That's a Dirk Gently line, but I'm considering using it at work to defuse any impending suggestion that I am late with anything. Since it is the first day of the quarter and absolutely everything is late, wrong, unclear, pending, miscommunicated, or missing entirely, any pithy line that will generate enough momentary cognitive dissonance to allow me to escape and quietly take care of the problem is an invaluable asset.
Not a moment too soon, in fact, I have acquired a new ridiculous thing. It is a tiny journal, less than 3 inches to a side, covered in gorgeous brown sari fabric with a neat button closure and beautiful rough texturey paper inside. When I saw it on Friday night at Powell's I bought first and asked questions later -- questions being, in this case, "What am I going to do with this unreasonably small journal?" Since it is tiny and fussy I have decided to use it to record tiny fussy things that make me happy. For instance: keeping my chocolate chips in a tiny mason jar in the cupboard and re-opening and closing the little two-part jar lid every time I want to take out a single chocolate chip and eat it. Or: finding the exact purple pen that can write small enough to look nice on a tiny journal page. Or: making a batch of almond cupcakes and immediately eating all the asymmetrical ones, so that the plate of remaining cupcakes looks perfect.
The journal is a great comfort to me in a way that makes me worry that I'm less well than I think I am. The kind of person who relieves stress by poring over a tiny, neatly written book of totally OCD things is probably an adult version of the kid who's always rocking in the corner of the classroom and refusing to come join the story circle. Also, the cupcake thing resulted in me eating five cupcakes last night and spending today with a raging, sugar-induced headache. Scientific discovery says: this does not make the start of the term any more manageable, but it does make it light, fluffy, and perfectly nutty.
Just like me!
Posted by dianna at January 7, 2008 05:14 PMDirk Gently-related comment: I was reading Pandagon today and one commenter mentioned a possibly apocryphal fact: When Bill Weld was running for Governor of Massachusetts back twenty years ago and a reporter asked him what the last book he read was, he replied "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul." Which adds to my vague, non-specific sense that Bill Weld is an okay guy.
Posted by: MoltenBoron at January 7, 2008 09:04 PM