The Walking Dance

Like many, I’ve started going on walks more frequently to stay active, and I’ve noticed that there’s this little interaction, this little dance that everyone does when two people are approaching each other on the sidewalk. Because you can’t just cross paths, obviously, that would mean getting too close. Instead, here’s what happens:

First thing’s first, you have to spot them. This generally happens when you’re still far away from each other but sometimes there’s some low-hanging foliage obscuring your sightlines so be ready for that. What follows are calculations between both you and the other person that wouldn’t be out of place in a middle-school math textbook. “I’m going at such and such a speed and they’re going at such and such a speed which means we’ll intersect…” That sort of problem.

If you’re really mean, you can turn it into a game of chicken. Who’s going to cross the street or get out of the way first? Not you! But what’s more likely to happen next is this sort of size up where you’ll check to see if the other person is wearing a mask, and if they aren’t, you get to give them a good solid glare that should last for about as long as you feel comfortable giving them the attention. That’s not that long for me, personally, but I’m sure for other people it’s different.

Once that’s out of the way, the next thing to look for is traffic. You should generally be aware of the oncoming sort anyway, but be sure to look behind you as well. Once you’ve gotten the hang of this in a general sense, you can even try to be as simultaneous as you can with the other person as well. See how close you can get!

Now, based on all these factors, you have to wordlessly decide who’s going to go out of their way. The default should be you, obviously. Yes, I know I mentioned chicken 180-ish words ago, but come on. Whoever it is, though, should obviously start drifting closer to the road in preparation to do so, also subtly indicating that they’ve elected to cross. One more check that the roads are clear, and that’s that.

Or is it? There’s a difference between a half-cross and going all the way across the street. I’ll leave that for you all to discover, though. In the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and I’ll talk to you all next week.

-F

Icebreaker Jokes

I’ve talked about icebreakers way, way back when the blog was young, but one specific subset of “say something interesting about yourself” type vagaries is the “tell a joke” section. Just like having one good interesting thing about oneself to just have in your back pocket is a good idea, I’ve found it’s also a good idea to have a joke ready just in case. Of course, it should be short and sweet -- you’re not going to get any friends by rattling off Nate the Snake on command.

One of my personal favorites is one I heard at summer camp, and it’s a freshly squeezed take on an old classic.

Knock knock (Who’s there?)
Banana (Banana who?)
Knock knock (Who’s there?)
Banana (Banana who?)
Knock knock (Who’s there?)
Orange (Orange who?)
Knock knock (Who’s there?)
Banana’s back!

There are some problems with this particular adaptation, though. I mean, I’m not a jokesmith by any means, but the fourth iteration (the one after “Orange”) loses a lot of anticipation value in its unexpectedness. The normal punchline is so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine anything else. Really, the only solution I have to this is to be extra jubilant in your delivery of the final line, which I guess subverts expectations in an irony-poisoned world but definitely isn’t for everyone. The other option, I suppose, would be to cut one of the initial “banana” lines, but that means there’s no buildup at all.

On the other hand, maybe that’s everyone else’s punishment for demanding you tell a joke in the first place.

-F

The Tenets of 2020 Movie Releases

So Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s upcoming movie, got delayed indefinitely. Finally, if you ask me. There was a good long while where it looked like marketing (people assumed Nolan himself but I haven’t looked into things enough to confirm this) wanted this to be the “movie that saves theatres this summer,” whatever that means, and while it was pushed back a few times before this, there was always the impression that yes, whatever happens, this movie is going to be played in theatres this summer. And then, of course, the world continues to have ended, so somebody finally pulled the trigger and put it on hold.

I admit I wasn’t really excited either way? I didn’t see the marathon of a trailer that showed in front of The Rise of Skywalker and the one spot I did see didn’t look all that exciting. In general, I like Christopher Nolan as a writer/director, but not amazingly so? I don’t know where that puts me on the “filmbro” scale, like, whether I’m elitist or hipster or both. I’ll still probably see Tenet if I have an opportunity.

But that’s the thing. Cinemas are closed right now and for good reason. I only really watch movies in theatres. So I’m stuck between really missing this thing that I really enjoy and knowing that not only that I can’t indulge, but that I shouldn’t want to indulge right now anyway. It’s something I think about from time to time, and that event has only brought it to the forefront.

-F

Fermat's Last Blog Post

I have discovered a truly magnificent topic for a blog post, of which the margins of this webpage are too narrow to contain.

-F

(thought of this dumb joke at way-too-late-o'clock and couldn't help myself)

Working on Finishing Things

When I started this blog, it came with this idea that I needed to at least “finish something.” That is to say, that’s probably not something you’ll find if you go through my opening posts, but it definitely was something that was going through my head at the time of this blog’s conception two and a half years ago. And, given that it’s a popular piece of advice for writers just starting off, I imagine it’s a popular need. But I’d like to interrogate why I needed to be told that in the first place, because I definitely did, and I think it’d be fun to talk about.

Some of it probably stems from how I start writing something in the first place. Generally, I start with a vague idea that either has a few opening lines attached or some set-piece that takes place near the middle or the end of the story. In the first case, well, it’s probably obvious to see why I stop there. The easy lines run out, and eventually, the whole thing just gets moved to the scrap pile to be used later (I have occasionally found uses for such things, at least). Pushing through there is largely a question of motivation and sometimes I just don’t have enough. I suppose that’s why another piece of advice is to just not tell people what you’re working on, because that can trick your brain into thinking that it’s already finished, which cuts down on the motivation juice.

Other times, the “set piece” times, I think that’s a problem of too much planning, or, at least, too much time spent idealizing just how cool the scene might be even though it’s thousands of words away. If I do manage to get to that scene eventually, the characters have inevitably changed in some way from how I initially imagined them, and I can’t help but feel like the scene is stilted because of that. I think I’ve talked about this part before, like with how I still think of something I’ve written as all the things I’ve cut in addition to what’s on the page, and how of course someone else reading the same thing wouldn’t see any of that.

But, at the same time, there are exceptions to this that I can’t define either. Like, sometimes I just… do well enough the first time around that I’m happy with that scene and I’m not sure why that might be. I could see it being related to chronological distance, maybe? Sometimes the idea for the scene will come up close enough to when I actually write it, or, better yet, I’ll have the idea as I’m getting to that point that I can just… start writing it. Maybe, in that case, it’s my insistence on writing things literally from start to finish that gets me in trouble; I have the interesting bits in my head but I can’t add them in yet (outside of some vague planning document) because even I haven’t gotten that far.

I have started to change this? With shorter works, mostly, or with shorter chunks of works. I don’t think I’m at the point where I can move around a planned outline with ease, but it is something I’m still working on. And I think that’s good? I sure hope it is.

-F

The Grocery (Part Three)

It seems like the store has gotten used to operating as it has been these last couple weeks. I went in late at night and it almost felt normal. Of course, there are still signs that direct you which way to go down which aisle and all the staff wear masks (the same cannot be said for the customers, unfortunately), but it’s a month later. It’s different now. The feeling is different. I mean, I still wouldn’t go in there unless I had to. As I alluded to in that parenthetical, I only saw three people (not including myself) wearing a mask, and I’m not sure one of those wasn’t just a duplicate. And now that I realize it, the direction markings aren’t conspicuous enough if I can accidentally go the wrong way down one and not realize until halfway through.

Some of this might also be, well, because it was late at night and, therefore, much less crowded than the store’s maximum, which is almost five-hundred. One-way aisles work much better, I am sure, when there isn’t just one person in them ever. The mask thing is less excusable, and it almost makes me want to see if another store nearby does have a mask policy. They already have an employee wiping the handles of the carts, and they already have a security officer, it stands to reason one could inform the other on certain matters of civil protection.

In fact, as I was checking out, I overheard a conversation between someone and this security, talking about this very thing. But I don’t think this is the time where friendly conversation is going to get anything done. We’re seeing that in other arenas of the country already.

-F

In the Middle

I’m at this point where there are so many things I know I should be writing about and yet I can’t find the words for any of them. Some of that is, like, hesitation, waiting until situations resolve themselves (hopefully for the better, and I have tried to do my part to make that happen) before tackling it and some of it is worry that a recap of the events just isn’t my story to tell. That’s why this post is late, by the way, and also why it’s probably unsatisfying as all get out to read.

I do have ideas for what I want to be saying and how, though. It’ll probably end up turning into something longer, in which case you probably won’t see it on this blog for a while, if at all. But I’ll keep you in the loop for it.

-F