The London police have discovered that the best way to neuter demonstrations is not to move everyone on, or disperse troublemakers, but hold them close, cordon them into a diminishing space for hours and hours, as a sort of arbitrary al fresco arrest.
At the time of Apollo 11, I was a grade-schooler, and I remember every time an Apollo mission would take place that, like a lot of little boys, I'd gather in front of the TV for hours and hours and hours with my little brother.
One of my sisters is physically and mentally handicapped. She took a lot of my parents' attention, so I grew up in my own world, playing in my room for hours and hours.
Some photographers work on the same image for hours and hours and then use the first picture that they took.
I have written some songs, but I would really call what I've done poetry at the end of the day, because I'll sit with my guitar for hours and hours on end for, like, a week and then I won't touch it for a month. I also just have no confidence. And you know what? I don't have time, because I'd rather be doing other things, like knitting.
My youngest sister, Cindy, has Down syndrome, and I remember my mother spending hours and hours with her, teaching her to tie her shoelaces on her own, drilling multiplication tables with Cindy, practicing piano every day with her. No one expected Cindy to get a Ph.D.! But my mom wanted her to be the best she could be, within her limits.
I would still like to have that luxury, to be able to just sit and draw for hours and hours and hours. In a way, that's what I do as a writer.
Not everything is going to be handed to you just because you're talented with a big smile. Sometimes you just gotta get out and shoot jumpers for hours and hours and hours. That's something I didn't really get a grasp on until way later, waking up early and treating it like a job if you're serious about it. Get the freak up and, you know, work.
I read 'On The Road' in college. I was 18 or 19, and I had a particular quarter where I was taking biology, calculus, and physics. Those were my three classes. It wasn't a well-rounded schedule at all. It was hard, hard work, all the time - hours and hours and hours of homework.
In my house, there is an old Chinese cabinet full of little figurines on two shelves. They are for my daughter, to tell stories. We have told hours and hours or stories using these figures. There are all kinds of people, children and adults, and all kinds of animals - elephants, tigers, snakes.
