What's a Gerund Anyway?

So it’s time to update my blog again, and I’m kind of at a loss as to what to write. It’s not exactly that we are boring, it’s more like we are pretty routine. Unless something exciting happens (and exciting can be equally “bad” or “good” so I’m not a big advocate of excitement really) one week is more or less similar to another. I go to work, and do the same stuff I’ve been doing for the last 8 years (knock on wood, because I know how blessed I am to have a job), Rob does his thing around the house, countless loads of wash, dishes, messes to clean up; the daily maintenance of a family life, it’s good, just not um “blog worthy” (to paraphrase an episode of Seinfeld, don’t ask which one, it’s embarrassing). Jake goes to pre-school, grows like a weed, and learns new things (although not at the lightening quick speed that kids seem to learn stuff the first 3 years), and plays; all the things a healthy 4 year old should do. We’re very blessed, we couldn’t ask for more in fact we quite specifically do not want anything more exciting. My motto is “let the blog suffer, not us”.

I am though a bit strapped for things to write about, that feel even a little bit original. I used to have original ideas, really I’m not just saying that, I really think I used to have some pretty original things laying around in my head. In fact for many years I wanted to be a writer, because I thought I had so many interesting things in my head I felt it might be a good idea to share them. Now as I approach 40, I seem to have lost them, I’ve looked for them, I really have, but most of my ideas seem to be, well as routine as my day; or better expressed by someone else (Truman Capote expressed things very well in a concise manner, and word for word you can’t beat Charles Dickens if you like lots of word). If I’m honest I’m kind of scared that this has always been the case, and I’m just experienced enough now to recognize it.

So anyway, as I was thinking that I don’t really have anything to write about I started thinking about how much my writing itself has changed through the years. I was always an o.k. writer, in school it is something that came naturally for me and not something I put a lot of thought into. I have a theory (not a unique one I’m sure) that avid readers tend to be pretty good writers. Somewhere along the way in reading a lot, whether it’s good writing or bad, you kind of absorb some of the skills of communicating through the written word. I’ve always been an avid reader, and honestly I do communicate much better via writing than I do verbally. Verbally and in person, I come across as quiet and shy, in writing I can be the exact opposite, forceful and self confident. But my writing has changed through the years, because I do a lot more of it. I would guess on in any given weeks, except for my family, 90% of the communicating I do is through writing.

The current age is a great environment for writers, because we can all be one, it used to take time and effort to communicate in writing, now, not so much. Thousands of people keep a blog, communicate via e-mail, text constantly, or surf the internet. A veritable gold mine for people with a writing bend, so how come it is that people really seem to not be able to write anymore? I’m consistently shocked by the things I read on-line, the things I read in e-mail; heck I shock myself sometimes. Not with the subject matter (although to be fair, that as well, there are some things people share now days, that I think “did I miss the memo that said that subject was no longer something we keep to ourselves?”) but with the actual writing. The sentences, the spelling, the weird shorthand that I don’t get half the time, the expectation that anything you write down will be responded to immediately. Heck, I send things out quickly without proofing them and then am embarrassed that my reader probably thinks I have no command of my own native language. In fact speaking only for those whose native language is English, I’m rather alarmed at the number of people that seem to have no command of their own native language. Is it me? Am I getting old? Maybe like a ghost from Dickens I’ve been getting nightly tours at night from my 9th grade English teacher (I have run into her a few times in the last year, she seems to remember me fondly which is nice, although she said I’m the one that “smiled and laughed a lot”, which is strange because I don’t remember smiling and laughing a lot in 9th grade, but there are infinitely worse things to be remembered for), planting the seeds of “is that how you write a sentence” in my head. But really, there are some atrocious examples of writing all around me, and it’s been awhile since I read something and said “wow”. Not because it was especially original but because it was very well written.

So there we have it, the perfect example of why a “10 page paper” never scared me much as an assignment. I can write (and just did) write at least 300 words and say absolutely nothing. I suppose it’s a skill, maybe it’s a talent, but unfortunately I’ve never had a clue what to do with it. I guess it comes in handy when you are trying to cobble together a blog entry “out of nothing at all” (to take a sharp left the wrong direction and paraphrase Air Supply, which one probably should never do).

That’s it for this week from the Crane’s, I hope all is well with everyone we care about, and well I hope all is well for even the people we don’t care about. Have a great week.

I’ll close with the inevitable cheesy song lyric “if a picture paints a thousands words then why can’t I paint you?” (yes I know a complete non sequitur, it just popped into my head, and quite frankly my head should be sued for that).