Five Minutes

"Time is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in..." - Douglas Adams

Over the summer, on that infamous, not-blogged-about camping trip I took, I went to the Cornish Glass Museum and, after breaking several glass flowers in the gift shop, bought an hourglass. When turning the hourglass upside down, the sand inside is supposed to fall to the bottom over the course of five minutes, meaning if you need to time yourself for five minutes and have lost your stopwatch, you simply need to the turn over the hourglass and you have five minutes.

I wish.

Yesterday I stood in front of my bookshelf and turned the hourglass over. I realized I had never actually seen all of the sand fall to the bottom, I had turned it many times, but had never actually stayed to watch the entire thing. So I began to, and was about halfway finished when I had to leave. I was working at Strawberry Banke yesterday, as a roleplayer for their "Ghosts on the Banke" event they do every Halloween, I had to be in Portsmouth by 4:30, and since I had just gotten back from co-leading my sister's Brownie meeting which was suppose to end at the same time, I realized suddenly, I couldn't stand and watch the sand in the hourglass fall for five minutes. I didn't have five minutes to just stand and watch something. I had a few minutes to collect my stuff, drop off stuff, and put on some deodorant, but not five minutes to just stand still.

This has been my life lately, especially in the past week. I'm in the chorus in my school's production of Footloose, which rehearses everyday after school till 5 PM, I had to prepare for a HUGE debate in my debate class, which trust me, is a lot more intense than it sounds, plus, to add to all of that, I'm in a scene from Angels in America for a scene study at the New Hampshire Theater Project (Sr. Rep thing) I'm a travel agent, Ms. Lies (yes, it was originally Mr. Lies, for anyone who's actually seen/read/heard of Angels in America), who is someone else's hallucination, and therefore appears and reappears at random.

So, between all of this, and choir, and all my other schoolwork, that five minutes to watch the sand fall in my hourglass, just hasn't been there. I've had a few days this week where I haven't been able to get to a computer at all (which is, for me, a big deal, I can usually steal one for at least a few minutes of wikipedia-ing or checking e-mail, though I usually don't have time to answer it) Most days I've come home from whatever it is I've been doing and fallen onto my bed and almost instantly fallen asleep (another somewhat unusual, though welcomed, thing for me) I just...I haven't had time for anything, lately, anything at all.

Apart from all of that, I was also planning something. I was watching something the other day, last week, where they were interviewing people about their childhood interests and how they influenced their career choice. It was a cool show. So, in that style, I decided to do something similar, interviewing people about their childhoods and how they affect their lives today, and post the interviews on my Blog. I interviewed three different people over the course of the week, and haven't had time to post them. I swear to God. Or...whoever. Anyway, I apologize to the people I interviewed, I'll work on that as soon as I can.

Right now, I've got a second night of Strawberry Bankeing to do tonight, then tomorrow I have to go to church (I have a solo in the choir) then I'm going to a play with my grandparents, then I have to do about five hundred pounds of homework, and...it's crazy. Even at this second, I'm looking at the clock, and realizing that if I don't leave now, I'm going to be late for Strawberry Banke.

Einstein once said time was relative, that it was an illusion. If that's true, why are our lives so dictated by it?

Gotta go,

*Nelly*