Where does time go? Tick. Tock.
I guess this is going to be like one of those letters people write and send out around the holidays to let folks know what someone's been up to for the last year. That's sadly what this blog has become.
I'm to lazy to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in this space before that since I've gone back to school to get my PhD I don't do much reading or writing for leisure -- it's always work, work, work. That's not to say that I don't enjoy some of the stuff I write, but I just don't have the time.
Time, time, time (see what's become of me...)
I must be at that age where time means way more to me than it should. In oh so many ways.
People at school are always commenting that I must never sleep, or that they just can't comprehend how I'm handling school and Jobsite at the same time. Truth is, I've practically got every minute of the day scheduled. That's how. I get up earlier than when I had a day job. I work through most weekends. But that's ok, it gives me this balance I need of being able to finish school and not take a leave from Jobsite.
That said, having my time micromanaged to the extent it usually is makes me enjoy things like winter, spring or summer break like a motherfucker. I told my buddy Chris (who just finished his first semester of his MA and is also involved in Jobsite) that he'd enjoy the month of December in a way he never has before. He laughed at the time, but brought those words back up to me as he left campus on Thursday and said I was right.
So, I find it funny that on my first true day off for winter break that I'm sitting here writing. I guess maybe I'm just too trained to get up and write.
I'm already thinking ahead in time-bites: in February I will help develop my questions for my qualifying exams that I will take in March, in April I should be a doctoral candidate, in May the next show I direct goes up (RACE) and I will also begin writing my dissertation, in July I get back on stage for the first time in way too long (Closetland), in August if it can be worked out I would love to go on a vacation with Summer before what is hopefully my final year at USF.
Looking back on 2011, there is a lot to feel good about. 2009 sucked balls and 2010 wasn't a whole lot better.
We lost our beautiful baby girl Mina to bone cancer, but we also brought Gigi into our home, and while no one is ever a "replacement" she's made our house brighter for being in it.
I hit a goal weight I didn't even think was possible after I hit 60 lbs shaved off in about 18 months. It's been a few months now that I haven't been dieting and I'm happy to report I'm keeping it off. I've never in my adult life had a waist size that was equal to my inseam (34). At one point I wore an XXL t-shirt, and now I'm buying M or L, depending. I have pretty much always been big. Always. It was part of my identity on so many levels. I'm still sorting out who this guy in this body is, or if this is just a transitional body and I'm going to either try to lose more weight or reshape myself somehow through exercise. I dunno yet, so I'm just waiting for that aha! moment to come.
I presented at my first conference (NCA) and am starting to send things out for publication. It's never too early to try to get that academic resume built, and I feel like I'm late to this party so am trying to make up for lost time. The piece was about my dad's last year. About our fucked up relationship, well, to be more accurate our fucked up communication habits. I've never written anything like that, much less performed something that personal. I've got mixed feelings about it. I stand by the strength of the work, but part of me still can't help feeling like that kind of work is just therapeutic wank. But, maybe I'm just not giving it enough credit -- there's something universal, galvanizing about how we deal with loss.
Summer and I went to Prague in August, which was amazing. Such a good time. We stayed in one place for a week, so we felt like we got to really know the city in a more relaxed manner than my normal Griswaldian Vini Vidi Vici way of touring a new country. I hope that we are able to continue doing these trips if not every year, every other year. I love travel. I love seeing new places. I love my world. I come back from trips like that more connected, less jaded. We can be a nasty race of germs sometimes, and I need things like that to remind me we can be pretty damn ok sometimes, too.
A few years ago, it seemed that everyone we knew was getting married and having kids. This year is a second round of that. It must be cyclical. I think about kids sometimes, not like in some yearning pining way, but in maybe a weird way. I think about getting old and then start asking myself if I really think I'll be able to fend for myself when I get up there in years. I know some people relate that (getting old) to the idea of children -- they will be those who carry on after us, or that see us through our elder years as we see them through their infancies. I saw a very old adorable couple in New Orleans at the Gumbo Shop. I really think they had to be at least mid-80s. Frail but still glimmering. They were dressed up (she in pearls and floral print, he in a jacket and bow-tie) and having dinner. I was remarking at their table manners, how properly yet effortlessly they were behaving at dinner and then I went on to make up a story about them. No idea if it's true, and I have no real reason to believe any of it is, but it comforted me as I sat there with my wife -- a good 50 years separating our tables.
The story I made up is that they're retired with no children and no real living relatives to speak of. They see the world together, and sit across from one another like that as often as they can, as in love as they day they met. He in his bow-tie and she in her pearls.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I know who's story I want that to be. I can't help but smile ear to ear though when I think of that couple. Reminds me of Archibald Macleish:
They have only to look at each other to laugh--
no one knows why, not even they:
something back in the lives they've lived,
something they both remember but no words can say.
Don't go reading anything into that last bit as getting an itch for a baby. It's just something I think people are bound to think about. It's a natural thing. As much as I might worry about what happens when I get old, I counter that with the life I have now, and the life I want in my immediate future, which is not at all conducive to raising a child without having the dough to have an au pair or something. My works are my children, so are my students to a degree, and my critters.
If we do subconsciously take care of little people in the hopes that one day we will be taken care of, I put my faith in my very non-traditional, non-blood family.
So I'll let this blog post be my transition from the year to this month of respite before I do it all over again. I look forward to taking care of my house, relaxing, thinking, dreaming, working with my hands, trying to let my mind go quiet.
Keeping my fingers crossed about you, 2012. Do us all a solid, will ya?
I'm to lazy to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in this space before that since I've gone back to school to get my PhD I don't do much reading or writing for leisure -- it's always work, work, work. That's not to say that I don't enjoy some of the stuff I write, but I just don't have the time.
Time, time, time (see what's become of me...)
I must be at that age where time means way more to me than it should. In oh so many ways.
People at school are always commenting that I must never sleep, or that they just can't comprehend how I'm handling school and Jobsite at the same time. Truth is, I've practically got every minute of the day scheduled. That's how. I get up earlier than when I had a day job. I work through most weekends. But that's ok, it gives me this balance I need of being able to finish school and not take a leave from Jobsite.
That said, having my time micromanaged to the extent it usually is makes me enjoy things like winter, spring or summer break like a motherfucker. I told my buddy Chris (who just finished his first semester of his MA and is also involved in Jobsite) that he'd enjoy the month of December in a way he never has before. He laughed at the time, but brought those words back up to me as he left campus on Thursday and said I was right.
So, I find it funny that on my first true day off for winter break that I'm sitting here writing. I guess maybe I'm just too trained to get up and write.
I'm already thinking ahead in time-bites: in February I will help develop my questions for my qualifying exams that I will take in March, in April I should be a doctoral candidate, in May the next show I direct goes up (RACE) and I will also begin writing my dissertation, in July I get back on stage for the first time in way too long (Closetland), in August if it can be worked out I would love to go on a vacation with Summer before what is hopefully my final year at USF.
Looking back on 2011, there is a lot to feel good about. 2009 sucked balls and 2010 wasn't a whole lot better.
We lost our beautiful baby girl Mina to bone cancer, but we also brought Gigi into our home, and while no one is ever a "replacement" she's made our house brighter for being in it.
I hit a goal weight I didn't even think was possible after I hit 60 lbs shaved off in about 18 months. It's been a few months now that I haven't been dieting and I'm happy to report I'm keeping it off. I've never in my adult life had a waist size that was equal to my inseam (34). At one point I wore an XXL t-shirt, and now I'm buying M or L, depending. I have pretty much always been big. Always. It was part of my identity on so many levels. I'm still sorting out who this guy in this body is, or if this is just a transitional body and I'm going to either try to lose more weight or reshape myself somehow through exercise. I dunno yet, so I'm just waiting for that aha! moment to come.
I presented at my first conference (NCA) and am starting to send things out for publication. It's never too early to try to get that academic resume built, and I feel like I'm late to this party so am trying to make up for lost time. The piece was about my dad's last year. About our fucked up relationship, well, to be more accurate our fucked up communication habits. I've never written anything like that, much less performed something that personal. I've got mixed feelings about it. I stand by the strength of the work, but part of me still can't help feeling like that kind of work is just therapeutic wank. But, maybe I'm just not giving it enough credit -- there's something universal, galvanizing about how we deal with loss.
Summer and I went to Prague in August, which was amazing. Such a good time. We stayed in one place for a week, so we felt like we got to really know the city in a more relaxed manner than my normal Griswaldian Vini Vidi Vici way of touring a new country. I hope that we are able to continue doing these trips if not every year, every other year. I love travel. I love seeing new places. I love my world. I come back from trips like that more connected, less jaded. We can be a nasty race of germs sometimes, and I need things like that to remind me we can be pretty damn ok sometimes, too.
A few years ago, it seemed that everyone we knew was getting married and having kids. This year is a second round of that. It must be cyclical. I think about kids sometimes, not like in some yearning pining way, but in maybe a weird way. I think about getting old and then start asking myself if I really think I'll be able to fend for myself when I get up there in years. I know some people relate that (getting old) to the idea of children -- they will be those who carry on after us, or that see us through our elder years as we see them through their infancies. I saw a very old adorable couple in New Orleans at the Gumbo Shop. I really think they had to be at least mid-80s. Frail but still glimmering. They were dressed up (she in pearls and floral print, he in a jacket and bow-tie) and having dinner. I was remarking at their table manners, how properly yet effortlessly they were behaving at dinner and then I went on to make up a story about them. No idea if it's true, and I have no real reason to believe any of it is, but it comforted me as I sat there with my wife -- a good 50 years separating our tables.
The story I made up is that they're retired with no children and no real living relatives to speak of. They see the world together, and sit across from one another like that as often as they can, as in love as they day they met. He in his bow-tie and she in her pearls.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I know who's story I want that to be. I can't help but smile ear to ear though when I think of that couple. Reminds me of Archibald Macleish:
They have only to look at each other to laugh--
no one knows why, not even they:
something back in the lives they've lived,
something they both remember but no words can say.
Don't go reading anything into that last bit as getting an itch for a baby. It's just something I think people are bound to think about. It's a natural thing. As much as I might worry about what happens when I get old, I counter that with the life I have now, and the life I want in my immediate future, which is not at all conducive to raising a child without having the dough to have an au pair or something. My works are my children, so are my students to a degree, and my critters.
If we do subconsciously take care of little people in the hopes that one day we will be taken care of, I put my faith in my very non-traditional, non-blood family.
So I'll let this blog post be my transition from the year to this month of respite before I do it all over again. I look forward to taking care of my house, relaxing, thinking, dreaming, working with my hands, trying to let my mind go quiet.
Keeping my fingers crossed about you, 2012. Do us all a solid, will ya?
posted by David Jenkins at
1:58 PM
1 Comments:
I'm crossing my fingers with you for 2012. When I saw you a few weeks ago I hardly recognized you. I almost commented on it, but then I was afraid you might be sick or something and then I'd be a jerk. You look wonderful and I bet you feel pretty good too.
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