Eccentric Flower:199811/marking off time
From Eccentric Flower
«November 1998 «Eccentric Flower
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twenty eleven eleven marking off time I was all prepared to talk about professional athletics this morning - the only field which suffers more than politics from Too Much Money. The Patriots are moving to Hartford, having been given an unbelievable $350,000,000+ blowjob (forgive my unladylike usage), and the sportswriters are wearing ashes and sackcloth, rending their hair and gnashing their teeth. We couldn't keep Mo Vaughn, they cry, now we are losing the Patriots as well. But you know what? I realized I don't really care. I didn't attend athletic events before and I'm not going to attend them now, and I'm not going to trump up some indignation just because some overpaid athletes and owners make a good rant. So there. Instead I will talk a little about anniversaries. Did it ever strike you that it's a curious impulse, this need to mark off a point and look back on it at regular intervals? Not a bad thing - just odd, in the same way that it strikes me as odd every now and then that I keep small livestock in my house by choice. I note that a lot of journallers who have gone on for more than a year like to link back to whatever they wrote a year ago. I don't think I'd do that. I've been writing here for more than a year, of course, but not in any contiguous format. When and if this journal becomes a year old, I may comment on it, but I'm not sure I'll look back to see where I was. Some people would say: But if you don't use it to see where you were, to remember what took place, then what's the point of keeping a journal? To which I would reply: Nolo contendere. Not too many journals last a year, statistically speaking. Someone (I think it's Diane) keeps a list of the ones which have. You may think the flameout rate is unexpectedly high, especially with the large exodus of journallers over the past two weeks, but it's not. Think of all the people who started paper diaries and never did anything with them. People like me. (Several times.) The only reason I can keep this up is because I have reduced the physical labor of doing it as little as possible. If I had to actually write it every day - I mean write longhand - forget it. Apparently there is some crucial point - a point where, if you're still writing the journal, you're hooked and you're not going to stop. The journal may change names and locations, but by then the monkey is on your back. I don't know where that point is. It probably varies from person to person. A year is as good a milestone as any. But back to anniversaries. People who know me in person know that I am severely anti-birthday. I have trouble remembering other people's birthdays, and I am more likely to buy someone dinner or a drink than give them a present. As for my own, I am notorious for not wanting to receive gifts or celebrate the event. (Good wishes are always acceptable, although I may wonder at your priorities.) It just doesn't seem like something which deserves special notice. I don't mean that in the cranky, oh-god-i'm-getting-older way. I like being this age; my childhood wasn't all that great and I'm having progressively more fun the older I get. It just seems like a foolish thing to mark off, that's all. Let me try it a third way, because I still don't think I'm conveying it: There are important dates in my life, dates where I look back and reflect on how I've progressed, but the day I was born has never been one of them. Lest you think I am building up to this: Today is not my birthday. My exact birthday is a state secret, but I am a Pisces, so you can see that we're not even in the neighborhood. Today, however, is the day on which my true love and I are celebrating five years together. The earth has not come to an end, nor have we killed each other, nor have our friends decided to kill us. It's a date that not only affects my life profoundly, but someone else's as well. If that's not an occasion to mark off, I don't know what is. © columbine |
