Since I've been here, I seem to have developed this voracious compulsion to sign up for things. First was Boot Camp, which just finished last week. It was expensive and time-consuming, but I was powerless against my mouse-clicking finger once it determined that doing 1,000 push-ups on concrete per week was something I needed to do. It’s the sort of thing I would have considered in the States (and actually did consider while I was in Baltimore) but never would have actually pulled the trigger on for reasons Time, Money, Laziness or Commitment Phobia.
And as if signing up the first time weren’t impulsive enough, today I signed up again. This time, it’s for the morning session—three times a week, in October, at 7:40 am, in the British autumn (read: rainy and cold). Brutal. Not only did I sign up, I actually stalked the web site until G. posted the October dates, and was then the first person to turn over my hard-earned cash for more body-thrashing. I’m actually surprised I didn’t throw my underwear at him or ask him to sign my chest. Regardless, it’s official: I have become the Claymate of Boot Camp.
In addition, I just dropped a cool £200+ on a creative writing course that will consume every one of my Saturdays for 6 weeks. I decided that if I’m ever going to find out if I can write fiction, now is the time, when I’m living in arguably the most literary city in the English-speaking world (not to mention home to the richest author on planet Earth). Never mind the fact that I swore off taking any more classes on my last day of grad school ’02; apparently I’m a glutton for punishment and my full-time writing job and this godforsaken blog is just not enough weekly verbal purging for me.
I’m not sure if this signing-up impulse is motivated by my newfound desire to take advantage of the vast and diverse offerings of the uber-metropolis (something that has been missing from my life for the past 5 years); or the urge to find a sense of community in an ocean of unfamiliar faces; or the avoidance of any lingering homesickness that might emerge if I stop long enough to let it. Probably a combination of all three.
All I know is that I might as well get them in now. Once the book tours and press junkets start, I’m not going to have any time to indulge my more frivolous of hobbies.
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3 comments:
I'd like to think of God as saking your blog, rather than the reverse. Don't be so hard on yourself Shirley. At least you're not writing about wardrobe malfunctions at work as you are falling asleep.
I think it's healthy. And if you can become the richest author in the world someday, then you can buy all your friends plane tickets to London!
Brings back memories when you and Lisa took a creative writing class back in second or third grade?? Mea-Poo and Ling(?). I think I still have those compositions somewhere in storage! Can't wait for your first novel!
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