Biff Rambles On About … Getting Blogged Down, Joining a Writing Gang, and Big Game Hunting

 

I reckon a week and two days is long enough to stay away from blogging.

And not just blogging, but writing in general.

I suppose I could blame it on writer’s block, but the real culprit is a complete absence of things to write about.  We are even missing out on the Polar Vortex here in Dallas, so I can’t even complain about how cold it is.  In fact, it will be a balmy 63 degrees today (17 C).  How does one go about complaining about a warm spring day right smack in the middle of winter?

And nothing interesting has been going on at work, so there is no material there, either.  Do you want to hear me talk about spreadsheets and PowerPoints and interminable meetings about nothing?   I didn’t think so.

I am the inventor of the term “Spreadsheet Based Reality” (or SBR for short), and even I don’t want to hear about it.  But it can best be summed up by the pithy philosophical phrase:

“I pivot, therefore I am”

And if you get that joke, you have my deepest sympathies.

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The Write Stuff

I finally got off of my duff this past week and attended a meeting of a local writer’s group.  It is the first time I have done that in probably 5 years.  I went seeking inspiration and guidance.  I went to seek comfort among my fellow writers.

However, there is something uniquely depressing about writer’s groups.

It is easy to delude one’s self while sitting at home and writing in solitude.  It is easy to convince one’s self that one’s skills as a writer are well-honed and that our Big Break is just around the corner.

But when one sits in a room with a few dozen other writers all of whom have the same aspirations, and all of whom are just as skilled or more so than one’s self … well … it is depressing.  We writer’s like to think we are a rare breed.

It turns out that, in nearly any setting, one cannot swing a synthetic cat around by the tail without taking out a dozen or two writers in the first revolution.

So I was quite happy to get back home to my solitude and my delusions.

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A Wing and a Prayer

As many of you have probably heard, this is Stupor Bawl weekend.

We are not allowed to use the real name of the event for fear of a black van pulling up outside my house and a bunch of Ray-Ban wearing goons breaking down my door and working me over with leather truncheons.  But I’m pretty sure you know which event I’m talking about.

I will be going to a Superb Owl watching event this weekend.  However, I am wildly ambivalent about both teams who will be playing, and so I’m really just going for the food.

I will be standing for the entire 4-hour duration of the game because the hosts have apparently trained their dogs to jump up into people’s laps and lick at their plate of food any time anyone bends their knees in the slightest, preparatory to sitting down.

I ask you, who wants a buffalo wing that has been licked bare by a Pekingese?  It is no longer a buffalo wing, but merely a wing.  A wing coated in Pekingese slobber.  That does magically transform it into Peking duck.

I never want to appear ungracious, but there is already precious little meat on a chicken wing as it is, and having to share it with a needle-toothed Pekingese makes it hardly worth the effort to lift it to one’s lips.

I’ll just stick to the celery sticks.  I never have to fight anyone for those.