Life Less Ordinary

I never realized how much time I wasted on the computer until I got my new one. During the six months I had to go without, I attributed my overabundance of free time to things like not having to go to class or being unemployed (which, granted, are both viable excuses); in actuality, however, my lack-of-internet was the culprit all along.

Not being wired for a pretty substantial length of time gave me a chance to do other things -- like read. I hadn't read for fun (at least not more than a book or two) in years, and yet, I found myself checking out things from the library in double-digits and demolishing three or four good-sized novels every week. On top of that, I also watched tons of movies I'd never seen -- some good, some not-so-good -- and caught up on all the TV I'd missed while I was pretending to be a busy busy college student (well, at least the stuff I could get for free).

Now, the five minutes or so that I used to spend on the computer daily (just to check my email and such) often manages to stretch into hours. When I think back on where that time went, I can't even remember what I was doing half the time. You know how microwave minutes are always longer than regular minutes? Well, I'm pretty sure you can fit about ten internet minutes into one normal one. Don't ask how or why...that's just the way it is. I do know that I spent four hours the other day playing stupid games on Yahoo. FOUR HOURS. How does that even happen?! (I'm ashamed to say that I'm kind of addicted to the time-management/own-a-restaurant-and-serve-your-customers-the-correct-things ones, which is weird considering that I would never in a million years want to work in food service.) The fact that I somehow fall into a time-sucking vortex every time I turn the computer on means that I am so much less productive than I used to be. I'm down to one book every two weeks, if I'm lucky, and my ability to watch an entire season of something in one day? Gone. (I know that it doesn't sound like I was being super productive in the first place, but at least it felt like I was getting things done, even if those things were only polishing off season three of Rescue Me or reading a memoir in two days.)

I've decided that something needs to be done about this nonsense, so I'm going to limit my computer access for a while...I'm not sure how yet, but it's going to happen. (By the way, that four hours I spent playing games took place while I was "taking a quick break" from the job search. My brain clearly doesn't want to continue with this charade.)

Speaking of jobs, I have job-related news! I've been volunteering with a campaign since I hit the 6-months-post-graduation mark (which also coincided nicely with interviewing for the position with CC...imagine that). Anyway, the organizer (/speechwriter/volunteer coordinator/policy analyst/research fellow) was conspicuously absent from the wiki for a couple of weeks, and I was a little concerned because he usually updates daily. Having checked Google News and not finding his name in any incident reports (what? I said I was concerned), I shot him a quick email asking what was up. He responded a few days later saying that he had actually decided to transition out of the campaign and that they were looking for a new organizer (duhn-duhn-DUH). He didn't offer me the job or anything, but he said that if I was interested, he would recommend me and get me on the short list, which is better than nothing. Also, they're looking specifically for someone with event organizing experience, which I have. We'll see. This all happened towards the end of the workday on Friday, so I'm thinking no one's even going to be looking at candidates until Tuesday or Wednesday at least, but it's exciting nonetheless! I'm not getting my hopes up though...I learned my lesson after last time. The jobs itself looks pretty intense -- the only paid employee, 50+ hour work-weeks, commuting to SF pretty often, and minimal pay -- but it's actually something I could see myself doing as a career, and you can't get much better than that.

Other things: I'm trying to get out and be more social. I'll hopefully be joining a Stammtisch at some point (it's like a language club...you just go to a bar and drink and practice German with other people who are learning); I also found a group of recent grads that meet up all around the area, and they seem really cool. I'm not sure whether I can bring myself to go alone though, since they seem to all know each other already. But if I bring some friends along, there's no way I'm going to meet anyone new. Quite the conundrum.

Well, happy September! It's starting to look like Autumn here, but it certainly doesn't feel like it with massive heatwaves and such. We're having a Labor Day BBQ tomorrow to enjoy the weather while it lasts.

People Are People

For the past couple of days, I've been helping my friend, S, with a little art project. Maybe "little" is the wrong descriptor; let's try "preposterously huge and insanely difficult" instead. She's moving into her very first apartment in a couple of weeks and has been going a little crazy with the decorating ideas. The most recent one was a coffee table. But not just any old store-bought coffee table. This one was going to be custom-made, collapsible, and the tabletop was going to be a black-and-white photo collage of her and her boyfriend, D's, favorite moments. (Okay, I know all of you know who I'm talking about, but just humor me.) My description makes it sound kind of ridiculous, but it actually looked amazingly cool when we were finished with it. Anyway, helping her cut, paste, and place all the photos from their respective childhoods and beyond made me a bit nostalgic for my own past, so I paid a visit to my grandparents' garage.

Why my grandparents' garage, you ask? As it turns out, I don't actually have any baby pictures of myself. Actually, I don't have any pictures of myself before I was about nine years old. Unfortunately for me, neither do my parents. It seems that in the hustle and bustle of post-divorce changes of address, all of the boxes containing my childhood photos were lost, never to be seen again. Sad, but true. Luckily, my grandparents were ardent pack rats and saved every single photo my parents ever sent them. (Not-so-luckily, my parents were less-than-diligent about sending photos after my brothers were born, but I'll take what I can get.) So, today I made my way over to the house to see what I could dig up.

I didn't really know where to start, but after some searching, I found some of the photo albums I was looking for. Of course my brothers had a whole scrapbook, but baby me was conspicuously absent. More searching revealed a couple of "cards and letters" boxes that looked very promising, so I dug into those too. Sadly, no photos, but, elbow-deep in spider webs, I discovered something even more precious: I managed to catch a glimpse of my grandparents as real people.

They both died when I was young. Not super young, mind you, but they passed before I was old enough to consider them as anything other than "my grandparents." Digging through the correspondence they'd sent each other over the years, I realized that they were real people who were really and truly in love with one another. I know it sounds stupid -- of course my grandparents were real people -- but I honestly never even considered the fact that they had lives before they were grandparents. People tend to think of time in terms of their timeline, as in "oh, that happened before I was born" or "yeah, I think I was about 7 when that happened." Even as a student of history, I find it really hard to come to terms with the fact that people were living tens of thousands of years before I even existed. Grappling with the idea that my grandparents were living lives and experiencing things ridiculously similar to my life, 60 years later, really rocked the metaphorical boat. I read through what might possibly have been the very first letter my grandfather ever sent my grandmother: one in which he explained that he had broken off his four-year relationship to a girl he didn't love, a girl his family expected him to marry, and requested permission to take my grandma out on a date. I spent hours reading those letters. I experienced their lives as they got married; their trials and tribulations as my grandpa was drafted into the Navy during the Korean War and as he tried to comprehend the senseless violence that was occurring all around him; and the eagerness and hope that kept him going as he waited for the day when he would be discharged, so he could build his dream house and be with the woman he loved. (It sounds like one of those sappy historical dramas, right?) I even found their wedding photos and the bible that was used during the ceremony, inscribed with the phrase "May you live a long and happy life together." And they did. At least, I think they did. Like I said, I never really knew them as people, but finding all this stuff -- all these memories that had been literally just gathering dust for years -- really makes me wish that I had. You can't change the past though. For now, I'm just thankful for the fact that I have a second chance to get to know them as people and not just as my grandparents.

Also, in case you're wondering if I was successful in my original quest, I was. I did ultimately find a handful of ridiculously adorable photos of me, and since I've been told that a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm including one of my favorites.

I originally had a different photo in mind, but baby me was nakey, and I wanted to preserve at least some of my dignity.

A legitimate update later, I promise!