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Oct. 31st, 2004 05:19 pmIt's a cruel fact that when one is poor one cannot afford decent stationery, yet wealth is often brought about by work which in most cases leaves an abundantly stocked stationery cupboard at one's disposal. Faced with the cornucopia of writing implements, paper ruled and blank, etc, it loses its attraction.
Unless one - no, that's too many "ones", I'm starting to sound aristocratic - unless you have a leisure-time use for stationery that is, in which case the dross they give you at work just doesn't cut it. You need a weighty tome, bound in pigskin, or vellum (if that's not the same thing), or the hide of new-born frogs. Such will be the quality of this great ledger, you'll be inspired to fill it with the most meaningful thoughts/poetry/fiction, yes?
Nah. The thing sits there unopened, scaring the thoughts out of your head with its costly purity. Dare you deflower its milk-white virginity with your blunt and inelegant scribblings? Shouldn't you be taking a course in calligraphy, concurrent with ditto in critical thought before you even touch it with your, your...
Paralysis. You might have had it in you before, but not now, you're not equal to it. The volume is put away on a high shelf to be forgotten. Creativity is similarly stowed away, and you go back to reading the odd ends of the previous weekends Sunday papers.
Which is why I'm going to write on the blank reverse sides of used Post-Its from now on, the undevoured ends of partially brain-stormed flip-charts, the leftover margins of memos, the wrappers of reams of photocopy paper. I'll use an old HB, sharpened back to about two-thirds down, so that it sits uncomfortably in my paw. Given the outright crappiness of the materials at hand, the muse will take hold of me like an aroused and confused Jack Russell terrier takes hold of an expensively clad and unwilling shin-bone. Inspiration will belabour me until I'm sore and walking oddly. I'll make Proust look like a dilletante, Joyce a slacker, Dos Pasos a feckless wastrel, Balzac a rank amateur.
Tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow. Monday's a good day, the beginning of the week. That promise of unused potential, all that it might hold...
Unless one - no, that's too many "ones", I'm starting to sound aristocratic - unless you have a leisure-time use for stationery that is, in which case the dross they give you at work just doesn't cut it. You need a weighty tome, bound in pigskin, or vellum (if that's not the same thing), or the hide of new-born frogs. Such will be the quality of this great ledger, you'll be inspired to fill it with the most meaningful thoughts/poetry/fiction, yes?
Nah. The thing sits there unopened, scaring the thoughts out of your head with its costly purity. Dare you deflower its milk-white virginity with your blunt and inelegant scribblings? Shouldn't you be taking a course in calligraphy, concurrent with ditto in critical thought before you even touch it with your, your...
Paralysis. You might have had it in you before, but not now, you're not equal to it. The volume is put away on a high shelf to be forgotten. Creativity is similarly stowed away, and you go back to reading the odd ends of the previous weekends Sunday papers.
Which is why I'm going to write on the blank reverse sides of used Post-Its from now on, the undevoured ends of partially brain-stormed flip-charts, the leftover margins of memos, the wrappers of reams of photocopy paper. I'll use an old HB, sharpened back to about two-thirds down, so that it sits uncomfortably in my paw. Given the outright crappiness of the materials at hand, the muse will take hold of me like an aroused and confused Jack Russell terrier takes hold of an expensively clad and unwilling shin-bone. Inspiration will belabour me until I'm sore and walking oddly. I'll make Proust look like a dilletante, Joyce a slacker, Dos Pasos a feckless wastrel, Balzac a rank amateur.
Tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow. Monday's a good day, the beginning of the week. That promise of unused potential, all that it might hold...
