I've Lost it!

So far, I've started this entry five different times. I mean, on five different days. Then, disgusted, I just exited out without saving. I think I've just forgotten how to write--lost my touch. I think you can really lose it, and start copping out a little. The issue isn't filling a space, but putting something together that is actually enjoyable to read.


Here's an example: One of my entries was all a concerted effort to tell a funny anecdote that happened about 10 years ago. Only, when I read it written out, it was one of those "Hey, well you just had to be there" things. Uh...that's the point of writing, isn't it? If you finish reading something and think "I guess you just had to be there..." then whoever is writing it really sucks at capturing the mood.


Here's the anecdote: A friend of mine got a new girlfriend who was really annoying. Not sure why, but he got really wrapped up in her and they would sit in the corner whispering to each other all the time. And the girl was ugly in several ways, including a very snobby attitude, which was the most significant way. So, yes, I realize that when you get a new girlfriend/boyfriend/whatever it naturally takes you away from your buddies and there is a reshuffling of positions and time allotment, but this was getting just rude and irritating. At a weak moment, I referred to the couple collectively as "'Muskrat Love' over there whispering in the corner...", which is a reference to an obscure, crappy, '70's song which is somewhat funny in it's own little, obscure existence.


That's it--there's my un-funny anectdote/obscure reference. When I made it up, it seemed to be very funny to everyone who heard it, particularly those of us who remembered the crappy song, but now it's just a little pathetic story. The couple broke up but I still think about Muskrat Love when I see ugly people huddled with each other in a corner whispering or even sometimes just when I see this friend.


Well, you just had to be there...trust me, it was funny.


I was going to work it into a story about waking up in the morning during the holidays and cooking French toast for everyone. I've got this great recipe and I love to make a big batch of it and freeze a few pieces so we can heat it for Ryan in Fran's beloved toaster oven before he scurries off to school in the dark--so he can have a hot breakfast, which is important to Fran.


I had a few pieces of bread left over, especially the "heels", which Fran obscurely calls the "stumps". Anyway, I had a bag full of these pieces, and decided that it would be fun to take the kids to a nearby park to feed the ducks. I remember always loving to do that as a kid. I took my camera, and was delighted that the light was really interesting that day--it was somewhat chilly and very overcast, and the light was a very flat color and looked pretty on the water (the power lines ruin this picture, though). When I got home, I sheepishly acknowledged to my incredulous wife that I got 40 pictures of swans, ducks, geese, dirt, and brown water, but somehow none of them included the kids...This part of the story was supposed to portray me as an absentminded artistic genius...


But we had a really nice time feeding the ducks. Two huge swans came over to us, and they were pretty much insatiable--they even chased away most of the ducks and geese. I had to explain to Kaitlyn that she didn't actually have to go into the water to feed the swans, and Ryan was trying out his fastball straight at the poor, exiled ducks' heads ten yards away.


Then we looked up, and there was a big, fluffy beaver-looking rodent about three feet from my two-year-old. I ran over and scooped her up and she exclaimed "Look at that Humongous Mouse, Daddy!" I laughed so hard that I almost dropped her. Ryan began to feed it bread, and we both noticed that it had very odd-looking, huge, bright orange teeth in the front--perhaps from chewing wood--I don't know, but it was weird. It must come over sometimes when people feed the ducks, because we didn't seem to scare it at all, and it was chomping on the offering of bread that Ryan had piled in front of it. The swans, growing jealous, started hissing at it. But the tail was long and skinny like a rat's tail, so it wasn't a beaver.


I went home and looked it up in the Texas wildlife guide--it was a muskrat, which are known to live in this area (I guess it doesn't take a wildlife biologist to report that they exist--you can spot them huddled together in corners of the forest). Somehow, in the hands of a more skilled writer, this could be turned into a humorous and technically clean story, but you'll have to clomp through my muddy description here (and, ironically, without a picture of the muskrat, which I forgot to snap with a squirmy 2-year-old around my neck).


And there it is--my first entry in a while...I'm not deleting it.