I remember a time when prepping for writing an essay meant plopping my overweight ass into my computer chair, turning on my Compaq Pressario All-In-One desktop, and start using ICQ and mIRC to waste time before actually opening up WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows. Around 10pm or so, I’d pop a couple of caffeine pills (at least during my first year of College), turn on Q107, and the words would flow. In six to eight hours my essay would be done, and I might catch a couple of hours sleep before heading off to class.
In 2015, my ritual is different. The process still involves some form of procrastination under the guise of warm up exercise (welcome to my blog), and depending on the time of day either a coffee with more than a single shot of Irish creme or a choice between a beer and a couple shots of vodka. This morning it’s the coffee plus extras.
No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers. ~Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Satires
And it makes me sad that it has come down to this. Psuedo-intellectual drivel used to so much easier for me to put forth. Then again, it’s all I ever had to worry about. I was one of the really fortunate ones who didn’t have to worry about things like student loans when I was in school. Working part-time didn’t come into the picture until my second year, and that was weekends only. I don’t know whether it’s the brain noise, or age, or a healthy combination of both, but having to use a little something extra to unlock the greymatter is disappointing. But I have to do what I have to do. And with my first cup gone, and over 250 words deposited here, my modern ritual moves onto the next step.