One of the nerdiest things I do is plan/set-up memories. They usually work best when reading books. To me, a lot of the books I choose to read become a huge part of my life. I remember exactly when I first read "Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit", "Godel, Escher, & Bach", "The Feynman Lectures", "Open", etc. Most of those I just picked up and started to read, and in turn, they became staples of my existence. For example, I can remember the first time I opened up "Gödel, Escher, & Bach" - I was taking my then-girlfriend to get her molars removed. I sat there in the waiting room, totally engrossed by the first chapter. And "Lord of the Rings", one of my favorites, was before and during Christmas in 2002.
In fact, I started realizing that a lot of these books were becoming such epic experiences in my life, that I started purposefully saving certain books to be read at specific times. A perfect example being "The Hobbit". I wanted to read it immediately after reading LOTR back in 2002, but I knew that if I read it to soon, I would have wasted it all in one gulp. I also wanted to wait for the hope of a movie to come out later on and also, to leave some LOTR-ishness for the future. I knew I wanted it to be read before christmas; there"s something christmas-y about the LOTR universe for me. So I waited 10 BLOODY YEARS until the movie came out! Finally opened up the book last thanksgiving and spaced out the chapters to make it last until christmas. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life! And, it worked out exactly as planned. Whenever I think about "The Hobbit," or open the book up and smell the pages, I feel like it"s christmas. SUCCESS. Not only did I enjoy the book, but I successfully engineered two independent (and both equally and uniquely memorable) memories of LOTR books.
Recently I have been reading the "A Song of Fire and Ice" series (Game of Thrones). I JUST got to "A Storm of Swords," which is the 3rd book in the series and is hailed as the GoT book that has the most epic action in it. It also leads you past season 3 (if you watch the series on HBO). I knew it was going to be epic so I stretched it out and planned it so I would read it in the right place at just the right time. It turned out being one of the best books I have ever read and the memory was so perfectly planned that I know whenever I look back on it, I will be 100% satisfied.
I know memories should be unplanned and spontaneous, but sometimes memories can end up sucking. So why not do justice to the little ones that you know will end up being huge?
(Does anyone else do this?).