Slaughter of the Minutes

I have no time to write.

I barely have time to work. I refuse to arrive before seven or to stay beyond four. I refuse to carry armloads of papers to grade home with me. I refuse to let the catastrophe of my desk take its toll on my morale.

I think about writing at times. When I'm driving and have a moment, for instance, I think about finishing that literary novel about faith, hope, and love or that trashy, money-making novel about international espionage, though I spend most of those moments belting out Gershwin as a noisy form of meditation. Thinking about writing is not writing; therefore, abusing Gershwin seems to me a more productive and less guilt-inducing way to spend a few minutes at a stop light.

Thinking about writing is a form of escapism as well, though. I imagine the perfect setting. A sleek silver laptop on a coarse wooden table in front of a rough-hewn stone casement overlooking a tumbling garden of jasmine and miniature citrus trees and ivy that makes its way to the a dark dirt path that skirts a meandering blue river that slips, several miles away, into the Mediterranean. See? Isn't that so much more pleasant than actually writing? Which requires deliberation and punctuation and countless other -ations that lead to palpitations - and not the good kinds. Not the kinds of palpitations that a girl gets from a fella that she likes.