June 11: Archy the Cockroach, Ambitions, Insignificant

...[Archy the cockroach] embodied both Elwyn's ambitions as a writer and his sense of being small and insignificant, as well as his need to hide from people...

The young E. B. White loved the character of Archy the cockroach created by newspaper columnist Don Marquis.  Archy was a poet reincarnated as a cockroach, and White truly identified with Archy's poetic endeavors and low self-esteem.  The future author of Charlotte's Web struggled with the urge to be read and his almost pathological shyness.

I'm not a shy person, but I do struggle with ambition.  I tend to suffer from bouts of extreme jealousy.  Nobody is safe.  Favorite authors.  Friends.  Colleagues.  In my life, I have lots of writer friends.  Some of them are fantastic and deserve all the attention they receive.  Others are mediocre and still receive lots of attention.  Most of them have full-time professor gigs at the university.  You can see where this discussion is headed.

I'm tired of being the only poet cockroach that doesn't teach full-time.  I'm tired of being insignificant.  Yet, at the moment, I'm stuck.  I have sometimes had this daydream that I was Robert Frost in a former life.  That would mean that I'm Frost's punishment.  His cockroach.

Saint Marty doesn't find that very comforting.

This guy's probably got tenure

July 3: Franz Kafka’s 130th Birthday

Today would have been Franz Kafka’s 130^th birthday.  In commemoration of that fact, I spent the entire day feeling like a giant cockroach named Gregor.  Yes, I crawled around the office, doing the monotonous tasks that take up so much of my day.  I’m not saying my situation is unique.  It’s not.  I’m sure most people spend a good portion of their days dreaming of a better job, a better life.  However, most people never take the initiative to do anything about those dreams.

This morning, I took the initiative.  I worked on a resume and cover letter for a job I would love to have.  It’s a challenging job, but one that is right up my alley.  I probably won’t even get an interview for the position, but at least I’m taking a shot at it.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as Gregor.

Franz Kafka has always appealed to me.  I think it’s the whole dark outlook on modern life that saturates every word of his stories.  Kafka wasn’t the life of the party, that’s for sure.  He was Gregor.  I’m sure he imagined himself as a cockroach.  Getting up every day.  Seeing all the other cockroaches on the streets, in their offices.  Dreaming of something better every night.  Kafka didn’t live long enough to see something better for himself.

Maybe something better is just around the corner for Saint Marty, though.  Right next to the roach motel.

This is sort of how I felt this morning