Monday Nights and Moby-Dick

For me, Monday nights are excruciatingly long and involve looooooooong hours of work at the library. Most nights, there's been at least a little bit of BP (that's library speak for checking all the books in--a painfully boring process which involves a lot of flipping through musty books to check if any idiots have written in the margins or highlighted the pages and the equally boring (and occasionally back breaking) process of sorting hundreds of books and shelving them in the back so the shelvers can shelve them in the library). So most nights, I have that to look forward to to break the monotony up a bit, but not tonight. (BP isn't usually as awful as I just made it sound--in fact, I usually enjoy it because I can rock out to my iPod in the back). So I've been sitting at the front desk for quite a few hours now and still have more to go.

I think I've been fairly productive. I mean, I've been doing my actual work, and then I've written 1,000 words of my latest fictional project (I am now back up to my self-imposed work count--over 21K-- HOORAY!).

I posted one thousand of those words for my creative writing class.

I sparknoted chapters 50 through 81 of Moby-Dick to facilitate my reading (ie so I can skim and still have a general knowledge of what's going on).

I microwaved and ate my dinner.

I checked my email, facebook, and siblings' blogs.

I've mistakenly asked at least three people if I could help them when really they were just standing about waiting for their friends.

Now really, if I had any sense, I would have wisely spent my time reading Moby-Dick, out of which I have some really intense reading assignments (intense as over 25 chapters per class). But here's the thing about Moby-Dick: it's kind of hard to get through. In fact, sometimes I'd much rather be eaten by the whale than slog through it. Honestly, Mr. Melville, I thought you did a great job with Bartleby the Scrivener, but did Ishmael really need to narrate an entire chapter on different types of whales? No, I don't think he did.

So here's the list of things I'd rather do than read Moby-Dick:

Write 1,000+ words for various creative writing projects that I'm feeling half-baked about.

Post my creative writing assignment and read the posts by the rest of my workshop group (we're up to a grand total of two out of six posts so far--one of which is mine)

Sparknote Moby-Dick.

Check my facebook and email.

Blog about what I'd rather do than read Moby-Dick.

Have an appendectomy.

Stand outside in the blustery darkness.

Check the weather and find out tomorrow has a low of NEGATIVE THREE!

Do a handstand.

Sleep.

Sleep some more.

Deep clean my apartment.

Pay my rent.

Pay someone else's rent. (Okay, that's a lie. If I had to choose between paying someone else's rent on top of mine or reading Moby-Dick, I'm going to chose Moby hands down).

And any number of things that would be more exciting, fulfilling, and enjoyable than reading Moby-Dick.

Alas, there's just not that much to do on a Monday night.