Community Service (for the week of Oct. 29 – Nov. 2)

To recap: I had 8 hours to make up for wasting time online last week. Let’s see how I did!

-I prepared a real meal in my kitchen. It was my mushroom curry recipe again, but I had mushrooms I needed to use before they went bad, and plus, it’s really a very tasty meal. I could probably eat it 1-2 a week. 1 hour.

-Ten minutes doing a workout video. ONLY 10? Hey, in my defense, I was it was a 10 minute toning video that focuses on different parts of the body. I chose the abs workout, and it was great. The instructor kept cheering, “you’ll have a six-pack in no time,” and I almost believe her but not really. I Netflixed the DVD like a month ago, and have only done the abs, arms and power stretch each once. I have no excuse: it’s only a 10 minute workout video, so I gotta hold onto it for another few weeks, just to get some good stretching and muscle building out of it. 10 min.

-A long walk through beautiful Central Park yesterday. It was a really nice fall day, sunny without being too warm or too cold, and the leaves on the trees are just starting to change colors. 1 hour.

-So this is sort of a funny story. I was supposed to meet my boyfriend last night. He was going to go home, change out of his suit and into jeans, and come back to my neighborhood to do the late dinner/drinks thing. He calls at 9:30 from the subway to say he’s on his way home. He calls back fifty minutes later. I say, “where are you?” And he says 214th St. I think he’s joking because that’s just the kind of thing he’d joke about. But he wasn’t kidding–he fell asleep and woke up all the way up in the Bronx! (And just so you know he started out from 42nd Street, and was supposed to get off way before 214th.)

He did this once before, the first time he ever rode the subway, so that’s why I thought he was joking. But this time he wasn’t. He had to travel up another two subway stops to the end of the 1 line, and wait in the subway car until it started its long journey back down. So I’m super worried that he’ll fall asleep again, or he’s sitting alone in a subway car and who knows what crazy person will come in–basically being super paranoid–and all the while waiting for him to call me back and let me know he made it home okay, I decide I need to do something with my time so I don’t freak myself out. (Again, in my defense, people occasionally get randomly attacked on subways here for no good reason. There’s probably an article about it once every other week.)

So I write a pitch letter to an online magazine that relates to the writers strike. And it actually turned out really well. The magazine might not choose to go with the idea, but I’m really proud of how how it came out–I think I made a well-written and compelling argument. I don’t write pitch letters very often (that’s another thing I’m definitely trying to do more of) , so out of a stressful time came a pretty good piece of writing. And happily, my boyfriend made it home safe and sound if exhausted after such a long day. I know I need to be better at focusing to get work done, but I never want this kind of focus again! 1.5 hours.

-The above lead me to do more research into full-time freelance writing, which I read up on a lot online. 1 hour.

-I wrote my first letter for The Modern Letter Project. It’s a project designed to bring back the lost art of snail mail correspondence. It’s so much fun getting something in the mail that’s not a bill or yet another credit card application, and I really miss it. I use to stay in touch with a junior high friend who moved back to Japan via snail mail, and she used to write me on the most cute (and strange) Japanese stationary. It was a small thing, but it definitely brightened up my day.

So this is a chance to recapture that experience, except I know nothing about whom I’m writing to except for his or her name and location. Which made for an interesting letter to write, choosing what to share about yourself with a stranger. I hope she enjoys reading it; I put some thought into it. And I look forward to receiving my own letter soon, and each month after that. 1 hour.

Obviously, I didn’t make up all the time wasted, so I’ll have to tack on the extra hours (4.5 ) to next week’s community service. I’ll try to make it up later this week as well as the weekend.

Hopes/predictions for next week: More freelance writing research, more 10 minute toning, and more long walks in Central Park before the leaves go away and there’s only a bunch of tree skeletons to look at.

How I wasted my time last week/Community Service (Oct. 15th – Oct. 19th)

I’ve taken a trip through my browser history to point out the highlights of time-wasting from last week. It’s a treasure trove of procrastination:

-Dear Prudence advice column.(sample problem: I like a man, he’s smart and charming and perfect for me, but he’s fat. Should I date him? My answer: A guy can lose weight, but he can’t gain a brain.)

-An interview with Deb Olin Unferth. She wrote a book that includes a story called “Deb Olin Undferth.” It’s about which places think Deb is or is not a fuckup. Really–the the first line of this story is “No one in Wyoming things that Deb Olin Unferth is a fuckup.“

-After catching the movie Dave on TBS (Kevin Kline as regular man who becomes president for a couple days), and realizing it’s a pretty good movie, I sought out “Dave” movie reviews on IMDB.com to fortify my opinion (Ebert agrees!).

-A.V. Club’s For Your Consideration, asking readers to give a second chance to pop culture bombs. (Kozmo.com? Sure, if someone revived the idea. Ben Affleck? No. Never.)

I just realized I’m doing something a bit mortifying here, revealing some of my online browsing habits. It’s not something you usually share with people, except for “here’s a link to a YouTube video, isn’t it hilarious?” But then again, no one hops on the InterWebs just to check their mail, read the New York Times, and pay bills online. We all have sites we visit, articles we read, videos we watch, that we wouldn’t exactly wanted broadcast to everyone we knew. It feels a bit embarrassing to admit to the above, but maybe it will encourage me to only read edifying and thought-provoking content…

Yeah, I’m not fooling myself either with that one.

Anyway, all in all, I think I did pretty good: nine hours wasted. Not terrible, but not a vast improvement over my first week.

My community service coincided spending the weekend with my aunt and grandmother and cousin in Boston. I learned some family secrets which will give me blackmail material years to come (although I can be blackmailed as well!), watched Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds for the first time, and ate a lot of tremendously good home cooked meals.

So I really didn’t serve any community service for the nine hours wasted, but I’m going to count the nine hours spent on the bus from NY to Boston and back again, which I finished Melissa Bank’s not-Chick Lit “The Wonder Spot,” did three crossword puzzles, and watched the New England foliage flow by the window. Sitting on a bus for hours on end while a woman natters on her cellphone in a high-pitched voice is serving hard time. And I did constructive things with my brain. I consider it all sort of even.

Hopes/predictions for the upcoming week: Do more yoga, do more cooking, do more book reading. And less online time-wasting, but that goes without saying.

How I wasted my time last week/Community Service (Oct. 8th – Oct. 12th)

So it’s Tuesday of this week now, and last week is kind of hard to remember. But what I remember most about last week is that I actually did a lot of my “community service” during the week itself.

Of course I wasted time browsing the Internet. I could give you specific ways I did so if I hadn’t erased my browser memory (Firefox was running slow so it seemed like it might be a helpful thing to do). I can’t imagine anything I read was that interesting since I have zero recollection of it now, but the good news was that I didn’t check out People.com nearly as often as I used to, and I’ve cut out E! Online altogether (the place where I used to read spoilers of shows I had never watched).

But! I actually did a couple of good things during the week, which I think mitigated all the damage done by the internet surfing:

-Researched, worked on and sent out pitches for freelance articles

-Worked on my novel

-Did yoga for the first time in about a year, and felt so inspired that I used up precious Netflix (I only get 2 at a time) to rent another yoga DVD

-Made a delicious spinach and mushroom curry for dinner (actually cooking took place in my bite-sized kitchen)

-Kept apartment tidy, never letting the dust or dishes pile up to overwhelming degrees

And then the weekend. I checked out two books from the library, but only after paying a shameful $7.50 in late fees (I had three books checked out for two months or something and never completed reading any of them). And I read most of the weekend, and also took a long walk through Central Park. I meant to get a lot of work done (like work I get paid to do), but decided to treat my weekend as an actual weekend for once.

The reading is the most important thing to me, because when a book is really good that you turn off the TV and turn up the music so you can better immerse yourself in the world, when a book makes you laugh out loud several times, you remember that most TV cannot compare to the experience of reading an excellent book. This book that I’m reading, I highly recommend: it’s by Patricia Marx, and the title goes something like “Him, Her, Him Again and The End of Him.” It chronicles of the most hilarious, damaging, lopsided romances ever. Good stuff.

Hopes/predictions for the upcoming week: To keep better tabs on how much time I spend online. I was really good about it the first week, and as you can tell, really terrible about it this week. This whole experiment is still evolving after all.

Community service (for the week of Oct. 1st – Oct. 5th)

To recap: I wasted 10 hours online last week reading various crap/fluff, and I had to get those hours of my life back doing more worthwhile stuff over the weekend.

Hours served: All 10. That’s right, I did my time!

The breakdown: I spent 5 hours at a writing group I’ve never attended before. In fact, I learned about the existence of this writing group ONE year ago, but always put off going because I felt strange meeting up with a bunch of people I didn’t know, and more importantly, thought already knew each other.

I imagined this writing group would be like that table in high school where all the cool kids sat, kids who had grown up together and always been cool together. They’d be chatting and howling with laughter, and then I’d show up with my pocket protector and nerd glasses, and stand next to them with my tray and hopeful expression, and the cool table would erupt into silence. No one would utter another word or even look in my direction until I left with my head down.

And then a spit wad would hit me in the ear as I sadly slump away, like George Michael Bluth channeling Charlie Brown (that’s supposed to be Snoopy on the doghouse by the way, if you’ve never seen Arrested Development. And if you haven’t, WHY NOT?).

Okay, so no that paranoid or dramatic. But it’s difficult to enter into an established group with its own set of entrenched dynamics. As months and months passed, I thought it would be that much harder to show up one day out of the blue. But the guy who runs the group was very encouraging and said that new members join all the time. So I (finally) went.

And it was great! It’s one of the most casual, low-key groups I’ve ever attended. What I love about the most is that one hour is spent writing. A group of people gather together with their notepads and journals and pens and laptops and just write. Afterwards, people can choose to read out loud what they just wrote, or bring something more polished to read to the group, and everyone gives feedback. The meeting ended with a jaunt to a Chinese restaurant next door, which was a great time just to chat and get to know everyone a little better.

It last for five hours total, from the time I arrived at 1:30 until I got home at 6:30 (I spent the time walking home with writing group members, so I’m counting that too). I feel great that I finally did something I kept finding excuses not to do, and it turned out to be a really fun experience. I plan to keep attending meetings (after all, they’re a good way to make up some hours I’ll no doubt waste during the week).

Four and a half hours were spent doing research for kickstarting my freelance writing career, like reading Mediabistro’s “How to Pitch” articles, making lists of ideas, how much it would cost to have my own website ($$$), looking at other writer’s websites for ideas and inspiration, and Googling my uncle.

To explain that last part: I have a great-uncle who passed away in 2000. He was a talented veena player and very well-known in Europe, having played with both classical Indian and Western artists. He died too young, and I have always felt, for many reasons, that his life would make for a fascinating story, and that he deserves to be better known. I only met him a handful of times, the last time when he was very ill. I didn’t know him very well, but his legacy within my family–and his untimely loss–is still deeply felt to this day. I felt like if I found a way to tell his story, I could learn more about him too.

So anyway, I discovered some incredible things about him thanks to the magic of Google, and I’m really excited about the prospect of turning this idea into reality. I hope to have more updates about this later.

That last half-hour was spent walking 30 blocks to meet a friend for dinner. And taking a walk in beautiful weather is very worthwhile indeed, especially if a nice meal and good company is the destination.

Hopes/predictions for the upcoming week: To not read People.com anymore. Or at least not as much. So hopefully no surprise weddings or Britney drama goes down over the next few days…