sabbath
Wednesday 11 March 2009 | someone left a cookie
I meant, I really meant, to make this ten-day spring break have no computers in it, or anyway no online computers. (Yesterday I reconditioned the Brujo’s infinitely dithery laptop, purged it of its bandwidth-devouring cactus porn to a point where you can actually type without waiting for the letters to appear s-l-o-w-l-y one at a time, trickling out behind the cursor like ant footprints; and I thought if it came to it, I could use it to write in bed, unplugged.) But then I went online Monday to try to write the brief explanation of why I hadn’t been writing (the Devoured Post) and how I was going to take ten official days away from l’ordinateur. Because part of End of the World Class is Blackboard, which, if you don’t know what that is, yay, because it’s a terrible time-consuming thing. Because now you don’t just teach a class but you have to put it online too, and answer student emails, and post things, and grade stuff, and all that. ANYWAY and thus the world of mediated relationships slurped me back in again.
But not for long. And this really will be short. Because here’s the thing: I have five days left of the ten days now. And I probably should have gone somewhere, should have thrown the laptop in the car and driven madly to, like, Nogales and holed up in a weird little cabin motel with plastic-lined upholstery curtains and a window-unit air-conditioner and scurrying middle-of-the-night water roaches. But I didn’t. I was all, but it’s so nice here and I can make the Brujo’s lunch in the morning and then he’ll go off to work and then I’ll write. [/delusion]
Because, see, y’all are so INTERESTING. So much more interesting than my little ideas for little pieces of writing. Then I spend another day re-reading Franzen and Wallace, Woolf and Borges, and realize how shabby and paltry by comparison etc. And then I (mis-)spend a day reading James Wood and Dale Peck and realize that if even JOYCE sucked, how doomed am I etc. Even though I know better than to do these things. That they are as detrimental as Facebook. Even then I do them.
There are en bref as many reasons not to write during this spring break as there are days in it; and look, here I am once again, writing something else and not the thing I meant to be writing! Because the best way to distract yourself from writing any intended thing, is to WRITE SOMETHING ELSE.
Seductive. I should have flown to Maui. Where they have no blogs! Right.
Alors, at the risk of being (further) reprehensibly dull: I will be back next week. Inspired by Oleoptene’s spring fast and a recent “mental health experiment” by Therese Borchard, I arise now and go to write a thing, and face down whatever shrieking harpies of YOU SUCK are flapping all around it. And afterward I do want to try to recreate the Devoured Post. But I have to get offline and get to work now. Because otherwise it will be Sunday night and I’ll be all Precious is loooost and then I’ll write MORE silly hand-wringing posts. When everyone knows what we really need is more posts about Dale Peck and James Wood.
So comments are CLOSED. No redesigns, either! No cool Marie Howe poems for Friday. No funny links to still-hilarious old Margaret Cho videos or Zadie Smith’s hot new syllabus or ANYTHING. This is what, at Cambs, we called sporting the oak, mes amis. Both doors is shut. Revision time before exams. Knock only to request milk for tea, or to ask if I have stolen the hoover from its cupboard.
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Why do I find comedy headstone so very amusing?