Yes, I have to wish a happy Picnic Day to the residents of Australia. Hey, that’s what my calendar says it is. If you ever needed an excuse to move to Australia, there it is. How can you hate a country that has an official holiday labeled Picnic Day?
Saw what is either the most frightening or the funniest thing ever at work today. See, in our parking garages we have dedicated spaces for expectant mothers. No complaints there. Well, other than those spaces used to be for visitor parking and I used to take advantage of those when I still had Illinois plates on my car but I’m not going to complain about using the spots for expectant mothers. Coming back from running errands over lunch and I turn into the garage to see that our campus security had placed a Denver boot on a car parked in the expectant mother spot. Yes, if you illegally park on campus, we will lock your wheels to make sure that you can’t leave. On one hand, this is the funniest thing in the world. Finally, some revenge on people who park where they shouldn’t. On the other hand, what does it mean when you can drive to work in the morning and have a Denver boot placed on your car by your own company? That just seems a little extreme for my taste.
Ok, for those of you who didn’t check out the link on the comment on yesterday’s post please check it out now. Otherwise, what follows isn’t going to make a lick of sense. That was one of the most interesting things that I’ve read in a long time. Sadly, I read something like that and think, “Wow, I should do that.” Maybe not chronicle every single aspect of my life in a spreadsheet but you have to say that it has its merits.
There is some uber geekiness to it. Ranking every day on a five point scale is odd. Cataloging every single person you talk to on a day to day basis is strange. Getting into an argument with your girlfriend over not spending enough quality time together and providing a mathematical model that 75% of the time you spend together is quality time is a guarantee that you will never have a girlfriend for as long as you live. But keeping track somewhere of what one fact you learned that day along with a picture from that day sounds really cool. It’s a scrapbook for your life in that effect. Admittedly, you can tell that this guy is an artist. If someone like me tried to do all of this we would be viewed as so obsessive people would have drug companies sending me free samplers.
I do chronicle a fair share of my life already. My CD collection is in a spreadsheet with artist, title, genre and whether I’ve seen the band live noted. I’ve also been keeping track of every concert I’ve been to since 2004. I have listed (in the same notebook) every book that I’ve read since 1998. Utilizing the back cover of a copy of the Cliff Notes of The Catcher in the Rye I have kept track of every book that I’ve read that has Cliff Notes for them since high school. And I’ve been keeping a writer’s journal since 1998, which has since evolved into the blog. Is this geeky? Of course it is. But I have a very good reason for doing so.
There is something special about being able to flip back through a few pages of a notebook and remember what you were reading back in 1999. Or see how your tastes have changed. Plus, our memories our pretty faulty on the surface but there is a great deal of recall if you provide a clue to the story. Here’s my example. A few weeks back I posted a story about this girl from Australia I met named Alison. Until I reread that story, I had no memory of her emailing me after we both got back from Ireland. But once I read it I remembered how cool that was that someone would say hi from the other side of the world. That might have happened seven years ago but it still put a smile on my face. That’s why I write the stories, you see. So that they will be remembered.
No, I’m not going to convert my life to spreadsheet format. But I’m going to continue to chronicle it. Because while other people may not find it interesting, it certainly makes my day more complete. (Though for the record, today was about a 3.2.)
2 comments:
Though it could be my faulty memory, I could have sworn that you already had this idea. Moreover, I'm pretty sure that the "spreadsheet modeling of relationships" idea was a direct result of a flower shop discussion. It was of course dismissed as too geeky and as you pointed out, the minute you use Excel to model relationships you guarantee yourself of not having a relationship. But, kudos to this guy, he actually did it...yet I wonder if he can use Excel to predict the winner of Survivor...that's the $100,000 question.
This is a response to your 'Nightmare Season' post. I too have been having nightmares as of late, and they also place me back in college.
Last week I had a nightmare that I was in the middle of a long and difficult road trip for tennis and I didn't get a chance to turn in a really important paper before I left that was now long overdue. Worrying about this affected my concentration on the court and I got my ass kicked over and over again.
Last night, I dreamt I was a 2nd-semester senior in the middle of final exams, and I had not studied any for like a 300-level physics exam later that day. Then I find out I have an exam in the morning too (about an hour from then) in a blow-off class titled something like the Literary Importance of Comic Books that I had not attended all semester and had not read the textbook (yes, in my dream there was a textbook about comic books) assuming it would be an easy 'A.' So I was in a panic then I stepped outside of the dream somehow, realized that I already graduated (a few times), so why did I care so much about taking exams? The dream at that point switched to the Backer, except for instead of the Backer building, it was some second floor patio carpeted with astroturf. For some reason there was a buffet out, but all of the meat items (wings, meatballs, etc) were gone and all that was left was like a salad with no dressing, ketchup packets, and some butter pats.
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