A Very Bad Thing

Okay, it is an appallingly bad thing when you start a blog, promise to write every day, and then . . . let almost two months (seriously -- February 22nd is two days shy of being two months ago) go by without even remembering that you have a blog. Very, very bad. Not evil or wicked or stupid, just bad.

So, anyway, here I am, contrite as ever, willing to put some more thought into words, even though it is 2:30 in the morning, and I should really be in bed, asleep, because I have school tomorrow, and, um, I'm not quite finished with my homework. But honestly, can you blame me? Rhetorics vs. own brain. Is there even a contest? Not that Plato isn't fascinating -- in the proper time and place. But right now . . . well, I can't justify reading any more of Yvain right now, even though the rest of it is due on Thursday, because I find that when I read ahead, I always end up frustrating the professor, other students, and myself (mostly because I forget where we were supposed to stop, so introduce into the conversation things that don't properly belong there, and upset the professor's plans for the class, which inevitably earns me a disgruntled grimace), and the thought of writing an essay on the Sophists just . . . isn't . . . doing it for me. But I'm not ready for bed. I've been re-reading the Emily books (L.M. Montgomery, more properly famous for the Anne books (you know, Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island, Anne of Ad Infinitum)), and it makes me feel both frustrated and guilty when I read about how much Emily writes. It always makes me question my own desire to write: if I don't write obsessively (because I really don't), does that mean I don't have the burning desire? And if I don't have the burning desire, should I really write? Should I bother people with my views on things, with stories that come out of my head? If I don't have the urge to commit words to paper (or digital paper) every day, does that mean that I shouldn't really call myself a writer? Who knows? I certainly don't. That's why I'm throwing this question into the digital atmosphere, although I hardly expect a response.

Anyway. I got completely off the beaten path. Of course, I was never on the beaten path, and I sometimes wish that I could have walked it once or twice in my lifetime. But honestly, every time it seemed my path -- my own delightful, off-beat, twisty, windy, rough and unpredictable road -- crossed the beaten path, well, I have to admit that I veered away from it as quickly as my legs could take me. I don't know why, but there is something about the beaten path that terrifies me with its predictability. Even now, thinking of becoming a professor -- well, if I have to be like some of the professors I've known . . . let's just say that, charming as they are, they are so dull and full of predictability that I wouldn't be surprised if their personal routine varies not a jot. And then there are other professors -- the professor I had last quarter (yes, I was stupid enough to take two classes with an entirely untried professor, something I shall never do again), for example, was so full of himself that he assigned himself as an author on which we -- his class -- could write a report AND PRESENT IT TO THE CLASS!!! AND he called Chaucer "cheesy". I shall never forgive him for either. Both were unpardonable offenses, as far as I'm concerned. What was I saying? Oh, yes, well, they weren't necessarily dull and predictable, but neither did they wander far from the beaten path. So wandering far from the madding crowd does have its compensations, even if they are few and far between. (Of course, if I wander too far, I might end up like a professor I had at Ohio State, who was such a fascinating specimen of unkempt professor-dom that I cannot recall him without both a cringe and a laugh. I should tell that story one day. . . .)

A brief digression: There is a gray cat asleep on my bed right now. He has decided that he should occupy the entirety of the bed, so has stretched his little catness across it as far as he can -- which is astonishingly far for such a little beast. I will have to move him when I get into bed, but for right now I'll let him lie there, looking so ridiculously, abominably adorable that it is really taking all my self-control not to go over there, bury my face in his soft, gray, velvety stomach and kiss him into bad humor (for what cat likes being wakened from a sound sleep by having its belly attacked?). Oh, cats! How do people ever get along without you?

I just re-read this post, and it occurs to me I have said nothing coherent. Ah, well, it's almost three o'clock in the morning. I should be allowed moments -- or half-hours -- of incoherency. I should probably also wander along to bed, having satisfied some kind of soul-ache by putting a few words down on paper-ish. I wonder if that's the whole thing about writing? One doesn't ache to do it, but one feels so much better after they do? Who knows.