What To Do on a Boring Day

A thread on the Eschaton was full of wonderful sayings by Dorothy Parker, the woman with a sandpaper tongue. She's one of mine, of course, as are all viper tongues. You could read her and other vinegary writers. Here's something to get you started:


Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song.
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
and I am Marie of Roumania.

(from Enough Rope (1926))


Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

(from Enough Rope (1926))


If you prefer something more thoughtful from Ms. Parker, think about these:


Ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon.

(from John Keats' You Might As Well Live (1970))


The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters....Obscenity is too valuable a commodity to chuck around all over the place; it should be taken out of the safe on special occasions only.

(from Esquire (1957))


Then you could look for other writers that suit the tenor of the day.

Or you could take up knitting. It was hugely successful among those who watched the guillotine executions in the French Revolution, or so we are told by most likely biased sources. Good knitters can easily knit and watch executions at the same time. It's one of those fine motor skills that work independently of the brain. I am a sporadic knitter myself, though a very advanced one. I knit about once a decade, but then I equip all the snakes with sweaters which have roughly two hundred colors in each. I have lots of wool in storage for knitting, but writing the blog uses similar fine motor skills (you should see my fingers run!) so I haven't done anything interesting for a long time.

Woodworking is another nice thing to do when you are bored. Just make sure you have plenty of insurance and learn to think of three fingers per hand as a sign of pride.
I'm making some shelves to put up behind my computer. They have been in the same state of half-readiness for months now, because I can't decide how to fix them to the wall. I want something fancy.

You could begin by building a miniature gallows. You could then knit the rope for it and make little stuffed figures of any particular person you want to see hanged.

Or you could just drown your boredom in fancy lovemaking and nectar-sipping.