History lessons

I spent a big chunk of yesterday afternoon on my older PC desktop, moving files to a separate hard drive. I bought a MacBook earlier in the week, so I no longer need the Dell machine (which is becoming increasingly slower with each day - in fact, I think I heard it wheezing the other morning). I'm clearing it out so I can pass it on to my 16 year-old niece, who doesn't have her own computer. It's nice to be able to keep the thing in the family.

Anyway it's been an interesting exercise, to gander at some of the stuff on that machine. Tons of music, of course, and photos and videos. Most interesting, however, are the various snippets of writing that I've saved over the years: a few lines of poetry here and there, for example, or an idea for a prose piece that never came to fruition (my speciality, it seems), as well as various drafts of blog posts (some of which I never published for fear of embarrassing myself). I also stumbled upon a couple of "about me" things for those online dating sites (an exercise I've chronicled at length in other blogs, so no need to retrace that path!), along with drafts of e-mails to women who I was flirting with via the dating sites.

And how do I feel about revisiting that past? Surprisingly, it wasn't as depressing as I thought it might be. In fact, even though much of that whole period was marked by big change and emotionally wrought events - going to grad school (more than 10 years after my undergrad degree), a career change, the dissolution of a long-term relationship, venturing back into the dating world - I have fond memories of those topsy-turvy years. (It's also good to have some chronicle of those years.) It's similar to what I was telling the lovely A. the other day: whenever I harken back on my history, I only ever seem to remember the "good" and largely forget the depressing bits. I wonder if that says anything about my general outlook on life, which I've discovered veers toward optimism.

Ask me tomorrow, of course, and you're liable to get a different response.

Listening to: various NPR podcasts
Watching: Pride & Prejudice (the 1995 BBC version) on New Year's eve (watched the whole thing, so we were up until 3:00; so low-key evening, but still late), Brief Encounter and Days in Heaven are in the queue
Reading: Bolano's 2666 (about a third of the way through!)