I love this blog. I check it lots and lots of times a day. I think what you've wrought is remarkable. Sincerely. An achievement worth being proud of. But you shouldn't feel obligated to post.
I think it's a great post. Ogged's taking joy in the variety of human experience resonates with me.
In fact, it exemplifies my idea of the good sort of earnestness. And I'm totally not trying to do anything with piss here. The post made me happy.
SB:
I understand what you're saying in #4, but don't you think it would have been better in verse?
There was an article in ... the New Yorker? About people who track illegal immigrants in Texas, and one guy in particular who was like the Dr. J of reading trails. Pretty cool.
I swear I'm not taking the piss
But I just want tell you that this
Makes me so happy
And just a bit sappy
'Cause it exemplifies the good earnestness
Now I'm not so sure that I like it anymore, because I think ogged might be taking my thoughts, expressing them better, and getting credit I wish could be mine, but that really never could be, if I were honest with myself.
But now I love Ben's limerick! It's last line, so good. Yay.
I'd like to see you do better in one minute, Joey Joe Joe Jr. Drymala.
You just redeemed yourself completely.
I've lost my gourd. I am going to go find my gourd.
I had a college friend once, a runner. Dr. Oops had just visited me, and I mentioned her to him in passing. In response, he said "Yeah, you guys walk alike," and gave me a five-minute analysis of my gait, Dr. Oops' gait, the ways in which the two gaits were similar to each other and different from the norm, and the subtler differences between the two. It was fascinating -- I found myself thinking that I would never have noticed anything of the sort about how someone else walked.
(People usually respond to this story by saying that he had a crush on me. (A) In retrospect, I don't think so, although if he did I missed a trick: he was brilliant, sweet, and very attractive, and (B) I've been romantically obsessed with people for years and not picked up that kind of detail about how they walk; even if he was attracted to me, it's still an entirely different style of noticing things.)
One can always tell worm tracks by their distinct shoe size.
People usually respond to this story by saying that he had a crush on me.
Nah, like you say, it's just different noticing. If you notice gaits, you like talking about gaits. Of course, he might *also* have had a crush on you.
(Tell me again how she came to be called Dr. Oops.)
My roommate from college had a very distinctive walk- the upper half of his body was pretty motionless, and he kind of "led from the hip" in his walk (as opposed to leaning forward and leading with your head, for example).
I never noticed it in anyone else until I met a woman in grad school who walked exactly like him. Turns out they're both from Santa Cruz, CA.
I'm told I have a funny walk, apparently I take very big steps that make me appear to be bouncing up and down. When I notice a woman's gait, it's generally a side effect of watching her bottom (he admits sheepishly). But since your friend was a runner, his interest could well have been more high-minded.
Re #7: I actually meant that ogged's post should have been in verse; back in the day, we dismissed humanist opinions by asking that the opinion holder "write a poem about it and get back to me." But I liked w-lfs-n's limerick as well, and nothing that inspires good stuff can be all dross. Can it?
She's a lefty, which means that nurses have a tendency to hand her surgical instruments to the wrong hand, or at the wrong angle. Early in her residency, she was doing a hernia repair, which involves a sedated but not unconscious patient facing away from the surgeon (on his front, with his rear elevated.) A nurse handed her an instrument awkwardly, and she bobbled it, saying "Whoops." The patient, who she had sort of forgotten was conscious, piped up with "Who said 'whoops'? What's up with the 'Whoops'?", and busted her chops about it, calling her "Dr. Oops", when she looked in on him in recovery. The nickname didn't last that long in real life, but given that she's not reading this, and she's also generally a big goofball, it seemed like a useful and expressive pseud.
ogged,
You sly devil - were you a child prodigy?
There are few things as sad as a former child prodigy.
Sometimes they turn out to be Mozart, though.
I don't think you'd told that story before, LB. I like it.
Joe,
Sometimes they turn out to be Mozart, though.
So you still have hope? Interesting.
both non-surfers, Ogged. Only one of them was into discgolf and weed, too. And when I visited SC last summer for the first time, the herds of hip-walkers I expected failed to materialize.
Were the hip walkers walking as if balancing a book on the head? If so that's call good posture which few people seem to bother with these days.
Tripp, you can't say "few people seem to bother with these days" and be young at heart.
Even if you're young physically, alas.
Tripp, the rain in Spain falls mainly elsewhere. The plain is the dry meseta of central Iberia, making Spain the driest country in Europe. Don't come to me with your My Fair Lady etiquette courses.
...they aren't related. They don't know each other (oh, I've asked).
And I'm not one to actively note walks (unless they're silly, and I'm seconded to the Ministry thereof). But this one always stuck out at me.
ogged,
So true. I blame my C-7 C-8 laminectomy for my preoccupation with posture. No one is sure what caused the slipped disc at age 32, but I suspect college football played a part.
mike,
People should pay more attention to speech as well as posture. I'm not saying we should emulate the manners of Professor Higgins, but people will spend hours with clothes and hairstyles and makeup and neglect their voice. Tut tut.
mike,
man, why ya gotta go hatin'?
Envy.
though late to the party, wanted to join in the warm sentiment floating about. I liked this post. Not a former child prodigy, but thought I knew everything for much of my childhood. And I still wish I noticed everything there is to notice.
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope.
And thanks, SB, for whatever vulgar compliment that was deleted in one of these threads or another.
It actually wasn't vulgar, is the funny thing. I thought you weren't giving yourself enough credit, and wrote something to that effect. But then I felt that saying so was a little too REDACTED, given the context.
More than a little late, but the "worm trails" got me.
24: Humanists have to submit in verse? That's a republican saying, 'get a job.'
42: Really lovely.
Prodigy, for sure not, BUT have always noticed "moth writing" on my window screens in the summer at night. Anyone else? Verging on scary, like a poltergeist trying to speak.
No, I'm not shit faced now either.
I'll try to do better. I regret that I have but one liver to give unfog.
What people notice, is typographical errors.
Who pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you, eh? I disagree, but if it were true, it would probably double the number of Unfogged smooches required for smooch parity.
Structure is beatiful! Accidential structure, sometimes especially so.
We might should return to the glory days of Magik's sentiment in comment 6 here.
beatiful
Blessed are the clear in syntax, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Ah, the heady days of War Ogged.
Hey, who knew Arabs were ungovernable?
I like, "Blessed are the cross-eyed, for they shall see God twice".
SB, now that's something to take home to mama.
The mama of the person who coined it is probably dead. But I'm flattered that you'd attribute it to me.