhythm. In layman's (and my) terms it means that one hand (or drumstick, or bag of flour) is going 1-2-3, while the other hand is going 1-2-3-4. Your hands fall at the same time on certain beats, but otherwise are hitting at different times. It's tricky and I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm close: