110/60

I had a friend Daliah in high school who told me one day that she planned on having a triple major in college. She had always been ambitious, but this time I was just like - there's no way. I couldn't fathom that, though admittedly at that point I had only seen college pretty much from the movies and all the folklore around the common-day fireside gatherings known as the kitchen/dining room combo complete with smallish tv for family dining entertainment. But it seemed tough to me, outside of the Belushi keggers and Porky's parties...

How do you have time to go to class, do homework, study for mid-terms and finals, participate in extra-curriculars and maintain any semblance of a social life?
That's probably the quintessential thought every teenager in America thinks at some point while cursing the nature of how things are in the world. Fast-forward ten or so years later and then you have bills, rent/mortgage, health insurance letters every two weeks - the list goes on.

But people find ways.
I run into people who have such a busy career and then it turns out that they are also the head of some organization that you'd think by all the time required for their volunteer post would in itself be a full-time commitment. There's a lady at my office who works full-time with us and in talking to her I found out that she has a second job - not waiting tables or baby-sitting - but as an inventory manager at a grocery store. She wakes up three mornings each week to be at work at 4am for four hours before she commutes to our office. How?

In my case I'm fortunate enough not to have car payments or car insurance since, well, I don't have an automobile...nor do I have loans of any sort...but I do have shit that fills the air with so much to do in life. And I'm no executive flying Lear jets to make appointments in LA at 3 so I can catch the 5 o'clock flight to Shanghai. Yet. Taking one class - albeit a test prep course - is still a huge demand on my time and difficult to squeeze in with all the homework and the like.

Sometimes I look at my calendar and start jotting down girls' names to fill up the next week's schedule. A date each night is a fun thing. Mixes it up. You meet new people, have a good time, go out drinking every night. No downside. But then you can't neglect your friends and you want to hang out with your family and the new dog. And it's nice to see the same friend more than once a month...
And summer in Chicago is so explosive with the amount of things to do and concerts to go to and street festivals to attend and revel at/in/there (I'm supposed to know the correct idiom since I'm studying for the GMAT, forgive me).
Then you begin to lose yourself...

Now I need to concentrate on two things. G & G. No, not gundeons and gragons. Gym & GMAT. (Just for a slight un-necessary clarification: I was never, nor will ever be, one who participates in any Dungeons & Dragons game or similar kind of thing...While that is a solid, undoubted truth, I am noticing that though I need to concentrate on the G&G combo, this narrative is somehow sneaking a place into the craziness of the void that I am trying to null.)
Hopefully this G&G duo will be dynamic enough that they recycle each other. Meaning that after the gym I'll be fresh enough to study and in turn after studying I'll need a break to go to the gym. Sounds like it'll work. But so does nuclear fusion and I'm really not quite sure why we don't have ridiculously cheap power since I know they can make fusion happen. I'll let it slide for now - but remind me that I want to talk about energy matters another day. I'm sure I'll forget otherwise.

Taking all the stuff I have going on with my life (remember, I'm not the Lear jet flying exec and thus not assuming my load is any more difficult that anyone else's) there must be a point of reckoning. Where does it end? Where does it begin? I don't really know the answers to those questions. All I do know is that I keep accepting new things to add to my calendar whether that thing is a concert or a family engagement or something totally different. With all of the clutter in one's life, it becomes necessary to look beyond what is going on and sort out the necessary from all else. Of course concerts are fun and hell yeah I love to go to them. But I can't choose every concert every day. Then Mon - Weds is full and I still have more things to accomplish for the rest of the week.

It got to be so crazy that at some point in college or shortly thereafter I would create a word document I called 'Calendar of Events Because I Can't Remember Anything Anymore.' It was, and still is to the present day, a great way for me to organize my days and weeks on an easy-to-access piece of paper that is specially tailored to print seven columns for the days of the week and however many rows (weeks) that can fit on one side of an 81/2 x 11 inch piece of paper. It even prints with space on the bottom margin on which I can take notes on books/movies/wines I want to check out...My parents got me a nice Palm Pilot for my college graduation. I politely returned it and have been content with the bi-monthly print-outs. Sure my friends joke about it as something quirky I do. But man does it help! It's such a great reference tool.

I have great blood pressure, so says my md. But I think he would recommend a break from everything in life if he saw all of my wants piling on - you need to detox and save time for yourself. Rest, go to the park, don't over-commit. If it were money, I'd be doing well. These activities and things that I want to do are sort of compounding in the same way that money in a bank does. They add up pretty fast, give a pleasurable return, but end up being pretty taxing. If for nothing else, I need to sign up for a new account plan to ensure my sanity remains a healthy constant for my age and that the color of my hair remains the rich brown that I have always wanted girls to compliment me on.