Friday, February 17, 2006

Monkeys with typewriters

What I would do if I had infinite time, aka what I would do if I won the Powerball, aka stuff that I would like to be doing in the near future but may not have time to do because how on earth do I fit all this stuff in?

1. Get the hell in shape.
I'm trying to ease myself in a little bit by taking the bus to Irving Park instead of right to Cornelia and walking back from there most days. Add even the most direct bus route in the morning and that gets me about two miles of walking a day, which is hardly a ton but is at least something. When the weather gets a little nicer (and it starts staying light later), I'll try and turn that into longer walks, which could then hopefully turn into running. I just don't see myself pulling off dieting, but there comes a point where you can eat nearly anything if you're running enough. Anyway, this one takes precedence over the others and as far as I'm concerned will happen over the next few months and beyond.

2. Take the guitar back up.
When I stopped playing the guitar after sophomore year of college, I didn't really feel anything pulling me back to it for a long time. But recently I've had this odd itch to start writing songs again, as though I was ever much of a "songwriter," and you can't really do that unless you play music. I'd probably get an acoustic this time. But what would I do? Would I try to be serious about it and take actual lessons? Would I get some book and try and teach myself? (I seem to recall that my uncle taught himself the guitar, and he was pretty bad-ass at it in his day.) Would I make a half-hearted attempt at caring about actual learning, and then just give up and write a bunch of four-chorders? (Put your hands down.) One of the bigger regrets of my life at this point is not seriously playing (or ever having seriously played) an instrument, and it's pretty much now or never to change that, I think.

3. Learn Tagalog.
Or, for that matter, any other language besides English. Tagalog is the best candidate because I already have the book/CDs for it and because I actually know people fluent in it, and it is pretty hard to get good at a language without having conversations; books only take you so far in this area. But again, this requires time that I don't necessarily have a lot of, especially if I come home from work, walk/run several miles, and then dick around on the guitar for two hours. Maybe I could try and make the language a weekend thing - it would be like having a regular class, and it would be easier to commit to something like that a "let's try and do this every day" scenario.

Making this interactive, what are some things you'd like to do if you had more free time?

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