Musha-ring-um-doo-rum-dah!

Wack fol the daddy-o, wack fol the daddy-o...
There's whisky in the jar!

After a dinner of corned beef and cabbage at Shannon's folks' place, I'm in a rare, jolly mood. I've got a shot of Irish whisky at my elbow, which is cause to wonder if something didn't get miswired in my MacDonald DNA, seeing as how I prefer Irish to Scotch, generally speaking. But I'll not dwell on liquor preferences, lest I give the wrong impression.

Just now, I'm enjoying the music.

Cheers...

The Writing Sickness...

I used to think that when writers - established storytellers who made a living at the writing racket - spoke of writing as a compulsive disorder, they were engaging in the same kind of wry, self-deprecatory humor one hears, say, from airborne-qualified troopers who describe their work as "jumping out of perfectly good airplanes." But the fact is, they mean it (and by "they" I mean both writers and soldiers ).

But lately, as I sit at my computer after a long day of laying someone else's Russian thoughts down on phosphor in English and start to write something in my LJ, I have become acutely aware of how the simple act of journal-keeping keeps that Something at bay, unable to trigger the "itch," as I used to call it back when the kids were little.

That relief comes double-edged from the factory. On the one hand, the lack of distraction has kept me more or less on track with my chosen profession (which affords me ample opportunity to "write for publication," as it were, since that's what translation really is). On the other, perhaps the writing of these frequent - and admittedly, often unimportant - essays is keeping me from achieving better things?

Personally, I think the latter is an echo of what that Something keeps trying to incite, but it really doesn't matter. There are more important things in life.

Cheers...