Monday, 12th of April 2010 at 01:30:10 AM 
Comfort/Discomfort
Our new challenge involves stepping outside our comfort zones and taking on projects that stretch the boundary between “No problem” and “No way.” We asked you, our friends and readers, to name this challenge, because nobody liked “The Aww Hell No Girl You Crazy Challenge.” You certainly came up with some! Well! You called us middle-aged women, belligerently defied the rules by submitting multiple entries, and restated the obvious in eighty-seven ways. But some we really liked. I liked the Monty Python suggestion: “The No Ordinary Rabbit Challenge.” However, Jujube entered more than one idea, so if we pick that one, some officious beezlenut baker will likely point out that her entry was outside the rules. Same thing with Dawn and “Cut the Rut” which I really like because it rhymes and would fit into our category list on just one line. I also really like Jeanie’s ”Discomfort Zone” and I think that one really best summarizes the idea. But… too many entries, Jujube and Dawn and Jeanie. Joshilyn said the rules were “official” and also “very strict” so that reads to my unsubtle mind as serious. Mysterious, but serious. Which would not be a good challenge name, even though it does rhyme.
The winner is “The I Dare You Challenge” by Becky. Becky didn’t link to anything so I don’t even know if she left an email, but if she did, she wins. If she didn’t, and she doesn’t respond to this, and we never find her, even if we crawl on bleeding stumps to the ends of the earth to find the one true Becky who named one of several brief challenges of questionable significance which we will complete this year, then the ARC goes to Jessica Tudor, who really wants it, and liked “Mandatory Discomfort” (which was my idea), plans to participate in the challenge, and also promised to come back and enter but then scampered off and *never did come back* which is so like us she might as well be the sixth plate. So. Challenge done. Category added. I Dare You. And I’m up first.
I am thirty-seven. I have two kids. Do you dare me to start a rock band? Done.
And right now, I’m feeling pretty ill. Standing behind a microphone with a guitar in my hand used to be very comfortable for me. I played in bands for years when I was in my teens and twenties. Folk duo, rock four-piece, trippy ensemble, even a Depeche Mode cover band for a few brief weeks. Here’s something you maybe didn’t know about me: I played rhythm guitar in a thrash metal band that practiced in a goat barn and was called Uncle Earwig. True story. But that was a long time and two kids ago. Now I play acoustic guitar along to nine-year-olds conjugating Latin verbs or reciting Kipling or chirping truths about simple machines. A few weeks ago, all that changed, as my friend Kim and I started “jamming,” working up a few covers, toying with the idea of playing in public. It is new, we are not ready, but I’m putting us out there anyway, because if I wait until we’re ready, we’ll never be ready. What you hear on that MySpace page is one of our practices, which we recorded with an ambient recording thinger, and there it is. Proof that I am doing it.
In some ways, getting that guitar back in my hand feels really great. But in some ways, it’s like I’ve gone insane, and I’m waiting for someone to approach me gently and tell me to put some pants on before I leave the house. As I push the “Publish” button on this post, I’m wildly uncomfortable. I haven’t done this in a very long time. But you know what? Here we go.
My assignment for next week: Band photos. I can feel my stomach churning already. Comfort zone is gone — I think I’ve burned it to the ground. So what’s your assignment? How are you going to push yourself backward off a cliff?
Well, I’m going to sound horribly tame compared with a rock band. But I *think* the worst rut I’m in is my “people? who’re they?” rut, so I’m attacking that. That’s the life in which I come home from work, mess round on the internet, go to bed and read till far too late, rinse and repeat. At the weekends, you can add house renovations to the list, but not much more. I realised the other day that I haven’t seen one of my best friends since New Years. I’ve talked to him a few times on the phone, but actually seeing each other – just hasn’t happened.
So. I’m going to go back to my weekly dance group, try and join a book discussion group at church, drag my DH to a photo club, and invite someone round every week.
This is on top of trying to eat properly and lose more weight, and reducing the chaos in my life, both of which you’ve got me doing. I’m getting nervous about what the next challenge will be!
Could we have the weekly tell-the-truth posts back, pretty please? Having to post about whether I’m actually doing that list would help a lot with my motivation.
@reb ABSOLUTELY we will have the tell the truth post back. GOOD IDEA. And I think your challenge sounds BRIL and important. That’s actually part of the LENT challenge I missed this year — you are aasked to spend time with peope you care about…
@Lydia I like how we randomly disqualify people for multiple entries but not for not leaving an e-mail addy, which was also in the rules.
Speaking of the rules, I had MIR use her mighty admin powers and ADD some rules after I realized I had scampered off to speak at a library luncheon without having POSTED ANY AT ALL, which yea—this proves your point. Jessica Tudor is totally Plate Material.
ah HA! This title is better, but I DID wonder where the rules came from…
ALSO @Lydia and @ Everyone
Back in grad school, Lydia made me be in a rock band with her, even though I do not play an intrument, can’t sing well, and don’t really like songs. Mostly I stood around in obscenely short skirts and said YOU EXHIBITIONIST while she played and sang sheila na gig. Lord. Lydia was too young to get into BARS to play the open mikes when we met. HA!
Joshilyn I had almost completely forgotten that we actually… played that song in public together. As you can see, I still pretty much lurve it.
Me likey, Lydia! We’re all about the indie pop/rock at my house, and you’ve definitely got that vibe going on
Keep us posted on gigs – you’re in Norfolk, I’m in Charlottesville, my husband’s family is in Va Beach – it’s an easy and oft-traveled road for us.
What…you…I don’t even…
THIS IS SO AWESOME.
Brb, making fanclub webpage.
I definitely want to participate, but I’m going to take the day to think about what the best challenge is for me. I would say walking on both feet, since I sprained my right one last week and I’m still hobbling around like a… hobbler, but that doesn’t seem very exciting and will probably happen on its own without much help from me.
I’ll report back later. LOVE the band idea, though.
Please NO BLEEDING STUMPS! I’m here, I’ve left my email under “Mail” (right place, wrong place, don’t know place?) only place I could think it should go and I also emailed Joshilyn at her contact email on her site. I really want the ARC and promise I’ll quit lurking (is that the right term?) and start participating. First “dare me” for myself, learn about all this website, blog stuff etc. so you alwas get my info!
I think the email you put in must be visible in the admin part, so probably Mir can find it. It doesn’t appear as linked to your name, but that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work, so, that’s just me being dumb. Hehehe.
YAY BECKY.
YAH! It is an admin function! Scott and Mir and I think Gray can see the addy, but not use peons who cannot be trusted not to bork up the whole site. YAY BECKY. ARC incoming.
I would never treust a use peon either.
Yes! I emailed Becky’s email to you Joss.
I also, with my GOD-LIKE admin privileges, corrected a typo in your comment. You spelled a name with a “J” that is usually spelled with a “G”.
That name. You keep using it. I don’t think it means who you think it means.
lulz
I love it how the “Platers” talk among themselves. I guess I’ll have to think about what makes me uncomfortable… an uncomfortable thought. Maybe changing my reading habits. Maybe.
Laura
Okay! What is an “addy”, is that admin? What the heck are “HTML tags” and where do I go to learn all this stuff?
[...] current challenge is the reader-named “I dare you” challenge, and it’s about stepping outside of our comfort zones. I made the mistake, initially, of [...]
HA. I come by on Tuesdays when Joss posts and links it on her blog, which is on my blogroll, and then I back-read for the week. SO I WOULD have given my coolest of cool contest entry today, but then, that would’ve required paying attention to things like deadlines, and I ain’t pubbed yet so the word means little.
But – wait – WHEEEE!!! Becky, I hope you never come back! I mean, what a great community we have here. >.>
Just scanned comments and, oh, Becky! Congrats!
*muttering*
For the challenge, I am going to finish the quilt top I started in March of 08 and then shoved into my closet because I couldn’t master the 1/4″ inseam thing in a month of trying. This will be the prettiest crooked quilt top EVER.
Okay, so my challenge is one that I’ve had on my list since January but it keeps getting moved down the list.
Start my novel and get these characters out of my head and onto a page.
Oh, and not kill my mother while planning my wedding. Mainly because spending my honeymoon in jail is not on the itinerary.
Aaaaiiiiieeeee! I actually thought the “one entry” meant you could only post once. However, I am not a bit sorry that I didn’t win because I think the “I Dare You Challenge” is PERFECT. That is actually the very best suggestion and I would have picked it myself had I been in charge. Awesome blog, ladies.
Challenges- I have them!
Having been broken up with my significant other, for the about eleventy billionth time, I decided to do the self same thing y’all are doing. I have bashed my comfort zone in the head and run off with the bat and submitted my petition for school board. Yes I’m running for office. God help me.
My older son said “Well…that sounds like something you’d really hate!” and my younger son said “Do you want to do this, or do you just like the idea of it?” Because yes, the glamor of budget fights!
I think I need to be someone new. As my former beau used to say, melt and re-pour.
Also…My son has next week off from school, and being a good mama I took the week off too, even though he’s a senior and 17 and will hate it. But then…surprise! He’s invited to go away with a friend’s family. What did I do? Did I take the week back and squirrel it away at work and save it for another time?
No, I’m going to live every day next week in my “New Reality”, wake up every morning alone and ride my bike, attend to my home business and work hard, harder than ever, on my writing. My perfect days and life the way I imagine them, will become my perfect days for real. For one whole week.