Essential

Perhaps due to many suggestions that blogs are essential to a good career, I have found myself unable to write much of anything online. It’s a weird personal tic, I suppose—the moment that someone tells me that something is good for me I don’t want to do it anymore. Especially when it is filled with constraints:

But pick your topics carefully and have a purpose. ''The most interesting blogs are focused and have a certain attitude," says van Allen. ''You need to have a guiding philosophy that you stick to. You cannot one minute pontificate on large issues of the world and the next minute be like, 'My dog died.' "

In that spirit, I find it essential to itemize my day yesterday:

• Attended a committee meeting where I inadvertently committed to producing even more photographs than I had previously agreed to in the service of department publicity
  
• Taught a class in technical writing, and then ate a burrito
  
• Wandered along the Mississippi River in search of pictures, but they were hiding from me
  
• Arrived at a lecture hall on the other campus to see Salman Rushdie speak and spied something on the backside of the building worth investigating—there were a few pictures hiding there
  
• Laughed uproariously during the lecture, particularly at the mental image of Rushdie in red flare corduroy trousers with a purple shirt, long hair, and a Zappa moustache
  
• Favorite lines: “Democracy is not a tea party, it is an argument.” and “Realism is not a set of rules, it is a process.”
  
• Ate nachos and went to see two bands—liked the local trio, Gay Beast but wasn’t crazy about the visitors from Boston, Neptune
  
• Arrived home in time to see Dolly Parton doing “Me and Bobby McGee” on television

April 20, 2006 1:25 PM