05 Jan 05 Blogger — 1/5 04:30 PM

I’m not normally a memewhore, but there have been a few useful and/or interesting ones going around the blogosphere lately. I yoinked this one from my sister as well. I believe this is called the “timeline meme.”

25 years ago — 1980. Six years old. I have no specific memory of this time, unfortunately. More generally, I was probably going to kindergarten in Streamwood, Illinois, under the thumb of a particularly nasty kindergarten teacher (according to my mom’s reminisces), discovering my love of books, enjoying Illinois winters as only a kid can, and dealing with the oddity of having a little baby sister for the first time.

15 years ago — 1990. 16 years old. I believe I would have moved to New Jersey about a year prior, so I think this would have just been around the time that I got involved in theater for the first time — in December 1989, I would have been involved in mounting a condensed version of The Mahabhrata, the Indian story of creation. Dames at Sea would be up later in the year. I would have been real impressed with the recent turnover of the digits — to me, it would have felt as if it had always been the 1980s. Now, I’m looking back at that sentiment and finding it kinda cute.

10 years ago — 1995. 21 years old. I would be beginning the spring semester of my junior year at Allentown College. I didn’t enjoy my time at Allentown College. I enjoyed the people I met there in their theater program — indeed, many of them were a joy to spend time with and be semi-serious friends with. But their program wasn’t designed to teach all their students, only to teach a select few they culled from the masses, and I felt (and still feel) gypped. But at this point, I think I decided to just hang in there and wait for my diploma in a year and a half. I would soon experience a brief period of elation when I was cast that spring as a generic cop in their production of “Guys & Dolls.” I was happy at that point for any crust they would have thrown my way — it had been a long famine.

5 years ago — 2000. 26 years old. Three years in Chicago, one year at my employer. I think I was working for a nasty lawyer at the time (as well as the one who recently became judge, who I liked working with). I had a female friend from college who I mistakenly thought was a ’soulmate’ kind of friend, and she had been exceptionally neglectful of our friendship, which had been tearing me up inside. That friendship was in its death throes (and gave up the ghost completely that July), so I was probably feeling pretty wracked up about it at the time.

3 years ago — 2002. 28 years old. Five years in Chicago, three years at my employer. I was dating a girl named Rachel right around this time, who briefly seemed very magical — we had long conversations where we lost track of the time (similar to scenes in Before Sunrise) and shared a lot of the same interests, and she seemed as excited as I about the relationship. Coming so soon after Erin, I thought I had found someone really special. But then she pretty much disappeared off the face of the Earth one day, which wracked me up again for a while. Looking back over old e-mails, she had warned me at one point that she tended to “go social in big bright spells and then hide,” and when I found that nugget, I was able to put to rest any fear that I had done something to screw things up. Still, she definitely remains a very poignant “what if.”

Last year — 2004. 30 years old. Seven years in Chicago, five years at my employer. I actually think last year was covered pretty much by this blog entry.

Yesterday — January 4, 2005. My first day back to work after having felt sick as a dog with a nasty cold for much of the weekend. Fairly uneventful — it was a quiet day at work, and I went home and futzed around the apartment, using television and computer.

Today — January 5, 2005. I visited a surgeon today, to take care of two small medical problems. Problem A will be practically nothing, while Problem B may involve some slightly more serious surgery. Problem B is, comparatively, not too much to sneeze at compared to other medical things people have to deal with in life, but I don’t feel great about it, anyway. It has three possible solutions based on what’s causing it: Solution #1, which would be that something they did in-office is going to make it go away fairly soon; Solution #2, which would involve an incision and debridement; and Solution #3, which would involve laparoscopic surgery. I’m hoping Solution A is what happens. (Yes, I’m being extremely obscure. On purpose.)

Of course, something I’ve been waiting for over nine frickin’ months is also happening tonight … Alias‘ fourth season returns, thank Gawd almighty! I’ve been waiting far too long to find out what the hell Jack’s up to …

Tomorrow — January 6, 2005. Actually, nothing that I can think of is really on the agenda tomorrow.

This year — 2005. I’ll be 31 years old, with eight years in Chicago and six years at my employer. I have two goals this year: to lose weight and to lose debt. Best (”black”) goal: 240 pounds and $2.7k paid to Discover by year’s end. Moderate (”gray”) goal: 260 pounds and $2.5k paid to Discover by year’s end. Minimum (”white”) goal: 280 pounds and $2.0k paid to Discover by year’s end.

Next year — 2006. I’ll be 32 years old, with nine years in Chicago. I haven’t sat down and done the hard math on it, but hopefully 2006 is going to be the “amazing year,” so to speak — the year that I will cross the finish line on the two big goals I’m starting this year. I’d like to get down to my goal weight, which would involve a total weight loss of over 140 pounds (yes, if you’ve never met me in real life, I’m not exactly beefcake material at the moment), and getting my Discover card completely paid off. The rest of my former credit cards and debts are consolidated under a personal consolidation loan with a local credit union — that’ll finish being paid off in early to mid-2007, I believe.

3 years forward — 2008. I’ll be 34 years old, with 11 years in Chicago. Three financial goals are going to click into gear for me after I’m debt-free: vocational counseling, a new Mac, and a trip to Ireland. So I’d expect after two years debt-free, I’d have accomplished some of those. Ideally, I’m also expecting to have moved out of my apartment to something a little more upscale — although I like where I live, it’s small, up on the fourth floor, prone to a lot of dust, and the facilities are pretty old. Given that 2008 will be when Bush is up for finally getting his retarded ass out of the Oval Office, I’m hoping that someone noble, idealistic, and good will be up against whatever fascist the neocons nominate in 2008. Or at least more palatable than Kerry was. To boil that down, I’m hoping in 2007-8, to find someone worth putting effort behind in getting elected. It was nice to believe in Dean — I hope I’ll have the chance to believe in someone for 2008, too.

5 years forward — 2010. I’ll be 36 years old, with 13 years in Chicago. I’d like to at least be actively dating, but it’d be real nice if I had found someone special by this point and had been in a relationship for a few years, perhaps even getting close to marriage. If all goes well, at this point I’ll have been at my goal weight for four years. I’d like to have kept going, then. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get into the muscle game, but it is kind of nice to imagine a me with a little more tone, definition, muscular power behind my limbs. I also idly contemplate training for the Chicago Marathon, but that might be something I’d think about for …

10 years forward — 2015. I’ll be 41 years old, with 18 years in Chicago. Who knows what kind of schedule love will play — dytopia or utopia or more likely somewhere in-between — but in the intervening years, it’d be wonderful if I would be married with a young son or daughter by this point. Since I’m hoping to get pointed in the right direction careerwise in 2006, it’d be nice if I was happy with whatever “My Career” turns out to be at this point, too. At this point, depending on rents and other matters, I might consider a move to the suburbs — but I really would rather not. I love living in the city, and there’s a certain magic to urban life that you lose when moving yourself to drab suburbia. (Maybe it’s because I grew up in suburbia, and I don’t want to return there, despite its relative safety.) I know better than to demand things of a self so far into the future — circumstances always change — but I hope that I’ll be able to be married with children while remaining a Chicagoan. Why not? Others do …

15 years forward — 2020. I’ll be 46 years old, with 23 years in Chicago. It’s hard to think so far into the future. Successfully raising a child or two, happy with my job and with an intelligent, caring wife, fit and physically active/capable — it’s hard to think beyond these admittedly idealistic and utopian, but good-to-aim-for goals. It’s at this point a lot of people (such as my sister) would turn to career landmarks, but since I really don’t yet know what would be my life’s work, it’s hard to say, “I’d like to be doing this at this point.” It’s around this time that I very well may be dealing with the death of my father and my mother — they’re in their early to mid-60s now, so add 15 years and you’re beginning to hit the area of normal life expectancy. Ideally they’d be happy, fit, and with us well into their nineties, but I’d just like the end, when it has to come, to be as peaceful and happy as they can. I’d hope that they’re happy with their lives at this point, and I’d hope that my relationship with my sister stays strong and sure for when that time comes.

25 years forward — 2030. I’ll be 56 years old, with 33 years in Chicago. Moving from predicting 15 years out to predicting 25 years out is a quantum jump. It becomes harder and harder to accurately see where you’re going to be. If I do end up being married and having kids between 2015-2020, they’d be entering their teens just about now. I’d like to get through it without strangling them. Heh. I’d like to make sure they can head off to college, and that they make it through adolescence without any massively serious problems. I’d like to continue to be healthy as I head into my late fifties and early sixties, and I’d like to have my 401(k) continuing to grow and expand so that I can be financially ready for a retirement in a decade or so without Social Security (which I honestly don’t believe will be there).