Monday, November 2, 2009

Inkhat's List of New/Intensified Habits!

1) Coffee

My enjoyment of coffee has exploded into a complete and infinitely nuanced addiction. I plan my morning around its acquisition. I need at least one cup a day to keep going, and often need two or three. Just as I was writing this Rich wandered into the office with a giant cup of coffee and offered me half. It crossed my mind, momentarily, to decline, but as he held the half full cup of that warm, earthy drink that makes me imagine sipping the color of sun on fall leaves I found myself energetically offering my open hand and gulping it down.

It is my second cup of coffee today, and my second free one. This morning the man in front of me, with graying flyaway hair in a red plaid jacket, stuck his thumb back at me and added my coffee to his tab. I felt stupid and blinked at him silently. Who is so kind so early? Why did it mean so much to me? I choked out a Thank You, and hoped it expressed how I felt.

2) Crushes

I have always been the sort of person who falls in and out of those brief, obsessive love affairs with my assumptions about someone. Usually it is not with people I see on the street. I base very little on appearances alone. I will acknowledge that someone is lovely. I can look at them and think, yes, that person is, in fact, the most beautiful person I have seen walking down a street. But it’s only an impression. It passes in the same way as my thoughts on a particularly bright fall tree.

No, my inappropriate attachments come from brief encounters, short conversations, a hello, the way he inclines his head on the ‘o,’ or his smile at the passing squirrel. Smiles get me more than anything. What follows is a short, lucid affair in my head. I spend time in the place where I saw him. If I encounter him again I act as if nothing at all has changed between us. In public, we pretend we are strangers.


3) Doodling

I like to doodle. Sometimes I post it here.

4) Drinking

I never drank before graduate school. Well, not never. I drank occasionally. I still dislike the taste of alcohol and can only stand it when it is hidden beneath a great deal of sugar and synthetic flavor. I still don’t enjoy drinking, but it seems to make people nervous if someone is at a bar or party and not consuming alcohol. There’s a certain social breach about it. No one is sure why they feel uncomfortable, or if they should, which only adds to the discomfort. For the sake of easing this, and attempting to socialize so as not to lose my mind (and also to temporarily alleviate number the fifth) I have decided that I will simply, for the time being, become dramatically more susceptible to peer pressure than usual.

5) Debilitating Self Doubt

This seems to be a common element of higher education. It happens anytime you stuff a large number of enormously intelligent, talented people in a box. Self confidence and excellent personal images were never traits writers were overburdened with in the first place. Every-other day I find myself looking at the people I am with, or, worse, the PHD candidates that occasionally wander into our ranks, and wonder how the hell I thought I had any business being there. Name dropping being the national sport of our tiny, well read principality, anyone wandering into our midst would be immediately inundated with knowledge. The office constantly buzzes with obscure knowledge, like a perpetual arcane incantation. More often than not, I have no idea who is being mentioned, or if I do, I have the lightest recollection of who they are.

Only in my workshop do I feel a sense of achievement. In writing and interpreting I feel myself grow in every class period. Still a short interaction with a second year or a PHD candidate can immediate reintroduce my humility. Yesterday, while looking at Facebook, I realized with a flash of pride that I have a college degree. I own one. I earned one. I have a perpetual symbol of my accomplishments. I am constantly educated in intellectual euphoria and modesty.

7 comments:

  1. 1. Everything goes haywire if my morning coffee ritual is disturbed. Go to work, stumble over to the coffee machine, queue up a cup, drink some water while it's brewing to counteract the dehydrating effects my consumption throughout the day will bring about, and finally... pick up the coffee cup and awaken.

    2. I don't know what my propensity here is, but I had to revise my estimate upwards after I read all of the archives of Hark! A Vagrant and realized I was mildly smitten with Ms. Beaton and her historical snark.

    3. I have achieved a total of two (2) drawings in the past several weeks. I appear to have broken the habit. Do not do as I have done.

    Also, "I realized with a flash of price that I have a college degree" is one of the better typos I've seen in a while.

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  2. Oh jeeze! I'm not even sure I want to change it. Except I did. Because I'm obsessive.

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  3. Lots of relatable stuff in this post. Great bit of writing.

    Speaking of writing, do you have any of your poetry posted online (or printed for that matter) that I could take a look at? I realized recently that I've known you for about a year, but don't think I've read any of your poems. For shame.

    I meant to ask you about it the other night but got sidetracked with rap battle translations. :)

    Ryan Claytor
    Elephant Eater Comics
    www.ElephantEater.com

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  4. The problem is that publishers get all itchy if you send them stuff that has been on your blog. On the other hand, I did get some stuff published this summer and that magazine is very open about republications. I will consider putting that up. failing that, I'll just send you some.

    It is not centered. It does not rhyme.

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  5. I'd really like to take a look at some of your poems.

    ...even if they do not have a particular justification or cadence. :)

    You know where to email 'em,

    Ryan Claytor
    Elephant Eater Comics
    www.ElephantEater.com

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  6. Which one of us should be concerned if your post almost sounds like you're describing me? (well, replace the coffee obsession with coca cola, and uh... my drawings go on DoubleClicked rather than here, but you know what I mean...) :P

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  7. Nah, Ryan. That means I'm doing something right.

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