TIMES HAVE CHANGED!
Tonight, while working on a DIY project, I received a silly meme from a friend. The meme made me roll my eyes, but the message made me chuckle. I texted him...
Me: You're sending me memes, and I'm recaulking the kitchen sink. What a wild Friday night!
Jason: Remember when we used to go out?
Me: Remember when we were fun?
Jason: Ya...that was hard.
It didn't seem hard when we did it. But now, the thought of going out after work on Friday night kind of makes me want to cry. Even being social on a Saturday takes some effort.
I remember when Mr BC would say how boring we were as we got in our 30's. We go out a lot more now in retirement. tho not on Friday nites,
ReplyDeleteWhat do they say...we work to have the things we want and the things we want to do, but after work we're too tired to enjoy them. That's how I feel. My mom and her retired friends are so busy, but on their terms. I look forward to that.
DeleteThis is, of course, just tongue-in-cheek as I'm not a hermit. There are some weeks though that spending the weekend as a hermit sounds grand. And that probably stems from interacting with gobs of people each day. Some weekends I just don't want to talk to anyone. :)
I can SO relate to most of these sayings! I like to just think my priorities have changed. ;)
ReplyDeleteSomeday! Although I'm not looking forward to retirement age...just retirement! :)
DeleteYou see I wonder about this.
ReplyDeleteI was never able to go to the pub like others for beyond a small amount of beer I'd feel sick so evening would end rather quickly for me. Plus there was always an uneasy feeling that I now realize was the beginnings of shock. Mind you it took me another 20 years before I simply decided 'why', I don't even really like the stuff.
I liked going out for a meal. But why have we the convention of a espresso at 10:30 at night. And after a while you find instead of enjoying yourself you parse the meal and usually end up deciding you could do better.
Clubbing was a fricking nightmare. Swapping spit with some chick on the side of a room that 100 years earlier was used to build coffins. Now being rocked to it's foundations with a fake base duff-duff-duff--duffduff.
It was never great.
The truth is, this is and WAS you. You at 18 would truly have preferred to be home re-grouting the shower. But society has it that your proper place is out being chased/chasing in conditions designed to blunt thought.
I'm not saying going out is wrong, just the version sold for the last 50 years. Nor am I saying a monastic lifestyle, in fact the opposite. Just more fun and productive.
I can't say that the dancing and the clubbing weren't fun, but I'd much prefer to have gone to a bar/pub and be social over a drink. Now, like you, the club scene sounds less than appealing. I knew that ship had sailed the last time I went and we complained about the music being too loud and all the people bumping into us. :) I still enjoy meeting up over a meal or even a drink (water or soda these days :), but even then it's more about the company than the act of going out. I'd much prefer something interesting or different - a museum or a play or what have you. I can motivate much easier for something like that. The problem is, when most of your friends are parents, the meeting up for a meal is about all there's time for.
DeleteThe coffee in the evening is never something I've understood. It's something we don't really do here. Every-so-often after a dinner party someone will ask if anyone wants coffee. Anyone who does, usually asks for decaf. I guess people will order a coffee at a restaurant with dessert. I don't know, if I were to drink a cappuccino or an espresso after dinner, I'd be bright eyed and bushy tailed just in time for bed!
I like fun AND productive? That's my middle name!!!!
Haaaa, for me that darn ship never docked. Maybe for guys the club scene isn't quite the same level of fun as it can be for girls.
DeleteOh for sure. I don't know too many straight guys who enjoy going dancing. The clubs are not at all geared towards men either. Just getting in the door can be a challenge. Our reasons for going are probably different too. :)
DeleteIs Ireland as obsessed over the Royal Baby "news"? I hope we hurry up and find out her name because I'm tired of the coverage. :)
Bwahahaha, like FLUCK we are. We know about it but not the insane wall to wall coverage of the UK.
DeleteYou'd think the kid got in and out in some miraculous procedure.
On the dancing. I do think boys need to be trained. And early. By the time being good or at least able to dance would do them good they are too tangle-footed and embarrassed.
Can you imagine the damage a guy who could Tango or Latin Dance in general would do at college.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ9-dhMz724
DeleteProbably true. Girls learn to dance with their friends in big groups because the boys are too cool for school to dance with them. When they're little they don't have that embarrassment factor. We do dancing activities in my class all the time, either as brain breaks or to physically learn something. The 7 year old boys love it right along with the girls.
I remember going to school dances in junior high and the guys would sit along the wall and watch the girls dance. Such a goofy period of our lives!
There was a study from Queens University, Belfast that discovered structured dance was profoundly helpful for boys with dyslexia. A game changer for some.
DeleteGirls see dance as something they can do together and something that's social. But do girls see dance as a reason to handle a boy, like boys do. That's what boys are embarrassed about, it's not making a fool of themselves, but exposing themselves as needing like air to touch. Of course once the touch thing gets easy the thing escalates.
I don't doubt it on the research. The arts, whether visual or performing, are very powerful when it comes to instruction. Unfortunately, they're are also the first to be cut during a budget concern. This is fairly new research you mention? It'll be interesting if/how it makes its way into primary instruction for our kids who have been diagnosed with "learning disabilities". We don't/can't use dyslexia as a term to identify these problems anymore. They're now (mostly) labeled with a Language-Based Learning Disability (processing). Still, it's the same thing, but our resource specialists don't really go outside the box like this with their extra help. My site is in the process of becoming an arts integrated school, so that'll be some interesting research to follow.
DeleteOh, and no. At that age, I don't think girls are thinking of "handling" boys at all, aware of them yes, but not handling...at least I wasn't. Times have changed though, and we have 9 year olds going on 25, so it could be different.
DeleteI'm on about teens.
DeleteAh sure, teens, there's more of an awareness then but it's not nearly the single mindedness that teenage boys are notorious for. At the middle school dance, no. And of course I was being sarcastic about the 9 year olds, mostly sarcastic anyways.
DeleteThis is so funny. My Friday nights and Saturdays are still pretty crazy because I have to drive the munchkins here and there and everywhere.
ReplyDeleteYes, kids keep you on your toes! Imagine all the free time you'll have when they get their driver's license. ;)
Deletethis made me think of a recent Modern Family episode. I don't know if you watch but Gloria and Mitchell want to go out dancing with their niece/granddaughter and when they realize the club doesn't even open till 10:30 and he band doesn't even start till after 11 it makes them yawn.
ReplyDeleteHa! I like that show, but I haven't seen that one (after losing all my recordings), it rings true though. I went to a concert a few weeks ago on a Tuesday night. It was supposed to start at 8:00 and didn't start until about 8:30. The whole time I just kept thinking it's a school night, who doesn't even start their activity until 8:30 on a school night! Normally I'm already in bed. :)
DeleteI was thinking about your issue on your loss of TV. See if you can attach a 4 terabyte external memory. And if you can't you have a real reason to bitch and whine and generally bend the ear of the provider since it was their fault you lost them.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you should mention that as this dvr had a USB port that would allow for a storage device. I seriously thought about it (which again is an issue in itself, thinking about how to save TV :), but while they make all sorts of large storage devices at relatively reasonable costs there was a catch or two. The requirement for a non-portable device, needing its own power supply jacked the price up considerably and then of course they had required capabilities that made the device top of the line. If I coukd have justified its use beyond TV, maybe, but as soon as you plug this $$$ machine into the dvr, that's all it can be used for. It basically wipes any other capabilities off of it. I just couldn't justify spending the money as a transport system.
DeleteAnyhow, to make a long story shor, the dvr has already been replaced. I have spent a little time tracking down a few I didn't want to miss, and the rest I kind of washed my hands of, one less time sucking commitment frankly.
I think that's the biggest complaint to the service provider, really. And it's not just them, it seems to be a problem for all. While I know that they can't possibly keep everyone's recordings stored for an indeterminate amount of time, but it would seem to me that they could even earn a little extra if they just had some type of cloud-type storage option for this very problem. If someone is about to lose everything due to equipment malfunction, they can ask for the programming to be saved on a temporary cloud system for just enough time to get the new machine set up and then transferred to the new. I would have paid to have them do it too. But I assure I'm not obsessing over it. ;)