Greetings Humans!

I am woefully late posting a post-red-notebook-ing blog (thanks for the enthusiastic reminders, Miss Tara!), but I did still want to share just a wee bit about El Red Notebook-o's adventures to Disney World with my new bride Jessica and me.

As Tara excellently shared in her previous post, y'all really did a great job making sure that Reddy (my new name for the red notebook) made it back to her in time for my wedding.  I can also shamelessly report that Reddy was the only entity in the entire world to share the honeymoon sweet with the bride and groom on our wedding night. 

All three of us woke early the next morning to rush out to the Portland Jetport in time for our flight to Florida.  After making it through security, we sullied up to the bar at the terminal and shared a few mid-morning alcoholic beverages.  Reddy clearly told me that he had a near-crippling fear of flying and that he required many drinks prior to the flight (I found out later, though, that he was hoodwinking and bamboozling us because, apparently, he has been doing plenty of flying back and forth across the country - that fiend!).

Several uneventful hours later, we arrived in Orlando, and we rode the Magical Express to our room at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Though Jess and I were flat-out exhausted from the whole getting married thing and the flights and whatnot, Reddy was ready to go, and he stayed out at the bar by the pool and attempted to pick up Red Notebook Followers well into the night (me thinks he's a playa).  Hotel security banged on our door at around 3:00 AM the next morning with a heavily intoxicated Reddy who still protested being brought back to the room.  He smelled heavily of perfume and blue ink.

After his wild first night, we decided that Reddy would need to spend much of the rest of the week locked up in our room's safe - he was a security risk, you see.  My wife and I spent the next several days basking by the pool and taking in the sights and sounds and gleeful glory of Disney World and Universal Studios.  Though it was tempting fate, we did bring Reddy out from time to time to check out the sweet view of the animals from our room (see the pictures below), and he actually redeemed himself by helping to nurse me back to health when I was suffering from severe food poisoning during the middle of the week.

Sadly, all adventures must end at some point (or at least take a break), and on Saturday morning - one week after Reddy first came into our lives at the wedding - we all headed back to the Orlando Airport and flew back north to Maine via NYC.  In a solitary show of full-circling, the three of us weary travelers spent several hours drinking at a nice little bar in the New York JetBlue terminal during our way-too-long layover (we limited Reddy to two light beverages this time).  Jess and I used to time to fill several pages of Reddy's innards with black ink memories of our journey together.

All in all, despite Reddy's bachanalian antics and my sickness, the vacation was amazing, and we were happy to have the Red Notebook of Awesome Sauce along with us.  I have shared a few photos below from the trip - the animal pics were taken from the deck at our hotel room (the view Reddy enjoyed for much of the trip).

Huzzah!
Ben (& his lovely wife Jessica!)

We did it!

Conspirator #23 (aka Ben, my writing partner and the closest thing I have to a brother) got married today. When I realized I wouldn’t have a buddy to keep me from freaking out at the wedding, I decided I had to come up with another way. I was already invested in getting the Red Notebook to Ben for the wedding. So, I made a dare for myself.

One of the primary reasons I was going to be buddy-less for the wedding was that it was happening on the same day as a bout. (A bout where ALL THE FUN PEOPLE were going to be reffing.) I emailed all the past conspirators who were going to be at the bout and asked if we could arrange a picture with the notebook before I headed to the wedding. And not just any picture. Maine Roller Derby has this tradition of taking pictures in cheerleader pyramids. I have never participated in one (for a variety of reasons) but this seemed like the perfect opportunity to dare myself to change that. 

First, we took the traditional "Graceless reading in the penalty box" picture.

Then this happened. It’s not a pyramid, because I forgot that making someone who is still recovering from ACL surgery participate in a cheerleader pyramid is a really bad idea.

I don’t know if that’s why I was so much calmer at the reception than I’d expected to be. All I know is that I have never been so calm at such a large social event when I didn’t have a book or buddy to distract me. (Sitting at a corner table may have helped. Sitting at a corner table with very nice strangers may have also helped.)












In any case, we got the notebook to Ben:

And he's going to bring it on his honeymoon, because that is how awesome he is.

Of course, the more time this whole project takes, the more I am reminded what an incredibly lucky girl I am to not only know so many awesome people but to be able to call them my friends, to know that I am a better person for being connected to them.

From there to here

Okay, the last conspirator to post was Kara, but since then, the notebook has been to Amy and Sara. Neither of them had much to say about what they did, at least to me.

Sara did leave me a nice note taped to the bag she'd wrapped the notebook in when she left it in her mailbox for me this evening. I picked it up on my way to practice, so that I can deliver it to Ben at his wedding on Saturday.

(Thankfully, the four-day plague appears to be behind me, because I was getting worried that after ALL THIS, I might miss it....)

Once I got the notebook home, I did sneak a couple of peeks, because I wanted to stick some new things in there myself. (Hey, I got it out the door pretty quick in the beginning; I can't help that I thought of more awesome things to put in there later on. You guys are the ones who have taken so damn long with this. Plus, I had to change the contact page in the beginning anyway. So stop judging me already.)

Um, yeah.

So, since EVERYONE ELSE's cats have snuggled with the notebook, mine went a bit crazy. And since Kara let her guinea pig snuggle with the notebook, I thought it only fair that I let Stan do the same (especially since she's been quite melancholy the last week and a half since poor Fiona died....)

 Stan. I think she was a little intimidated by the notebook. Or the camera. Or the enormous gray tabby stalking her. (Yes, Stan is a girl. Long story.)

And then Emmett had to come investigate. (The fact that I let him get so close to Stan momentarily distracted him from his interest in the notebook.)

In three short days, I shall be presenting the notebook to Ben at his wedding (although I've got some other shenanigans up my sleeve before then....) I can't wait to see what this turns into in the end. From the little bit of peeking that I did, I'm really impressed with what the first half of the conspiracy has accomplished.

Reflections at the halfway(ish) point

Kara, our twelfth recipient, has just sent the notebook out into the world. So, we're about halfway through the list of conspirators. (Wow, I'm REALLY going to need to buy more red hair dye.)

We're adding a conspirator. My cubemate, Danielle (who got me to participate in Operation Flowers), kept saying, "Next time you do that, I want to do it." I don't know that I will ever be able to pull something like this off again, so I figured we may as well just add her to the list. It worked out well, because I have to rearrange the later part of the list anyway, in order to get the notebook to Ben for his wedding. (This has become more an obsession than a mission for me, and I WILL make it happen.)

Just a short while ago, I emailed most of the derby-related conspirators (all the ones who will be working our bout the day of the wedding) and asked if we could coordinate a picture of all of us with the notebook. Since I'll be wearing my fancy red dress, it just seemed like a good time to be photographed with the notebook. And since SO MANY of the conspirators will be in one place AT THE SAME TIME, it seemed like a good thing to try to do. Bout days are busy and can be crazy and it's no small thing to take a minute out of whatever you've got planned to pose for some silly picture for some silly friend who has very weird ideas. But, it's looking like we might be able to pull it off, and that's just awesome.

I was home visiting family this weekend, and I realized something obvious that never quite sunk in before: Pictures are really important to me. (If you've ever been in my apartment or seen my cubicle at work, you already know this, I'm sure.) I arrived at my grandma's on the fourth anniversary of my grandpa's death and I noticed how she has all these pictures scattered around her house that I'd had printed and framed for him when he went into the nursing home shortly before he died -- the only thing I could think to comfort someone who was slowly losing all his memories was to give him hard copies of those memories.

In a lot of ways, that's what this notebook is going to be.

Halfway through the notebook's journey, I wonder if anyone has noticed my mom's recipe for chocolate chip cookies and tried making them. I was all about trying to put something for each sense -- except smell; screw smell; I am living proof that you can have a full and happy life with little to no sense of smell, thank you very much; plus, it's hard to figure out how to represent smell in a notebook -- there was a collage for sight, a soundtrack for hearing, an origami butterfly for touch, and mom's cookie recipe for taste. If no one has noticed (or tried) the cookie recipe, I do hope that someone does before the end. Make cookies for strangers or people you love (or people you hate) and write about it in the notebook. I dare you.

Red Notebook in Desert Paradise

I spent 4 days with The Notebook. I think that I cried a little inside when it was time to mail it off, parting with awesomeness isn't easy.

I took The Notebook on a date with me to the coffee shop to do my taxes and work on awesomeness. I ended up spending most of my time on taxes, listing to others in the coffee shop (two writers having a writers night, Graceless/Tara, it made me think of you the whole evening). I wondered, what awesomeness could I add to the book... what would I do to make the world suck less. I had gotten the notebook on Monday evening and Tuesday evening I was planning on going to orientation to volunteer at the local Children's Hospital, but got lost and couldn't make it. Somehow it kinda felt like I was failing at removing some suck from life. I quickly reminded myself that it happens once a month and that making myself feel sucky goes against The Notebook project - so I'll just go next month and this time I'll take directions with me!

It was honestly Thursday before I really spend time looking at The Notebook, I added some awesome in my own way. It was Thursday evening before I hit on my way to reduce world suck - postcards!!!! Not just any postcards mind you, but pictures that I've taken and written on. While I did NOT complete my tasks before I mailed The Notebook, I figure that like The Notebook project, my make-the-world-suck-less project will continue. 

And also on the way home after mailing The Notebook, I stopped and picked some of this up to ease the parting pains:

I mean, why not join in the dye fun!

And lastly, Sidd the Guinea Pig wanted in on the fun (and well everyone likes cute animal pictures, right?).

Conspiring to Make the World Suck Less

Red Notebook? More like Red Binder!

Hi folks!  In case you haven't met me, I'm Emer.  Rhymes with lemur, femur, beamer, screamer, steamer.  I am a co-worker and proud partner in awesome of Graceless.  She helped dye the back of my hair red on my 30th birthday in January in solidarity of this project (gee, I should've returned the favor on her birthday).

I was delighted to arrive home from a day of snowboarding (and falling) to see a package in my mail.  I mean, who doesn't get excited to receive things in the mail that aren't advert fliers or credit card offers?