With Saturday night’s Halloween bop gossip still lingering in the air, I could, with ease, collect the dew and weave outrage into this column. However, in light of previous alcohol-orientated pieces, I feel it is time for a detox. Because, of course, on the side of being a caricatured mess, I do have a degree at least to pretend to do. And so this week I turn to discussing that other friendly familiarity:
Essay crises. Now, this may seem a mile away from the realm of inebria- tion. But really I would say it were mere footfalls. As you know, essay hysteria has quite the punch. My essay crises are never faced alone. A friend shares my course, and also shares my “little problem”. So, it seems perfectly normal, with time tick-a-tick-ticking on a midnight deadline, and the essays untouched, to head with her and some other friends to a 10pm compline. A candlelit service? What an exquisite idea. And that’s why we find ourselves in the kitchen at 1am, eating crumpets. Fumes of hysteria suffocate us. Ten minutes alone are dedicated to assessing why crumpets are so great (is it the air hole things? The integration of the butter?) 1.30am. We return to our bedrooms. With doors propped open, we begin. Well. We don’t.
I type momentarily before I hear Essay-M8 cry “have you ever checked your typing speed?” “What?” “Your typing always sounds manic”. Half an hour later we are both rapidly repeating word/per/minute tests (99wpm in case you were wondering). Can I get money for this? Would the Guinness World Records listen? As I follow your thoughts and shut up, I settle down to start the reading. But temptation rears its metaphorically apple-shaped head. Essay-M8 raises her voice once more:
“What would you do if I told you that I was God?” I roll my eyes. “Tell you to fuck off.” “You’d tell God to fuck off?”
I’m going to have to close my door I decide. I don’t. I’m going to have to start writing my essay I decide. I don’t. My screen is illuminated by a photo of Hitler without a moustache, the other tabs displaying Facebook and a lonely JStor.
Type. Type type type — a group break to see what happens if you microwave a grape (try it) — type type — delete type. Pretension and pseudo-philosophy usurping knowledge, I am done.
I say I will never leave it this late again. But just like post-Park End’s drunken amnesia, by the morning all hysteria will have dissolved in a foreign fog (until next week.)
