Portrait of the Blogger as an Old Hag

Is there any unfortunate soul reading this who was subjected to James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? I do very much hope that you weren’t. I hope you love English and that you were never sitting on the floor of your bedroom pressed against your dresser while you openly wept, knowing you were going to have to stay up half the night reading about the artist, as a young man, and his portraits. Oh, the portraits.

In case you missed this little literary nugget, I’m pasting in the opening lines from the book. And then we shall discuss.

Really, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “What’s so toxic about a little moocow coming along down the road and a nicens boy named baby tuckoo? And what’s so bad about dancing to sailor’s hornpipe, whatever that is, and tralaladdy?” Well, let me tell you. That’s the last time there’s any moocows or dancing sailors. James Joyce put his best words into the book trailer and then he leads you down the road to a slow and painful coma. 400 pages later, you are rocking back and forth and can no longer chew solids.

And now I have to be completely honest. I have not the first idea why I started talking about this. What made me think of James Joyce? Or moocows? Am I in pain? Am I trying to lull you into the same painful trance I once wrenched myself out of?

No clue. So I guess I’ll just move on. Call this Advanced Placement English with Sarah Lamar, once removed. I did love Sarah Lamar, even at 1:30 in the morning when I was crying through one of her assignments. She called me Bubbles. I don’t remember why.

This morning I was dusting. That sounds domestic and healthy. And clean. Some really thick stuff was sticking to my brand new swiffer duster, but before I could cast my mind back to the last time I dusted, I picked up the little decorative clock that has never had a battery in it and saw a card ensconced in fancy little dust bunnies.

“Oh! My Panther Perks card!” I exclaimed. I have been missing out on some serious PTA bargains since this went missing. In September. I guess that was the last time I dusted. Who knew? Oh, wait. Everyone. Because dust is visible.

Oh well.

It looks good now, but it’ll look bad again in another week. And then I can say it’s only been a week since I dusted. As I type these words, my triceps are extremely sore. I pulled them mopping. Someone else’s house. I wish I had pulled these muscles cleaning my own house.

I will dust until the moocows come home singing tralaladdy.

I wonder if I should get out more. I did get out yesterday. And in a trainwreck of a photoshoot (I use that term so terribly liberally that it is almost a lie), I caught a bunch of junk and two gems. These are worth the world. A friend of mine entitled them, “Smitten.” That’s about right.