Writing About Nothing to Write About.

I started this blog as a way of sharing things that were going on in my head, my life and our community. But I also wanted to practice my writing. If I don’t practice, I cannot improve. Also, I really enjoy it. I have a lot of fun writing a piece and then pruning it to near perfection. When I finally ‘publish’ it, I don’t really care if anyone reads it, just as long as I feel as though I’ve accomplished something that I’m happy with.
Of course, if you do read it that is really great too.
Who am I kidding?
Please read it!
But what do I write about when I don’t know what to write about?
I usually have a few ideas forming at any given time, when I sit down to write. I have found that beginning with three or four of these ideas and jotting up a little blurb on each one is a good way to get started. I begin to expand each one, fleshing out the blurb and then adding details. The one that I spend the most time on is usually the one I write and publish.
It’s a good formula for me, since sometimes what I think I want to write about and what I wind up writing about are not the same thing.
For example, two weeks ago I decided to go through with it and get my hair cut. I really wanted to write about the experiences I was having going from a ‘longhair’ to a new shorter style. As I began to write, though, I lost steam. It was a good piece, and I still intend to work it up a little more and publish it eventually. Still, I just wasn’t ‘feeling it’ as they say.
I looked at the other ideas that I started and none of them stood up and said hello to me either. I hammered out my other writing assignments, the ones I am obliged to do, but this blog just wasn’t giving me anything. No good ideas.
Zilch.
This fact worried me just a little bit, to be honest. I am fond and even a little proud of this blog and its collection of tidbits. I really don’t want to abandon it and I must hold myself to my personal goal of posting at least once a week. Discipline is a key principle of good writing, after all.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that I was overdoing it, just a little. Maybe, since I am writing for a few other venues now more regularly than before, some of the impetus that I have always maintained for this blog was being absorbed by those writings. I mean, one can only get so many ideas in one day, right?
Actually I have about a million things I’d love to write about. Some of those subjects I cannot write just out of a sense of being polite, some because I just don’t have the talent.
Sure, I’d like to shake up the slumbering, sleepwalking masses with a rousing and witty rant that leaves welts on their proverbial skin. I would love to write a humorous anecdote that leaves you giggling and feeling better about yourself and the world in general. I would love to be able to conjure up a rousing call to arms, causing the wealthy to give extra to the needy and sting the pride of those who need it most.
But today, as I hone this blog, I’ve got nothing at all to write about. No idea seems more worthy of cyber-print than another. I’m sadly out of steam and it’s a frustrating state of affairs.
So, as you read this, please be patient with me. A new idea will come along, and I’ll find a way to make it pertinent and try to make it eloquent, even if it is not elegant.
I will keep jotting my ideas down, and I will keep looking for the best one. And perhaps you’ll excuse me if every now and again what I write about is not being able to think of anything to write about.

FRISBEE!

We live in an age of untold technological possibility. Smartphones, tablets, non-NASA space flights, nanotechnology and CGI laden films are all examples of our headlong plummet into the fabulous future.
And yet, for me the epitome of supercool is not the prequel of the latest sci-fi action comic book come-to-life or micro robots mending your clogged heart (although, dang it all, they are so cool). For me it is a simple disc-shaped piece of plastic that one can throw, watch it sail and then, when your friend has deftly plucked it from the air, have it sent back to you the same way.
I love the Frisbee! Yes, it is incredibly neat-o and you would never have to tell me twice about it.
One of my first memories is of my brother’s sky-blue flying disc, embossed with a gold world map, produced by Wham-O! It hurt when it hit, for alas, I was too little and my gross motor functions were too limited to, as yet, do anything short of run and cry when it hit me. However, when he and his friend would chuck that gloriously elegant piece of blue plastic back and forth for interminable hours, my little eyes did not fail to grasp the intensity of wowistic awesomeness my oatmeal-like brain could not yet conjure the words to describe.
That said, those memories dug themselves into the fibers of my existence. As I grew, I learned that I had a natural propensity for disc throwing. I even managed to figure a way to throw to myself, when no one else was near.
Lee, my best pal from schooI and I used to throw frisbee all the time. We would bring one and throw it around everywhere we went. I think we even brought one to an outdoor wedding once. It is perhaps one of the more entertaining and intensely fun things to do in the whole universe. A fact that we discovered quickly and indeed thrived upon.
The philosophical truth is, there is great Zenism to be found in disc throwing. The physical perfection of the throw, the energy to run and catch, the wonderful mesmerizing flight of a small circular object all seem somehow universally appropriate if not entirely necessary to mental calmness and emotional health.
However, frisbee throwing fell by the wayside as it became necessary to tuck in to grown up endeavors. Work and familial responsibilities would begin to preclude that sort of fun, and my friend the flying disc was, for a long time, forgotten.
Then, one wintry day on the hiking trail, my very good Grown Up Friend (let’s call him Herm) and I shared our similar frisbee stories, and when we realized our common history with the Pluto Platter, we would always finish our conversation with “We gotta get one.”
Months passed and the subject would come up again and again, followed by more grown up activities which wiped away any such frivolous enterprise. Yet, something moved me this spring. Something primal and deep and, incidentally fundamental to my makeup, drove me to look for and find the perfect disc. I was at last successful and I brought it home.
The perfectly round, perfectly red frisbee seemed (the way a fuzzy, nuzzlingly sweet puppy might seem to some families) destined to come home with us.
Later that same weekend, after a text with the good news, me and Herm got together and we along with our wives went down to Bicentennial Park (perfect for frisbee throwing, by the way) and spent the next hour-and-a-half zinging the bright red disc around.
We were both a little surprised at how we had grown out of shape for the activity but after a few minutes to recall our former frisbee glory, we were slinging the disc with vigor and joy.
Since then, he’s ordered one that will gleam brightly in the dark, in case we don’t want to stop just because the sun has gone down. No fun activity should ever cease due to a lack of light, after all.
But in the meantime I love hurling that pleasant piece of plastic! I am so glad that I was born in the mystical time of the magical flying disc. And I am so glad that I have a disc-throwing pal to share it with!

Me and My Rogue DJ

Imagine that you can hear a piece of music just once, and it stays with you forever. Now, imagine that you hear it a second time. By now, you’ve memorized the lyrics, the rhythm, the bass and the chords. Now imagine that this is the case with every single bit of music you have ever heard, from when you were in utero until right this minute.
Now, add to all of this a strange mental hiccup that plays all of this music in your head all the time. Every single  instant of the day or night, you have a song playing, just like canned Muzak or Sirius, in your head always.
If you have no idea what this is like, then you probably have the ability to empty your mind of all thought, and are close to enlightenment. If you understand even one of these symptoms, then you know what it's like to be me.
I have always loved music, and I know that I have a gift. But I tell people all the time that I have a Rogue DJ in my head that loves to spin tunes from the past, and takes every bit of stimuli from the outside world; beeping trucks, windchimes, TV jingles and birdsong and spins it into a reference to one of the million songs in my mind.
Now, before you go calling the nice young men in their clean white coats to take me away, understand that I’m not suggesting that there is actually someone else in here with me. Rogue DJ is just a phrase I use to blame this tendency on something other than myself.
I actually don’t mind the selections most days. Anything from AC/DC to Warren Zevon, from Nat King Cole to Collective Soul, from Peter Frampton to Eric Clapton; I can dig it most of the time.
Occasionally, though I find that there is a little bit of mischief going on. Why on earth would a ringtone from someone else’s phone get stuck in there? Why would the cardinal’s territorial tweeting cause me to whistle his tune all day?
Perhaps, if Freud were here to help me delve into my Id and dissect the internal working of my subconscious, we might see that my sense of humor and musical sensitivities are wired together.
Or, if Jung could come by, he might suggest that the Jokester part of my personality, is also the pan flute playing satyr. In mythology, my brain’s capacity to remember and play back music would be akin to the Pied Piper, and my misbehaving sense of humor would be related to the Trickster. A Spike Jones meets Mozart kind of situation.
All I know is that when a song or bit of music gets stuck in my head, I sometimes wish I had a switch or a ‘scan to next song in playlist’ button available.
The fact that the Germans invented the term ‘earworm’ to denote a song or jingle that gets stuck in your head, suggests to me that I may not be alone in this. I hope that there are others out there with varying degrees of mental musical madness. And if so, I’d love to hear what it is you’ve learned to do to change songs.
But, for right now, it’s J.S. Bach playing up here, later it will be Burt Bacharach.