A typical Sunday afternoon: I sit at my computer and mentally run through my week, desperately hoping that I did or thought something interesting. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I’ll have already written myself a note somewhere about a promising thought or topic that I want to turn into a column, but let’s be honest—it’s the end of the volume, I’ve written a number of columns and sometimes the well of possible topics runs dry. (Meta-column, if you were curious, is one I have wanted to write for a while but have been saving until now.) Sometimes, there are crises. I have started columns only to decide that they are unfit for general consumption. I have stared at my blank Word document for ages and begun to panic that I may, in fact, be an unbearably boring person with nothing to say to the Stanford community. A few times, I have brainstormed myself to sleep, only to wake from my slumber in the middle of the night to groggily write an outline that never makes any sense in the morning.
Post-brainstorm, I write, with frequent breaks, until I have a decent first draft and then promptly fall asleep. Monday rolls around, and I slowly make edits, occasionally in the middle of lecture. I pass my final draft on, and it’s out of my hands for the rest of the day. Sometimes, in my nervousness, I hastily read (or reread) all the other columns from the past week.
Tuesday rolls around, and either I completely forget that it’s publication day, or I wander around looking awkward and sheepish. My friends always find something nice to say about this week’s column, and I occasionally regale them with overly detailed stories about the convoluted thought processes I had while writing it. The best part is receiving e-mailed reader responses from people I don’t know. It’s hard to describe the giddiness and anticipation before I open the e-mail. No matter what it says, I’m always overjoyed that I’ve somehow managed to make a writer-to-reader connection while blathering on about my own life, and I usually announce my glee about it to whoever is in the same room as I am.
My roommates used to indulge me and display copies of The Daily on our coffee table, casually opened to my picture. My parents used to send me adorable e-mails about how they didn’t know that I liked to write. I’ll be honest; the approval made me beam with delight, but more than a few weeks of this would have made me uncomfortable. Now, we’re all pretty used to the routine. Sunday rolls around, and I wrack my brain for another topic that I think might hold vague interest. My friends no longer have any suggestions. On Tuesdays, I’ve stopped furtively looking through my own column when I see the printed copy to see which sentence has been chosen for the highlight. Once, I forgot what I had written about that week and panicked a little when I needed to respond to a comment in person.
It’s not a bleak situation, though. It feels familiar, and I think that we are closer than we were in September, dear reader. We have been through a lot together, you and I, by which I mean, you may or may not have read a number of short pieces I have written about my life for you. I now readily share my more embarrassing habits and thoughts and trust that you will find it quirky instead of horrifying. So, this is my thank-you to you. True to style, the bulk of it is my talking about myself doing something fairly normal as if it were actually profound, but this appears to have worked for us so far. I’m glad to have had the chance to talk at you, and let’s keep this true to the title, yeah? Our correspondence doesn’t have to end here; it can be…continued.
Groaning about that last line? Jade is, too. Send her complaints, clever alternatives and continued correspondence at [email protected].