Death of the Author

You know what's hard? Writing about intransitive, authorless writing. Have you ever tried to write about writing? If you want a headache and writer's block, you should give it a try. If you just want the headache, I recommend reading Roland Barthes writing about how writing is performative (something where the action is the saying of it or its name - like how saying "I thee wed" when you get married makes you married, except that when you are writing you are working with syntax and grammar and meaning, unless you are a) Mr. Barthes, in which case your hand takes over and writes without you, which is clear BECAUSE YOUR TEXT MAKES NO SENSE, or b) me, writing "writing" over and over and getting NOWHERE.). See? Headache. And I haven't even told you about intransitive writing, or gotten you tangled up in memory and subjectivity and all that.
The good news? I'm already on page 3 of my 25 page term paper, and I think I can easily fill up 22 more pages repeating this simple formula over and over with different fancy and/or made-up words: How can this theory possibly make any sense at all? Then, in the end, I get to say that the questions it raises are beyond the scope of this paper, although I'm already tempted to end it by saying that I would write more, but it is my authorial duty to die.
The bad news? There are quite a few other things I could/should/would rather be doing right now, like baking cookies or reading a book that's not for school or cleaning the bathroom or Christmas shopping. More bad news: if I don't get this paper done by Tuesday, when I leave for Wyoming, you'll probably get a shot glass from a truck stop in South Dakota for Christmas. It's the thought that counts, right?
On the other hand, Christmas shopping usually requires that I a) leave the house and b) spend money, two things which I am not very interested in right now. For one thing, money is tight. As for leaving the house, there was a cold snap here on Sunday, followed by a bunch of snow, and even though the sun is out and it is all of 5 degrees, my boogers still froze when I went out to shovel this morning, and I think it's reasonable to expect that all those idiots who had the bright idea to buy Mini Coopers in August for the fuel efficiency are still out there, skidding to a halt in the middle of busy intersections while trying to make illegal U-turns and then just sitting there, through 3 stoplight changes, not moving, with that grim, blank "I-have-no-idea-what-all-that-honking-is-about" look on their faces, refusing to make eye contact with anyone or to move OUT OF THE INTERSECTION but hopefully remembering to count their blessings (1. My brakes work really well, 2. Minnesotans are too passive-aggressive to confront a stranger).
Now, doesn't that make my term paper seem more appealing? Yes, yes it does.