Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Blank Is The Page

I try to write every day, whether it gets posted or not. Today however, I opened up Microsoft Word (shoot, I mentioned Microsoft and now owe them royalties because I used their name. Double shoot, I just mentioned their name parenthetically, which I think is a half-royalty) and prepared to let the daily musings spew forth as would the vomitious up-comings of a person who reheated the previous morning’s airport cafe scrambled eggs, but nothing came out. I left MS Word open for 35 minutes and came up with nothing, though I did notice eventually around the 14 minute mark that I had begun blinking in tandem with MS Word’s cursor, which actually led me to believe that there was no cursor there, which kinda started freaking me out, especially since I was suffering a blinding migraine at the time.

Now I am left still pondering what to write as I have a goal of writing daily, even when nothing spews forth as described in detail in the paragraph above. I’ve been thinking about grouping all my posts by category (yep, all 3 of them – cheese, work despisement and Lucy and Ethel) and self publishing a book. As an added gimmick, I thought about writing a book, but writing a second book at the same time about writing the first book. Wait, I confused myself there so I shall try to explain that in a simpler way. I’ll write a book about writing a book. It’s my hope that the gimmick factor alone will catch some publisher’s attention. All of that however is still a little way off as I can’t think if what to write about today.

Sadly, there are no fake, semi-legitimate or greeting company created holidays today. No odd news tidbit caught my attention and Lucy and Ethel were too busy watching (and singing and dancing along to) High School Musical 2 to provide me with some blogworthy interaction with them. I can tell you though that between their repeated viewings of HSM Classic and HSM 2 (I reduced High School musical to letters there because I think that’s what all the cool kids are doing and it’s obviously much easier than typing it out) and Hairspray that I’m pretty much over Zac Efron. Ok, that’s not so much as saying that I was into him at any given point, it’s just that I am sick of hearing him sing. I really have to be careful saying stuff like that. It’s that type of careless wordsmithing that starts rumors.

I could make up some news story to share, but that might affect my credibility. I could wax poetic about all the different selections of Tillamook cheese I discovered at WinCO last night, but I don’t want to make anyone jealous. Though I would be happy to purchase, sell and ship you any requested selections for the amazing price of just $23.00 a block. I realize it’s a bit steep, but just try to think of the quality of fromage you will be receiving. Well, that and the fact that if this blog doesn’t start generating me some income soon I’ll have to resort to ads on my blog or blogfomercials where guest posts are written by other companies about their products and services. It’s a new niche.

Then there’s my concern about how much I seem to be using word the ‘squirrelly’ lately. I use it for things I don’t understand and for things that appear to be somewhat questionable. This was brought to my attention by a coworker who pointed out how often I use it. Now I’m self-conscious about it, but since my only comeback was ‘excuse me, but I have to go x-ray my chicken,’ which prompted their response of ‘that’s what she said,’ I realized what a slippery slope I was walking, or should I say talking. It all got pretty squirrelly pretty fast. I was also heard exclaiming ‘let’s turn this mutha out’ on our way to lunch. Another coworker pointed out how uncool I sounded saying that and then I was reminded of how a very dear friend told me that my use of ‘mutha’ made them giggle. I guess all that’s left to complete my hipster doofus trifecta is me saying that I saw someone macking on someone else, however I am going to resist the temptation to do so no matter how strong the urge gets. And believe me, the urge is strong (that’s what she said).

Lastly, I could share how I had Lionel Richie’s ‘Do It To Me One More Time’ come on my Ipod today while some of my coworkers were congregating in my cube discussing important work topics like lunch and the current offerings of our vending machine. Once one of them called me out on the song, it allowed the rest of them to comment, by which I mean mock - incessantly. Yep, there’s really no way to recover from that. I don’t want to sound too much like Bogart in Casablanca here, but of all the songs in all the world, why did that one have to appear on my Ipod at that moment. Over 2400 songs and one that is probably more appropriate during, oh I don’t know, mating or a ‘marital conference,’ comes on. With lyrics like 'you're my Motown lover' it's just asking for trouble. Seriously, why couldn’t ‘Convoy,’ Sinatra’s version of ‘Mrs. Robinson’ or Sammy Davis Jr’s rendition of ‘Shaft’ have come on? I mean Sammy’s ‘Shaft’ is one mean mutha----shut your mouth!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I’ve been thinking about grouping all my posts by category (yep, all 3 of them – cheese, work despisement and Lucy and Ethel) and self publishing a book."

YES PLEASE


"Sadly, there are no fake, semi-legitimate or greeting company created holidays today"

Yes that is a shame. Maybe you should start one? After you write your blog post book and after you finish you "writting a book about writing a book". Other people are doing that and making bank and THEY ARE NOT EVEN AS FUNNY OR WITTY AS YOU

And for the record? I love your taste in music.

Expat No. 3699 said...

Michael, actually today is Pioneer Day, an official holiday in the state of Utah. It commemorates the entry of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon Pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.

Anyhoo, have a great day.

Melissa Maris said...

Macking. Hahahaha. Seriously, I just watched some people macking on the bocce ball court outside my window. One of them may have even uttered, "Do it to me one more time."

sari said...

When I was in my 20's (eons ago) my friends and I used the term "had the squirrels" if you had to SUDDENLY AND QUICKLY run to the bathroom to take care of something of an explosive and personal nature. Because the sound your midsection makes before you suddenly have to run and take care of above mentioned business, it's like squirrels running around crazily. And it's not just a gaseous business, it's more along the lines of a Dumb and Dumber business, if you catch my very spelled out drift.

Feel free to steal that if you want, ha ha.

PS Wasn't "Do That To Me One More Time" a Captain and Tennille song?? (yes, I'm geeking myself out here).

Erika said...

I believe you should solicit topic suggestions and then file them away for "blank" days. That way when you need something to write about you will already have a file compiled. I will begin the list (yes I love a good list) with the following...

Mullets and perms (circa 1990)
Britney Spears - can she make a comeback
Who's on your laminated card
Mr. Smith's mustache - I love him but that stash is pretty WOW
Who's smarter Billy Ray Cyrus or Pam Anderson?

magickat said...

I agree with Meleah - grouping them in such a manner and then publishing is truly genius.

And now I am singing that damn Lionel song! GREAT!

Anonymous said...

When I hear that song in my head (and I have been blissfully free of it until you went and mentioned it), I hear a woman's voice. Linel Richie may be close, but I don't think that's quite it.

Catching up. I'm glad the next one is a re-post and you weren't back in the hospital getting jump-started again.