A few minutes ago I was reading old messages on a class reunion website, and feeling both sentimental and inspired from the experience. At 1 am, perusing a class reunion message board is both a connection and a lonely experience. "Respond to my email, ya grubby old bastard!" was a sure sign that somewhere, somebody loves me.
(Maudlin early morning moment is sponsored by...)
More recently -i.e., over the past year and a half- I discovered Facebook. Wonderful portal of communication. I'm a little sad that very few of my grade school cohort ever swing by the ol' Cave Spring High internet homestead anymore. It's like an old road that was abandoned when the new interstate came through (One empathizes with Myspace). The asphalt is already coming up in my messages on the website. And yes, that's metaphorical. At least, it better be, since I'm not in a macadam mood at the moment. If I were, you'd probably want to join me: "Go warm up the steamroller while I mix the tar, Jerry. We have a lot of conjunctions and adverbs to fix!" And off we'd go, you revving up the 'roller while I boiled tar and swore like road crew foremen are supposed to do. (Hey, it's my blog, so I get to be the foreman. Now pass me a doughnut, Dewey.)
I have a confession to make: Approximately five minutes have passed since I finished that last paragraph. I went into the kitchen for some toaster strudel and a little more Mountain Dew Throwback (MAN this stuff is good -gotcha!). When I repositioned myself on this luxurious microfiber manager's chair with the bolts that never seem quite tight enough, I decided to look over the paragraph abovev this one. Now, typically when I write something and read it right away, I feel stupid and embarrassed. "Good Lord", I fret. "Do I really want people to read this? What if they read it and think, 'gee, Rob must feel pretty stupid and embarrassed for writing that paragraph. Good thing he heated up some toaster strudel', and the next time I see them they're giving me sympathetic looks?
Forgive me. Sometimes I go off on tangents. Actually, I do more than that. I toss my gps out the window and explore those tangents. I remember, in some earlier blog, going so far on a tangent that I ended up in Dekorah, Iowa, much to the surprise of people who were merely getting around in minivans and pickup trucks. Imagine their surprise when I opened the tangent door and all those Mountain Dew bottles fell onto the ground! I have truly great memories of high school and many, many friends and acquaintances from those years. Some I've gotten to know since high school, and others from before the onset of driver's ed and lunch ladies who always seemed cloned somehow. What wonderful times! Bottle rockets with Bert. Ending up in a jail cell for eight hours with Bert. Spinning dad's car out at seventy miles per hour. Whoops. Discussions about life, religion, and whether Oldsmobiles or Chevies were better with Chuck. Laughing about something, nonstop, for forty-five minutes with Chuck. We were in severe pain for two days following that. Teaching my then-girlfriend (Betty L.) how to defend herself against a girl who was bullying her at her high school; by showing her very basic boxing (jab, cross, hook, and uppercut) moves, making her so excited and overconfident that she decked me right off of her porch while her dad laughed himself sick! Having a wonderfully terrible crush on a beautiful and sweet girl (fitting oxymoron). Sneaking dad's car out for a midnight cruise with a friend, only to be chased down by my mom over on Bower Road. Good teachers who had incredible patience with me ("Yes, Rob, it is your turn to read a passage from Beowulf, so stop trying to hide behind Debbie back there!"). Driving up and down Williamson Road. Going to parties, or at least telling folks I went to "a real blowout" Saturday night, lest someone discover I had been in the basement watching Carol Burnett. These don't begin to capture all the moments from my past that I love.
Erik Erikson was a stage theorist. (Boffo segue is sponsored by...) He posited that as we advance into successive stages of development across the life span (still with me?), how we enter those stages is determined largely by how well we resolved conflicts and other challenges of preceding stages. In the case of me and my classmates, these days we're negotiating our way through Erikson's seventh stage, which is "generativity versus stagnation". If we can successfully work our way through the spooky hedgerows of this stage, then we'll find ourselves becoming increasingly caring of others and productive. I see my family and friends as highly generative. I thoroughly enjoy their company, especially when Marsha accidentally pays for my lunch. (Great steak fajitas, by the way.) We've discovered that we enjoy one another's company and, despite the occasional minor social setback, good new days are being made.
Erikson would be proud that his theory is sound. I bet he drank Mountain Dew too.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Looking Forward By Looking Back (What To Say About Myself When I Become Rich And Famous)
The other day I was taking stock of where I am in life. At 49 years of age, I did a little introspection, which is like surgery except no anesthesia is required,and the insurance forms are a lot simpler.
(Anecdote of this blog entry is sponsored by...)
Looking back, it's amazing I ever graduated from college, much less from high school. Now, this would be an excellent place to insert a cop out statement like "because I'm stupid". Well, upon further reflection I've come to learn that stupid people don't use commas. Ever notice that? It's true. They might word such a sentence thus: " Ol Henry says your coming over for Thanksgiving to boil the turkey". Of course, you might assume Henry's friend is stupid because he wants to boil the turkey. Heck, you might even call me stupid for assuming that the sentence is about Henry's friend when we don't have any way of knowing whether or not the two are even friends to begin with.
I'm not trying to be mean by calling some people stupid. What right does a crazy person like me have to judge the value of anyone? It's an inescapable fact, though, that some of us can only paddle so far across the sea of reason before we learn that our boat sprung a leak back at the dock. (Okay, that's a horrible metaphor, unless we're willing to agree that we're talking about a really, really small sea.) I'm making it across the sea because of no leaks in the boat. That's because crazy folks like me row ourselves across tiny seas without boats.
With all of that ado a-done, let's get down to brass tacks, Betty. The whole point of this blog entry is to share with you that I'm "looking forward by looking back". It must be, since that's the title of this pig. When we were in high school, I skipped so many days that the county school system revised the total number of allowable yearly absences. Boy, did my grades reflect it. I fell so far behind my classmates that I almost dropped out of high school. Somehow, I crawled my way, inch by inch, through my subjects and managed to graduate -barely.
Then, in college I did the same thing, with the same results. Since college wasn't for me (during the second half of Carter's term, at least), I decided to try the military. My MTI (military training instructor) proclaimed me the "most improved Airman" he had ever seen in over ten years of MTI'ing. In my case, I had gone from doing everything wrong to doing everything right. Except, of course, being unable to keep a raging bipolar disorder from seeping out. Not that I've aired that dirty laundry 312 times already, but I only bring that point up to explain why my military career, although honorable, was shorter than Robin William's attention span. Yep, I had failed at Air Forcing, too.
See a pattern here? Hmm.
Several years later I had discovered that pattern myself. I did something about it, too. First, I discovered that textbooks weren't optional. Then I found out that reading them coincides with lectures and exams. Finally, at age 33 I graduated from college. Call me an underclassman by, um, about eleven years. I always was a late bloomer. Over time, I've learned what approaches toward challenges work and what don't. I learned how not to do things.
That latter point stays with me to this day. Looking back, I had had to learn how to do things by first learning how not to do them. In high school, I learned not to skip school. In college (the first time), ditto. In basic training, I learned that there really is something called the inspection side, and that MTI's get highly po'd if you try to do things your way. (Maybe I should have included "egocentrism" in the title, no?) Heck, the first time I repaired the body of my first car, I was introduced to sandpaper. I was so naive that I thought "grit" was brand name and the grit numbers were stock numbers of some kind. Sanding block? Aw, that's for sissies. Just rub all the old paint off of the car and the new paint will smooth everything over. Paint it dark green and bring it home.
Boy, was I wrong. There were so many severe flaws in the bodywork (now being proudly reflected by all that shiny new paint) that you'd have thought the Jolly Green Giant had drooled a half-chewed green bean. That car was ugly. To say I was disappointed and embarrassed would be akin to calling Donald Trump's hair artificial. The neighbors were relieved that it finally had paint -until they got close to it. Then they demanded that I put it back in primer and rust. That's how ugly it was.
But I learned.
I learned that you can, in fact, learn from mistakes. In my case, I learned that I was smart enough not only to make mistakes, but smart enough not to make the same mistake twice. It's important to be creative when making mistakes. Reruns only make people mad. Mistakes should be judged not only from a standpoint of severity but also from originality. If you turn in a report with a bunch of typos, your boss won't be amused. Ah, but turn in that report while wearing water wings, a ski mask, and a pair of antennas, and see if your boss doesn't laugh.
I look forward to success even though it's coming later rather than sooner. I'm looking forward, because I've spent quality time looking back. Not only have I learned from a large number of mistakes, I've always found something to laugh about when recalling them. Rooftops aren't good places for frisbee games. Not that I've ever tried that, but if I had and survived, boy would I have included that here. Getting into the middle of a dog fight at age fifteen was definitely a mistake, but how many people can say, "well, I lost, but so what? I'm not a dog!"
I look forward to a wild ride. So far, that has often been the norm for me. I've learned not to shy away from either my success or my failures. People used to talk about how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, but he was the only one who never shied away from addressing how many times he struck out. In my case, I've fanned at so many metaphorical baseballs that you can no longer accept that global warming is occurring. But I've also overcome some very overwhelming odds along the way. Both the failures and the success will, I believe, show that I've been looking forward as a result of looking rearward.
I look forward to a great life.
Hopefully, I'll be nineteen when success comes. My knees felt great then.
(Anecdote of this blog entry is sponsored by...)
Looking back, it's amazing I ever graduated from college, much less from high school. Now, this would be an excellent place to insert a cop out statement like "because I'm stupid". Well, upon further reflection I've come to learn that stupid people don't use commas. Ever notice that? It's true. They might word such a sentence thus: " Ol Henry says your coming over for Thanksgiving to boil the turkey". Of course, you might assume Henry's friend is stupid because he wants to boil the turkey. Heck, you might even call me stupid for assuming that the sentence is about Henry's friend when we don't have any way of knowing whether or not the two are even friends to begin with.
I'm not trying to be mean by calling some people stupid. What right does a crazy person like me have to judge the value of anyone? It's an inescapable fact, though, that some of us can only paddle so far across the sea of reason before we learn that our boat sprung a leak back at the dock. (Okay, that's a horrible metaphor, unless we're willing to agree that we're talking about a really, really small sea.) I'm making it across the sea because of no leaks in the boat. That's because crazy folks like me row ourselves across tiny seas without boats.
With all of that ado a-done, let's get down to brass tacks, Betty. The whole point of this blog entry is to share with you that I'm "looking forward by looking back". It must be, since that's the title of this pig. When we were in high school, I skipped so many days that the county school system revised the total number of allowable yearly absences. Boy, did my grades reflect it. I fell so far behind my classmates that I almost dropped out of high school. Somehow, I crawled my way, inch by inch, through my subjects and managed to graduate -barely.
Then, in college I did the same thing, with the same results. Since college wasn't for me (during the second half of Carter's term, at least), I decided to try the military. My MTI (military training instructor) proclaimed me the "most improved Airman" he had ever seen in over ten years of MTI'ing. In my case, I had gone from doing everything wrong to doing everything right. Except, of course, being unable to keep a raging bipolar disorder from seeping out. Not that I've aired that dirty laundry 312 times already, but I only bring that point up to explain why my military career, although honorable, was shorter than Robin William's attention span. Yep, I had failed at Air Forcing, too.
See a pattern here? Hmm.
Several years later I had discovered that pattern myself. I did something about it, too. First, I discovered that textbooks weren't optional. Then I found out that reading them coincides with lectures and exams. Finally, at age 33 I graduated from college. Call me an underclassman by, um, about eleven years. I always was a late bloomer. Over time, I've learned what approaches toward challenges work and what don't. I learned how not to do things.
That latter point stays with me to this day. Looking back, I had had to learn how to do things by first learning how not to do them. In high school, I learned not to skip school. In college (the first time), ditto. In basic training, I learned that there really is something called the inspection side, and that MTI's get highly po'd if you try to do things your way. (Maybe I should have included "egocentrism" in the title, no?) Heck, the first time I repaired the body of my first car, I was introduced to sandpaper. I was so naive that I thought "grit" was brand name and the grit numbers were stock numbers of some kind. Sanding block? Aw, that's for sissies. Just rub all the old paint off of the car and the new paint will smooth everything over. Paint it dark green and bring it home.
Boy, was I wrong. There were so many severe flaws in the bodywork (now being proudly reflected by all that shiny new paint) that you'd have thought the Jolly Green Giant had drooled a half-chewed green bean. That car was ugly. To say I was disappointed and embarrassed would be akin to calling Donald Trump's hair artificial. The neighbors were relieved that it finally had paint -until they got close to it. Then they demanded that I put it back in primer and rust. That's how ugly it was.
But I learned.
I learned that you can, in fact, learn from mistakes. In my case, I learned that I was smart enough not only to make mistakes, but smart enough not to make the same mistake twice. It's important to be creative when making mistakes. Reruns only make people mad. Mistakes should be judged not only from a standpoint of severity but also from originality. If you turn in a report with a bunch of typos, your boss won't be amused. Ah, but turn in that report while wearing water wings, a ski mask, and a pair of antennas, and see if your boss doesn't laugh.
I look forward to success even though it's coming later rather than sooner. I'm looking forward, because I've spent quality time looking back. Not only have I learned from a large number of mistakes, I've always found something to laugh about when recalling them. Rooftops aren't good places for frisbee games. Not that I've ever tried that, but if I had and survived, boy would I have included that here. Getting into the middle of a dog fight at age fifteen was definitely a mistake, but how many people can say, "well, I lost, but so what? I'm not a dog!"
I look forward to a wild ride. So far, that has often been the norm for me. I've learned not to shy away from either my success or my failures. People used to talk about how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, but he was the only one who never shied away from addressing how many times he struck out. In my case, I've fanned at so many metaphorical baseballs that you can no longer accept that global warming is occurring. But I've also overcome some very overwhelming odds along the way. Both the failures and the success will, I believe, show that I've been looking forward as a result of looking rearward.
I look forward to a great life.
Hopefully, I'll be nineteen when success comes. My knees felt great then.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
True Greatness
Sometimes you get to see a huge contrast in human character and behavior. This afternoon, on my drive home from work, I had such an opportunity. A traffic accident had occurred, apparently some minutes before I came upon the scene. An SUV had been knocked onto its side, and an elderly man was trapped inside. His hand had been trapped between the driver's door and the road, and blood was evident. I didn't witness the accident, and I wasn't able to offer him any help other than to let him know that I could hear sirens and that help was on its way.
I felt helpless about the whole thing. So did, I'm sure, the twenty or so other people watching the whole thing. While we were waiting, some woman asked me if I had witnessed the accident. I asked her if she was with the media. (Anyone who knows me also knows I have a strong dislike for the media as a general rule.) No, she said, her husband "is a lawyer" and she, presumably, saw an opportunity to drum up business for hubby. Note that her initial concern wasn't for the well-being of the injured man trapped in the truck. Nope, it was all about greedily grabbing the bucks. I referred her to someone named Elizabeth Loftus. Wait until she discovers that Loftus has made a partial career out of discrediting eyewitness testimony.
I'm still filled with disgust for the woman and Hubby The Barrister. I initially felt that humanity had nothing good left to offer when I walked away from her.
And then, I was proven wrong.
First, the fire rescue arrived and began moving gawkers out of the way and attending to the injured. Then, on my way back home, the police passed me en route to the scene. And they were moving.
That's why I'm writing this blog entry. If you had seen those folks charging into battle when others couldn't offer any real assistance, or felt helpless to do anything, you'd have cheered them on like it was the Super Bowl. The sheer guts that must take can probably be found in less than five percent of the general population. Maybe in a way I was rescued today, too -rescued from my dwindling faith in humanity.
I saw the worst in humanity today in the lawyer's wife -but I also saw the best in humanity. I saw love for the well-being of people, courage under duress, and discipline and desire to restore peace and health.
I am a wealthy man, because today I saw true greatness.
I felt helpless about the whole thing. So did, I'm sure, the twenty or so other people watching the whole thing. While we were waiting, some woman asked me if I had witnessed the accident. I asked her if she was with the media. (Anyone who knows me also knows I have a strong dislike for the media as a general rule.) No, she said, her husband "is a lawyer" and she, presumably, saw an opportunity to drum up business for hubby. Note that her initial concern wasn't for the well-being of the injured man trapped in the truck. Nope, it was all about greedily grabbing the bucks. I referred her to someone named Elizabeth Loftus. Wait until she discovers that Loftus has made a partial career out of discrediting eyewitness testimony.
I'm still filled with disgust for the woman and Hubby The Barrister. I initially felt that humanity had nothing good left to offer when I walked away from her.
And then, I was proven wrong.
First, the fire rescue arrived and began moving gawkers out of the way and attending to the injured. Then, on my way back home, the police passed me en route to the scene. And they were moving.
That's why I'm writing this blog entry. If you had seen those folks charging into battle when others couldn't offer any real assistance, or felt helpless to do anything, you'd have cheered them on like it was the Super Bowl. The sheer guts that must take can probably be found in less than five percent of the general population. Maybe in a way I was rescued today, too -rescued from my dwindling faith in humanity.
I saw the worst in humanity today in the lawyer's wife -but I also saw the best in humanity. I saw love for the well-being of people, courage under duress, and discipline and desire to restore peace and health.
I am a wealthy man, because today I saw true greatness.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Excuse Me
"Excuse me."
Other than "pay up", those are the two words I dread hearing the most at work. In my world, "excuse me" usually means something like, "I'm having trouble with the elevator. I can't get to the fifth floor". Well, under the circumstances, that's entirely understandable since, um, there are only four of them, Edna. "Excuse me" is virtually synonymous with "Is all the tile you sell square, or is some of it shaped like diamonds?"
Ponder that while I take another draw on this here diet cola.
Kind of like trying to light the firewood in order to dry it out. Just sayin'. I heard "excuse me" so many times this afternoon, I thought I was getting in the way of a marching band. We're selling several hundred boxes of flooring, currently. For your shopping convenience we've cleverly taped a piece of flooring onto the top of one box per pallet (at approximately twenty-eight boxes per pallet) so the customer will know what he or she is purchasing. At least, that was the plan. Recently, we noticed someone trying to cut his way into one of the boxes with a pocket knife. The reason, of course, was that "Excuse me" wanted, in his own words, to see how different the actual flooring is from the sample piece taped on the demo box". We explain, with as still a voice as one can muster without going Daffy Duck on him, that the sample piece came from one of the boxes of flooring. "Oh", says the somewhat bemused Jerry, who by now now has the attention of other customers fishing through their pockets for their own pocket knives. "Well, tell me this", says Jerry, first lighting, then extinguishing, a cigarette when his wife of 36 years reminds him that this is a no smoking store. "if the demo came from one of the boxes, that means you have one box that's missing a piece. So I get a discount for that box, right?"
Now, trichotillomania isn't my favorite means of dealing with anxiety caused by others, but Jerry is really, really making me reconsider this nervous disorder. Calmly -oh so calmly, I remind him that the sample piece, when added to the total number of other pieces in the box, equals the total number of pieces necessary to achieve the 22 square feet of flooring as advertised on the end of the box. "But it's a demo piece", says he, trying his best to convince us that the piece somehow taints all the "good" pieces still in the box.
I often find that going to the fourth floor (remember, that's the floor that exists) for a few minutes of solitude is not only liberating, but necessary, for the remnants of my mental health. On the fourth floor, I can take a breather from the Jerries who want us to open another box of flooring and get a "good" piece to replace the tainted demo piece. The fourth floor also has an interesting view of the soda distributing plant and the transportation museum. (Oh, look. They have a Pinto on display over there.)
Still, you can't stay on the fourth floor very long without managers getting steamed about having to deal with Jerry's obsessive-compulsive disorder by themselves. Nor can you blame them. It does tend to be anxiety-provoking when he pressures you to put fourteen other customers on hold while trying your darnedest to make sure that the wood patterns of each piece line up exactly with those of the other 18 pieces in each and every box. That's pretty scary when you consider that we've sold more than fifteen hundred of almost three thousand boxes of this stuff, and let me tell you there are a lot of Jerries out there looking for good deals.
I'm not sure how many more of these transactions I can endure without giving up and living under an overpass somewhere. I'll try to soldier on.
Excuse me.
Other than "pay up", those are the two words I dread hearing the most at work. In my world, "excuse me" usually means something like, "I'm having trouble with the elevator. I can't get to the fifth floor". Well, under the circumstances, that's entirely understandable since, um, there are only four of them, Edna. "Excuse me" is virtually synonymous with "Is all the tile you sell square, or is some of it shaped like diamonds?"
Ponder that while I take another draw on this here diet cola.
Kind of like trying to light the firewood in order to dry it out. Just sayin'. I heard "excuse me" so many times this afternoon, I thought I was getting in the way of a marching band. We're selling several hundred boxes of flooring, currently. For your shopping convenience we've cleverly taped a piece of flooring onto the top of one box per pallet (at approximately twenty-eight boxes per pallet) so the customer will know what he or she is purchasing. At least, that was the plan. Recently, we noticed someone trying to cut his way into one of the boxes with a pocket knife. The reason, of course, was that "Excuse me" wanted, in his own words, to see how different the actual flooring is from the sample piece taped on the demo box". We explain, with as still a voice as one can muster without going Daffy Duck on him, that the sample piece came from one of the boxes of flooring. "Oh", says the somewhat bemused Jerry, who by now now has the attention of other customers fishing through their pockets for their own pocket knives. "Well, tell me this", says Jerry, first lighting, then extinguishing, a cigarette when his wife of 36 years reminds him that this is a no smoking store. "if the demo came from one of the boxes, that means you have one box that's missing a piece. So I get a discount for that box, right?"
Now, trichotillomania isn't my favorite means of dealing with anxiety caused by others, but Jerry is really, really making me reconsider this nervous disorder. Calmly -oh so calmly, I remind him that the sample piece, when added to the total number of other pieces in the box, equals the total number of pieces necessary to achieve the 22 square feet of flooring as advertised on the end of the box. "But it's a demo piece", says he, trying his best to convince us that the piece somehow taints all the "good" pieces still in the box.
I often find that going to the fourth floor (remember, that's the floor that exists) for a few minutes of solitude is not only liberating, but necessary, for the remnants of my mental health. On the fourth floor, I can take a breather from the Jerries who want us to open another box of flooring and get a "good" piece to replace the tainted demo piece. The fourth floor also has an interesting view of the soda distributing plant and the transportation museum. (Oh, look. They have a Pinto on display over there.)
Still, you can't stay on the fourth floor very long without managers getting steamed about having to deal with Jerry's obsessive-compulsive disorder by themselves. Nor can you blame them. It does tend to be anxiety-provoking when he pressures you to put fourteen other customers on hold while trying your darnedest to make sure that the wood patterns of each piece line up exactly with those of the other 18 pieces in each and every box. That's pretty scary when you consider that we've sold more than fifteen hundred of almost three thousand boxes of this stuff, and let me tell you there are a lot of Jerries out there looking for good deals.
I'm not sure how many more of these transactions I can endure without giving up and living under an overpass somewhere. I'll try to soldier on.
Excuse me.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Free Association For Free
Writing, as it turns out, is easy if you enjoy doing it. The common conception is that it's only easy if you have some important point to make, or feel strongly driven to express yourself. To me, that's bunk. I don't know of any specific formula for writing, which would simplify the whole process. Thank God none such exists, apparently. Anyone who ever wrote anything (ouside of legal, psychological, medical, or technical writing) would be pigeon-holed into such formulas as this:
INTRODUCTION GOES HERE. BRIEFLY DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE OF THE TOPIC.
MAIN BODY GOES HERE. "FLESH OUT" THE INTRO BY EXPANDING THE THOUGHTS OF THE IDEA. CITE EXAMPLES AND BE SURE THAT SUCCESSIVE PARAGRAPHS TRANSITION NICELY FROM ONE TO ANOTHER.
SUM UP WITH FINAL, SHORT PARAGRAPH. BRIEFLY REVIEW THE MAIN IDEAS OF THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPHS.
What pap. That's fine if you're trying to endure freshman comp. For the rest of us, such preconceived, industry standard-appearing formulas limit self-expression. (Wow. THAT sounded pretty smart.) Really good authors have unique styles. Imagine Stephen King in freshman comp. He'd have been tossed from class due to an unwillingness to get with the program. I can hear the instructor now: "Interesting topic, but it doesn't fit the assignment." (Where have I heard that before?) Anyone who writes a blog, a book, or even a pamphlet falls into his or her own style -a personal pace.
And that's exactly as it needs to be. My pace looks like this:
INSERT INTRO HERE. INCLUDE TRULY AWFUL ANECDOTE, PREFERABLY NOTING THAT THE ANECDOTE IS SPONSORED BY A CERTAIN SOFT DRINK MANUFACTURER, UNLESS THE BLOG ORGANIZATION FEARS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS. THEN SPEND FOUR DAYS TRYING TO GET BACK INTO THE ORGANIZATION'S GOOD GRACES SO YOU CAN RESUME BLOGGING.
WRITE A FEW NICELY-SIZED PARAGRAPHS. BE SURE TO GO OFF ON AT LEAST ONE MAJOR TANGENT. LAUGH IT OFF AS "FREE ASSOCIATION", LEST EVERYONE ASSUME YOU'RE SCHIZOPHRENIC. REMEMBER TO INCLUDE AT LEAST 27 COMMAS PER SENTENCE. ITALICIZE NINE OR MORE WORDS PER PARAGRAPH.
MAKE SURE THE LAST PAPAGRAPH IS SMALLER THAN THE ONES PRECEDING IT AS A SIGNAL TO THE READER THAT IT'S ALMOST TIME TO GO DO SOMETHING ELSE. SUMMATION OF EARLIER PARAS IS OPTIONAL.
ENTER ONE FINAL, FREESTANDING SENTENCE FOR EMPHASIS, AS THOUGH ONE DAY IT WILL APPEAR ON A MONUMENT IN A NATIONAL PARK SOMEWHERE WHERE MULTITUDES WILL GATHER TO READ IT AND MARVEL AT ITS ETERNAL WISDOM.
Writing is fun. I don't take this stuff seriously. Neither should you. As a recovering psychology major, I recall having written God Only Knows how many term papers, research papers, and portions of group presentations. I remember hating having to follow the oh-so-professional APA format and getting gigged, occasionally, by the professor for failing to include a period after citing a reference. It was usually something as catastrophic as "Oswell, V.H. (1999) Covariation of Adolescence And Applesauce. Journal of The National Psychiatric Ad Hoc Committee, 25, 23-224."
Note that there isn't a period following "(1999)".
That's bad.
It means you just lost five points from what would otherwise have been a perfect paper. Psychologists take their punctuation seriously. Too seriously. Tech writing is dry, formulated, and hackneyed. The purpose, of course, is to minimize distractions so the reader can access the important data from the writing. That's fine if you keep in mind that such writing is like driving a work truck. If you've ever been in a work truck like a delivery truck or a cement truck, you know that it's going to be a no-frills ride, and a slow, grinding trip to its destination. The truck isn't built to accelerate quickly or to handle curves well. It simply transports.
In contrast, and in stark contrast at that, blogging is like a sports car: quick, nimble, and fun. If you spin out, you laugh it off and get back on course. For me, spinning out means going off on tangents which are both exploratory and fun. The last time I had that much fun on a term paper, I received a C grade. In retrospect, I think the professor was being kind. Starting off with psychosis as the main topic and ending with schizophrenia as the main topic is a sure way to leave a professor unimpressed with your academic prowess, Lucille. Never do that. "Off the clock" blogging allows you to have a much broader topic, which not only allows for, but even demands, exploring tangents. (Note to my fellow fogies: tangents are another way of saying meandering. Just thought I'd toss that in here.)
Long live blogging. Long live personal expression outside of coffee mug-stained, office-murmering, artificial light-bothering, cover sheet-irking, take-your-work-home-with-you-oppressing, meeting-attending styles of writing which are designed to make us to feel and appear that we are, indeed, making it.
Go write something. Anything. Take that sports car out for a spin. And if you meander off course, explore the new path you've stumbled onto. In psychology that would be called a "secondary gain".
I hope you'll call it fun.
INTRODUCTION GOES HERE. BRIEFLY DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE OF THE TOPIC.
MAIN BODY GOES HERE. "FLESH OUT" THE INTRO BY EXPANDING THE THOUGHTS OF THE IDEA. CITE EXAMPLES AND BE SURE THAT SUCCESSIVE PARAGRAPHS TRANSITION NICELY FROM ONE TO ANOTHER.
SUM UP WITH FINAL, SHORT PARAGRAPH. BRIEFLY REVIEW THE MAIN IDEAS OF THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPHS.
What pap. That's fine if you're trying to endure freshman comp. For the rest of us, such preconceived, industry standard-appearing formulas limit self-expression. (Wow. THAT sounded pretty smart.) Really good authors have unique styles. Imagine Stephen King in freshman comp. He'd have been tossed from class due to an unwillingness to get with the program. I can hear the instructor now: "Interesting topic, but it doesn't fit the assignment." (Where have I heard that before?) Anyone who writes a blog, a book, or even a pamphlet falls into his or her own style -a personal pace.
And that's exactly as it needs to be. My pace looks like this:
INSERT INTRO HERE. INCLUDE TRULY AWFUL ANECDOTE, PREFERABLY NOTING THAT THE ANECDOTE IS SPONSORED BY A CERTAIN SOFT DRINK MANUFACTURER, UNLESS THE BLOG ORGANIZATION FEARS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS. THEN SPEND FOUR DAYS TRYING TO GET BACK INTO THE ORGANIZATION'S GOOD GRACES SO YOU CAN RESUME BLOGGING.
WRITE A FEW NICELY-SIZED PARAGRAPHS. BE SURE TO GO OFF ON AT LEAST ONE MAJOR TANGENT. LAUGH IT OFF AS "FREE ASSOCIATION", LEST EVERYONE ASSUME YOU'RE SCHIZOPHRENIC. REMEMBER TO INCLUDE AT LEAST 27 COMMAS PER SENTENCE. ITALICIZE NINE OR MORE WORDS PER PARAGRAPH.
MAKE SURE THE LAST PAPAGRAPH IS SMALLER THAN THE ONES PRECEDING IT AS A SIGNAL TO THE READER THAT IT'S ALMOST TIME TO GO DO SOMETHING ELSE. SUMMATION OF EARLIER PARAS IS OPTIONAL.
ENTER ONE FINAL, FREESTANDING SENTENCE FOR EMPHASIS, AS THOUGH ONE DAY IT WILL APPEAR ON A MONUMENT IN A NATIONAL PARK SOMEWHERE WHERE MULTITUDES WILL GATHER TO READ IT AND MARVEL AT ITS ETERNAL WISDOM.
Writing is fun. I don't take this stuff seriously. Neither should you. As a recovering psychology major, I recall having written God Only Knows how many term papers, research papers, and portions of group presentations. I remember hating having to follow the oh-so-professional APA format and getting gigged, occasionally, by the professor for failing to include a period after citing a reference. It was usually something as catastrophic as "Oswell, V.H. (1999) Covariation of Adolescence And Applesauce. Journal of The National Psychiatric Ad Hoc Committee, 25, 23-224."
Note that there isn't a period following "(1999)".
That's bad.
It means you just lost five points from what would otherwise have been a perfect paper. Psychologists take their punctuation seriously. Too seriously. Tech writing is dry, formulated, and hackneyed. The purpose, of course, is to minimize distractions so the reader can access the important data from the writing. That's fine if you keep in mind that such writing is like driving a work truck. If you've ever been in a work truck like a delivery truck or a cement truck, you know that it's going to be a no-frills ride, and a slow, grinding trip to its destination. The truck isn't built to accelerate quickly or to handle curves well. It simply transports.
In contrast, and in stark contrast at that, blogging is like a sports car: quick, nimble, and fun. If you spin out, you laugh it off and get back on course. For me, spinning out means going off on tangents which are both exploratory and fun. The last time I had that much fun on a term paper, I received a C grade. In retrospect, I think the professor was being kind. Starting off with psychosis as the main topic and ending with schizophrenia as the main topic is a sure way to leave a professor unimpressed with your academic prowess, Lucille. Never do that. "Off the clock" blogging allows you to have a much broader topic, which not only allows for, but even demands, exploring tangents. (Note to my fellow fogies: tangents are another way of saying meandering. Just thought I'd toss that in here.)
Long live blogging. Long live personal expression outside of coffee mug-stained, office-murmering, artificial light-bothering, cover sheet-irking, take-your-work-home-with-you-oppressing, meeting-attending styles of writing which are designed to make us to feel and appear that we are, indeed, making it.
Go write something. Anything. Take that sports car out for a spin. And if you meander off course, explore the new path you've stumbled onto. In psychology that would be called a "secondary gain".
I hope you'll call it fun.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Jerry The Troll: An Investment In Attention
Boy, there sure are a lot of brave people on the internet.
I tell you.
One can scarcely root for a football team, speak one's mind about politics, or even ask directions to, say, a convenience store in Thunder Bay in Ontario without some would-be Ninja or Navy SEAL informing you that he's so much tougher than you and makes a "...six figure income and has a Ferrari". Mind you, the six figure's income he refers to suffers from a twice-left decimal placement. From his comments, you suspected that the income figure was fishy, but you had no idea just how fishy we're talking here. Why, that decimal point is so far to the left that it appears to be flirting with the only non-zero numeral in that whole, magnificent line of numbers.
His Ferrari, though, is truly beautiful. Truly. Never again will you see such a glossy, shiny car. It is a masterpiece of detail and craftsmanship. It is one of a kind and deserving of attention and praise. It should be: Jerry spent days gluing all the pieces together. Oh -don't forget the paint chore! Who knew a 1/25th scale model kit could prove such a challenge to a man as smart and as tough as Jerry?
And talk about tough! The guy who posts responses to your questions about cc'ing combustion chambers on 426 race hemi engines, or whether or not neo-Calvinism should seek canonized leadership is always -always- a former Green Beret and can take you down "just like that". Heavens, that guy is a real tough case. He hunts shark and catches them with just his lower teeth. That's how tough he is. They make Halloween masks based on his angry moods. I'm talking tough.
Take a popular video website. (Can't use any names here without getting in trouble with the folks who run this website.) Go to any video and post a comment. In no time, Jerry will reply, informing you that you're not really a human, but merely a mere portion of one and a rude portion at that. Jerry has discovered that the appropriate response to those who disagree with them is to refer you as a part of a body. Well, Jerry, you're a fingernail. How do you like that? Heck, you're worse than that. You're ear hair. Who's the big bully now, Jerry? You're an elbow, so there.
And there's plenty more where that came from. Guess that'll teach you to mess with me.
We all encounter Jerry on occasion: he's covered with boils, has scraggly hair and a matching beard, and he lives under a bridge. Jerry, of course, is a troll. His whole purpose in life is to distract you in order to get your attention so he can keep it and control you. He's probably unemployed and undereducated. He likely doesn't go outside very often, or even open his curtains, preferring to keep away from sunlight lest he burst into flames and set his eight track tape collection on fire. Jerry is not a happy camper. Ol' Jer is a common occurrence on the net, which makes life just a little bit more interesting.
I'm thankful for the Jerries out there.
It's nice, sometimes, to know how not to go through life.
I tell you.
One can scarcely root for a football team, speak one's mind about politics, or even ask directions to, say, a convenience store in Thunder Bay in Ontario without some would-be Ninja or Navy SEAL informing you that he's so much tougher than you and makes a "...six figure income and has a Ferrari". Mind you, the six figure's income he refers to suffers from a twice-left decimal placement. From his comments, you suspected that the income figure was fishy, but you had no idea just how fishy we're talking here. Why, that decimal point is so far to the left that it appears to be flirting with the only non-zero numeral in that whole, magnificent line of numbers.
His Ferrari, though, is truly beautiful. Truly. Never again will you see such a glossy, shiny car. It is a masterpiece of detail and craftsmanship. It is one of a kind and deserving of attention and praise. It should be: Jerry spent days gluing all the pieces together. Oh -don't forget the paint chore! Who knew a 1/25th scale model kit could prove such a challenge to a man as smart and as tough as Jerry?
And talk about tough! The guy who posts responses to your questions about cc'ing combustion chambers on 426 race hemi engines, or whether or not neo-Calvinism should seek canonized leadership is always -always- a former Green Beret and can take you down "just like that". Heavens, that guy is a real tough case. He hunts shark and catches them with just his lower teeth. That's how tough he is. They make Halloween masks based on his angry moods. I'm talking tough.
Take a popular video website. (Can't use any names here without getting in trouble with the folks who run this website.) Go to any video and post a comment. In no time, Jerry will reply, informing you that you're not really a human, but merely a mere portion of one and a rude portion at that. Jerry has discovered that the appropriate response to those who disagree with them is to refer you as a part of a body. Well, Jerry, you're a fingernail. How do you like that? Heck, you're worse than that. You're ear hair. Who's the big bully now, Jerry? You're an elbow, so there.
And there's plenty more where that came from. Guess that'll teach you to mess with me.
We all encounter Jerry on occasion: he's covered with boils, has scraggly hair and a matching beard, and he lives under a bridge. Jerry, of course, is a troll. His whole purpose in life is to distract you in order to get your attention so he can keep it and control you. He's probably unemployed and undereducated. He likely doesn't go outside very often, or even open his curtains, preferring to keep away from sunlight lest he burst into flames and set his eight track tape collection on fire. Jerry is not a happy camper. Ol' Jer is a common occurrence on the net, which makes life just a little bit more interesting.
I'm thankful for the Jerries out there.
It's nice, sometimes, to know how not to go through life.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Of A Mind, Not Stentorian
I'm not sure that anyone has used that word since Stephen Crane used it to describe artillery in The Red Badge of Courage. It appears that the last time that word was in vogue, writing styles were thus: "And it came to pass that the awful thing thrust upon the lad was indeed a frightful thing, a thing beyond any mortal reproach -and yet in its vile nature there was found to be a redeeming quality".
I mean, really.
Yes, I made up that late 1800s-style sentence just to see if I could do it. It really made me reposition several verbs and adjectives. Let me tell you, you should be thankful that we don't still speak or write that way. See, the real reason people wrote with quill pens (which constantly had to be dipped into ink) wasn't because ball point pens hadn't been invented. The reason for such pens was because dipping those fancy-tipped plumes into India's finest gave the writer time enough to formulate a sentence in that rather thick evolution of Old English.
And yet, to be able to craft such sentences would be marvelous. In fact, it would be downright liberating. Such linguistic formulas as the aforementioned wouldn't merely be limp-noodle, pedestrian sentences we hastily toss together these days. No sir, Jerry. Those sentences were downright thick with quality, like a genuine Persian rug. They didn't simply say, "Something scared the poor kid". They were constructed, through cognitive processes gone the way of surreys and bowler hats, by writers who needed to spend enough time to justify penning out wondrous works of art.
They were often quiet works. It's one thing to share with the reader, "He embraced his love tenderly in his arms, protecting as though cradling the gift of Life itself". It's quite another to be exposed to the same situation from another angle: "He set upon the other suitor presently, with both fisticuffs and several vile oaths of fear that his love might prove vulnerable". There was a time, perhaps twenty-two or so decades ago, when such writing styles were viewed as formally appropriate. Real black tie kinds of sentences. Hor's deurves? (Spellcheck says this is correct. I have my doubts.) What's missing these days isn't so much such a thick writing style. (Imagine texting this stuff: "The felo set cors 4 the ile of a sted -e volishn".)
Dude.
The stories written in those days always seemed quiet somehow. Ever notice that? Even the Civil War appears in writings to have been a series of quiet battles meandering through four years of a muted hell, as expressed by prevailing writing styles of the time. Crane loved to use sentences far too long to capture succinctly the adrenaline, anger, fatigue, and total terror and horror of war. Though the quality of writing was wonderfully elegant, I sure wish the style was simpler in those days. Why not say something like, "He charged across the battlefield, terror be damned"? I'd much rather have read that than "At once the lad gathered himself, for the terrible engagement was thus thrust upon him as though delivered by the wings of eagles". Parsimony has its privileges. The writing style retains a sufficiently thick quality. It isn't reduced to some watered down approach like, "Dude kicked butt". People read and they thought.
Nowadays, stories are loud. They're in your face. Good guys have to find and diffuse bombs in major cities, rescue damsels in distress, and perform a whole host of other cliches within eighty-five minutes or so, or else we lose interest. Movies are loud. Television programs are loud. Even novels are loud. Everything now is stentorian, and let me tell you that word had a ton of dust when I found it on the shelf. Great word. It's as though it mocks us. "Keep it down, you new millennium kids. You're getting too dang stentorian again!" An admonishment from the past.
I sure would love to see a little of that grand old writing style reemerge. It takes awhile to sort through if you're not used to such formal English. (And who is anymore?) I think we could revisit it every once in awhile. Maybe we could take it out for a spin every now and then to keep it fresh.
Just sayin'.
I mean, really.
Yes, I made up that late 1800s-style sentence just to see if I could do it. It really made me reposition several verbs and adjectives. Let me tell you, you should be thankful that we don't still speak or write that way. See, the real reason people wrote with quill pens (which constantly had to be dipped into ink) wasn't because ball point pens hadn't been invented. The reason for such pens was because dipping those fancy-tipped plumes into India's finest gave the writer time enough to formulate a sentence in that rather thick evolution of Old English.
And yet, to be able to craft such sentences would be marvelous. In fact, it would be downright liberating. Such linguistic formulas as the aforementioned wouldn't merely be limp-noodle, pedestrian sentences we hastily toss together these days. No sir, Jerry. Those sentences were downright thick with quality, like a genuine Persian rug. They didn't simply say, "Something scared the poor kid". They were constructed, through cognitive processes gone the way of surreys and bowler hats, by writers who needed to spend enough time to justify penning out wondrous works of art.
They were often quiet works. It's one thing to share with the reader, "He embraced his love tenderly in his arms, protecting as though cradling the gift of Life itself". It's quite another to be exposed to the same situation from another angle: "He set upon the other suitor presently, with both fisticuffs and several vile oaths of fear that his love might prove vulnerable". There was a time, perhaps twenty-two or so decades ago, when such writing styles were viewed as formally appropriate. Real black tie kinds of sentences. Hor's deurves? (Spellcheck says this is correct. I have my doubts.) What's missing these days isn't so much such a thick writing style. (Imagine texting this stuff: "The felo set cors 4 the ile of a sted -e volishn".)
Dude.
The stories written in those days always seemed quiet somehow. Ever notice that? Even the Civil War appears in writings to have been a series of quiet battles meandering through four years of a muted hell, as expressed by prevailing writing styles of the time. Crane loved to use sentences far too long to capture succinctly the adrenaline, anger, fatigue, and total terror and horror of war. Though the quality of writing was wonderfully elegant, I sure wish the style was simpler in those days. Why not say something like, "He charged across the battlefield, terror be damned"? I'd much rather have read that than "At once the lad gathered himself, for the terrible engagement was thus thrust upon him as though delivered by the wings of eagles". Parsimony has its privileges. The writing style retains a sufficiently thick quality. It isn't reduced to some watered down approach like, "Dude kicked butt". People read and they thought.
Nowadays, stories are loud. They're in your face. Good guys have to find and diffuse bombs in major cities, rescue damsels in distress, and perform a whole host of other cliches within eighty-five minutes or so, or else we lose interest. Movies are loud. Television programs are loud. Even novels are loud. Everything now is stentorian, and let me tell you that word had a ton of dust when I found it on the shelf. Great word. It's as though it mocks us. "Keep it down, you new millennium kids. You're getting too dang stentorian again!" An admonishment from the past.
I sure would love to see a little of that grand old writing style reemerge. It takes awhile to sort through if you're not used to such formal English. (And who is anymore?) I think we could revisit it every once in awhile. Maybe we could take it out for a spin every now and then to keep it fresh.
Just sayin'.
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