stuff is cool

I don’t have any hobbies. Danny has Ultimate and computer stuff. In fact, he is really becoming involved in the Houston Ultimate Communitee (HUC) serving as an at-large member on their governing board (I can’t remember what it’s called.) For a long time I was upset that I didn’t have anything to do. At Rice, I was the Queen of “Being Involved.” I mean, I was Educational Vice President of Baker (two years in a row) and did O-week and did The Meg and Maggie Show and South Asian Society and had my column in the paper and was in ADVANCE and the list goes on and on to a point of being obnoxious. But then I graduated and I got lost. In the “real world” it’s much harder to find things to do, to fit them into your schedule, and extract any real meaning or feeling of efficacy from them. So I have floundered, big time.

But lately I have found something that has consumed my interest. I have always adored history. But lately I have particularly been absorbed in British history, primarily the House of Stuart, the Commonweath, and the Restoration. Last night Danny commented “I don’t know how you can spend so many hours studying one period in time.” I don’t know either. I just read for hours and hours about Charles II and everything remotely related to him. I read about bits of French history (like the Fronde) and Portugese history and even finally leared what and where the hell Orange was.

Thus I have come to the conclusion that I simly must get a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Oh, the Corgi is still up there. But how can a girl who is determined to know everything there is to know about King Charles and his family not have a dog in the breed that he adored and made famous?

So, in a few years, TWO new dogs will be welcomed into the DiPaolo family (after I am offically welcomed myself!) The Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Chalres Alastair Windsor the Pooh, and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, who cannot be named Charles. So what can he be named? Not James, after the unfortunate brother of Charles II who was overthown by his own daughters. Not Buckingham, not because I don’t like the Duke of Buckingham, but because I don’t want him to be called Buck. Stuart? For a dog? Maybe.

But I digress. How can I turn this passion into something real? There aren’t clubs for history buffs, as far as I know. And I have a full-time job, so I can’t go over to Rice and ask to help out in the History Department. Plus there’s nobody there who studies that particular time is history.

Do I go back to school and get a Masters degree? What would I do with it once I had it? It would be incredible to get a Doctorate but again, what do I do with it? I don’t want to teach. Hmpf. It’ss not that I think I am too old, because Dr. Bellows got hers when she was, well, very much a grown-up. but I just don’t think that’s the path I want to take. I just really, really love history.

And so I go back to scouring the Internet and sticking my nose in a book (currently The Loves of Charles II.)