Aimless and Wandering
This is the sixteenth of these rather psychotic nocturnal ramblings, and that’s an occasion. Why, you ask? (Or would have asked if you were the sort of readers that had nothing better to do than have conversations with pieces of paper. You aren’t, are you?) Well, there are two reasons. One is that I like the number sixteen. It has a square root I don’t have to think to come up with (For those of you who have conversations with my articles, the answer is four. Don’t strain yourselves.) and it looks good. It carries hints of driving and freedom, and it folds neatly and fits in most overhead compartments. The second reason is that I can’t think of a topic, and rambling about sixteen takes up space and allows me time to try and come up with one. It’s not as easy as I make it look.
I would normally have fallen back on the TCRI label, but unfortunately my cats are currently on the war path. You see, we, being the pathetic excuses for owners that we are, have grown lax and allowed wrapped gifts to sneak into our house and form a colony in the living room. My cats are deadly enemies with all wrapped presents of any sort. They scent the wrapping paper smell and hurl themselves across the house in a mad dash for the nearest pile, where they will lunge at the bow on a gift in a violent pounce that makes me think of the nature channels documentary’s on lion. Specifically it seems that the bow on a gift is similar to the jugular on your average wildebeest, although of course, wildebeest tend to run away, which makes wrapping paper much better prey.
Having carefully removed any possibility of bow-related threats from the household, they’ll proudly prance off to present the tattered remains of a once defiant bow at our feet. We do, of course, scold them fiercely in a disapproving tone, but if any of you own cats then you know ~ cats are remarkably dumb. The part of the brain that is usually in charge of discerning between fierce scolding and affectionate praise is taken over by the part of the brain in charge of deciding where the most expensive place to throw up is. Also, our cats don’t speak English.
You would think that after nearly ten years of this we would realize the futility of scolding them fiercely, but the fact of the matter is, we don’t really want to know that we can’t possibly stop it ~ it makes us feel helpless and insecure. So you can just quit trying to burst our bubble of ignorance, mister!
So the cats are unavailable to comment on any studies we might attempt.
At this point I am seriously considering sacrificing chickens to the dark god of humor for a topic to write on. Anything. I’ll even compliment Canada for a topic, although I draw the line at Iowa. I haven’t decided whether complimenting the French is worth it. Probably not.
You may be curious as to what is afflicting me that could actually cause me to stop talking, even for brief periods. (I know you aren’t really interested. I also don’t care.) Well, loyal readers, I have been attacked by the evil demons of writer’s block. These particular demons haunt the insides of writer’s skulls and go around feasting on the brain tissue there until they are satisfied, at which point the writer has barely enough brains be called a vegetable and is fit for nothing but a job as governor of Minnesota.
There isn’t any known cure for writer’s block, although many authors favor the home remedy of stringing profanities together until you are forced to pause for a breath. That’s the remedy I favor anyway. It doesn’t seem to be helping much so far.
This is my third bout with these demons, and I am far enough into the later stages that I am beginning to show some of the more severe symptoms. Late stage symptoms include an urge to run for public office, a sudden and unshakeable belief in professional wrestling’s authenticity, and a fondness for the grad standards. An impulse to move to Canada or Iowa accompanies the final stages of writer’s block. If you or anyone you know plans to move to Canada or Iowa, then please do them a favor and finish them off before they have a chance to become president.
This is close enough to the end of the page that I’m just going to quit writing. And you can just deal with it! They can’t all have points!