I’m crammed in the middle row of an ultra-economy micro airline seat on a transatlantic flight and instead of indulging in escapist movie offerings I’m attempting to write while my laptop keeps sliding off the seatback tray. Why? Good question. Because I have nothing to write about. The blog I’d started yesterday stalled out when I realized that the research I’d collected and then lost couldn’t be reproduced with a quick online search. And while I knew that I’d unearthed some fun facts, all I could remember is that they were fun, not what they actually were. Since that’s really not the most useful bit to be remembering, I guess I should be grateful that I ever made it through first grade, let alone law school.
I miss the flight hours we used to while away giggling at the fantastical offerings in Skymall magazine. I had hoped the duty-free boutique magazine on this flight might prove just as amusing but alas, it never seemed to rise above annoying, although I did almost crack a smile at the device for holding a bottle of nail polish suspended above the fingers during polishing manovers.
So, then this is blog about nothing. If I use Seinfeld as my model, this could be the most popular thing I ever write. Though this is about the time Kramer should slide into view and a laugh from the studio audience should boost the energy level. I don’t have Kramer. I don’t even have a flight attendant with goofy hair. The only unusual thing in sight is the plastic cup with sparkling greenish water. I’m hoping it’s the cup that’s green.
I’m very excited to be on this flight but writing this blog was the only thing on my “to do” list that didn’t get done and for some reason, I feel I must finish it. Ah, that’s not actually true. I also did not finish writing instructions for my sister who is taking care of the rest of the household in our absence. So, I should kill two birds with one stone and write the instructions and post those as my blog. Then I could just send her the link. At least that way I’d know that one person would actually read this entry.
But this is a blog about nothing and a list of detailed instructions on what to do when the rabbit hops up onto the window sill to eat the plants or warn my sister that if she takes the dogs in the car, one of them has a tendency to hop all over the interior, opening windows, changing the radio station and shifting the car into neutral while the other dog wedges herself directly in front of the brake pedal is most decidedly not nothing.
But it would be easier to accompany with an image. The rabbit is cute. The dogs are cute. Nothing is not as photogenic. And what exactly does nothing look like, anyway? A blank white screen would be a blank white screen. It might even be misinterpreted as a blank sheet of paper. A blank black screen is even worse – it could be the night sky, or a closeup of a dilated pupil or the dog’s nose.
Should nothing be an empty hole? But then it’s not nothing, it’s a hole. How do you depict nothing?
I suppose just the image of these words could suffice but they are now perhaps worse than nothing. So I’ll use a picture of what we can see of Newfoundland. According to the diagram showing us the plane’s progress, we are not far from the wreck site of the Titanic, which, coincidentally, happens to be one of the movie selections. A picture of what we can see of that would also be appropriate for this blog about nothing.
By now I’m sure you really wish I’d found that research and written the short little piece with fun facts about history. Instead, nothing has become quite lengthy.
Since nothing has no beginning, can it have an end? This blog certainly needs to. So while it is about nothing, it is not nothing itself.
And that’s something, isn’t it? But next time I’ll stick to fun facts. I promise. (Cue audience laughter and fade to commercial break…)
(Maybe I needed a soup Nazi or a puffy shirt to really make this work.)