The Red Notebook in the House of Books

Decreasing World Suck in Boulder, Colorado.

So the Red Notebook mission, as I understand it, is to increase the sum total of world awesomeness, have fun while doing it, and take the Red Notebook along for the ride.  I pondered and pondered this mission.  And then it hit me:  there's a whole group of people in Boulder, Colorado who inspire me every single day-- and they don't even know it.  So I decided to inspire them back.

I'm finishing my novel, Little Miss Life.  I'm not one of these writers who flourishes in hermit-like solitude, crafting words alone in my house all day.  No, I need people!  So I write exclusively in coffee shops, bookstores, and my very favorite -- the Boulder Public Library.  The "BPL" is a very special place.  There are all kinds of rooms to write in-- big, open, airy rooms with skylights, little tiny rooms with stone walls and floor lamps, quiet study rooms with rows and rows of tables.  There are sculptures and water fountains, a Zen meditation garden, a creek with a little beach and benches.  There's a walking path that leads straight from the library up into the beautiful flatiron mountains, great for pacing when stuck on a plot point. There's a Seattle's coffee machine, an entire teen library, an aquarium.  

And all those things are great.  But they aren't the best parts of the library.  The best parts of the library are the books and the PEOPLE.  Every day I faithfully drag my laptop and my Diet Mountain Dew and my bag of snacks into the study room, and every day I faithfully write my way toward my goal of a finished novel.  And some days it's HARD.  Some days it's WORSE than HARD.  Some days it's I'll-never-publish-this, some days it's oh-why-bother, some days it's I've-only-written-a-page?!?!  

But on those days, I look around.  And I see the amazing people of the BPL.  Everybody is up to something.  Some are reading books on how to start a business.  How to build a webpage.  How to build a boat, repair a bike, rear happy children.  Some people are teaching themselves a new language.  Some have come in, put their lives on hold, and are just taking in a really great read.  Some are down on their luck and they need a place to just BE.  Some bring their children to hear stories read out loud.  Some come for the quiet.  There’s even a girl in brown-rimmed glasses who comes in every single day with her laptop and huge bag full of who-knows-what—she says she fulfilling her lifelong dream of finishing a novel.  (That’s me!)  And I’m inspired by all these people.  And when writer's block threatens, the energy of their projects, their books, their pens, their presence-- helps me calm down, return to the page, and keep on trudging.  Because this is my dream, and they inspire me to keep going.  So I decided to inspire them back.

I took post-it notes, and I wrote messages like this:

I wrote all sorts of inspiring messages: messages about following dreams, believing in your ideas, never giving up.  And I posted them in the restrooms and any little place where an unsuspecting BPL patron might look.  And I hope I decreased the suck in somebody's life that day.  I hope I encouraged someone to keep going and to keep dreaming.  I hope I did for someone what their presence does for me every single day.

And then?  Then I took the Notebook on a tour of the place, to show him my favorite spots.  I even put him on the shelf in the teen library!  I had to grab him back quick before someone checked him out!  I mean, come on, the Red Notebook is a GREAT READ after all:

And we hung out with other great reads.  Like Catcher in the Rye, right beside the Catcher and the Rye tile on one of the sculptures!  (Can you see the title written in the tile?)

And we strolled along beside the mural that runs outside the library.  The Red Notebook REALLY liked this message, and I do, too:

                                               (You ARE born an original.  Don't die a copy.)

And then we checked out the library's Zen meditation garden.  Did a book give you a deep thought you need to process?  Stuck on a plot point?  Confused about what book to check out next?  Need ideas about how to be awesome?  WALK IT OUT:

And then I wanted to show the Red Notebook one of the inspirations for a scene in my book.  My characters end up dancing in a creek just like this one that runs behind the library.  This also happens to be where I eat my lunch on many days:

Then I sat down with the Red Notebook and wrote about our journey at the library.  I added some decorations, and I read all the other entries of awesome.  Then I looked at the Red Notebook and the Red Notebook looked at me-- and we decided we had completed our mission.  Hopefully, we'd decreased world suck.  And we'd definitely had fun doing it.  And so sadly, we left the fabulous BPL:  

(Can you spot the volunteers registering people to vote just inside the door?  That's awesome.  The Red Notebook is decreasing world suck while people in the background...decrease world suck!)

So here's to doing inspiring things and following your dreams.  You never know who's watching you and catching the awesomeness you're giving off.  And here's to libraries, to books, to readers, to dreamers, and to friends like Tara who ask you to participate in projects that remind you how grateful you are for it all.

Thanks, T.

Keep the awesome going . . .

Hello Everyone,

On May 19, 2012, I sent the following e-mail off to Tara about the arrival of the red notebook. (Now known as Reddy):

So, just before Shaymus's baseball game today, Jim carries an enormous white envelope out to me on the deck.

Who is that from, "I asked?"

"Ben Luce."

"Oh yeah, the notebook!"

Jim and I had a look, and Shaymus joined in. We then rushed off to the game. I left the red notebook home. I admit, I was a little afraid of it at first, and wondered what the heck I would do with it, or to it! Ha ha.

Now, after the game, ice cream, shopping, more shopping, and water balloons (not necessarily in that order), I really looked through the awesomeness, and then, I read the instructions last. This is so not like me. I usually go through a book in order, especially when there are directions involved. I have not actually "done" anything yet. Shaymus added a sticker to the cover for Auntie Tara, but other than that, I have some great inspiration and some ideas. What fun!

My camera batteries are re-charging, so I don't have a photo yet. I don't have a fancy cell phone either. I have a vintage cell phone; my nine-year-old trac phone. Scary.


That is the end of that e-mail message. Since then, I was able to take a photo of the red notebook (Reddy) hanging out on our bedroom floor. What you don't see is the mass load of art stuff I have spread all over the floor nearby:




The first thing I did was make a deadline for myself to complete my part of the awesomeness, and send it on to the next awesome person. (I work well with deadlines.)

Reddy had a good time hanging out in our new digs. During Reddy’s stay at our place watching some old horror movies, hanging out with me while I did some writing, reading, listening to music, and more. We even planted some flowers.

I was super-inspired when looking through this sacred red notebook. I had a hard time putting it down. I began by adding some stuff in the back pocket. That was fun! Then, I did my thing in some of the pages.

So, as promised, I packaged Reddy up in a careful manner, and sent it on to Emily France about five days later. I even faced the scary postal worker in my town. If you know me, you know I avoid that post office like the plague. I usually mail packages from Portland, ME, but had a deadline to meet, and my post office is only down the road a little way. Reddy was ready to move on. I felt good sending Reddy on to the next person, and cannot wait to finally see the outcome one of these days when Tara has it back in her hands.

Thanks for adding the awesomeness to my week, Reddy.

Okay, I was kind of left wondering what to do after Reddy left. That afternoon, my son inspired me when he brought home the recipe for “Thunder Cake”. His school librarian had read that story and copied the recipe for the kids. On Memorial Day, it took me (us) four hours to make this thunder cake. It seemed like a timely thing to do, since we did have thunderstorms the day before and the day after we made this cake. There are tomatoes in this cake by the way. I know it sounds weird, but it is supposed to keep it moist. We didn’t even taste them in the cake.

The red awesomeness never left after all.

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?).