Time isn't on my side

So when the tornadoes hit on Friday night, at least one of them came within about three miles of where I live.
In the 28 years I spent living in the Midwest, I don’t recall a time that a tornado ever came any closer than ten miles, if that.
There was that time when I lived in Minnesota when they thought a tornado was going to hit, and they set off the sirens to warn us, but it fizzled out.
In any case, all that time in the Midwest without a tornado, then I nearly get hit by one on the east coast. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me...
Among the lingering after effects of the tornado, I noted on my way to work Saturday morning that several of the traffic lights were out.
At 4:30 in the morning that’s not much of an issue, but, as restoring power to the lights is, apparently, a tricky proposition, some of the lights were still out that evening when I was on my way home.
It was at that time that I came to the conclusion that you simply cannot direct traffic without looking like a total jackass.
I’ve noticed that before when, under similar circumstances, I’ve had the opportunity to observe members of the local law enforcement engaging in that task.
Granted, it’s a valuable, important, and absolutely necessary service, but no matter who you are, you just look like an idiot out there waving your arms and point.
What makes it worse are the expressions on the faces of some of the boys in blue as they wave traffic along, particularly the ones who have this look of smug, self-importance, or the ones who wear a face of total and complete concentration.
You can almost hear the thought process: “Must-maintain-focus. Can’t-ungrit-teeth. Must-narrow-eyes-and-look-constipated.”
But whatever. I extend my heartfelt thanks to the cops who stand out there looking like jackasses on our behalf, making life or death decisions about who should go next so we don’t have to. God bless you for putting your lives on the line for us.
(Seriously, I’ve got nothing against the police.)
So the new television season is upon us, which means that I’ll be losing some of my precious time.
Fortunately, it’ll be less time than last year, as I have no interest in most of the new shows, and some of the shows I used to watch are gone.
I find myself left only with the three “Law & Order” shows (with a fourth on the way in January), “The Simpsons,” which won’t be likely to premiere until late October/early November, and “Smallville.”
Tonight will be the first of the L&O series, SVU. Tomorrow I’ll find myself tied up for all three hours of prime time, watching “Smallville” and the two-part premiere of “Law & Order.”
So, in total, that will be three nights of TV viewing, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Despite the fact that I have a tremendous amount of free time, I always resent any loss of time, even if it is time that I’ll spend doing something I enjoy (like watching a TV show I like).
My resentment really makes no sense, not only in the context of how much time I really do have (especially since I sleep a maximum of six hours a night during the week), but with the realization that I really don’t do anything with my time.
Most of my time is actually spent wasting it. In any given day, there’s very little time that’s spent actually accomplishing something. For every hour I spend drawing, or writing, there are two or three hours spent just idly surfing the Web, sifting through files on my hard drive, or just staring off into space.
So why is my time so precious to me?
I guess it’s because I have this firmly held belief that, despite all evidence to the contrary, if I just had ENOUGH time I could accomplish amazing things.
Hey, I know it’s silly, but it’s a belief that was born out of going to school, working almost full-time, and trying to squeeze in time to be a husband. Back then I used to have ideas, and ambition. I just didn’t have time.
Once circumstances changed, though, the ideas and ambition faded, and I was left with nothing other than time on my hands.
Still, the belief persisted. If I had all the time in the world, maybe then…
Again, I know it’s silly, but there are plenty of sillier beliefs out there, many of which a lot of YOU probably hold dear.
On the topic of my free time, I had entered into my weekend thinking that all of it would be devoted to playing Doom 3, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
Sunday night I attempted to install the game, only to have it crap out at the very end, claiming that it couldn’t read from the second CD, even though it had just spent several minutes doing exactly that.
I spent about an hour trying and retrying, only to finally take the CD out and discover that there was a huge scratch in it, most likely at exactly the spot the computer had been trying to read from in order to finalize the installation.
I did manage to install a copy of Halo. I’ve spent some time playing that, but it just hasn’t managed to draw me in the way I’m sure Doom 3 would have (and will, eventually, once I get an unscratched copy).
I’ve heard that Halo is more fun played in multiplayer mode. Even though, as always, it’s still just me here, via the Internet, playing with others is a possibility.
Not a likelihood, though.
I’m just not that good a player (The fact that I don’t enjoy video games could stem from my not being very good at them, or it could be the other way around; I can’t say for sure), so I wouldn’t do well in competition, and wouldn’t be much help in cooperative play.
The end result is that I have a little more time than anticipated this week. I’ve made a little bit of use of it, producing a few drawings.
Not exactly the world-changing accomplishments I once thought myself capable of, but at least it’s something.