Reading an article about an entomologist who would roll her hair up in her car window on long drives, so that it would yank her awake should she fall asleep, I was thinking (not just about the sheer brilliance of that) that it’s time for me to abandon the short hair parade and grow my hair out again.

(Because trivial thoughts like that pass through my head ever so frequently. Because everytime I have short hair I want it long, and when I have it long, I can’t wait to have a dramatically-different look, i.e. short hair. Most girls reading this will know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Anyway, it got me thinking about windows, too. And about how I used to hate it when strong winds caught it up and blew it in my face. Or the time when I was 16, and Jody’s evercool mother rolled down the windows and sunroof and zoomed through an empty stretch, the two of them, short-haired, giggling like schoolgirls and me, in the backseat with no hair-fastening implement, struggling to enjoy the brisk ride, too.

Which led me thinking about the stories my mother’s friend told, from her air stewardess days: how she was on a flight serving India, and hearing plick, plick, plick midflight, she realised some of the passengers were chewing betel nuts and spitting the remains out of what they thought were open windows.

Or the time she gave some passengers sweets to alieviate the discomfort caused by their ears popping due to the change in pressure levels. Which they promptly stuck in their ears, obediently.

Did I miss the point of the article, or what?

There is a scene in the first (or second—I forget) episode of Studio 60, where Matthew Perry walks into the room recently vacated by the previous head writer, where he’s about to take over the role. He sees a large timer hanging on the wall, like a baseball scoreboard—red LED numbers against a black background—and wonders aloud why it’s counting down from the seven day mark, second by second.

Towards the end of the episode, when he’s just finished his mad scurry to complete his final draft before they take it and go to air, live, the timer clicks back to seven days: seven days, then six days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds, and so on.

Then we realise that this is probably the simplest, most effective way of demonstrating the mad rush and cyclical whirlwind that is a writer’s life. Or rather, a writer with recurring deadlines.

Like a writer for a TV show. Or a writer for a daily newspaper. And like a writer for a fortnightly IT magazine.

Right when all the articles are pitched, facts are gathered, interviews are done and writing drafts (and redrafts) are over, you look up and the timer nods in approval by clicking loudly back to square one.

Tick, tick, tick.