Can I just say, blogging is a tool  for the weak-minded?

God bless my poor husband. Yes, I'm drunk. ... I'm rarely anything but when I sign into one of my blogs these days. But there was champagne and gin and lemon and enough to make amazing French 75s, and why would I say "no" when things are so good?

Yes

I spent three hours longer than my husband wanted discussing all the things that excite me. That's right: Shakespeare, identity, politics, Joyce, Faulkner, characterization, story themes, sexuality, and more. How could I resist?!?! I felt so old discussing such subjects with a student just graduated from high school and yet I was infected by his enthusiasm for the subject. I realized I graduated from the same subjects over a decade ago ... and yet the emotions I feel for the subject are no less diminished. We dashed back and forth between Iago and Falstaff, Hamlet and Quentin, that I felt no drag from the twelve years since I've discussed these subjects in earnest.

Does High School stick with you so much? Everything I experienced then and, (I can recall with same alacrity) despite the fact that I have had some amazing college experiences. (I just took a few minutes to address my many college experiences and I just remembered that 8-10 years later, no one cares what you did in college...) no one cares what you did in High School or Grad School for how many years in pursuit of that ridiculous degree....All that matters of your life is what you do now. (Shit! My life's blood suddenly counts???) I gave up a PhD in light of the 7 yr commitment to do a dissertation on anything I didn't care about to fit a professor's identity .....and decided to get married, live my life, and .....raise a family....

I need a drink.    Seriously, has it been so many years since I left academia?  .....       Am I really that old? I"m looking at eleven years of squandered research potential???

I feel I have nothing left to add to the conversation at this age, and yet I feel I've just begun. Shit. I'm one of them. One of those who think all experience begins beyond 30 or 40.... And yet, here I am, staring down 30, with years of education to offer and some life experiences, and yet ... memories are a mist.

Nope. That's not what I have to offer. Guess what?

You know nothing. I don't care if you're 20 or 50. We know nothing. We may have some glimpse of what Shakespeare insinuated in his works, but we know nothing. I'm looking for rebuttals.