Current mood:

sentimental

clean-ey
Tonight, being the first night away from the three shows I have done in as many weeks, I returned to the task of cleaning my room. Going through old boxes of things left over from when I moved here is harder work that it would be if I weren't quite so sentimental. Sorting through piles of papers I find little notes written to me and ticket stubs from this or that, and I think of how it didn't seem so long ago and wish longingly for those times which have long since passed.

I'm a sucker for the past, not just in terms of personal memories, but really in every possible way. Maybe I should (have) be(en) an historian. When I read novels set in earlier eras, I tend towards wanting to live in that time and that place. It's not that I don't like the here and now, just that there are always certain qualities that I'd prefer if I somehow got to pick and choose a setting by anachronistic combination. I suppose the truth of it is probably that the portions of history we choose to record, or that which I tend to focus on, or even more so that which tends to be portrayed in fiction contain the best parts played up and the less appealing aspects generally subdued. But still, I always have the lingering suspicion that I would have been happier in a simpler time.

I realize in that last bit, I used the phrase "an historian" which, by all official sources is an "error" of syntax. I understand the rule for the use of "an" versus "a" and I choose to write "an historian" because this is intended to convey my thoughts and is thus written in my voice. And in my voice I tend to pronounce "an historian" in just the way that requires such writing (without an 'h' sound). Should I have intended the pronunciation, I suspect I would have written it the "correct" way. I bet I might do that if it were at the beginning of a sentence and I wanted to emphasize the historian as an important player in the sentence, but not if it needed no emphasis. For example, I might write: "A historian studies history, while a chronicler compiles a chronology of historical events." But, then I might also write: "An historian walked into a bar, and..."

A point to the first person to come up with a good ending to that bar joke! The internets don't seem to contain any, so yours may well be the first, and this page will probably eventually be the first hit on google for "an historian walked into a bar." (One can only hope for such things in these modern days)

Speaking of which, I wonder if google checks for phrases such as "this page will ... first hit on google ..." and scores them lower as a result. It probably should. Perhaps I'll mention that to my coworker tomorrow at his last-day-lunch, since he's leaving us for Google's doesn't-officially-exist-yet-clearly-does Cambridge lab.

Did I say I was cleaning? Well, I made some progress. Now back to my other favorite non-work and non-theatre activity, sleep!