50 in '15 #45: Contact someone with my own name.

The following is an interview that I, Dustin Hughes, conducted with a different Dustin Hughes (from Oregon) and another Dustin Hughes (this one from North Carolina).

Just to help keep all your Dustin Hughes' straight, Ive included our respective home states in parenthesis. The narrator I hired to conduct the interview is in italics. He's completely fictional and serves the purpose of tying all this together, but he's pretty awesome and we'll call him Mr. H, just so he has a name.

Hey! Great to be here. My name is Mr. H and I'm sitting here with Dustin Hughes and Dustin Hughes and Dustin Hughes today to talk a little bit about what we think is the best name in the whole world: you guessed it, Dustin Hughes! We got a lot to cover so let's jump right in to.

Gentlement, can you introduce yourself?

Dustin Hughes, here. I hail from the wonderful city of St. Petersburg, FL.

I'm Dustin Hughes. North Carolina.

And I'm Dustin Hughes from Oregon.

Awesome, so glad you could make it out today for this momentous meeting of great minds. I thought we'd start with a little talk about how our parents came up with the wonderful name of Dustin.

Dustin (Me) - My madre told me that she knew some lady who had a cute little boy named Justin and so that would be my name. My father said, “No way.” She said, “Fine, then it's Dustin,” and the rest is history.

Dustin (NC) - My mom wanted to name me Dusty after a popular Soap Opera actor at the time.

Dustin (OR) - Mom named me after Dustin Hoffman.

Simply fascinating! And now let's move on to something I'm sure you all hear a lot. How many times have people made jokes/references to Dustin Hoffman or Howard Hughes when talking to or about you?

Dustin (Me) - It happens a lot. Way more than it should. But I wouldn't mind being related to Howard Hughes. Am I right!?

Dustin (NC) - Seems like someone said something about Dustin Hoffman once, but that was it.

Dustin (OR) - I actually use Dustin Hoffman when someone on the phone didnt hear me clearly, and I use Howard Hughes, myself, for the same reason. Generally it goes " No, Dustin, like Dustin Hoffman, but better looking" or “Hughes, as in Howard Hughes but not as rich."

Ridiculous. You guys are cracking me up here. Are all Dustin Hughes' this funny? Anywho... Let's talk nicknames. Are people allowed to call you Dusty?

Dustin (Me) - Absolutely not. There was a girl in my junior high named Dusty and so I just always figured it was a girl's name.

Dustin (NC) - That is my nickname. My entire family calls me that.

Dustin (OR) - Only my older sister calls me Dusty.

Seems like that one is a bit all over the place. But I'm going to agree with Dustin from Florida on this one because I'm fictional and he created me.

Next question, If someone just happens to call you Justin instead of Dustin, do you call them out on it immediately or do you just keep on going like nothing happened.

Dustin (Me) - I'm usually too nice or too lazy to correct people, so I just roll with whatever while secretly stewing inside.

Dustin (NC) - I usually respond like nothing happened. Depends on who it is and what our relationship is.

Dustin (OR) - If i'll will meet them again I correct them, if it wont matter in the long run I leave it alone.

Sounds good, Justin. Oops, I mean Dustin! Last question. How do you feel about ladies named Katie?

Dustin (Me) - I married one, so obviously I like them. As a matter of fact, I think they are the best.

Dustin (NC) - I've talked to a few Katie's, but never dated them seriously. I'm very good friends with a few though, and they are awesome people.

Dustin (OR) - Never dated a Katie. The name Katie reminds me of a one of those dream girls who sleeps in a tee shirt and panties, instead of a snowsuit.

Hot girls sleeping in anything but a snowsuit! That Dustin Hughes from Florida must be one lucky guy. Actually all these Dustin Hughes' are lucky guys. Great name, great lives and good all around people.

Until next time, this has been Mr. H. Special thanks to our guests Dustin Hughes, Dustin Hughes and Dustin Hughes.

Thank you, and goodnight.

50 in '15 #5: Stay in bed for a whole day.

Stay in bed for the whole day? That's got to be easy, right? All you have to do is relax, read a couple books, maybe watch a couple movies. If you throw in a nap or two, it'll be over before you know it.

The thing is, it really isn't that easy. First off, staying in bed all day is something for young people. I remember being a teenager and sleeping entire days away. Usually this came after a few days of no sleep at all, but in happened, nonetheless.

The problem with being an adult is that there are things to do and errands to run. Our free days are limited to two per week and to spend a full one of those in bed doesn't seem like a great use of time.

But if it shows up on the list, we do it. Simply lying in bed and sleeping all day sounded like a terrible option, so like good little over-planners we spent the night before filling our nightstands with all the things we wanted to accomplish while we were stranded in our bedroom. We had big plans. We were going to read books and watch movies and do some sketches and I was going to write a short story.

And rules! You know I like to have lists of rules to go with my lists. This one was simple. I had to stay in bed all day with the exception of a five minute break each hour because I'm old and if I stayed in bed for 24 hours my back would lock up and I'd likely never get out of bed again.

When it was all said and done we certainly didn't accomplish everything we set out to do, but it wasn't bad. The feeling that we should be doing something more productive was unavoidable, but we both got some reading done. One of the Cannes' film festival winner's was watched. We ordered food in and Katie didn't get too many weird looks from the guy delivering ice cream to our house at noon. And I didn't get any disapproving nods from the pizza guy when I answered the door in my pajamas at 5:30pm.

If I had to pick one positive thing from the experience, it would be being locked up together on a little king-sized bed island together talking and hanging out. A normal day would have us out and about doing things, being productive, and that's fine and dandy, but there's something to be said for setting aside a day to be together secluded from the outside world.

50 in '15 #49: Go to the ballet.

We've spent a little time during the first few days of the New Year trying to get together a game plan for getting things done and were happy to notice that The Mahaffey would be hosting a ballet to start off the New Year. Getting things done just three days into the year? Yes, please!

The Mahaffey is a wonderful theater that has the added bonus of being walking distance to where we live. Throw in the fact that this performance of Black Swan had the reasonable price tag of $37.50 a ticket and we had no choice but to get ourselves fancied up, make some quick last minute dinner plans and have ourselves a classy evening at the ballet.

I have now learned that there are no words in a ballet so I was a little bit at a loss to what I was actually watching and now (without first checking the Internet to see what the story is) will attempt to translate what I saw.

Act I: It's the Prince's birthday and he's having a crazy party with lots of dancing. The Prince is a bit of a player and is dancing with all the ladies. Then his mom gives him a crossbow as a gift.

Act II: Now that Mr. Prince has a crossbow he needs to go hunting. And where better to do that than Swan Lake. But wait! There's a dark wizard who decided that he had a plan to turn swans into hot ladies in an attempt to worm his way into the castle. The Prince then falls in love with a swan.

Act III: Another party! Mom parades out some ladies for our Prince to pick from, but he's all like “Nope, sorry Mom. I have already fallen in love,” and in strolls his lovely swan. But wait! She's now dressed in black! Chalking it up to her goth phase, they dance the night away. The real swan walks in and is all like “What the heck! Who's that emo swan?” and runs away heart broken.

Act IV: The Prince, realizing his error, runs to Swan Lake to find his real love. There he encounters the dark wizard again and they proceed to have the least manly fight of all time. The Prince wins. He gets the right Swan. Happily ever after.

Wait one moment while I check Wikipedia...

And how did I do? Not bad at all! Turns out I'm not the worst all time at watching the ballet. I missed a few things but, as a whole, I was pretty close. Minus the emo stuff, but that's only because Swan Lake was written in 1875 and they didn't have the word yet.

Even though, I'm a story guessing professional, the important part (at least to us) was the dancing and the was something to see. I don't know much about ballet dancing outside of watching Black Swan that one time, but everything I saw was impressive. How anyone can spin around in 200 circles while standing on the tips of their toes (or do any of the other moves) is beyond me.

Would I go again? Maybe, if it was cheap. Will Katie drag me to one again? Definitely.

For posterity, here's a crappy picture as they really don't like it when you use your phone at these sorts of things, so I had to be sly and sneak this one during the final bow.

2015: Let's Try This Again aka 50 in '15

It's the first day of 2015 and that means it's time for Day Zero List Version 2. We had a blast doing all of the fun things on our last list, so we decided to make it annual thing. There will be some slight changes this time. Rather than 101 things in 10001 days, we've re-tooled the list to be 50 things in 52 weeks. This mostly serves the purpose of allowing us to print cool looking books annually, rather than once every three years. It may be shallow, but I just want a shelf full of different versions of “Make Your Own Damn Coffee Table Book” and this is a good way to make that happen.

But, other than shortening the list, it's pretty much the same concept. We took the first 50 random goals that were offered up by the Day Zero site. Well, truth be told, not the first 50. It's the first 50 that were reasonable. Unfortunately we won't be camping in Antarctica or anything crazy and expensive like that this year.

And how did the list turn out?

That depends on who you ask.

For me, I seem to remember a little more excitement about things on the last list. There were just a couple things that stood out to me on this one as being exciting: riding a hot air balloon, go spelunking, and learning how to throw a knife, for example.

Katie, on the other hand, seemed to have somehow talked to the folks at Day Zero and made sure that the “random” things that popped up were all things she's been trying to get me to do for a while. She'll have a huge smile on her face as we have themed parties and dress up for Halloween and head out to the ballet.

So, on the surface, it would seem like Katie won this one. But that's okay. I'm not worried. If the last batch of goals taught me anything it's that I may find myself enjoying things that I was in no way looking forward to.

On that note, don't be surprised if by the end of the year I have a new hobby of knitting sweaters and hosting tea parties. You just never know what you are going to learn over the course of trying 50 new things.

And that's the precise reason that we are excited for another year living “Our Life of Lists.”

Day Zero Project #Whatever: The odds and ends.

It's the end of the year and, sadly, I didn't finish everything on my list. But don't stress it too much. It's almost 2015 and there will be a whole new list to try and accomplish.

I've posted everything that I finished, but I wanted to do one last post for all of the other goals that were in various states of completion so that those are listed here for posterity.

#9: Learn how to play a song on guitar - I pretty much pick up the guitar that is sitting right next to my monitor whenever I get bored with looking at pictures of kittens on the Internet so, while I didn't learn a full song per se, I learned enough parts of enough songs that I'm willing to call it 75% done.

#14: Join a writing group - I started off November by signing up for the St. Pete chapter of the NanoWriMo competition, which is a group dedicated to getting 50,000 words down on paper during the month of November. It just so happens that November is, historically, one of the busiest months around this household and I ended up getting something like 5,000 words down and didn't participate with the group as much as I wanted. On the bright side I do have a title and a start to my debut novel coming to you. at the current pace I'm going, in 2020

#19: Eat a meal cooked by a famous chef - This one was difficult. Every time a famous chef came around Tampa/St. Pete it was for some special event with a fixed menu that included mostly things that people who don't eat meat find gross. Not willing to give up my pescatarianism so easily, we never did find ourselves seated with a famous chef.

That said, we did eat at a number of restaurants with regionally "famous" head chefs such as Bern's, Black Pearl, Rococo, and others I'm drawing a blank on, so we at least ate some great food this year. Close enough for me!

#21: Take guitar lessons - Guitar lessons are not fun. Trust me, I know. I've tried taking them a number of times in my life, but I have had no luck in finding an instructor that I like and doesn't talk to me like I'm a five year old who has never picked up a guitar before.

But I found a Groupon for an online guitar instruction site and so I dropped the $20 on that to see how it was and sat through a few of those lessons. They were decent, but without a live person to jam with I found myself lacking motivation to practice enough.

Needless to say, I'm still not in a famous band.

#40: Pick 5 people who changed my life and write each of them a letter - I couldn't ever decide how I wanted to tackle this one. At first I was going to get real serious and write letters to the people that I love the most. I wrote one for Katie and while I was waiting to pick who the other four lucky receivers of a letter would be I decided that it might be fun to switch up the project.

My new task was to pick five authors who wrote books that meant a lot to me and see if I received any responses back. I mailed one letter to Lucia Perillo who wrote a wonderful collection of short stories called "Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain" and appeared to be someone who really "gets" what it's like to suffer from a disease that hurt in a way that people can't always see (She has M.S., but the writing works for things that affect those around me like Rheumatoid Arthritis, as well). It was very touching and worth letting her know that .

She didn't write back, but that's okay since I'm assuming she's quite busy writing things like excellent stories.

I never got around to writing any more letters, but 2 out of 5 isn't terrible.

#50: Learn watercolor painting techniques - I bought the watercolor stuff and read a book. Does that count?

#100: Complete a coloring book - I started this by thinking that if I had to color I was going to do so with an adult coloring book. I found one called "Hot Wax" by Tyson McAdoo and got to work.

 

All was going fine, but using colored pencils with the amount of detail (and tattoos) in this book was taking FOREVER. I didn't think I was going to finish in time, so I switched to something easier.

 

And you know what? I didn't finish that, either.

And just so I close this book with full disclosure, here are the things that I did not finish in time for inclusion in this book:

Go deep sea fishing
Learn to ski
Go a week with no cellphone, computer or TV
Take a CPR class
Create an emergency preparedness kit
Go a day without talking
Eat with chopsticks for a week
Take a bartending class
Have a homemade ice cream party
Work out with a personal trainer
Learn to ride a horse
Learn a card trick
Send a secret to PostSecret
Take a Young Me, Now Me picture
Don't spend any money for a week
Learn to ice skate
Go for a run every day for a week
Attend a yoga class

Day Zero Project #43: Take a picture for each letter of the alphabet from the nature.

There's quite a few pictures here (I did run out of time and am missing a few letters), so I'll skip the wordiness and just say that this project was one of the most fun out of all the ones we did. Enjoy the show!

A is for Alligator

B is for Blue-Eyed Darner Dragonfly

C is for Callicarpa Americana (Beautyberry)

D is for Dahoon Holly

E is for Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly

F is for Fungus

G is for Green Bottle Fly

H is for Heart-Leaved Aster

I is for Ibis

J is for nothing. I didn't get around to finding a J thing.

K is also for nothing. 

L is for Laughing Gulls

M is for Marbled Godwit

N is for Nephila Clavipes (Banana Spider)

O is for Osprey

P is for Pokeweed

Q is for Queen Anne's Lace

R is for Red-Bellied Woodpecker

S is for Sandwich Tern

T is for Tallgrass Prairie

U is for... no idea. We didn't find anything that started with a U in time.

V is for Vertebrate (in this case a Florida Box Turtle)

W is for Wildflowers

X is... seriously. It's an X. There's nothing.

Y is for Yellow Flower (Black-Eyed Susan is the culprit here)

and finally Z. Actually let's just try and end on a high note and call Y the end.

Day Zero Project #38: Write a Christmas letter

Hello and welcome to the first, and most likely only, edition of the Dustin and Katie Hughes Holiday Letter. These sorts of things aren’t normally “our thing” as they are best left to the professionals like Katie’s cousin, Anny. She can write a letter and you’ll laugh and cry and feel that warm fuzzy feeling that is comparable only to how you feel after a night of drinking your good friend’s spiked egg nog. Here you will only find dry humor and some pictures. Hopefully that’s the sort of thing you like.

“If it’s not your thing then why are you doing this?” you might be asking yourself.

And that would be a great question. The answer is that it just came up on a random list that I (Dustin) generated that we’re trying to accomplish this year. If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably seen my posts on all sorts of weird things we’ve done this year. If you aren’t, I’ve included some handy best-of pictures below.

I believe that the typical thing to do is to use this space to fill-in everyone on all the major milestones that we reached over the past year. A very popular thing to do is to recap the really wonderful things that your children, accomplished so I’ll start there.

First up is our oldest, Mayor Cuddles Von Mystery, Esq. He had a big year in 2014 with highlights including that one time he almost caught the red dot and in September he escaped outside for what can only be described as 3 glorious minutes in the outdoors. He’s still a little upset about having to come back inside, but indoors is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet, so he’s learning to be okay with it.

Second, but certainly first in the hearts of many, is Slayer. Like her namesake, she spent a lot of this year being heavy. Seriously… she eats quite a bit. She also listed her yearly accomplishments as terrorizing The Mayor every single day, reducing the amount of sleeping hours of her parents in half and managing to hide every single toy that she is bought underneath the stove for “safe keeping.” 

 But enough about those crazy kids of ours, it’s time to talk about our favorite subject: us.

Katie spent the year at the coffee shop. No joke. I barely saw her, but when I did she was always highly caffeinated. This uptick in energy led her to get a new job, while simultaneously giving her the super power of somehow dealing with the craziness that is me. She’s a saint; a short, curly-haired saint.

 And myself? I had a big year. I got a new turntable, which increased the amount of ridiculous dancing that takes place in our house. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen me dance around the living room to a Stan Getz or Botch record in my pajamas. I also brought up the number of lists that I keep to somewhere around 80, and if you know me, you know that is big news. Next year I hope to reach 100 different lists. 

We also did some seriously awesome things, but if you haven’t figured it out by now this will not be a serious letter. So instead you are left with a mental picture of me dancing. You’re welcome.

I think that should just about do it. I’d certainly rate this letter as a solid C+ and just a “minor waste of your time” rather than a “complete waste of your time,” so on that note, I’d call it a success. And now I’ll wrap it up with a few closing thoughts and an award-winning photography collection:

By the time you receive this letter it will likely be past Christmas, and for that we apologize. But it’s not our fault, really. You see, we live in Florida and it’s at least 70 degrees every day so we were too busy getting tans and sipping on beach cocktails to realize that it was Holiday time again!

Actually, we are just lazy. But tans and cocktails sound like a much better excuse.

In all seriousness though, if you are reading this you are someone special to us and we hope that you and your family have a wonderful holiday season and, more importantly, a wonderful rest of the year, too. Thanks for being an outstanding person and doing your part to make our lives that much more awesome.

No matter what Santa says about you, we know that you are amazing.

Dustin and Katie Hughes

p.s. And now, in case this thing wasn't long-winded enough, we bring you our first, and last, “2014 In Lists” feature.

Best Books We Read In 2014

Dustin	Katie
1. “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra 2. “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon 3. “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini 4. “Krik? Krak!” by Edwidge Danticat 5. “Drop City” by T.C. Boyle	1.”The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green 2. “Drinking Closer to Home” by Jessica Blau 3. “Meet the Annas” by Robert Dunn 4. “The Tainted City: by Courtney Schaffer 5. “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen

Best New (To Us) Music of 2014

Dustin	Katie
1. The World Is a Beautiful Place... “Between Bodies” 2. Q and Not U “Different Damage” 3. The Dear Hunter “Migrant” 4. Annabel “Youth in Youth” 5. The Sidekicks “Weight of Air”	1. She & Him “Classics” 2. Houndmouth “From the Hills Below the City” 3. The Menzingers “Rented World” 4. The Sidekicks “Weight of Air” 5. Annabel “Youth in Youth”

Best Comic Books We Read In 2014

Dustin	Katie
1. “Sheltered” by Brisson/Christmas 2. “Blankets” by Craig Thompson 3. “Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth” by Chris Ware 4. “Saga” by Vaughn/Staples 5. “Nailbiter” by Williamson/Henderson	1. “Sheltered” by Brisson/Christmas 2. “Rat Queens” by Weibe 3. “Baltimore” by Mignola/Stenbeck 4. “Saga” by Vaughn/Staples 5. “X” by Swierczynski/Nguyen

Best Concerts of 2014

Dustin	Katie
1. mewithoutYou @ The Social, Orlando, FL 2. Modest Mouse @ The Beacham, Orlando, FL 3. The World Is A Beautiful Place... @ The Fest, Gainesville, FL 4. Mouth of the Architect @ Orpheum, Tampa, FL 5. Broadway Calls @ Orpheum, Tampa, FL	1. Broadway Calls @ Orpheum, Tampa, FL 2. Captain, We're Sinking @ Wooly, Gainesville, FL 3. Houndmouth @ Local 662, St. Pete, FL 4. Less Than Jake @ Orpheum, Tampa, FL 5. The Sidekicks @ Wooly, Gainesville, FL

And now we've reached the end. We hope you all make 2015 the best year ever. We'll be right there with you trying to do the same.

“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.”
― Kurt Vonnegut