The best I can come up with...

[alexpgp]

During this past week, I have found myself increasingly describing things as "interesting," a word that means nothing, really.

It reminds me of my Houston period, before returning to Colorado, during which I kept catching myself saying "what I need to do is—" followed by some words about what needed doing.

Repeated often enough in Houston, the phrase had a cloying effect on me. The same can be said for this current craze with "interesting."

I've taken a bye this week in the LJ Idol competition, having decided it was high time to take one for no particularly good reason. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I took full advantage of the lack of (external) compulsion to write during the recent holiday season.

More to the point, although I thought my most recent effort—relating the story of how Wendell (not his name, BTW) got is martini glass—was a perfectly reasonable piece, I cannot but wonder why it would take the mechanism of something like LJ Idol (responding to a prompt within a given period of time) to move me away from bottom dead center when it comes to writing about it?

Galina and I spied a magnificent fox downtown this past Wednesday, during a little just-for-the-heck-of-it jaunt . I came out from between a couple of cars on the east side of Lewis Street, near the Methodist Thrift Shop, and for the first few milliseconds of its appearance, my brain registerd "dog," until the tail came into view. It reminded me of the incident, back in 1991 (when I was renting an office over the movie theater), when a bear ambled into the front door of the drug store on Main Street, browsed the shelves for a while, and then lumbered out the back before the animal control people could get there.

The decks are mercifully clear as we head into the weekend. And I fear the only way to deal with having taken a bye in LJ Idol is to hunker down and write something anyway.

Cheers...

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

A few days ago we saw a fox too. It was quite startling as I've never seen one in the city before. It had quite a spring in its step too, bounding across the road like it was on the moon.

[vuzh.livejournal.com]

Some young friends of mine once became similarly doubtful of the word "interesting" and dedicated themselves, as a thought experiment, to try to thoughtfully substitute a more descriptive word any time they found themselves wanting to say "interesting". It was probably a good vocabulary exercise at least!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

As soon as the "marching orders" topic came up I thought to myself "I bet Alex ha s a good story for this from his marine days!"

But yes it's interesting how having a prompt and deadline can cause one to write things that in retrospect one probably should have written anyway. That's the main reason I do idol.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Ah, you took a bye. Kris and I both have discussed that we have no idea when the end of the bye season is. But he has pointed out-and I agree with him- that writing something is a good way to generate interest in your writing. (As well as doing the writing itself.) However, I am in a quite different category than you are. Somehow, luckily, I am in a tribe that generally gets fewer votes than yours does. So I have a little more wiggle room, not that I think your vote-getting needs wiggle room!

Anyway, I voted for you, bye or not.