“The faintest ink is more powerful than the greatest memory.”

As I was dusting my keyboard yesterday, I noticed a more stubborn type of dust on some of the keys, which I didn’t rub off: it was precious. Why? Because it told a very interesting tale…

Of the keys in the alphabet, Q had a significantly greater covering of the dust than any of the other keys, most of which were clean. TAB was a bit cleaner than the CAPS LOCK key, indicating clearly the usage of these. So I will try to draw inferences out of the patterns now.

Inference 1: I am mostly a cheerful person.
) was cleaner than (, indicating that I’d made the happy face 🙂 more than the long face :(. A little less used symbol was |, which means I’m more often sure of my emotions (I make the 😐 face when I am confused or unsure of what to say).

Inference 2: I am a textbook grammarian.
There was dust on the top part of the ‘ button, which means I press it with SHIFT more than without. That is, I use the ” more than ‘. Also, my SHIFT buttons are very clean indicating my love for the correct case. * was mostly unused.

Inference 3: Though I’ve been in a long-distance relation before as well, it’s from my current girl that I have learned how to kiss on chat.
The dust on * was wearing thin and looked polished. : ?* is how I kiss.

Inference 4: I have a love of the exclaimed!
Of all the numeric keys, 1 was the cleanest. Unsurprisingly, I use the ! mark a lot.

Inference 5: I am an escapist as well.
No, I’m not. I just press the ESC key a lot. Maybe I am, but the key has nothing to do with it, I bet. Or maybe Lacan was right: our unconscious is structured like language.

It’s been a long time that I’ve been complaining of inertia, feeling good only about my likeness to the antihero of Notes from Underground when he said that a decent and intelligent man was forced to not take any steps at all.

My Muse is a druggie: she comes to her job only in patches, and when she does she charges a huge sum of attention for her job (which is hugely shoddy anyway), rest of the time she’s out partying with the Muses of other wannabe writers. Today on, however, she is going to be regular: if she doesn’t come to work, the work will go to her.

My room had been a crime scene till yesterday, looking as if dark marauders had come and ransacked it: clothes strewn everywhere alongside juice cartons, chocolate wrappers, biscuit wrappers, chewing gum wrappers (yes I eat them so much that they are sizable). My life was a chaos of similar proportions. I had to work on my thesis and with the deadline staring me in the face I turned my eyeballs inwards and did some soul-searching. Guess what I found! A coupon offering discount on my soul (70%) valid till 31/12/2011. Gosh.

Instantly, I picked up my bucket: washed my clothes and myself too. I picked up the litter, and threw it all out: it took three outings (I have a small square room 8 ft by 8 ft). I cleaned my keyboard (and I have noticed some really cool things in the patterns of dust on my keys, which will be elaborated in the next post), my monitor, my table, leaving the spider webs to be dusted away tomorrow first thing in the morning. I joined postaday. I installed sticky notes. I wrote three notes, one of which was redundant. I washed my water-bottle and filled it and it shines neat on my table. I cut the  lid off my shoe-box and will now use it as a dustbin. I bought pens. I arranged my books. To reward myself, well, I ate chocolate cookies.

All this is the result of an inexplicable yet (or, hence) intense lack of thought and a stupor that clogged the very veins of my motivation, and thence action. Today, the levee broke, and guilt like water gushed in and filled my lungs with an ache to work, and now I breathe the sweet air of a satisfying day.

The dam’s been blown to smithereens for good. This time, I am sure.