2007-10-19 - 1:31 p.m.
When I stopped writing to you a few months ago, my dear blog-a-licious blog, it was because I found myself with nothing left to say to you.
I mean, really! It was as though my life-long writer’s block had actually spilled over, even to you -- you to whom I traditionally had been able to burble whatsoever I pleased. But, you see, it is turning out that I actually miss you, dear Big Blue Blog-a-roo. I miss sharing a few words with you, now and again. And I miss writing delightful bon mots and describing the adventures and tribulations that beset my life. And, so, perhaps the time has come to start up again. Why not?
In truth, I hardly need to write the gigantic, long diatribes which previously made up my blog. I can just as easily write little tiny blog-lets, same as you see in most folks’ blogs. Previously, writing the blog would take up huge chunks of my time – it was not uncommon for me to spend something like four hours getting the 1400 word diatribes into just the right form.
Well, enough of that! I say to you, that the New Johnny Darling Blog shall now be somewhat retooled. I will spend no more than twenty minutes writing an entry. And perhaps by doing that, I shall update more frequently. For I do miss you, dearest blog, yes I do. You were for the longest time the repository of my evil dark soul and of my desperate, unfulfilled desires.
But, first, I think, an update. What have I been up to? Well, nothing much changes in my life, you may have noticed. I am still working as a library mouse and still reading the very occasional script. Still writing reviews for this paper or that one. Even though I have now officially gotten old, I am still having sex, what, twice a week? That’s not so bad, in this era of Craigslist, is it?
Oh, and I have gone back to college.
Didn’t I tell you this? I thought I had. You see, I finally figured that the time had come to go back to school and finish up my degree. It’s all part of this long-range, 10 year life plan. I am going to finish up my degree then go to library school, then I’ll become a librarian, and then I shall move to Alaska and become the Librarian in Homer. And that will enough to keep me in middle class-dom until I die of my heart attack at age 55.
Heh, I guess I never told you that I never graduated from the University of Chicago. Well, I did – sort of. I finished all the course requirements, and whatnot. Yet, I never wrote the final Senior Paper, which was a U of C requirement for actually getting the degree. I was never the most diligent student, I am afraid – and, thanks to an unhappy love affair in during my junior and senior years, about which I shall tell you some other time, I daresay, I essentially left the U of C with everything but my final paper done.
Years passed, I moved back to LA and got on with my life. And in my mind, I considered that I had graduated from college. Lord knows, it’s something I’ve lied about for decades and decades. But the thing is, if I want to go to Library School, I am going to have to have that damned degree in hand. Nothing else will do. And so, at 43, I have decided to go back to college. Even though I don’t actually have any classes that I must attend.
About two months ago, I contacted the Dean of Students, who referred me to an Under-Dean, who, in turn, passed me on to the Dean of the History Department. And now I am in contact with some professor of classics who is overseeing me as I write a ridiculous paper about Roman Theater. At age 43! Have you ever heard of anything more ludicrous.
It’s a bizarre experience going back to college as a middle aged man, I will tell you. For one thing, the goddamn Internet hadn’t even been invented yet when I was in school! This, of course, is making things easier. Every research document that one could ask for is on line. And the professor I am reporting to is actually in Rome, not Chicago, which adds an even more surreal element to the goings on. But that is the thing I am working on these days. And quite a pleasure it is, too. It’s oddly comforting to be thinking college thoughts, again. It’s something we’ll be talking about more, I hope, as I try to re-launch and retool the dear old blog.
