JulieFrick and the Terrible Timesuck

I've been thinking a lot about time lately, what with the irony of planning each day's outings around a nap that's over before it's begun, the frequent nighttime up-and-down to the bathroom and the alarm clock's relentless digital stare, and all those to-do-before-Fricklet items written in heavy black Sharpie in my Book of Lists.  Thinking about all the time already spent in my life that I wish I could go back and gather up and use now.  Such as:

*  Time I spent in grade school watching the television show "Saved by the Bell," which would likely net me enough time to finish both the Biscuit's baby book AND my wedding/honeymoon album, both languishing, both losing content each day as memories are sloughed from my brain.

*  Time I wasted worrying about whether my college boyfriend was cheating on me.  He was.  And if you add up all four and a half years I stuck it out, I could scrape and paint our house, install carpet in the basement, and fix that pesky leak in the playroom.  Ratbastard.

*  Time frittered away trying to please my high school field hockey and soccer coach, who was really, when you get down to it, a bitch on wheels.  Oh, Marsha.  You may have cost me a novel.

But then there's all this time you'd think I'd want back, that really I don't.  Like:

*  The hour or so I spent lying on my bed while my dad, with tweezers and a knife, worked the Mother of All Splinters out of my heel when I was about 7 years old.  There was pain, there was fear (a knife!), but weirdly, it's one of my most vivid memories of my dad's love and care for me as a child.

*  The utterly terrifying overnight train trip from Nice to Rome that I took with my sister.  We were in a sleeping compartment that turned into a makeshift Panic Room when the train stopped in some tiny Italian town and picked up a wolfpack of drunken soccer fans who tried all frickin' night to bust into our compartment.  I had to A-Team the door closed with some of the straps from our luggage, as there was no lock.  We were lucky, and now it's just a good story, featuring me as B.A. Baracus.

* Hours upon hours pacing, patting, pleading, and sacking out in weird and uncomfortable positions over the last three years as we helped the Biscuit learn that most essential of lessons- how to sleep.  I've been cramped, resentful, and frustrated to tears, but I've already reached the point of thinking I'd give a finger for one more night of knowing him as a newborn. 

Oh, and then there's this little number.  Given my feelings about Harry Potter, which category do you think this falls into?  I knit this in-the-round monster for our school's auction to benefit financial aid,  and it took me over a year.  However, I can congratulate myself on perfect timing for the delivery and cross this one off of the UFO list. 

(I loved this article, by the way.  Check it out here.  I absolutely envy how the writer's 10 year-old daughter was the one to finally say, "Do we have to keep reading this?"  If I'd had her moxie in early life, I'd be a published author with gorgeous memory books and a tip-top house by now.  Sigh.  No go read some Philip Pullman or Susanna Clarke, stat!  I promise you won't regret the time it takes.)

Comments

[Allegra]

Just read His Dark Materials trilogy, and boy do I wish there was more - I'd gladly give it as much time as I could.

[Adam]

Man, I wish I could those Saved by the Bell hours back too...what a time suck! Especially the College Years show...God that one was awful!

And while I don't share your dislike of Harry Potter, I am reading the His Dark Materials trilogy right now, and it's some of the best fiction I've read in years. And Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is next on my reading list.

I do feel your pain over the scarf though, that's dedication to stick with something that long for charity knitting!

[Stella]

Thank you for this post. I've been spending a lot of time on frustrating but totally non-regrettable pursuits lately, and it's good to remember that they are just that.

I'm about halfway there with you on Harry Potter. For all their many flaws, I love those books and will probably find myself at Powell's at some point on Saturday. I also just don't think you can blame the decline in literacy and readership so squarely on Harry as that article's author would like.

But I agree in general that the monomaniacal focus on this one series is seriously unmerited, and in specific that His Dark Materials is far, far superior. I also just started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell last week and am already very smitten.

[connie]

Thanks for that great link. I do read the Harry Potter books, but I see them as the literary version of Full House - a guilty, frothy pleasure.

But I totally hear you on bemoaning time wasted. If I were to tally everything up - ugh! And that's not even counting the 6 1/2 years I spent in grad school!

[Haley]

as always, an entertaining and heartful post. thanks! will add your suggestions to my list of books to check out at the library. hope you're currently spending your time in a way that makes you happy.

[Heather]

What a great post. I might have to copy it, if you don't mind.

[Christy / Not Hip]

I had read the article when I saw your picture on Flickr. (Although, I am jealous of your print copy of the Wash Post. Definitely one thing that I miss be able to get.) I found it interesting, as I have been thinking lately about how few novels I read now. Although, I have to blame mine on knitting. Since I took it up, my reading hobby has seriously declined. I am Potter fan (At least of the first four, I kind of slogged through the last two). However, I have never read His Dark Materials. In fact, I had never heard of it until recently. (Growing up in a conservative religious school, I'm pretty sure it was hidden until recently.) It will have to be next on my list.

[Heather]

I share your lack of enthusiasm for the Potter phenom.

I cannot believe how much time I've wasted worrying about ridiculous situations, like in high school when I thought I was fat because I weighed 121 and if I could only get down to 114...pathetic!

[Ashley]

now look, you know (or I hope you know) I love His Dark Materials & Jonathan Strange 87000 times more than Harry Potter, but this might be an interesting counterpoint to the article you've linked (it's a PDF): www.thecommonreview.org/fileadmin/template/tcr/pdf/berube61.pdf

Made me more sympathetic to the whole Potter phenomenon, and to Michael Berube, with whom I have Issues.

[Ashley]

Oh, crap, the whole link didn't come through. Here it is:
www.thecommonreview.org/
fileadmin/template/tcr/
pdf/berube61.pdf

[Kelly]

Another vote for Phillip Pullman here.

The scarf may be hiding the baby belly - but the belly is hiding - Septimus Heap?

And the book the Post author closes with - Peter Behrens' Law of Dreams - is stunning.

(I miss the Post, too. Reading it on line isn't the same.)

[Lisa]

I just put your two recommendations on reserve at the library. I'm game for any book that comes so highly recommended.

I enjoyed the article's perspective, though I don't think HP can be totally to blame for a literacy decline.

I am looking forward to HP, but not like I would have been before I started to knit.... :)

[Ava]

His Dark Materials is sitting upstairs on the dining room table. I had to buy the 3-in-1 as the younger twin loves the book so much and won't relinquish her copies for me to read. The older twin has read the whole Harry Potter series over and over and over again to the point where it drives me insane (and I really enjoyed it).

I have to admit that I admire the commitment for knitting that scarf. Wow! I might have cried during the first repeat.

[Daphne]

things that happen with one's sister are permanently in the "good" column for some weird reason, even when a great number of them are terrifically frightening. well. the answer may be in that sentence.

xo

[reluctantmango]

I've been meaning to read His Dark Materials - thanks for the nudge!

What a lovely baby bump! I'm at that awkward 'too big for regular clothes, not yet large enough for maternity' stage... though I'm sure it won't last long!

[Mandy]

Or, Julie Frick and The Cutest Belly on Earth.

[Jill]

OMG, you said, B.A. Baracus - HA! That is so funny, I used to have crush on 'Face!' (am I a dork or what?!)

Seriously though, how scary with the drunken soccer players! Yikes

Thanks for this post!
Jill

P.S. Yes! Perfect timing on the scarf - looks great and it will be a big hit for sure!

P.P.S. Your baby lump looks so cute! You look great and I hope you are doing great too!

[joy]

jonathan strange & mr. norrell? yes, please. i don't really even like sci-fi/fantasy, and loved this book...

[Kim]

I have a similar vivd memory of my Dad from when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. A cut on my thumb got infected and I remember being in the bathroom wiht my Dad, soaking my thumb in a sinkful of hot salted water and my Dad squeezing the pus out of my thumb. It hurt like a mutha! But it's a story I tell my son when I'm pulling out a splinter or cleaning a scraped knee. It never fails to distract him from his own pain.

[Rachael]

Oh Jonathan Strange...I think I actually developed a crush on that man when I read that book. It was so good, I was so sad when it was over. I hope she writes more.

[Elspeth]

It's funny that I love the HP series as much as I do, since really, they are sort of ridiculous. But the strange thing is, one of my fondest memories of living in Egypt is getting the last book- all of us lonely expats huddled around a precious and preciously expensive book. English! God, we were just so hungry for our own language. Nice scarf!

[nova]

Saved by the Bell, the horror. I want those hours back too. Particularly the ones having to do with summer vacation...I think the Fricklet likes the scarf.

[Patty]

Thanks for the great post. I myself have begun a summer of motivation after a couple of years of sucking time. My son (16) read each Harry 1-5 twice. As he approached his teens he put the books down and kept his reading to sports and magazines. I've fretted, bought #6,had plans to buy #7 - but so what if he doesn't read them? He's begun to pick up the interest again, through assigned school reading he's discovered Boo and Scout and thought they were great (very surprising to himself)and found Holden Caulfield as uninteresting as I did. He just completed a non-fiction work A Long Way Gone, which his entire school will read and said it was great. There is hope and it can be without Harry!

[tiennie]

I especially want back the time I wasted worrying about my high school body - a body I wish I still had! This is also exactly why I will never play video games again. I can look up and then there's the hour gone.

[Cathi]

I've thought about that a bit, and wonder if my children are having those same moments- time wasted. But then again, I read someone talking about how they always need to feel productive (like if I'm watching a movie/tv, I have to be knitting), and I feel like that can be as oppressing as the regret of wasted time.

I liked the article- thanks for sharing the link- and I read a bit in our local paper about the loss of book reviews and such that was the hot topic at Book Expo this year. Although I feel it's hard to deny, I can't think of a single friend of mine (ok, I just inadvertantly lied, I guess there is one) that reads the paper, aside from me. And although some do read novels, I feel like the correllation is close- if you're not reading the paper, are you reading novels? I kind of doubt it. That statistic about 70% of the books being written by 5 people was just frightening, though.