January 5th, 2010
New month’s resolution
So I couldn’t come up with any new year’s resolutions. That makes me sad, because I love new year’s resolutions. Hooray for opportunities to improve–I have lots of ways I need to improve! In past years, I have made 10 little resolutions to work on throughout the year, with a midyear review on my birthday (in case I decide some resolutions are stupid and decide to junk them).
But this year I can’t think of anything I want to work on all year. In truth, that’s often what’s wrong with me–some resolutions get “resolved” early in the year because they are specific (ie., last year I resolved to learn one word in Japanese a week until I went there, and I did, and then I went there, and that was that) and others drag on because they are too open-ended (become braver was the other resolution–wtf was I thinking?? how?? and how will I know if I have??)
Even if they are good specific-but-long-term plans, by the time I get to the end of the year both my world and myself are usually completely different and I no longer want to do the thing I resolved to do. I think a large part of my problem with life, actually, is that I don’t realize that everything changes all the time.
So this year I have resolved to resolve a new thing for each month. If it works, great, that can be part of my lifestyle, and I’ll resolve something new for the next month. If it sucks, oh well, I’ll junk it and have something new for the next month. I guess I could also renew a resolution for a second month if need be, but Penelope Trunk says it only takes three weeks to make a new habit, and I’m giving myself an extra week for cushion.
My January resolution is to start writing in the mornings, at least a little bit. Tonnes of writers swear by this habit, but I’ve always been a little brain-dead in the morning. I’m totally a morning person, I’m happy to get up and do things and even chat with you (very few people want to chat with me early in the morning, it turns out), but I don’t feel I come up with great insight before 9am very often.
So what I usually do with my early mornings is go to the gym, but this winter I have been feeling that if I have to leave the house at 5:45 and walk in slush and cold and blackness to the gym every morning, I might die. Serious, this is a creaky old person sensation, and it’s not good.
Thus I’ve been going to the gym in the evenings, which cuts into my writing time, so the logical thing would be…there you go. I tried it this morning–it was a little disorganized and not my best work by far but it’s a try. Three weeks less a day to go!
Happy new year!
RR
July 16th, 2008
On nostalgia
For my birthday, my friend Shannon gave me Listography, a workbook compiled by Lisa Nola so you can make up an autobiography in lists, cued by prompts in the book (or on the website. Obviously, fun for those of us who like lists, and possibly a little OCD for those who do not. I’m ok with that, and appreciate Shannon’s endorsement of my fetish.
Still, not every list is magic–the one I made of every address I’ve ever had was depressing, mainly because I can’t remember the apartment number of a place I live in seven years ago, which is frustrating for my obsession. I probably can’t remember every toy and game I ever played with, either, but that toy-and-game list *is* magic, because there are plenty of them I *do* remember, and those toys are far enough in the past that I feel a pleasant burst of oh-I-remember thinking of them, whereas I still have most of the same furniture from the apartment of no-particular-number.
Oh, kid nostalgia! It’s been making the rounds lately, must be seeing all the water-fights in the park. Kerry and I were pleased to find we both desired a Power Wheel and never got one. I was mentioning to a less-astute friend that I still think Power Wheels are cool, and he said, “Uh, don’t you have a driver’s license now?” As if that makes it any better! Driving acar is totally not the point.
Nevertheless, my parents weren’t stupid–they knew that kids that could make an afternoon out of playing with a toad and drinking from the hose (my friend Nancy reminded me of that long-lost glee!) didn’t need to drive around the backyard. I don’t mean to paint my youth as quite the countryside idyll of Laura Ingalls or anything–we were as obsessed with Nintendo as any kids anywhere, we just also had the toads and the fields and spring run-off, etc.
And then eventually, you get into high-school and either start trying to be cool or actually are, and either way there’s a lot less time to waste on playing–what are toys and games but ways to occupy people who don’t have anything else to do.
I wrote a story once about hanging on to kid games when you’re in high school, about not feeling up to growing up–it’s called Grade Nine Flight. I always forget about that one, because it was written ages ago, though it later appeared on The Danforth Review, that wonderful online journal of (mainly) the short story. Someone reminded me of it recently, because it’s the only actual story that comes up when you google me (TDR archives all their stuff). She read it wanting to know what my work is like, and there’s a kind of double-nostalgia here, because that story is in a very different vein than my work these days. I’m not only nostalgic for childhood, I’m nostalgic for three years ago.
I’ll go back to that sort of story one of these days, I’m sure. On Monday night, in High Park, I saw a toad.
When Johnny saw the numbers he lied
RR
August 22nd, 2007
Nostalgia for Now
Here I sit at the library info desk, watching bright-faced new students of every age and stripe try to find the student card office. I sit behind a sign with directions on it, but they still like to ask me personally. When I point at the sign they announce: “I’ve never been in this building before. I’m a *new student*,” as if no one had every gotten an acceptance letter before. This is technically quite annoying, but I try to remember that they are *excited*, that for most students this is not a quick administrative errand but the kick-off to a major life change, symbolically their passport to independence, academic or personal or whatever, and certainly very exciting. I felt that way when I came to get *my card, 26 or so months ago. The actual picture on the card is of a very grim Rebecca (my friend John once commented on the pic: “You look like you just got out of juvie!”) but in fact I was as exuberant as any of the 18-year-olds who float past me today. I can’t explain that picture. It was a great day.
And now I’m at the other end of the experience, three days away from letting my university job, gym membership, library privileges and life lapse. I’ll be moving on to other exciting things, natch, but now I’m hanging around winding down at my old job while the whole rest of the university community kicks into high gear. I can’t go hang out at my new office in an attempt to wind *up* to the new stuff, because I don’t have the free time (I said almost this exact sentence to someone I don’t know well, who looked at me *extremely* oddly at this point) and because that’d be a weird thing to do. I’m just going to have to go in semi-blind Monday morning, newborn yet again.
In the midst of all this woebegone schoolgirlishness, I tried to go shopping for some grownup office clothes. I didn’t *need* to, since I have plenty of grownup office clothes from the last time we did this. I just like clothes, and thought also it might help with morale.
But you know what’s in style for ladies this fall?
Pinafores.
I have enough trouble feeling age-of-majority without dressing like an elderly waif. I’m going to try again, but I’m not feeling too optimistic about my wardrobing options for fall. Throwbacks to 2005, here I come.
And speaking of 2005…remember the last time I freaked out in August? Next post from my old diary!
Seein’ her reflection in the knife
RR
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