The List

I’m not one to talk about sex or sexuality.  There are too many people with opinions, all too willing to tell other people with their own opinions that they bang in the wrong way.  Seems a bit too pot-kettle-black to me.  So, like assholes, I keep mine to myself. 

Figure out the metaphor there.

But last month was one for the books for me.  All Bucket List-like.  I want to talk about it, so forgive me if I jump right in without more of a preamble.

I’m assuming that, like the aforementioned Bucket List, Your Five is a well-known concept.  Everyone I know has a list.  Except for my parents.  And if they do have a list, I don’t want to know anything about it.  But for those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, perhaps you know it by some other name.  The idea is this:

You have a list of five people.  These are the top five people that, given the nigh impossible opportunity, you’d have a relationship with—most of the time of a physical nature.  There are no penalties, no drawbacks.  Your spouse can’t complain.  He’s/She’s on your list. 

Now you know what I’m talking about.

It’s an escape from your day-to-day doldrums.  Throughout your life, those five names might change; they may not.  Others are close to the top five, but can never quite make it on the list.  It’s a fantasy that we all can relate to, though I can’t seem to appreciate my wife’s obsession with Hugh Jackman. 

Maybe it’s because I look more like this.

I, just like every other person—wait, I’ve covered that—have my own list.  And over the past few weeks, I’ve actually seen two of those fine women.

The first was just over two weeks ago.  On September 13^th, my wife and I attended a burlesque show at the House of Blues in Chicago featuring the wonderful Dita von Teese.  On the list?  Yes.  Oh God, yes!  There was this one dance with an oversized martini glass and . . .  

Anyway, it was a wonderful show.  We stood right next to the stage—at times actively leaning on it—and watched everything in its beauty.  That was the glorious thing about the show—beyond seeing Ms. Teese.  It was a celebration of sexuality, free of judgment.  The whole thing was classy, beautiful, raunchy, and something I’d do again in an instant.  I came home deaf and hoarse.  That’s my most resounding endorsement. 

I want you to notice that I carefully chose one with her clothes on.

While Dita von Teese was important to me, she wasn’t the best, sad to say.  I met number one.  Numero Uno.  The lady at the top.   Last weekend, K and I traveled down to Cincinnati to visit my sister and attend the Cincinnati Comic Expo.  It was a fun little convention, but my draw happened to be one Jewel Staite.  She’s been on several well-known science fiction shows, including Stargate Atlantis and Firefly.  I started watching her at the tender age of “younger-than-I-can-remember-my-actual-age” on a show called Space Cases that aired on Nickelodeon in 1996.  If you’re so inclined, you can watch at least some of the hilariously bad episodes on YouTube.  Jewel Staite was the one with the rainbow hair.  In all honesty, I’ve been following her career long enough that both my sister and my wife refer to her as my girlfriend. 

I’ve accepted this.

It was a big moment for me.  I was all nerves.  She was kind and beautiful.  Afterward was a different story.  I fanboyed out with much hand flapping and hyperventilating.  That caused more than a few laughs, but it was worth it.  And a picture. She took a picture with me.  It’s the wallpaper on my phone.  Tee-hee.

I MET JEWEL FUCKING STAITE!!!!

What’s this have to do with anything?  Probably a whole lot of nothing.  I know that these events may seem small to you, but to me they were the highlight of the year thus far.  Sure, I could give more details, but those I’d like to keep to myself.  It was a couple personal moments for me.  I was so excited.  It’s like meeting an idol.  Or something like that.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat.  And each of you, given the opportunity, should take the chance.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  

Time: The Great Clock That Rules Us All

Time.

It's unique. I cannot think of anything so fundamental, yet fleeting, as it is. Time can never be reconstructed.  With infinite control and perfect knowledge, everything else can be rebuilt. Your first car can be saved from decaying into rust. Bring back every burned piece of paper. That perfect moonlit night of your first kiss. But time? Once used, it's gone.

Why bring this up? Because I'm running out of it.

Sure, in some metaphysical sense, we are all running out of time. Death waits for no man and all that mumbo jumbo. But that's not what I'm getting at. Rather, I have goals and deadlines to meet, yet my worst enemy—procrastination—sneaks up on me and takes hold.

Not fun.

That, I suppose, is why we budget our time, hording it like Scrooge McDuck. But for me, it goes beyond that. I always seem to be running, never quite at a standstill.  My body may be stuck in one place, but my mind never shuts down. Ever. I’m always thinking about something or doing something, all because it needs to be done.

I'm not saying that I'm the only one in this predicament.  In fact, I tend to think that most of us are. And that's a shame. But it's also part of being an adult. I look at my life and often wonder where my time went.   Where’s the time to be myself and relax and be a husband and be an individual? It disappears faster than we ever realize.

Now, I’m not complaining—not much, anyhow.   This is something we all have to deal with.  For right now, though, it has come as a startling slap in the face.  It all stems from my work on my novels.  First and foremost, I am sending off my novel—The Red Dress—to my editor in August (Thanks Susan!).  But before I do that, I have a little more work I want to get done on it.  The usual stuff—tweaking lines, deepening character development, description, description, description—but even though it may be simple-ish, it still takes time. 

The second reason is simpler.  On my new novel, I really thought I’d be further along than I am.  Oh, there are reasons for that.  Mainly, it’s that I can reliably write about 500 words a day, but often lack the time and energy to do more.  It’s hard to write when you are—literally—falling asleep at the keyboard.

Time surrounds our lives, dictates our activities, and either provides opportunities or shuts them down.  We find time for those things that are important to us, which is why I spend time with my wife, I spend time writing, and spend time working—so I can afford to spend time writing and with my wife.  Our obsession with it really should be no surprise.  

Perhaps that is why almost every science fiction show I’ve ever watched deals with it in some way.  Strike that.  Every show deals with it, though it’s most obvious in sci-fi—with all their talk of time travel and paradoxes and polarity reversals—to such an extent that it is expected and almost always horribly done (If you don’t get that, watch a season of Star Trek.  The solution always seems to be reversing the polarity.  Sci-fi tropes will be another post some day . . . when I find time to write it.).If you know anything about time travel theory, a bad soap opera is often preferable. 

But sci-fi isn’t the only genre with a heavy emphasis on time, just the most obvious.  Imagine, if you will, a serial killer on a spree, and the cops and their writer friend have to stop him before he kills again (Castle).  Or how about the looming wedding that one character is having second thoughts about (How I Met Your Mother)?  Traveling to space for the first time and coming back to Earth to find that your friends have moved on while you’re out playing astronaut (The Big Bang Theory). 

The entire plot of 24.

The list goes on.  And I can go on.  Toss in movies, books, video games, sports.  Hell, just about everything in our lives, entertainment or otherwise, centers itself around time.  All of it to prove just one thing.

Don’t squander it.

It’s a maxim we heard how many times growing up?  Thousands?  Millions?  And we don’t stop hearing it.  Always do your best with what you have.  Learn as much as you can and always give your best effort with the time you have.  It almost makes you want to toss it all away and do whatever you please.  But we know we can’t.  Ignoring bills won’t make them go away.  All it does is get our gas shut off.

So we are going to keep minding it.  Keep following every tick of the clock and relishing those moments.  To do otherwise is to die.  Literally. So, as much as I hate to do it, I will buckle down and get back to work.  That novel won’t write itself.  And I can’t expect my editor to do all the work for me.  If that was the case, then she’d be the author, and I’d be the bum on the street, people watching.

Who am I kidding?  I am that bum on the street people watching.  But I just call it research for my next book.