Making up for lost time
Last week at work, a co-worker tallied up the fact that since I bought a car, I have gained anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of my personal time. Over the course of a year, even if I did a conservative estimate of walking to work and back two days of the work week, and then walked there and got a ride home three other days, for 50 weeks a year, that's 175 hours I get back, a little more than a week's worth of time.
Every day I wake up, and I think, "What will I do with that hour today?"
And so now I'm trying to change a few things in my routine. I bought a new water jug that, if I drink the whole thing twice, gives me the daily need for water. Yesterday I took it and a book to Norton Park a town over in Plainville, and read and walked and enjoyed the beautiful day and sunshine and trees.
I've started reading more again. I recently bought a mess of books, and I have a bunch of books over the years that I have bought but never read, and I still have all of Rosemary's Douglas Adams books. It was far easier to read when I lived in Philly because I would use the time on my SEPTA commute. But now I'm back to reading more, keeping the TV off; I get paid to watch TV for 9 hours a day already.
Also, I'm reading more to offset how much time I spend watching the NBA playoffs. It's my favorite time of year -- win or go home! -- and I try to watch every game. However, since the playoffs begin in mid-April and last through mid-June, this can be a tough existence with hours upon hours in front of a TV. (But watching the 67-win Dallas Mavericks (they lost just 15 games from November to April!), the best team this year, go down in the first round to perennial losers the Golden State Warriors ... priceless.) So other time I would have spent watching TV while relaxing, I'm reading more instead. I woke up at 10 today, and cracked open an Esquire issue, then hit a book for a few chapters.
I just started reading the horror tale "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson (found at a bookstore when Rosemary and I went with Michelle to Northampton, MA), in which a man fights for his existence as the last living man in a world of vampires. It's about 300 pages of quick-moving prose, and I'm back to my college method of book reading: Read 50 pages a day, and I'm finished in six days.
The book also got me thinking that surely someone has adapted this to film before. It has, as "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, and Charlton Heston's "The Omega Man." This time as a Will Smith-starring project with screenwriting credits to Akiva Goldsman and helmed by the director of "Constantine" and a bunch of Britney/J.Lo videos -- YUCK. Word has it that Smith wanted Guillermo del Toro, and he declined. It could have been worse; in the '90s Ridley Scott tried to make it starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As for this blog, I don't know where it's going. Writing about my daily goings-on is still the bee's knees, but my life in CT is tough to write about sometimes. (With a car, I envision more trips abroad, to Philly and elsewhere.) I'm going to try to write more culture/politics criticism-type stuff too. I don't write much about politics here, often because I don't feel like I have anything to add to what's out there, and we know how fucked up it all is anyhow. But if something catches my eye, I'll try to write it down.
lipbylipby expressed my greatest concern at the moment, which is Bush's theory of the unified executive, which is a short term for "fuck Congress" and what other places might call a monarchy or dictatorship. And yes, the consolidation of presidential powers gained momentum under Nixon, more force under Reagan and then helped along by Clinton, we're seeing abuse in a totally new, aggressive direction. And from the war alone, we have about 3,354 reasons to impeach him, and the list grows by the day in grieving families across America -- let alone the collateral damage of the countless Iraqis dead in a vainglory war without end.
Every day I wake up, and I think, "What will I do with that hour today?"
And so now I'm trying to change a few things in my routine. I bought a new water jug that, if I drink the whole thing twice, gives me the daily need for water. Yesterday I took it and a book to Norton Park a town over in Plainville, and read and walked and enjoyed the beautiful day and sunshine and trees.
I've started reading more again. I recently bought a mess of books, and I have a bunch of books over the years that I have bought but never read, and I still have all of Rosemary's Douglas Adams books. It was far easier to read when I lived in Philly because I would use the time on my SEPTA commute. But now I'm back to reading more, keeping the TV off; I get paid to watch TV for 9 hours a day already.
Also, I'm reading more to offset how much time I spend watching the NBA playoffs. It's my favorite time of year -- win or go home! -- and I try to watch every game. However, since the playoffs begin in mid-April and last through mid-June, this can be a tough existence with hours upon hours in front of a TV. (But watching the 67-win Dallas Mavericks (they lost just 15 games from November to April!), the best team this year, go down in the first round to perennial losers the Golden State Warriors ... priceless.) So other time I would have spent watching TV while relaxing, I'm reading more instead. I woke up at 10 today, and cracked open an Esquire issue, then hit a book for a few chapters.
I just started reading the horror tale "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson (found at a bookstore when Rosemary and I went with Michelle to Northampton, MA), in which a man fights for his existence as the last living man in a world of vampires. It's about 300 pages of quick-moving prose, and I'm back to my college method of book reading: Read 50 pages a day, and I'm finished in six days.
The book also got me thinking that surely someone has adapted this to film before. It has, as "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, and Charlton Heston's "The Omega Man." This time as a Will Smith-starring project with screenwriting credits to Akiva Goldsman and helmed by the director of "Constantine" and a bunch of Britney/J.Lo videos -- YUCK. Word has it that Smith wanted Guillermo del Toro, and he declined. It could have been worse; in the '90s Ridley Scott tried to make it starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As for this blog, I don't know where it's going. Writing about my daily goings-on is still the bee's knees, but my life in CT is tough to write about sometimes. (With a car, I envision more trips abroad, to Philly and elsewhere.) I'm going to try to write more culture/politics criticism-type stuff too. I don't write much about politics here, often because I don't feel like I have anything to add to what's out there, and we know how fucked up it all is anyhow. But if something catches my eye, I'll try to write it down.
lipbylipby expressed my greatest concern at the moment, which is Bush's theory of the unified executive, which is a short term for "fuck Congress" and what other places might call a monarchy or dictatorship. And yes, the consolidation of presidential powers gained momentum under Nixon, more force under Reagan and then helped along by Clinton, we're seeing abuse in a totally new, aggressive direction. And from the war alone, we have about 3,354 reasons to impeach him, and the list grows by the day in grieving families across America -- let alone the collateral damage of the countless Iraqis dead in a vainglory war without end.