Dead Horses

13:08, 06 June 2003

I have two very dead horses that I'm going to beat for you today.

1. Piyush, the deadest and most decayed carcass that I love to beat like an empty, shredded pinata-horse.

"Love can hope where reason would despair," Lord Lyttleton said.
"Uh oh," thinks Limes, "she's onto the poetry/quotations kick again."
Ah well, what can I do. I have to admit I'm hoping. Hoping that we're still on for tonight. Because we all know that nothing is set in stone until I can chain him to my bedpost. (Hmm... there's an idea...)

Hope is like dishwater. You put a little tiny bit of soap, a little tiny bit of encouragement, a little tiny sign... and poof, all of a sudden your sink is overflowing with bubbles, your mind is overflowing with a floaty white foam of unfounded wishes, imaginings, daydream scenarios... until you put in the greasy pans, like the greasy disappointment of his nonchalant cancellations, and all the bubbles pop in unison, subsiding in an instant, leaving only scummy grey water smelling faintly of dismay.

2. Work, the freshest carcass, the horse run into the ground with exhaustion, like a spent Pony Express pony.

Assignment after assignment. I rebel. Today I shall not do any work. OK, fine, I already did some. But I'm not going to work on the long-term project on which I really should be working. Especially since I know my ego is going to take such a hit when I meet with my boss in an hour and he tells me how inadequate my research is and how I have to go back and change it all. Because then my lovely plan to ditch work and have the rest of the afternoon free will be totally shot. Sweet.

Samuel Johnson shall present the closing remarks on the constant source of the babbling brook of my overanalyses: Piyush the Hope-Dasher.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment."