Saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING In Particular About Responsible Triviality and Gif Abuse

I have not run the gamut everything I could be doing except my linguistics paper in the past 24 hours...

…and when I say “linguistics paper”, I mean grading papers. Because I’m a professor.

Anyway, the reason why I can’t say I’ve done everything EXCEPT grade papers in the past 24 hours is because that would defy the Laws of Procrastination. While suspended in academic inertia, I tend to maintain the personal delusion that I will start grading papers sometime in, like, the next five minutes. Therefore, it’s unrealistic and irresponsible to consciously commit to something as time-consuming as a full-length feature film or picking up where I left off in The Chelsea Whistle. Which is too bad. I mean, if I were honest with myself about my unspoken commitment to dwindle the rest of my waking hours on pointless non-activities, I could at least drink. Because, let’s face it, folks: the only thing better than a Hot Toddy is numerous, consecutive Hot Toddys.

According to the warped logic of the Laws of Procrastination, intensely trivial activities are The Responsible Thing To Do. Because if the Paper-Grading’s gonna go down in, like, five minutes, anything that I’m going to do that’s not grading papers better be quick. For example, Tweets are written. Not only is Tweeting a relatively small exercise, there’s an additional delusion that everything I accomplish in the perpetual five minutes before I start in on my less palatable responsibilities drips with importance. Anyone who follows me on Twitter must want to know about it. Why wouldn’t they? (See also: the existence of this blogpost.)

After a smattering of Tweets, I might get up and make rice pudding – because, all things considered, making rice pudding doesn’t take all that long, does it? While ladling out the finished product, it will occur to me that vegetarian chili fries would be THE BEST THING EVER; second only to the post-chili-fry GENIUS that is cookie-baking. These, of course, take more time than a full-length feature film, but…in the grander scheme of things...

BEST FUCKING IDEA EVER

I will admit that the endless five minutes are further perpetuated by all the dishes dirtied by these GENIUS culinary shenanigans, and it would be sorely irresponsible of me if I left them all festering at the side of the sink.

Then, with dishpan hands and keystrokes, it will suddenly seem to be very important that I try my hand at being one of Those People who overload their blogposts with gifs. I already dabbled in ending posts with music videos, how different is that from the novel gimmick of gifs? I mean, really. What’s the worst that could happen?

You know who didn’t ask herself that latter question very often? High School Me. A very short-sighted, small-picture woman, High School Me was. Once, in causal conversation with someone she hardly ever spoke to at school, it was brought to light that the near-stranger had read her Live Journal on a more-than-once basis. Which was like…what?

High School Me wasn’t expecting that.

A bit of a wake-up call.

Let that be a lesson to you: if you wish to blunder forth according to your most cherished misconceptions, best to not talk to anyone lest said misconceptions are challenged. Likewise, if heavily drinking on a daily basis continually fails to be compatible with your rudimentary Protestant morality: give up church for Lent. But only for Lent – assuming that you’re in any way attached to the prospect of pastors being your bridesmaids.

And High School Me was operating ten years ago. I’m sure it’s gotten “worse” since then…because the world’s on a trajectory towards ultimate shittiness…right? That’s how that story went? I don’t know. There’s a draft of a text message saved in my phone that reads, “The world through my urethra (rev 2)”. I’m torn about that, too – whether or not I want to remember its context.

Anyway: these days, I’m not terribly worried about being surprised about who reads my Live Journal. For one, I no longer have a Live Journal. For two, I’ve seen the numbers (as far as page-views on this blog goes), and nine times out of ten, I’m near-exclusively writing or Chloe, Sophia, and the Time Machine Mechanic. Sometimes Anita, too.

Mind you, I’m not complaining about the limited readership. It makes me feel like I have more license to spontaneously revert the purposes of posts to platonic love letters without it being too weird or alienating.

I love you guys.

BTW, I stole all the gifs from here. They stole them from somewhere else.