Notes Written While Not Grading

Sending a man to war, shattering that man’s mind and body with the trauma of war, and then painting that man when he returns—this feels a bit witchy.

It is more than an ex-president’s book deal.

I want to commission some academic to study the rebranding of George W. Bush. The way he empowers himself by painting men irreversibly harmed by his folly—he’s like some sort of Texan blood cult priest.

It would make a good HP Lovecraft story or a compelling X-Files episode if it weren’t the quotidian bullshit of celebrity culture and tragedy branding.

And now for my perversity: Sunday, there is group singing across the street at the church. I sit at this desk and wait for my notepad holder to arrive by Amazon Prime. I type, slowly, on an essay that is more or less about how I don’t think God actually loves me, or people, which is a ridiculous query.  

The notepad holder is a symbol of the industrious note taker I will become, which is itself a part of the picture of my success in this or that professional / personal capacity.

But I have always been an excellent note taker. What am I not is a finisher, a doer, a completer.

A discovery: being at a play feels like reading. Why doesn't a movie feel this way? Because of the quick cuts, the camera changes, the way we’re not allowed to focus on anything for long enough to actually think about it. Also maybe the sense of smell.