The Long Unwinding Road

When I was teaching and directing, this question seemed more relevant. Since I retired, I am not doing 12-16 hour days* anymore—well, not in the same way.

While I’m still finding my routine, a regular day consists of doing some creative work and then various house projects (which are never-ending). In the summer these can involve lots of garden work, which then ends with me cooking dinner. After that’s finished, it is time to unwind.

I seem to be using the same technique now as when I was working: parking in front of the TV to stream something on Hulu, Netflix, Prime Video, et al and etc, Unwinding once included playing video games, but Guild Wars became more processor intensive as my older laptop remained the same, so I left that in the past, and nightly seek some worthy entertainment fare on what in the past has been termed the “boob tube” (intended for boobs, not necessarily displaying them).

As for this activity, perhaps I should write a guidebook on how to pick things to watch. A couple of tips: if it’s a science fiction film under 1 hour 30 minutes, avoid it; it will be trite and derivative. If a film has one major star but only one or one and a half stars for a rating, skip that one, too. And if it hasn’t engaged your attention in the first 10 minutes that you want to sell a large chunk of your life to, jettison it and find something else. It had better interest you to let you relax and truly unwind.

* Regular teaching days normally clocked in at 12; closer to production week, the hours crept higher.