Category — 30 Things Before I Turn 30

We are past the three month mark of this project and I have been distracted from writing about it because I’ve been busy doing other things, like discovering that in certain instances that I actually like Brussels sprouts, also Brussels sprouts are called Brussels sprouts, not brussel sprouts. That one had me mouth breathing and drooling at the same time.

Let’s have a look at the first five things I had planned for my last year of being 29:

1 – Learn how to touch type: I’d actually forgotten about this one until today when I found myself agog because my iPhone was causing my web browser (the ever dependable Internet Explorer, *blank face*) do strange things and I thought to myself, ‘Gee I wish I had a better grasp of technology so I could understand what’s going on right now’ and then I realised my phone was pushing keys on my keyboard and suddenly I had a really good grasp of what was going on: I am incredibly technologically incompetent. All of this is just padding to say that I have not learnt to touch type yet.
Progress report: currently a fail, with room for improvement.

2 – Complete a 365 photography project: I lasted about a week and gave up; however in that week I took some photos I liked, so I might post them here at some point. Instead, I’m doing the #febphotoaday project, and only using my iPhone and Instagram, which has been really fun. I am such a sucker for the X-pro II and Sutro filters. Once an underexposer, always an undexposer. Here are some recent Instagram photos that weren’t for any particular project, I just liked them:

1. Porch gin/2. Waiting for a porch gin partner-in-crime/3. The infamous “I collect records because pussy hates me” sticker, from the good folk at Chunklet/4. Waiting to go to the gym/5. The entrance to GOODGOD, where my brother-in-law, Joel, held his recent 30th, an event called Pimpish Behaviour/6. Me on my way to Pimpish Behaviour, acting all pimpish/7. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right aka Stanley Cat and Wuz/8. Prada.
Progress report: Total fail, but I can live with that.

3 – Drink coffee and eat pie at an American roadside diner: Bam! I passed this one with flying colours. On our second day in LA we went to The Original Pantry Cafe on South Figueroa, and I had my first diner coffee and it was both gross and amazing. I loved Original Pantry, it was the perfect first quintessential American experience to have:

The pie had to wait until Seattle, or North Bend more specifically, where we went to Twede’s Cafe, which David Lynch used in Twin Peaks.

We ate cherry pie and it was fabulous. I took an extra slice and ate it in a creme brulee scented bath later that night in Seattle, after we’d had to suddenly switch hotels.
Progress report: A+ effort!

4 – Celebrate Halloween in the US! Yeah! Another win! Sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment. We were in Salt Lake City, which I actually quite liked, were it not almost completely devoid of people. The extend of my Halloween experience was almost OD’ing on the Halloween edition Candy Corn and driving around the city trying to find even a single trick-or-treater, which I failed miserably at.
Progress report: a win, on a technicality.

5 – Shoot a gun: Done! In Vegas we shot machine guns and handguns, which I wrote about in length in this post here.

I’m not going to lie, I had mixed feelings about it and didn’t love it as much as I expected to, though I think that might have had more to do with the men supervising us than it did the physical act of shooting. I would shoot a handgun again in a heartbeat though.
Progress report: A-

So here we have a total running score of 3/30 with eight months to go!

Today I turned 29. At about 3pm, Mum will be thinking what she tells me she thinks every 5th of October … that at this time x amount of years ago she was eating fish and chips. I guess the emotions would be too strong for her to be thinking about how her favourite child was born on this day, and she probably thinks about her favourite child every day, regardless of whether it’s my birthday or not.

29 seemed like a bit of a non-event, but when my friend Lucy turned 29, she decided to make a list of 30 things she wanted to do before turning 30. I love this idea and I’ve had a really good time reading about the adventures she’s had so I decided I’d like to do the same. At first I thought I’d make a list and carve it in stone, then I realised I’m a person who needs flexibility, there is no saying I’m not going to decide I hate item number 23 by the time I get around to doing it, so I’m not going to write out a definitive list of all 30 things here.

Mostly I don’t want you guys coming back to me this time next year and saying, ‘What happened to number 13: eating peyote and weakly vomiting into your own hair while you crawl around in a patch of dirt in someone’s suburban backyard, the closest approximation to Joshua Tree you could find?’ Maybe I’ll have too hard a time finding a peyote hook-up, who’s to say? I think instead, I’ll post things in lots of five and see how I go.

My first five range from completely mundane to amazing:

1 – Learn how to touch type. Sure, this is going to mean I’ll have to stop making ‘All my friends are in IT but I type with two fingers because I’m a Neanderthal, yuck yuck!’ jokes, but on the upside, I’ll be able to touch type!

2 – Complete a 365 photography project. I’ve barely used my camera this year, post-shooting the Swans. Either Michael Gira and Christoph Hahn really did steal my soul, or I got lazy (typically I would say I got lazy, but when Christoph smiled at me, I fell over, so I really can’t be sure I still have a soul).

3 – Drink coffee and eat pie at an American roadside diner. No big deal you might think. Well think again suckers, I don’t drink coffee and I love conforming to a good cliche!

4 -Celebrate Halloween in the US! Sure, I’ll be in Salt Lake City, but maybe this way I can kill two birds with one stone and also mark off number 11: become someone’s sister wife.

5 – Shoot a gun.

Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes for my birthday, you’ve made having a mid-week birthday pretty special