Two-thirds of a century old

 It's scary to think about that but nothing I can do except enjoy life for as long as I can. I was reminded today that October 8 would have been John Lennon's 82nd birthday. There will be a memorial at Strawberry Fields in Central Park.  I haven't been to New York City since January 2020 so doubt if I will get there for it. 

Long time , no writing!

Wow, I didn't realize that it had been so long since I had written anything. I am still enjoying my permanent vacation which has been six months so far. I think I have abandoned my old plan to teach history classes as an adjunct at a community college. That was originally my motivation for getting a masters degree in history. I guess I don't want to have to do the preparation that I'd need to do in order to teach a course. There are also times when I think that I don't know enough about specific eras so that I could teach. But then again, I will certainly know a lot more than the students.  I am just enjoying doing things at my own pace so spending the time teaching is less appealing. It is a nice feeling telling recruiters that I have no desire to talk and unsubscribing from LinkedIn updates. I still have work dreams or at least dreams that include people I worked with: them and whether Cristiano Ronaldo is transfering from Manchester United.

Band is going well. In fact we are playing our first gig this coming Friday. Whether we will find any more in the future is questionable as 60s music has a limited audience. Most people who like it are dead or not going out to bars anymore. 

Off to practice piano! Kumbaya, here I come.

Permanent Vacation

 ...is what it feels like. It is also getting used to not having anything especially pressing to do each day. I am waking up fifteen minutes later so that I am not on the same schedule I was before. So instead I get the NY Times read before lunch, do an early afternoon run or walk and play my guitar guilt-free. I recently retweeted a post about pre-industrial societies spending a large percentage of their time doing nothing so I guess I shouldn't worry.

I still need to come to terms with the fact that physically I am starting to diminish. For example, I was able to run my three mile circuit around town at an under 9 minute mile pace. Now I am at a 10 minute-plus pace. I will attribute it to not having run at all in the early days of the pandemic when my arthritic hip was bothering me. At least I am back running pain-free. I am actually thinking that I could do another half marathon with some good training. Still my long term goal of running a Boston Marathon qualifying time will probably never be achieved. It is 4:05 for my age group and there is no longer a half marathon qualifying time.

The countdown began

 a couple years ago but now I am finished tomorrow. Plans to go to England on the company dime fell through because of the pandemic so we're going to LA instead. It should be nice and relaxing though I was hoping for warmer weather during the trip. Still 60s is better than 40s. I  haven't trashed all obsolete work-related stuff but I will have plenty of time to do that now. Now I can also spend my time practicing guitar. I have a major decision to make. Do I buy a fuzz pedal or will my overdrive pedal suffice for the music I play? Unfortunately, the audience for 60's stuff is either dying or doesn't go out to hear music anymore. Most of the musicians my age are 70s classic rockers which is of no interest to me. I was listening to glam, punk and new wave in the 70s, none of which had much traction in the US. Someone got me a Rock Snob's Dictionary several years ago and I proudly wore that badge. I have been out of touch with music scenes for so long that it probably doesn't apply to me anymore. My present band is fun but the songs they suggest are the more obvious ones. I prefer the so-called "deeper cuts."  I always felt that there were enough lesser known good songs that there wasn't a need to write your own material. My model is the Detroit Cobras who did only covers but they were intelligently selected. Sadly the lead singer died earlier this year. 

Back to running

 It took me awhile to get back to regular running. What I thought was just muscular pain turned out to be an arthritic hip. (The ravages of old age!) The main issue now is running for the entire duration of the route. I will run for a few minutes then walk for 20-30 seconds. I end up doing miles between 10 and 11 minutes which is about 2 minutes slower than 3 years ago when I was training for races. I actually think that I could do a half marathon as a run-walk though I don't know how satisfying it would be to finish in the bottom half of my age group. I did a 5K turkey trot this past Thanksgiving. My first mile was 8:57 but then I slowed down for the remainder of the race. I was in the top half which I guess wasn't too terrible.

Off ramp

which sounds ominous but it isn't. I would write "end of the road" if it was that. It's kind of slow at work so I am using the time to sort through and trash old stuff I don't need anymore. Thirty eight years is a long time as is eighteen years. Add that to my present age and I am getting up there. I am also planning to use up all of my vacation before I go.

I am finally going to play with a band. This one is British Invasion but the members seem to be at least twenty years younger than me so weren't alive when the actual invasion happened. I hope it is better than the Beatles tribute band from October which included an anti-vaxxer. My enthusiasm dropped immediately when he said he had natural antibodies. I resisted leaving but immediately put on my mask which made singing a little difficult. If it doesn't work out I will keep looking. 

Curb

I am really glad that Curb Your Enthusiasm is back for another season. I have to say that I wasn't familiar with it back when it started. I had a few co-workers who really liked it and would laugh together about the various episodes they had seen. I never subscribed to HBO back then so, in addition to missing CYE, I never saw The Sopranos and The Wire when they were first shown. I caught up with both of them eventually. But I didn't really watch all of CYE until I was unemployed for a year in 2013. It was instead of sending out resumes and polishing my LinkedIn account. It was a nice distraction and better than the profoundly depressing In the Air, which I also watched during my year long sabbatical. That was also recommended by a colleague. 

(Previewed this post and really need to update my profile.)