Day 313. Time Machine: New Year, The Meaning of Life, and Lunching for Professionals

My goal is to keep these entries shorter—for your sanity mainly, but also so that I truly will sit down and write them.  I was unsuccessful at the shortness today. Trouble is, I have so much to say.  It’s hard to limit myself.

I have been lost in my Time Machine, Apple’s external drive that acts my wireless network as well as my backup drive.  I’m trying to put my iTunes music on it so that I can listen to my music on Sonos without waking up my laptop computer.  Easier said than done.  Never mind if this is all meaningless to you. I just am searching for spots on my backup disc for my music to live, but there’s no room at the inn, so to speak.

So I have to travel back in time on the Time Machine (I visit a backup from 11:03 p.m. December 3, 2009 to delete, for example, music files, which are very large, thinking I’ll make lots of room; then I travel to February 16, 2010 8:57 a.m. to delete all the photos and movies, also space grabbers).  The process travels at the speed of a snail. I do, truly feel as though I am sucked backward into a time machine.

There’s even a timeline running up the right margin of the screen, a visual representation of time going backward, to remind me of just how far back in time I can go.  I am lost in this timeline.  It goes all the way to December 2009, January 2010, February 2010, months I just zapped completely from memory. These are months when I had so many more days left to live.

I did it without thinking at all.

That’s the tricky thing about this countdown.  The clock keeps ticking and you forget all about it.  Of course, the relative silence is a good thing.  If I heard the ticking all the time, I would go crazy. Crazier, I mean.  But sometimes, I want to remember the ticking, so that I remember my life.

Harrison, Greg, and Aiden

There are moments I want engraved on the Time Machine, like New Year’s Eve 2011 (or is it 2012?  I never know how that works).  Greg and the boys, my nephews, were here, and we had a party.  Aiden (7) had asked me on Christmas, “What is this New Year’s thing?  I mean, how does it work?”  So, we showed him, with a whole spread of treats (we bought the grocery store out of all the junky treats they chose) and watched movies, and played a fun game.  They told about what they wanted to add to their personalities in 2012 and leave behind in 2011–so thoughtfully.  And Harrison (14) was so cool, even to his brother, and Aiden got to stay up past midnight (more like 1:30!).  So I want that day written in Sharpie on my Time Machine.

I want to remember my brother Jacob coming over in the middle of the afternoon one day this

Jacob–This is how he always looks. Just kidding!

week, out of the blue, to watch his favorite movie, and mine, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, both of us cackling like little girls (sorry JJ, but it was true!) and saying all the lines, singing all the songs.  Like:

So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.

Then he told me all about what he wants to do with his life, like getting a PhD in biology and teaching at a Community College or University because he loves research.  How amazingly flattering, for one, to think that I might have influenced him a tiny atom of a bit, but so cool for him, most importantly.  That’s worth engraving on the Time Machine.

Finally, Melanie came over the other day for lunch, and we ate some lousy soup I made (I will surely erase the soup), but then we sat on the couches for the whole afternoon just talking about life and everything.  She is so smart.  I feel like a combination gal pal and her co-parent with Carlos (gee whiz, Carlos, but our little Mel is growing up!!).  She also gave me some compelling advice on my book; now, if only I would take it and start writing again (she was the one who pointed out this great connection between my angst over my Time Machine and my book).  That day with Miss Sassy McSasserson (you know her as Melanie) is one I want etched in memory as well.

Melanie McSasserson

These are days I don’t want to fade away, you see.  It sometimes feels like the good days will fade away just as easily as the bad.

Do you have days you want to engrave in your Time Machine/Capsule? What do you do to keep them in memory?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Windows

Heidi in front of the "Seinfeld" exterior shot diner.

In Happier Times

I used to go to NYC a lot.  The City makes me happy all the time I am there.  My heart just pounds to the beat of the subways underground as I walk on the grates that cover them.  All the time I am there, I admire the architecture: a window, gargoyle, duck pond, or just a doorway.  I think the architecture, from the largest building, to the tiniest flourishes, keeps visual time for the rest of the world, since it serves as backdrop for so much of the popular culture.  So many of the shows seen on television and the movies are set in NYC.  Why does my heart pound in the city?  Why are the tourists so amazed by it?  By its beauty of course, but also because the city itself is a star.  It is the star of stage and screen, and we all know it from the shows.

While I was doing my dissertation, Margie took me all over the city, made sure I got all the right pictures to capture “New York City-ness” to write about.  This picture above was the quintessential Seinfeld place, the diner exterior shot. (I was writing about the sense of place in Seinfeld.)  These windows are recognizable by hundreds of millions of people internationally.  What better windows to use to enter the Weekly Blog Photo Challenge (a good way to start the first week of a blog, n’est-ce pas?).

Margie and I talked about my moving to New York, where she lives.  It seemed like such a no-brainer. Why not move to a place that makes you so happy?

When walking became so difficult and my fatigue became overwhelming, it was hard to explain, but even to travel to New York for an overnight visit began to look more like Mt. Everest or Kilimanjaro, beautiful to admire from a distance, but absurd to climb.  I am not giving up on it, though.

Greg (my brother) and I were looking at mobility scooters last night by email.  He suggests I get a megaphone so that I can yell at people to get the hell out of my way. I’m starting not to think this is such a bad idea.  Sharan suggests that I get two so that I could have a motorcade.  Even better!  I can picture myself in some sort of diva wear with a Swarovski crystal encrusted scooter, with those little handlebars with streamers.  Perhaps a boa (although I’m not fond of the feathers).  A mental picture has formed, I hope, one that develops an image of pure fabulousness, like none you have ever known on a scooter.  That’s what I will do.  A window from my rigor against doing this, to the crystal encrusted fabulousness.  We can have all kinds of windows.

New York, at least a visit, could be in my future.

Well, hell, at least a long walk around a museum could be.  Do you have any idea how much fun that sounds like?

372 days…tick..tick…tick…. (It is still, always hard to overlook that).