even though spring is finally, well, springing, my little home is quite chilly. It has to do with being a concrete block basement without insulation, and it has to do with only three days in a row over 60 degrees so far. On these chilly nights, as do most people, I tend to spend a bit too much time online. There are a number of sites I check daily {Persephone Magazine, cupcakes and cashmere, Fuck Yeah, Boston Terriers!, Smitten Kitchen, Bourbon and Pearls, and Tea & Cookies}, alongside the ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, but one site in particular allows me to waste time like no other.
xkcd. I keep hitting random again and again and again. You hit random, then again, then suddenly two hours have passed. Usually the comics are funny, even for me who is a nerd but not really of the computer/advanced math & science variety.
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oh, damn. Sorry. I just spent 36 minutes hitting random. Where was I? Yes: time wasting on chilly nights. While hitting random ages ago {actual ages and not faux internet ones} I came across a particular comic that hits home for so many of us between 21 and 35, or even 45. Somehow, a generation or two has become confused about how exactly they became grown-ups. The traditional markers of those who have graduated high school or college, have gotten a job with health benefits and a pension, gotten married, had a couple of kids, bought a house, etc. have changed.
We're taking longer to complete schooling. Jobs are often scarce, and ones with pensions nonexistent. Marriage remains unattainable for a large percentage of the population, and those of us for whom marriage is a legal option are putting it off for longer. Houses are available, but only if someone is willing to add to their mountain of student loan debt. More and more people see starting a company as a way to make a living, even if for many of them it means moving back in with parents or keeping roommates well beyond college. The definition of being a grown-up has changed, expanded, come to mean that being a grown-up merely means being allowed to make one's own choices.
It means that we're allowed to turn an entire apartment into a ball pit. or go paint-balling on a Sunday afternoon. or make our own pillow forts on a chilly night. I'm not saying that we get to shirk whatever responsibilities we have chosen for ourselves, but, damn, if a pillow fort doesn't make those responsibilities easier to bare and complete.
I've set a deadline for my Westylvania project novel: a rough draft of about fifty Word document pages to hand over to the Book Club Ladies at our next Book Club {The Hound of the Baskervilles} on May 4. Pepper and a comfortable fort of pillows and couch cushions make research and forcing words out of my mind rather a lot easier.
While one isn't required to gather matching implements {I suggest not: half the fun is the haphazard mess of your extra duvet, every throw pillow in the house, plus the guest bedroom bed pillows} do attempt to make them coherent. Your surprise guest is going to ask to play in your pillow fort. That sort of playing is way more fun the grown-up way.
"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor
xkcd. I keep hitting random again and again and again. You hit random, then again, then suddenly two hours have passed. Usually the comics are funny, even for me who is a nerd but not really of the computer/advanced math & science variety.
...
...
oh, damn. Sorry. I just spent 36 minutes hitting random. Where was I? Yes: time wasting on chilly nights. While hitting random ages ago {actual ages and not faux internet ones} I came across a particular comic that hits home for so many of us between 21 and 35, or even 45. Somehow, a generation or two has become confused about how exactly they became grown-ups. The traditional markers of those who have graduated high school or college, have gotten a job with health benefits and a pension, gotten married, had a couple of kids, bought a house, etc. have changed.
We're taking longer to complete schooling. Jobs are often scarce, and ones with pensions nonexistent. Marriage remains unattainable for a large percentage of the population, and those of us for whom marriage is a legal option are putting it off for longer. Houses are available, but only if someone is willing to add to their mountain of student loan debt. More and more people see starting a company as a way to make a living, even if for many of them it means moving back in with parents or keeping roommates well beyond college. The definition of being a grown-up has changed, expanded, come to mean that being a grown-up merely means being allowed to make one's own choices.
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| "grownups" at xkcd.com |
It means that we're allowed to turn an entire apartment into a ball pit. or go paint-balling on a Sunday afternoon. or make our own pillow forts on a chilly night. I'm not saying that we get to shirk whatever responsibilities we have chosen for ourselves, but, damn, if a pillow fort doesn't make those responsibilities easier to bare and complete.
I've set a deadline for my Westylvania project novel: a rough draft of about fifty Word document pages to hand over to the Book Club Ladies at our next Book Club {The Hound of the Baskervilles} on May 4. Pepper and a comfortable fort of pillows and couch cushions make research and forcing words out of my mind rather a lot easier.
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| Pepper does his best to get me started. |
"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor
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