Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Must blog, must blog, gust mlog: a meandering on TIME, life, and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman

I've said this before and I will say it again...I don't ever remember being this busy EVER. I mean is it possible that I'm busier now than when I was working full-time as a high school teacher, plus two nights of night school, and getting a Master's degree? (and we were having our 2nd child and I did many more projects around the house since I was cheap). It sure as hell feels like it.

How does one add up life? Of course it never makes any fuckin sense. To wit (always wanted to write that in a post), I've currently cut out of my life all kinds of things trying to find more time for the essentials: no exercise (which has ballooned at times to 10-15 hrs a week, so this is not a rinky-dink savings); no Jazz or football (ok, I turn on the 4th quarter of some games and watch/read/talk to son if it's a close score); I read nothing other than what I'm prepping for a class or what we are reading in book club; I take extreme evasive action whenever potential house/yard projects are bandied about by wife (ok, I did get sucked into putting stairs into our attic, well, to be honest, I only assissited our 70 year old repair guy--how pathetic); and, for the most part, I forbid myself from blogging unless I'm all caught up, which is never so... Maybe if I weren't blogging right now, I'd have more time and could be caught up--yeah, right.

AND................GAWD ALMIGHTY I hate this "AND".....And I have so much more stuff I should do, could do, want to do, feel guilty about not doing. For example, I have about 10 students I should meet with weekly--if I were a man, I would require it. I'm confident a high percentage of these 10 students will not get the passing "C" they need in my course and some--3 or 4??--would pass if I were meeting with them weekly. Also, I should take time to experience wonder, like in my ice photos/posts of last year. Also, I should read stuff, like, you know, magazines and online articles--I mean I do teach English for godsake!!! And, hey how about a non-required book once in awhile. And how about taking time now to think of thoughtful x-mas gifts for each of my children, sisters, and, especially, wife? (I did decide to get my son a subscription to MAD magazine but it's a bit of a Homer gift as I get all dizzy with nostalgia thinking back to the many hrs I spent cozied up in my bed with MAD, putting the nifty covers togther to create the new cool picture, flipping desperately through the pages to find any bare breasts, getting my kicks off the satire of the Love Boat).

Ok, enough of this--I must focus on our book club pick, "Surely, You're joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard P. Feynman, a theoretical physicists who worked on the Los Alamos bomb project and then later won the Nobel Prize in science. If you ever read this book, skim the first part (it is badly written and a bit silly) until he gets to Los Alamos which is interesting for its history and then, amazingly, the writing gets better sylistically and the story is engaging: how to pick up women in bars, cracking safes...good stuff. And speaking of time, how the hell did this guy get smart enough to be chosen to work at Los Alamos and win the Nobel all while spending hours cracking safes, hitting on babes in bars, and writing a freakin' memoir?

If I don't finish this book by Friday, I'm blaming it all on YOU! Yes, YOU. I mean why do you sonsofbitches keep insisting on stealing my time!!!! It's really quite UNFAIR.

6 comments:

Dr Write said...

Thanks for blogging. I know what you mean about busy, I've felt like this semester, for whatever reason, has been insane. And I don't know why. But I'm glad you blogged about it. Maybe you can schedule some wonder into your Christmas break.

Rod said...

You don't even want to see my to-do list! Having insomnia seems to help me stay ahead of the computer work though. Sleep is overrated.

Lisa B. said...

what the hell? you blogged! the busy-ness is horrifying, not that I'm comparing mine to yours. Nice to get a peek into your world, however.

spontaneous expressions said...

now you tell me! I was so disillusioned by the first part of the book I haven't picked it up for over a month. (don't worry if you don't finish, you won't be alone!)

Time to pretend you have amnesia. Who are you? What am I doing? What are these things you call "stairs"?

(sorry btw to add to it all by my ultramegalongholyshitthisneverends post as of late)

Counterintuitive said...

See how effective it is to blog sparingly? Once you do everyone is pleased and it doesn't really matter if you ramble incoherently and call your fellow bloggers names.

The downside, of course, is no one really took seriously my very serious querry about time: where does it go? How does one manage it and then feel good about the few accomplishments? Come on, I need some tquick/cheap herapy since I don't have time nor money to hire a professional.

middlebrow said...

Good post counterintuitive. I too feel busier than ever. I think the solution though is more blogging, not less. I've decided to incorporate the blog into some of the things I have to do, like diss writing and other writing.

Plus counterintuitive, you have higher standards for your blog posts. You feel like you have to say something significant. But it's not true. The trick is to lower your standards. I mean, look at me, I post limericks about the Jazz for crying out load. More limericks less anxiety. That's what I say.

There once was a teacher of writing
Who was overly fond of citing
Rhetoric scholars
in white starchy collars
Whose dullness was horribly frightening.

See what I mean? Come down to my level and you'll be blogging more frequently. By the way, I cite you in my most recent blog post, and you are neither dull nor a wearer of starchy white collars. So there.