My 100-day project: Introduction and Day One

So, recently I blogged about 100-day projects completed by graduate students of Yale art professor Michael Beirut, and said I wanted to play, too. So I've been thinking, thinking, thinking...

I wanted something that would be fast (like 10 minutes), easy, and fun. And if it produced some sort of result or a body of work, so much the better.

But what to do?

I thought about 100 days of shoes, but I wasn't so crazy about having to approach perfect strangers to take pictures of their feet. Kinda creepy.

100 days of trash (too depressing).

100 limericks (too hard), or 100 haikus (too easy).

Well, it finally came down to two projects.

First: 100 little bitty acts of sobriety. Because, you see, today I'm exactly 100 days away from getting my 1-year chip for abstinence from compulsive overeating. A lot can happen in 100 days, so I'd like to take out some insurance. And how great would it be to have 100 esteemable acts under my belt on my birthday? Trying new meetings, mopping up little bits of wreckage... Productive? Oh, yes, fabulously! But not much fun. Not so interesting, either, to anyone but me. Plus, it's likely to be embarrassing because you'll see all the stuff I haven't been taking care of.

So, screw that, right?

On to my second idea: 100 hand-wrought messages. Messages in all forms: hand-painted onto storefronts, scratched onto walls, scrawled on signs stuck in the ground, carved on a gravestone. Messages with some sort of human touch, or feel, or presence. A hundred of them.

But wait... it would be nice to have gotten all that work done....

I can't pick. I'm doing both. So let the games begin.

Day 1: 100 little bitty acts of sobriety.

I got paid today. I sat down and paid bills. I paid one of them early. This is new.


 Day 1: Hand-wrought messages.

 

Best laid plans...