A Day in the Life of the Late Great....Potentate - and by that I mean me.

Dear Siblings,

I'm writing tonight, even though I don't really have anything to write about, because I feel like writing. I've felt the bug all day today, though I haven't been able to nail down what exactly I wanted to say. Which, as you both know, is somewhat frustrating. So I'll just describe my day.

Work was relatively uneventful - not because I didn't have work to do, but because I'm tired of doing it. That's not exactly true. I actually have projects to do that on paper are great. The biggest one is a baptist history project. I have full creativity over it. The problem is that I have no deadline, I guess and so now it has become something that I know I should be working on - which makes something that should be enjoyable into something repugnant. If I had a deadline, I'd get it done, but I don't want to be such a servile worker. I want to be someone with initiative - someone who is self-motivated to get the job done.

Anyway, I told myself several times to work on it, but, of course, did not. I did all the other tasks that were immediate and then goofed off for the rest of the time.

After work I walked out to the Mall to smoke my pipe and read the book the Steph gave me - Johnathan Safron Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. If either of you ever get the chance you should read it. It's very well written and one of those few books that moves quickly and yet also scratches at greatness. I read a line today that I had to write down: "I sometimes hear my bone creak with the weight of all the lives I haven't lived." It sounds a little cheezy out of context, but it's great trust me. That same section that I read today contains one of the saddest stories I've ever read. I don't want to spoil it for you, but I'll tell you it involves blank pages (literally).

I guess it was the book that made me want to write. Anytime I read something well done, I want to imitate it, after my own fashion. But then whatever I write ends up being basically like this, which seems to be the only style I have. In a perfect world, I would stay up all night working on a project, a short story, a character, anything, going over it again and again until I got it right. I feel like I used to do that in high school. Remember how I used to play with photoshop or make techno music? I'd work on it happily for hours and hours. Anything I did creatively back then I seemed to actually enjoy doing, or maybe that's just golden tinge of memory. Still, I wrote all that poetry back then - of course it was bad, but every night I'd write something. Where did that impulse go?

So when I got back, even though I said I wouldn't, I changed my mind and put off writing to grab something to eat. Eating meant watching reruns "just while I ate" which of course lasted for an hour. I came upstairs to write, but then decided to watch some of the HBO series Rome. The show has kind of grown on me. I wasn't too fond of it at first, but the more I watch it the more I really get into it, though it is annoyingly overly focused on the sexual aspects of a pagan society. They conveniently ignore the fact that Rome was one of the most conservative societies to ever exist, decadence being done behind closed doors. Which isn't exactly true either, but Roman society wasn't a constant orgy which this comes close to portraying it as. Still, the other parts of the story are interesting - and they do a very good job with capturing Caesar, Marc Antony, Octavian, and Attia especially I think.

So, this part was annoying - while watching Rome, one of my roommates comes up to my room (John my actual roommate {I wish we didn't use roommate for everything in American English...I think I won't.} and my housemate, Mary were in the room as well). Allison, the intruding housemate, with rubber gloves already on her hands, "asks" us to come downstairs and help her clean the refrigerator. I say, "I don't have anything but bread in the fridge." Which is true. I don't make mess here because I hate everyone and want to be left alone as much as possible. Or rather, I keep my mess out of the common areas. How bitchy is it to start cleaning before asking anyone if A) it was advisable considering we're only here for a short time and that there is a cleaning staff who do, admittedly bare minimum cleaning and B) if we had the time or inclination to help her and then demanding that we help because we "live here too?" Pretty bitchy.

I did end up helping some, only because I knew that this other girl would be helping who never asks anyone to help and ends up doing a considerable amount of the cleaning. She's nice so I felt compelled, but I reserved the right to make as many sarcastic comments about the other girl as I pleased. Which, as I had been drinking, were many. The sad part is that she is probably the most attractive girl in the house, and has the yokels downstairs in her thrall. Those poor suckers were slaving away just to see her bending over with a mop in the hopes she'll throw something their way, which she knows, and which she never will. I think there is little worse than a woman using sex to get her way, especially on petty things. I thought seriously about mentioning it, but I figured I do have to live here for another two months and besides they'd just side with her anyway.

So I did a bare minimum of cleaning myself and then plopped on the couch for another hour of tv whilst the sad sappy suckers cleaned around me. I didn't feel bad about that hour - each rotten look I got from the harpy made it worth the wasted time.

And that was my day. I hope yours was more interesting. I'm glad I started writing - I think that was all I needed to do. I know that this wasn't a great essay expounding on human truths, or even one of my better posts, but it actually did feel good to start writing. It's nice to remind myself every now and then that I really do enjoy it. Maybe this'll start a flood. Probably not. Write back.

Peace crackas. I'm out.

-Warnie