2:00 PM - Fri 12.12.14
Sticking A Fork In It

On Sunday afternoon, I bought my 2015 calendar (Originally, the task I'd set for myself was to walk to the Goodwill on 6th and buy some pants, but I got lazy, and the calendar purchase seemed more easily accomplished) .

Is that something people don't really do anymore, buy calendars? Is it a little old-fashioned that I still have a calendar on my wall, and write my little appointments and such on it?

I ask because this is the second year in a row I expected to just go somewhere and grab a calendar - it's "that time of year", after all - and had a little harder time than I'd anticipated.

But eventually I did grab something - at the Rite-Aid on 3rd - and it struck me, when I got home, that the annual "Buying A Calendar" ritual is fairly bittersweet.

The "glass half full" side is the feeling of "starting anew", the coming year "spread out in front of me", hopeful that good things will happen.

The "half empty" side signifies the current year has come to an end, the "passage of time" seeming to move faster and faster, and with not a great deal to show for it.

(Especially this year...)

But while I'm still buying a calendar - instead of just using my smart phone, like people in the 21st century do - the kind of calendar I buy has changed over the years; while I used to buy calendars with art (ex. Van Gogh), or funny calendars (ex. Life In Hell, The Far Side), or Marilyn Monroe pin-up calendars, for the past number of years, I've went with something basic, that simply tells me the month, date, and year, with big grids to write stuff on, and maybe a section for "notes" at the bottom (Which, now that I'm a big-time Hollywood superstar, I use to total-up my auditions, call-backs, and bookings at year's end).

Don't know what that says about me, or if it "says" anything at all...but it was a change I was thinking about on Sunday.

To my chagrin, all I could find on Sunday that fit the bill was a "Large Print Calendar", which made me feel about 150 years old (In previous years, I went with a company that made something called "The Big Grid Calendar", which morphed, over time, into "The Monster Grid Calendar", which was "just what the doctor ordered"...but I haven't seen those for a couple years now).

"The Large Print Calendar" was cheap - only $5.99 - and came with a mini-"Large Print Calendar", and a "Large Print Two-Year Planner" (Even though I doubt I'll use the mini-calendar or the planner, I still liked that I was getting so much for my money).

So, why did I just devote all this energy to writing about buying a calendar?

Well, in part, to avoid writing about a more heavy-duty topic I've been thinking about..but also because I've been thinking about "time" a lot lately, which, when I think about it, very much connects to the "heavy-duty topic" I'm desperately trying to avoid writing about.

Beyond that, as I said before, buying a calendar always makes me feel thoughtful, about the year that's coming to a close, and the year to come.

In short, I'm ready to "stick a fork in 2014", cause it feels just about done.

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