Friday, March 25, 2011

Truth in Fiction

Someone I'm too lazy to look up once said "Writers don't like to write, writers like to have written." And after careful consideration, I have something to say in response.

That crap is TRUE.

"Having written" something that's good, or even worthwhile, is great fun. You get to be proud of it, hear people talk about it, and enjoy the incredible satisfaction of completing something that you didn't just build, you crafted.

And if a piece turns out really, really well, sometimes it's even good enough to make you forget that actual writing is like pulling teeth. Like pulling your own teeth.

You agonize over wordings. You kick yourself for repetition mistakes. You rewrite sentences over and over, sometimes breaking your constructions with over editing-and all the while you wonder if you should just scrap it and start over.

Someone else once said, "Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life." And after careful consideration, whoever said that is a LIAR. Work is always work. Loving what you do just means you get to feel good about it when it's done.*

*I could have phrased that better.

Friday, March 18, 2011

You Again.

Oh, by the way, I'm taking last week off.

Wait . . . lets see, present progressive tense . . . but the adjective refers to a previous . . . mmmmm.

Oh well!

Moving on.

When you work or live in a place where you share a bathroom with lots of other people, you sometimes find a strange symmetry in your day. We might call this phenomenon the "pee buddy," were that phrase not entirely vile and prone to misinterpretation.

So let me be perfectly clear on what I mean. As you go through your day, and (hopefully) going to the bathroom a few times, you occasionally find that someone else is in there. The same someone else. Every time.

And while you're standing/sitting there reflecting (because what else do you do with that time), you begin to wonder why this individual always seems to be there when you are. Without fail, you come to exactly two possible explanations:

1. Due to an odd coincidence of personal biology, dietary habits, and discomfort endurance, you and this person have become perfectly in sync.*

2. This person is always here when you are because he/she uses the bathroom like 200 times per day, and there's got to be something wrong with him/her.

But how can you ever know? If there's some problem your buddy is aware of, you don't want to bring it up. And it's not like you can ask, anyway? "Maybe you should get that checked out" is not going to make the public bathroom experience any less awkward.

*The interesting thing about theory 1 is that it comes with the corollary: This person may be thinking theory 2 is true, and that there's something wrong with you.

P.S. There's an email subscription option now! Check out the sidebar.

Friday, March 4, 2011

oooooooo, burn!

I'm sure that fire code is important, and that it saves many lives. But on behalf of everyone who uses public buildings: Come the hell on.

Based on what I've been told over the years, I'm pretty sure that according to full fire code, no space anywhere ever is allowed to have anything in it. Or anyone. The preferred fire marshal design seems to be a metal frame with no walls or ceiling.

And no one should enter these structures. Or get too close to a tree.

Because in the event of a fire, every person in a hallway is going to immediately freak out and start tackling anyone nearby.