crazybusy

At lunch today Mum and I talked about the busy mindset we've got nowadays.  She's reading Crazy Busy, and she says that it says (figure that out, wah ha ha ha!) that having stuffed schedules - always rushing from piano lessons to soccer to SAT prep - and the push to be the best at whatever you do only really began in the 90's.  "I don't remember doing any of that stuff when I was a kid," she told me thoughtfully. "I took piano, but that was it.  We just played outside all day."  
We chatted about how the parts of my childhood that I look back on with the most fondness are the bits where I spent all day playing with the neighbors.  As much as I enjoyed dance classes and youth theatre, those other bits are now the happiest memories.
We talked about bragging. We wondered if the reason people talk about how many activities their kid does is because it makes them feel like a better parent.
We talked about guilt.  Mom said she sometimes feels like she needs to get a job.  That she ought to be doing something.  I'm only taking one college class this year, and I told her that I feel embarrassed about it sometimes. "We shouldn't." She said firmly.  And she's right.  It's ridiculous that, even though we're already busy, we feel guilty because every minute of our time isn't crammed with something.  How  did this happen to our brains?

I wondered what my generation will be like when they take control of the world.  Will we rebel against the present crazy-busy system?  I mean, a ton of kids must have grown up with insane schedules and stressed parents juggling jobs and home life and debt.   Or will we all just go on living mad lives because we've never known anything else?

Then my sister and I talked about  Inception and tried to figure out if we were happy or sad that Keira Knightley has been replaced by Carey Mulligan for the new My Fair Lady.  It was a stimulating afternoon, indeed.

JOBS I'VE WANTED

In a sort of time order.

Astronaut
Cowgirl (this didn't last long)
Various film characters (Mowgli, Peter Pan, the girl cat in Aristocats, etc.)
Singer
Lost child (i.e., as in Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain)
Adventurer
Ballet Dancer
Actress
Interior Designer
Gene Kelly
Hairstylist (didn't last long - I couldn't touch other people's heads)
Writer
Expatriate
Detective
Fashion designer
Lady's Maid
Hanger-on in a famous person's entourage/a famous person's best friend
Archaeologist (of castles in France)
Typographer
Make-up artist
Personal assistant to someone interesting
Lucy Eyelesbarrow
News reporter
Poet
Something in geography or environmental biology
Actress
Travel writer
Graphic Designer
Leslie Caron
Band member
Radio DJ (of a cool station)
Loafer/person of leisure

And now... to be honest, I have no idea.

WARNING: SOPPY POST ALERT

 You know those people who just excel at living?

  The sort who, even if they're just sitting around watching movies (like I did today.  A really appalling number of movies.) manage to make a day out of it, you know?  I know a couple of those people.

 (Did you know that once upon a time two guys stole a car, but returned it when they realized it belonged to Mr. Rogers?  Have I already told you that?)

 Anyways, I want to be one of those people.  A girl you look at and think, "she has a talent for life." My ideas on how to be like that are rather vague.  My first idea is that, to be that sort of person, I must be kind.  If I'm not compassionate I won't do anything worthwhile.  Does that make sense?

Also, I need to be brave.  Carpe diem, yeah?  Not afraid to make friends, or help someone, or do whatever.  I tend to hide.  In fact, I am almost never brave.  Taking risks.  Not scary risks - but things like going to a girls' night out with people I don't know risk (which, frankly, terrifies me).

 It's sort of "duh!" but I think I need to be more positive, too.  Or, at least, not let myself indulge in depression.  I don't have fun when I'm depressed. I really can't think why I do it.

Anyways, I want to be one of those people. Good at life, you know.

Good night.

well, I don't like your tie.

I'm kind of insane for the Beatles right now. (If an imaginary reader gets the reference in the title, they win a prize! So! I offer lots of non-existant prizes to non-existant readers, don't I?)
Recently, I've found myself listening to them more and more.  And playing them pitifully on my dear ukulele.  (By the way, in a recent issue of Time, they had an article about how a big ukulele renaissance is taking place right now.  People are buying them in droves because it makes them feel good when they play. Also, it makes them super cool.  I am so ahead of the times! Har har! Bad pun!)
I'm reading this massive biography of the group by Bob Spitz. I feel like I'm going to get into one of my obsessive reading cycles.  A year or two ago I read every Audrey Hepburn biography in the San Diego County Library system.  Every one.  It was the same story every time, but I still read them all.  For a while, I also read books exclusively on parakeets.  My gosh, I'm insane or something.
But, anyways.
The Beatles are fantastic.  It's just weird.  How are they that great.  How?  I just don't get it.  Magic. What would today's music be like if we hadn't had them?
Sigh, sigh.  I'm wandering all over the place, and should probably delete all this.  Oh well.

In other news, mom went out and measured the thickness of the snow outside.  Six inches.  This is our third batch of snow.  I'm beginning to feel suspicious of all the people who told us it snowed only one day here -"Barely enough to whiten the ground! Ha-ha!"  Those people also said the summers only got into the 90's.  I'm probably exaggerating, but I think we had a month of days over 100 degrees.  I'm not complaining (hey, I got three days of work and school this week - I'm not complaining AT ALL), just pointing out the discrepancies here.

So, how did I spend this snow day?  Not going outside, that's for sure!
No, I spent the day becoming painfully aware of how unmusical I am.  I decided, all fired up from this Beatlemania thing I'm going through, to write a song.   Here's how the day panned out:

Writing easy, almost asinine lyrics ("you" rhymed with "do" at least twice, etc.): 1 hour
Figuring out chords: 4 hours (no joke.)
Recording: 2 hours
Total: 7 hours, for one idiotic song.

I don't think I'm going to be the next Lennon-McCartney.
But, hey, I enjoyed myself.  And I've got a pathetic little song to show for the day.

That's all that's going on with me at the moment.  I'm doing good.

Goodnight, dear void.

Gee whiz

I love E. H. Shepard's illustrations.

Okay! Excitement! I get to do some boasting!

So, I just went for a run.  Look how casual and oh-I-exercise-all-the-time that sentence was, what? I can feel my abs hardening as I type.  Actually, it was three two minutes running, ten skipping to music, and eighteen walking with my hands over my face.  I had to cover my face to keep it from falling off.  My hands are still so numb that sentences - for example, "So, I just went for a run" - keep coming out like, "So, I jist went fo r a ru." As Lemony Snicket would put it, my hands are so cold I can barely type these worfs.
I have not willingly gone outside for about three months - and here I am suggesting outings! And outings (outsings, it keeps coming out) where exercise was involved! I'm so proud.

Anyways, it was freezing.  It hurt to breathe.  Our

Well.  That cut off "our" was not a typing error.  About twenty seconds ago, just as I was about to move into a stirring description of the beautiful trail and the river and the icicles, I made a discovery that significantly lessened my enjoyment of this brief foray into the world of physical exercise.  If you guessed dog poo on my shoe, you're right!

So.

The obvious conclusion:  I am clearly not meant to exercise.  At most, I'm supposed to trifle with it every once in a long while.  Maybe toss a frisbee at picnics. Move furniture.  Things like that.

Ah, well. We can't all be exercise people.  I mean, if we want to maintain the percentages which "statistic has laid down for our guidance", some of us have to be sedentary.  It's just the way things are.
(Melancholy, and obviously fake sigh, as if I am sorry to see a life of physical fitness jogging away from me.)

P.S.  That is the lake behind our bestie family's house.  It isn't green like that right now, but I put it on here to give you an idea what sort of post this could have been if it hadn't been for some fat dog.  I mean, I can just hear the poetic words of the could-have-been post in my head.  What a pity.