But it was a popular undertaking, so I'm giving it another try.
This first fortune is technically for the entire year. Normally we go to Xiao Loong on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but I thought it would be fun to go on New Year's Day and so we made a Saturday visit. I decided that whatever fortune I got would set the general tone for 2011.
Apparently I will be having a lot of fun on the weekends.
Despite the casual tone, this is actually a fortune worth paying attention to. I tend to procrastinate on my book projects, putting them off until the last minute and then having to work 16-hour days to get them done. All last year I told myself I would treat my days as if I were going to the office, writing for 7 or 8 hours and not getting distracted by, well, everything else that seems more fun than writing. That way I would get what I needed to done and have the weekends for not being stressed out.
It didn't quite work out that way, which is why I now have two big projects to do and not enough time to do them. And this means I keep saying no to friends who want to do things I would enjoy, like seeing movies, walking the dogs, or going diving (which I haven't done in more than a year!).
So my goal for 2011 is to work during the week and then not work on weekends. Thank you, fortune cookie, for reminding me.
As for this first weekend of 2011, we went to see Black Swan. I'd been wanting to see it since first hearing about it almost a year ago. The Swan Lake story is a good one, and one of my favorite theater experiences of all time was Matthew Bourne's all-male take on the ballet. I was curious to see what Darren Aronofsky had done to it. His Requiem for a Dream was both mesmerizing and utterly devastating, and I was hoping he would bring that kind of intensity to this film.
Well, it was entertaining, but not the brilliant spectacle I'd been hoping for. As I said to a friend later, the performances were all fantastic, the way the story mirrors that of Swan Lake is a great device, and overall it's beautifully shot, but it's one of those instances where the whole is not as great as the sum of its parts.
Still, it was relaxing. I haven't seen a film in a theater in a looooooong time. It's easier to watch them at home, especially when you tend to want to set on fire people who talk, text, slurp, and/or chew loudly while you're trying to watch the movie. But sometimes forcing yourself to go at a certain time and commit to just sitting there watching a movie is exactly what you need. And I did.
Did it help me get more work done during the following week? Well, no. But really it was only two days, not a full week, so it's not a fair test. It might help if I make a habit of it.
By the by, I'm doing things a little differently this year. Each week I'll be writing about the previous week's fortune. That makes more sense than writing about it when I get them and then waiting to see what happens.
This is true for the Lucky Numbers as well. I had big plans for this week's numbers, as the Mega Millions game was up to more than $300,000,000. What a way that would be to start off 2011. In fact, I wouldn't have to do anything for the rest of they year. Or ever, come to think of it.
But I didn't win. I didn't match even a single number. Clearly, the gods of fortune are just waiting until an even larger pot is up for grabs. They're thoughtful like that.
Lucky Numbers: 3 9 19 22 30 45
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