Thursday, March 31, 2005

And Suddenly Everything Has Changed

Though I have major problems with time and its relentless passing, some credit must be given to the heavenly watchmakers for those brief moments of realization when it suddenly hits you: "Wow. An entire year has passed since so and so."

When I was little, for some reason, I would experience these moments while reading the expiration dates printed on cereal boxes. I’d look at the box and be like, “Wow, there’s no way we can finish all this cereal by then.” And then BAM, the old box would be empty and soon there’d be a brand new box with a later expiration date and looking at it I’d suddenly encounter the cosmic transience of it all.

There is a point to all this: The Morning News has a bi-weekly-ish feature called "The Letters of Gary Benchley." It chronicles the life of Gary, who's moved down to NYC in hopes of making it as a Rockstar. I started reading the series when I landed my current job in the autumn of 2003. So when I read yesterday’s new installment, I suddenly realized, "Wow. I've been working at the same place for a year and a half now."

Anyway, I suggest going right to the archives and just plowing through to the present. The earlier pieces are particularly fresh and funny.

8 comments:

Stefan said...

Wow, really enjoyed reading that. I wish you'd told me earlier, it's totally up my alley...gonna have to go through the archives now. Thanks. :)

On another note, I had one of those time-passing epiphanies a little while ago when I hit my four-year anniversary at this job - and I realized that I had been working here for as long as I had been in college. Four years. That's a big hunk of life right there.

Speaking of which, wouldn't it be fun to throw an Elephant Larry birthday party? I think we should -- probably on the anniversary of our first show in August. Good god. Even that's coming up on a third year. Where DOES the time go?

Geoffrey said...

This has been a point of contention within Elephant Larry.

I personally feel that any Elephant Larry birthday party should be on June 6th, as that is the day of our first meeting in which we began work on our first show in August. After all, it's not like we just sprung into existence and did a show, is it? Is it?

Anonymous said...

By geoff's logic, shouldn't ELs b-day really be the day on which whoever of you was 5th to join up agreed to do so? The group was probably formed in advance of your first meeting, right?

Stefan said...

No, we didn't just spring fully formed out of the comedic womb, but you don't celebrate your conception day either - hence, I think it should coincide with "The Dawn of Elephant Larry."

Geoffrey said...

I would posit that Anonymous's point about when we decided to make the group should count as the time of conception and that our first meeting would be our birth.

Dawn would be like our first step, but more important. Maybe our first sexual experience?

Anonymous said...

ewww. can we not imagine Elephant Larry's first sexual experience please?

Stefan said...

No, no, we've only been talking about metaphorical sexual experiences up until now. Our first sexual experience was when we all fucked that one girl. Duh!

Jake said...

Rock Star Gary Benchley's True Identity Revealed!