A big moment

Today, I start writing my first seminar paper since May.

I don't know about others in my cohort, but for me it's kind of a big moment. You open that new Word document, you write your name and the class and all that bullshit on the top, you pull some stupid title out of your ass and center it, and then - you are committed. This is your paper, it must be written, and here we go. It's like that part in "The Wasteland" where they're on the top of the hill in the sled: "And down we went - we went down."* You're writing this, here we go, and who knows what will come of it.

Of course, then you have to write the introduction, which sucks, and then you have to figure out how you're going to organize the paper, which is inevitably different from the outline you've meticulously crafted, which sucks, and then you discover that even though you only need 20 pages your idea is like, 30 pages at least, and that sucks. But still, it's a nice feeling - I'm ready to change my 35-odd pages of notes into 25-odd pages of questionably coherent prose.

Another integral part of the paper-writing process is wasting time. Last year around this time, as I recall, it was a lot of food blogs and shopping for the trip to LA I thought I'd be taking. This year it's mostly Christmas shopping and ebay searches for secondhand designer jeans. As anyone who's spoken to me at any length since my return from California this summer, I've developed an almost unhealthy love of my one pair of designer jeans, some battered Rock & Republics I found in a West Hollywood thrift store for 40 bucks. They are magical. Never in my life have I owned jeans that managed to be so very much better than all my other jeans that comparison is laughable. The fact that they're secondhand only makes them more wonderful, since as everyone knows, worn-in jeans are always better than brand-new ones. My Rockins, as I affectionately (and probably annoyingly) refer to them, are God's way of telling me that I belong in LA, but also that it's true what all those annoyingly smug and grown-up people say - it's better to invest in one really nice thing that a bunch of meh things.

So yes. Cue my taking a break every 30 minutes to check ebay prices, scrutinize blurry photos to verify if the coin pocket is slanted at the proper angle rather than straight, which indicates a fake, to check my bank account and see that no, I still can't afford jack shit, and to wonder if well maybe I can afford that one pair that's at 67 right now, if they don't rise much before the auction ends.

The moral of the story is that one should write papers in internet-free places. I think the wireless movement is a scam to make sure none of us ever finish our degrees.





* That's the only part of "The Wasteland" I like, and I actually really love it. I had it explained to me in a really moving and significant way to me by one of the best professors I had in college, and so while the rest of the poem remains to me a closed book that's I'd probably stomp on and burn if given the option, I do love that line.