Rapid Review:
Author – Julie Schumacher
Likely to be enjoyed by – academics, employees of institutions of higher education, snail mail hold-outs, sarcastic misanthropes
Best form of consumption – in small doses, over morning coffee or before turning the light off at bedtime
Find it on Amazon — Dear Committee Members
Eliza strongly disapproves of human sexytime.
At least, this is what I have come to believe is true, after numerous occasions of her sitting on the corner of the bed, staring at us without blinking, while we try to ignore her and remain in flagrante.
I suspect it is because I am canoodling her man. She loved me before Boyfriend moved in. Now, she merely thinks I am pretty okay, and only because I am the one who feeds her. Boyfriend has become her most prized possession, and she follows him around, flopping on her back to expose her belly for rubs, and giving him the cutest, hugest anime cat eyes ever to be seen.
She has made it clear doesn’t appreciate my compromising his ability to use both hands to pet her at all times. This was reaffirmed this morning, when it was my turn for pets. Seeing we were unfazed by the laser beams she was steadily shooting at us from across the room, she decided to up the game by utilizing one of the most effective tools in the feline arsenal: the diaphragm.
I had to move my desk so I could start writing again. It seemed physically impossible to extract words from the brain and fingers with the desk facing west, in the same way it seems impossible to start a new diet on any day besides Monday. And I would know. I’ve seen many “new diet Mondays,” dozens perhaps, missing only the ones that were hiding behind pizzas and giant bowls of pasta.
Besides the obvious geographical challenges of taking up blogging again, I find there are more daunting roadblocks, as well. Like the pesky question, “Why do it at all?” and it’s constant companion, “Who are you writing for, anyway?” To both, I can only answer, “I’m not quite sure, but I am equally unsure that I have a choice.”
I have written in the past. I have also quit writing. And each time I have stepped away, I have rolled around in the vast sense of relief that accompanied knowing there would be one less thing I’d need to do each day.
It doesn’t seem to last, though, this comfort of quitting. Over time, it starts to feel pinchy and wrong, like work pants I suspect are too small when I put them on at 6 a.m., and that by noon, literally seemed to be trying to cut me in half.
Not writing doesn’t fit. And so here I am. In worn-out yoga pants, and in the middle of a blog post… both which seem just about the right size.
the wrinkled brow 