This is why I don’t do blogs: for one, because despite what you may have heard, a day in the life of a philosophy undergrad and perpetual invertebrate sorter (and occasional, accidental invertebrate I-squeezed-too-hard-with-the-tweezers destroyer) is not as exciting as it sounds. I know, I know, my life is riddled with accidental pleasures and the brief but exciting moments of intellectual validation, but as a whole, I’m beginning to think that I’m going to spend all of my younger years with my nose, eyes, ears and fingertips to the grindstone. That is, behind a desk (except in my fantasy there’s also a ball and chain, and I’m working with a quill pen, by candlelight).
Fortunately, hard works pays off, producing in its wake a solid stream of procrastination. Procrastination! What a beautiful word! How I long to caress your sweet vowels and spicy consonants, languishing rapturously in the long, carefree hours of your bosom, drinking in the scent of… crap. That’s not love, that’s a deadline. If procrastination is my wanton mistress, deadlines are the jealous, overbearing wife that I can’t afford to divorce. Deadlines are deceptively clever. They lie low at first (“Of course you can go out! You know I don’t mind… go! Have a good time.”), just waiting for the drop-date to pass, the sign that I’m fully committed. Suddenly, the sweet-talk’s over; that twenty-page paper that looked at me so lovingly yesterday now gives me the stink-eye while I’m walking out the door (“You didn’t come home until three o’clock last night – don’t think I didn’t notice! Who were you with? Why didn’t you come home? If I find out you saw that cheap… you did what?!”). Yeah. A real bitchy streak. But I know I can’t get out of it now, so I pacify the deadline with a token once-over of the material, maybe I’ll re-write an outline or two (that’s useful), and then as soon as she falls asleep I sneak out and play with procrastination. So what if she’s cheap?
Which is what I’m doing right now, obviously. Actually I showed up two hours early to put in some quality-time with the snails (my other, other mistress and the true love of my life), but my researcher’s out in the field and no one has a key. Which is great, because now I have this blog, and as long as I don’t feel the need to keep it updated (meaning I don’t have to start procrastinating on my procrastination), the two of us should be quite happy together.
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