Time is the Master

Tick, tick, cuckoo, tick, beep, tick, tick, tick

 

And then the guitar kicks in. Pink Floyd certainly knew what they were talking about when they wrote this song. Of course, they were probably on LSD and time was not moving at the paces we are used to. But, as I sit here listening to Time and trying to write my first post in a week the words seem appropriate.

 

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today”

 

The week since my last post has just flown by me. I worked a hellish day before hopping in my car and driving the four hours or so back to my place in Northern Virginia. I then spent the next two days working from home before leaving town again. After working through a weekend and spending two out of ten or so nights in my own bed I became totally disoriented. Making matters even worse was my not so successful apartment hunting over the weekend in Manhattan. It was probably a bad idea to wait until the last minute to find a place during the busiest time of year in the busiest real estate market in the country. This has made my previous second guessings even harder to ignore.

 

“And then one day you find ten years have got behind”

 

Sometimes it seems that I am just coasting in neutral through my own life. Days fly by and nothing significant seems to happen. I know I am not the only one who wonders why there doesn’t seem to be more than this. But, I really want to know what I can do about it. Since, we can’t stop time; we must be able to at the very least control how we spend it. And that is where I find myself a bit blocked on what to do with myself next. Sure, I keep myself entertained easily, I read a lot and play video games and watch TV and ultimately enjoy my life but whenever I get to thinking about a song like this one I feel that my pursuits are balanced too heavily toward the frivolous and less towards the important. Now, I just need to find some worthwhile pursuits to pair with my many less important ones so that I won’t look back on any of this with regret.

 

“Every year is getting shorter; never seem to find the time”

On Second Thought

At first glance that picture probably makes no sense at all. Bare with me and it will make plenty of sense in no time. You see, I am one of those people who can really over think just about any situation. I will go over things in my mind time and time again constantly going back and forth on one decision or another. Even decisions I have made in the past I will usually question in the aftermath. One that comes to mind often these days was the summer before my final semester in college. Due to a car accident the previous fall I was 12 credits from graduation. I was offered a job at a sleep away camp in New York and I took the job. Still, literally right up until I got into my car and began my driving up to NY I was having doubts. Shouldn’t I complete my degree over the summer instead of waiting until fall? That is the responsible thing to do after all and I like to do the responsible thing when possible. Anyway, I made it to camp, had an amazing summer and then a fairly stressful but enjoyable final fall.

With that little moment of nostalgia out of the way I will further explain that odd little picture at the top. Recently, I had made a decision to move out of Virginia, something that I have been attempting basically since I got here anyway. A few months back that decision was to move to NY and for quite a good amount of time I was very happy with that decision. Then one day out of the blue I began having these longings for a move to Florida. At the same time as my indecisiveness grew work became extremely hectic and my next project became unsure, making my move more complicated than before. So, during a rather boring and long meeting I began doodling that little list to compare my 3 current options and the ranking them as I saw them. As you can see I am quite an artist, but even with the help of my lovely little drawings and ranking system I am no closer to making a real decision with only a month to go. So, do I follow the example of my summer camp decision and stick with my first choice or do I give value to my little spreadsheet and make the most responsible choice?

Shacking up

When I was in college, must have been sophomore year, one of my roommates had a girlfriend who spent so many nights at our place she affectionately became known as just Shaq. To this day I can not remember which roommate she was dating nor what her real name was. However, what I am getting at here is less about the girl than it is about the roommates. As someone on the wrong side of 25 I am starting to desire my own place, not that having roommates for the past 8 years or so has been a bad experience, but I would like to enjoy my own space for a little bit. And as I get older I am beginning to wonder if that will ever happen. The only time I can remember having my own space was one semester in college that I had my own room in the fraternity house. So now I see two paths I could take.

 

On one path I could continue doing what I have been doing, going from roommate to roommate and on the other I could find my own place for a little while. The thing is to afford my own place I would be limited in where I could actually live. So, if I continue with my plans to move to New York then I ultimately have no choice but continue with the roommates. Or, I can declare my independence, move to Florida and live alone for once. And if that is the path I should choose I won’t have to worry about who my roommates are dating or what their names really are, I can just remember that Shaq plays for the Miami Heat and that is the end of the story.

Living for the city

“If we don’t change the world will soon be over… Living just enough, just enough for the city!”

I’m burnt, my legs are killing me and Stevie Wonder is still ringing in my ears. The weekend could not have gone any better. And all it took was a bus ride and good friends. Of course once I got into NY my cab driver picked a fight with someone immediately which was hilarious and since he got me to my destination quickly I really didn’t mind the shouting. From that point on everything went well. I grabbed dinner and sake bombs with college friends before heading out to a few bars. While the bars were forgettable we still had a good time and bumped into familiar faces. Apparently the exchange between FL and NY goes both ways. Friday night ended pretty early though as most of us were tired from long days, so by 230 I was out cold. Saturday would be a different story altogether.

I woke up Saturday morning around 10 and began getting ready for what turned into a really long day. After a shower and a bagel my friend Jess and I headed out for Central Park. This is where I got the sun burn, the day was a bit chilly but very bright. We spent a while sitting around eating sandwiches, listening to music and watching the games going on around us. Eventually we decided to go look for a few other friends who were playing softball at another area of the park, an area that I totally misheard the location of and led to us walking almost the entire place in search of the fields. We did find the game and watched most of it before the weather started to cool down and forced us to head back home. Around 7 Jess and I went separate ways and I was on my way to meet Greav in Brooklyn.

The scene we encountered on Saturday night was much different than Friday. Brooklyn has a completely different vibe than Manhattan, maybe even an entirely different culture. After a beer at Greav’s apartment we hit the road. As we walked to the subway our conversations, as they always do, floated from one random topic to the next while I expressed my distrust of the umbrella. Yes, those umbrellas, I just don’t like them. Of course after we got off at our stop and realized it was now pouring, Greav certainly felt I was too harsh on the umbrella and that this was my fault. So, with no protection from the rain we darted from awning to awning, then bar to bar on our way to the Stevie Wonder tribute party. Again, the bars were non-memorable places where the drinks and the conversation were the story until we hit the party. We finally came in out of the rain too a packed, two story warehouse.  The music was great and the crowd was intense, the energy was contagious and after a while even I was dancing and singing along. The party kept going til 5 but we left a little after 3. The next day as I woke up and got ready to catch my bus back home I couldn’t help thinking how great it felt to be completely exhausted after a great weekend.