Reconstructing my chronology
My job history is very patchy. As a musician, I tend to have jobs that last at most a few weeks; many are one-nighters. Having a gig that lasts more than a year is rare for me; when I do, it's more than likely a part-time position, maybe a church job or a once-a-week choral accompanying thing that has to be supplemented with other work. When friends have had a peek at my calendar, they've often exclaimed at how "busy" I seem to be. But that's just a function of having to piece together as much freelance work as possible in order to approach what one decent-paying job would bring in. It looks very colorful on the calendar, but it's tiring as hell.
Recently I've been thinking that I would like to have something like a thumbnail chronology of the last few years... so, I am currently undertaking a tour through my Apple calendar going all the way back to 1999. (Apple didn't introduce its iCal app until 2002, so at some point I must have somehow imported the previous three years' worth of events from my Palm Treo or something.) I’ve been using Calendar to write out a list of what I consider major events, gigs, shows, trips, friends, trends, etc. It’s been illuminating! In the process, I have discovered that for years now I've been messing up some of my own anecdotes in the telling; I have mentally assigned more than a few wrong dates to certain key events- so this will help me correct my course.
I only wish I had something as concrete for the eight or nine years prior to that. (Honestly, more than that, even, but I'd be happy just to be able to reach back to 1990.) There may be in my boxes of stuff somewhere some ancient datebook/planners that I haven’t pitched... and maybe someday I’ll discover them. If I do, I'll want to mine them for info for this chronology.
I remember how bored I was with history as a kid. My history classes- especially 11th-grade American history- were the most boring thing imaginable. (I think, though, that it can be blamed partly on the teacher, and also on the time of day, right around lunchtime. I was far from the only student routinely nodding off in class.) At some point since then, though, I have become somewhat of a junkie. The genealogy of the British royal family and all their pan-European relations? Gimme! The shifting boundaries and alliances within the Holy Roman Empire? Bring it on! The indigenous peoples of Central America and their European conquerors? Fascinated! American Presidents and their unvarnished personal stories? Spill all the tea! I swear I'm a completely different person than that bored high-schooler.
At the moment, I’m up to 2011. I'm reliving many events I’d forgotten about and pinpointing dates that I’d been wondering about for a while ("What year was it when John and I drove across the country and hit all the Six Flags parks...?"). Since I don't have a lot else going on right now, I can stay up late and work on this history. I can probably put the rest of the list together within just a few days. I may even share some of it here on LJ; whether I do or not, I'll be very glad to have put it together in written form.
Recently I've been thinking that I would like to have something like a thumbnail chronology of the last few years... so, I am currently undertaking a tour through my Apple calendar going all the way back to 1999. (Apple didn't introduce its iCal app until 2002, so at some point I must have somehow imported the previous three years' worth of events from my Palm Treo or something.) I’ve been using Calendar to write out a list of what I consider major events, gigs, shows, trips, friends, trends, etc. It’s been illuminating! In the process, I have discovered that for years now I've been messing up some of my own anecdotes in the telling; I have mentally assigned more than a few wrong dates to certain key events- so this will help me correct my course.
I only wish I had something as concrete for the eight or nine years prior to that. (Honestly, more than that, even, but I'd be happy just to be able to reach back to 1990.) There may be in my boxes of stuff somewhere some ancient datebook/planners that I haven’t pitched... and maybe someday I’ll discover them. If I do, I'll want to mine them for info for this chronology.
I remember how bored I was with history as a kid. My history classes- especially 11th-grade American history- were the most boring thing imaginable. (I think, though, that it can be blamed partly on the teacher, and also on the time of day, right around lunchtime. I was far from the only student routinely nodding off in class.) At some point since then, though, I have become somewhat of a junkie. The genealogy of the British royal family and all their pan-European relations? Gimme! The shifting boundaries and alliances within the Holy Roman Empire? Bring it on! The indigenous peoples of Central America and their European conquerors? Fascinated! American Presidents and their unvarnished personal stories? Spill all the tea! I swear I'm a completely different person than that bored high-schooler.
At the moment, I’m up to 2011. I'm reliving many events I’d forgotten about and pinpointing dates that I’d been wondering about for a while ("What year was it when John and I drove across the country and hit all the Six Flags parks...?"). Since I don't have a lot else going on right now, I can stay up late and work on this history. I can probably put the rest of the list together within just a few days. I may even share some of it here on LJ; whether I do or not, I'll be very glad to have put it together in written form.