RAMBLINGS:  AN INTERACTIVE COLUMN

by Avi Mermelstein

Until I started this sentence, I was garnering golden nuggets of information from the blank screen looking back at me.  A cursor blinks at about the pace of a windshield wiper at its fastest setting (the windshield wiper’s).  Of course, the cursor blink rate can be adjusted, according to Help, by 1. opening the Keyboard Properties dialog box by clicking here (please don’t try to do so in public—people will probably stare at you.  While I’m at it let me also warn you not to read my column while driving or operating heavy machinery.  Thanks for letting me.  I do not discourage you from reading my column while intoxicated—it will only improve the quality of the humor and perhaps contort your mind into the shape (#24 in the Boy Scouts’ knot manual) necessary to understanding this column).  AND 2. On the Speed tab, dragging the Cursor blink rate slider.  Of course, you can also open the Keyboard Properties dialog box by clicking Start, pointing to Settings, clicking Control Panel, and then double-clicking Keyboard.  That beats clicking here on a piece of paper.

What kind of column begins this way?  One that was written months ago, when beginning a column, “Until I started this sentence” didn’t seem so restrictive.  However, now that I want to put this advisory at the top, I realize that doing so robs the original opening sentence of its meaning, which in turn threatens to undermine the entire original opening paragraph predicated upon that sentence.  So, all in all, I feel a lot safer telling you now that there are a few things you should now up front, or, in this case, in the middle.  For example, you should probably know (by my telling you) that I’m not going to welcome you back from your vacations.  So don’t sit around waiting.  In fact, I advise you not to waste your valuable time (already wasted on the rest of this newspaper) combing through this column for any nice sentiments such as “I hope you had a great summer,” or “I hope you’re refreshed and ready to meet the challenges of the upcoming school year.”  Don’t expect to find even the familiar and reassuring if less upbeat lines such as “Another summer has come to an end all-too-soon,” or “Here we go again, back to the old grind.”  Above all, don’t expect me to explain myself.  If you read the rest of my columns, their intricate internal logic should become abundantly clear—though not necessarily to you.  On that note, I will begin for the third time, this time with an anecdote…

The other day, I had the unfortunate experience of rereading some of my past writing and liking it.  This doesn’t happen as frequently as you might think, especially if you knew me to be the narcissistic writer that you must know me to be by then end of this sentence.  (Only a narcissist would use “narcissistic” in a sentence instead of “pompous,” “pretentious,” “conceited,” “self-congratulatory,” or “egocentric” and only a writer would use a word that is impossible to casually say out loud—try it.)  In fact, I usually have a negative physical reaction (thankfully confined to wincing) when confronted with something I wrote.  I think that this reaction stems from the similarity between my writing process—my mind is in agony before, active during, and blank after my writing—and purging.  Thus, reviewing my own writing is akin to reingesting (the spell-check recommends reinvesting) my own vomit.

However, this time, as I reread some of my old high-school columns, I found myself impressed by my brilliant wit that punctuated my flowing stream-of-consciousness style.  Man was I good!  I realized that I was going to be a tough act to follow.  I began to doubt whether I could ever attain the pinnacle of performance, the acme of achievement, the zenith of uh…zithers, zoo, zamboni, Zen-Buddhism, xylophone, Xanadu, Zoroastrianism…yes!  Zenith of Zoroastrianism!  Right, the zenith of Zoroastrianism that I had once (zither looks a lot better now) reached (lamely).

Of course, even if I were able to write as well as in high-school, I would still be writing self-consciously, which, while advanced for high-school seems par for the course at YU.  So, excepting novelty of style, what had I to offer my audience?  Certainly not substance.

That, gentle reader, explains why I was extracting hard-won knowledge from the baleful basilisk stare of a blank screen.  Did you know that you can only get one Tip of the Day?  Considering that it’s only 12:57 in the morning, it’s going to be a while before I learn anything besides how to undo or redo several actions at a time (accomplished clicking the arrow next to the undo or redo button).

            -And so I leave you with nothing.