I’m keeping on from the last few days:

It isn’t just how you balance guilty pleasure versus teaching yourself. It’s also why. Or do you? I doubt anyone will comment and say “I don’t believe in learning; I don’t teach myself a thing.” And that’s because it would be a lie: we all like learning.

The question is what. And how. And why.

What do you teach yourself? And why? What do you feel passion to learn?

(The opposite is also valid: what are your guilty pleasures? And why? What makes them embarrassing?)

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Ray, your comment yesterday is right and good but off my mark. It’s not about privilege, it’s about choice.

How (as privileged people) do we decide what to teach ourselves? How do you balance the guilty pleasures versus what you feel you ought to learn? I grant you that most of us are lazy to some extent, but I don’t totally buy it. I believe we (I, at least) attempt to balance learning with entertainment. Yes, I watch movies, but I try to pick movies that enrich my knowledge, my expertise and my ability to be culturally literate.

Which obviously raises a whole new set of questions.

But I’ll go with the (erroneous, probably) assumption that you read every day, that you finish a book once every couple of weeks. How do you balance fiction versus non-fiction? Guilty pleasures versus “tedious” non-fiction? (As if fiction can’t be tedious.)

And that’s just reading. Throw in TV, movies, video games, socializing (aka bar drinking), Internet browsing (aka articles, Facebook, youtube, etc) and how do you pry yourself away from cat videos?

I’m serious here: I really want to know how people maintain a balance between time-wasting and productivity. I know I guilt myself; I set milestones; I get restless. But I have no idea how other people do it.

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A lot of people I know are in the entertainment business. Most people I know, actually. A lot of them don’t realize it; they don’t think of it in this way. My few friends in banking or manufacturing — they have a pass. Most of us spend our days attempting to convince people to spend their time and money on whatever it is we are doing.

Most of us know this; work anywhere near advertising and it’s obvious. And this is what I mean by working in entertainment. It’s freaky. We, as a culture, have more ways to spend time and energy than ever before. Every bit of technology allows for this: computers, of course, are the foundation, but it ranges. From watching Hulu online to flying around the world to writing blogs — take your pick, but it’s a lot of options.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the balance: what education do I owe myself? When I am no longer hampered by, essentially, anything, what should I be reading? Watching? How do I balance my time?

I’ve never read The Grapes Of Wrath. It’s been on my shelf since high school, waiting patiently for me. And a long line of authors and directors and experiences have crowded it out, over and over, in the last 15 years. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s so simple to be exposed to something now.

Do you have thoughts about what constitutes an education now? What does liberal arts mean when there is more choice in consumption options?

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This happened a month or so ago. I hate mushrooms. I have 2 foods I don’t care to eat: raw tomatoes and mushrooms. (I say this like it’s true; it isn’t. There are plenty of other foods I don’t care for, but somehow these count more.)

If I was going to eat a new plant every week, mushrooms had to make the list. I started with chantrelles, which R was home for break.

Butter and shallots, with a bunch of chantrelles. Fried. The shallots went in first. The pile fried for 5 minutes or so, then we dumped the lot on some fresh slices of bread.

The result was buttery, fleshy goodness. And I’m no longer able to say I don’t like mushrooms. Cause this was delicious. I’ve since made them once or twice more, but they aren’t cheap, which makes them a little impractical for an entire meal. (Around here, they are about 16 bucks a pound, give or take.)

Hugely recommended.

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A short 100 page novel by “Sweden’s most important living author” (according to the back cover) sounds like a great idea. I nabbed it on a whim at the library, because it was a thin European horror tale.

And that’s exactly what I got: a gruesome tale, a quick read, a sparse narrative. All within an hour.

It’s not much of a review, but you’ll spend more time reading the Amazon comments than reading the actual book. It’s a good way to spend an hour if you’re into gruesome tales.

Recommended.

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OK. On Friday night, we had a bit more fun than anyone should. We was me and the 2 K’s, hanging out a their place, and more specifically, their kitchen. With vodka, a lobster hat and tentacle sleeves.

We played on chat roulette for about 2 or 3 hours, listening to Bruce Hornsby’s “That’s Just the Way It Is” on endless repeat. Except for the last hour or so, when I switched to “Rock Lobster.”

While the best reactions were the complete looks of surprise, there were plenty of people who weren’t phased. Below is a handful of the best screen caps I could grab (and yes, the last one is the absolute best, no question):

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It’s a solid piece, one that had everyone buzzing at the start of the week. It’s taken me all week to get to it. By the end, I was skimming, trying to keep from nodding.

Here’s my deal these days: I’m lucky. Every time I go to the doctor, she tells me this. More than once. And it’s not in a ‘count your blessings’ kind of way. It’s not said as a warning or even some underhanded threat. She means it. All the little things that could go wrong with having a j-pouch aren’t things I deal with.

But those are all physical. And I can trace a clear and obvious path in my head since being sick. We all know we will die one day. Poof. But the realizations that came with watching my own body betray me, with realizing I am powerless when it comes to staying alive, were more than powerful.

I could write a book on my feelings and thoughts about the feelings; my frustration at life, opportunities, health, experience. But I wanted to say I related. It’s different, obviously. It always is. But it’s a tough and terrifying road.

At the end, whenever it comes, it’s not the road you’ve planned. It’s the road you’ve left behind. Spend every single day doing the things you want to be remembered for. It’s the only thing any of us have in the end.

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