Does it seem funny that, at this point, Daylight Savings is completely taken care of for most of us? My phone adjusts automatically - as do all phones. My computer magically knows the same, the cable box too. The only clock in my life that I have to adjust is the one in my car - which is 18 years old and by industry standards a dinosaur (that I'd have no other way, to be clear). It seems on the verge of being an outdated standard, to my mind - the hour ahead and back has never so much affected how I wake up, and since it changes on a Sunday, most of us just find that we've woken up a little later than normal. Without all the hustle and bustle of changing clocks, what good is Daylight Savings anyway?
Something of note - I am so incredibly productive on weekends when I don't work. If I have Friday and Saturday off, I'm going to get so much done and feel so much better about myself. It's not just spring break that did it, either: there's just a really comforting availability of about 15 daylight hours that is not normally there. For the first time in a while, I feel caught up, even ahead, and as if I can make it through the next couple of weeks of classes with some amount of aplomb.
Today I've had the fun of doing things I wouldn't normally have time and energy to do, too. I've made some French bread loaves for later, given the dog a bath, gotten good feedback on my editing project, gone grocery shopping, and experimented with Brian's fabulous camera and gorgeous lenses. Now if only I can think of summer as being an extended vacation (yes, which it is) and not a breeding ground for my craziness, I could have days like these all the time.
3.13.2011
3.08.2011
Theory Creeping Into My Daily Life
Memories taint everything they touch. The second a memory is formed, be assured that wherever, whenever, whatever it associates with will never - quite - be the same. Brian Rotman's book "Becoming Beside Ourselves" discusses the "ghosted user" projected by every medium, and I'm starting to think that memory is the same. When I walked down the street with my best friend a few weeks ago, taking her to the last birthday party she would have in Columbia, there are a couple of things that stick out to me: my arm in hers, the sound of our boots on the sidewalk, the guys repaving the Bank of America parking lot. And I think that, at least for a little while, every time I walk by that parking lot and wander down that street, a little part of me will snap back to that awesome night.
Do you know what I mean, though? Every time you form a memory, that moment becomes indelible. As if it's not actually the memory so much as the fact that you are in the act of forming one - it's the process, not the product - and this re-perception of memory (versus the "remembering" process that may in fact be false) is triggered more by the fact that it was created in the first place. Mojitos don't taste the same anywhere but New York City. That Senate Street apartment will always give me a rush of memories of waiting and hoping for Brian. The sight of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" will always feel like a moving train for me. Negative memories are the same way, but the less said about those the better. But then again, can any memory actually escape the potential for wistfulness, and thus can any memory truly be happy?
I swing between being terrified that it's so short and being proud that it's so long - I'm onto ten pages of my thesis. Now before you start getting worried, that's ten pages of densely packed information on single-space type. There's so much to elongate and elaborate on, so I'm not so worried about length anymore. And if I add more - about sound, a little more about memory, and some quotes from this blog - I think I'm nearing a decent length for a senior thesis. And the information, dear heavens, is coming close to the point where I lose the ability to keep track of it. I don't know how people can write books. Twenty pages of information is nearly too much for me.
Do you know what I mean, though? Every time you form a memory, that moment becomes indelible. As if it's not actually the memory so much as the fact that you are in the act of forming one - it's the process, not the product - and this re-perception of memory (versus the "remembering" process that may in fact be false) is triggered more by the fact that it was created in the first place. Mojitos don't taste the same anywhere but New York City. That Senate Street apartment will always give me a rush of memories of waiting and hoping for Brian. The sight of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" will always feel like a moving train for me. Negative memories are the same way, but the less said about those the better. But then again, can any memory actually escape the potential for wistfulness, and thus can any memory truly be happy?
I swing between being terrified that it's so short and being proud that it's so long - I'm onto ten pages of my thesis. Now before you start getting worried, that's ten pages of densely packed information on single-space type. There's so much to elongate and elaborate on, so I'm not so worried about length anymore. And if I add more - about sound, a little more about memory, and some quotes from this blog - I think I'm nearing a decent length for a senior thesis. And the information, dear heavens, is coming close to the point where I lose the ability to keep track of it. I don't know how people can write books. Twenty pages of information is nearly too much for me.
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