Thoughts on a rainy day

Rain like this just makes me want to dole out a big snifter of brandy and go to town on a paperback novel. I don't think I've ever really drank brandy, but it seems a fitting libation for shitty weather. Or good weather, for that matter. Not mediocre weather, though. That's what gin is for.

I rub my lips with my fingers. Constantly. I rub them between my fingers, back and forth, collecting little crescent rolls of dead skin. It’s not a pleasant sensation, nor a wholly painful one. I think of it more as the white noise of pain; I am oblivious to my little exfoliation ritual, or at least until I start bleeding. Which I just did. Ouch.

On Writing

The thought of sharing any sort of creative writing terrifies me. I've never really had any burning desire to write, though that probably stems from the fact that 95% of what I've written in my life was research based.

Bland. Facts. Figures. Annotations. Soul deadening. Kill. Me. Now.

It's not that I find researching worthless - au contraire! I love learning everything there possibly is to know about Neoclassicism or the Narwhal or even Nehru (alliteration aside, I have written papers on all three topics), but why the hell do I have to then proceed to write about it? Sure, I'll read a book on the topic, but that's good enough for me! Done! No more thx! You want to verify that I learned enough on the topic? Why don't we just go out for a drink and talk about feminist semiotics over a Cosmo. We can even talk about the genderification of cocktails. Don't worry professor, I'll pick up the tab. You just pick up my GPA.

Sure, we had weekly 'free write' assignments in high school, during which we'd turn off the lights, light some candles, and read our assignments out loud if we felt so inclined. Sounds great, right? Well, I never wanted to be the kid reading the painfully awkward sci-fi/fantasy fan-fic, so I mainly used these assignments as a medium in which I could verbally regurgitate all my shitty teenage angst. Or I'd do a bunch of 'Top 10' lists. Sometimes the two would overlap. For example:

'TOP TEN WAYS IN WHICH I WOULD LIKE TO DESECRATE THIS TEXTBOOK'
'TOP TEN BLOOD BROTHERS SONGS I'D LIKE TO MAKE OUT TO'
'TOP TEN REASONS WHY I AM A SAD LOSER (WITH ILLUSTRATIONS)'

And so on.

College was no different. Sure, maybe the topics got more interesting (If you ever want to know about every single filmic motif in "The Departed", I'm yer girl), but none of it really quenched my creative thirst. I stuck to pen and paper, but instead of words, I created stories with doodles. I give each little creature I draw a back story: When was their first kiss? What veggie do they go for first on the snack platter? What is their typing speed? Are they upset with me for giving them such a large, unsightly nose?

And so on.

I never took creative writing classes, because I was always so bogged down with all the research papers for my other classes, I couldn't possibly add more to my load. While in high school, I always had grand fantasies of college as a place where you could just learn WHATEVER you wanted. Oh, such foolhardy naïveté. I never dreamed I'd end up in a Watershed Resource Management class just to fulfill some bullshit general education requirement. The only thing I got out of that class was free coffee and the ability to do an entire Wednesday crossword puzzle without cheating.

So what am I getting at with all of this? What I'm trying to say is that I've finally found that desire to try and write something, but at the risk of being terrible at it. I guess you've got to start somewhere. And I'm starting here, sitting cross-legged on my bed, eating yogurt and putting off the paper I have to write. The research paper I have to write. The only writing I've ever done til now.

Wish me luck.