Forth! And fear no darkness!: Circling the Issue

What’s the opposite of writer’s block? Or, maybe not the opposite. What’s the term for writing too much and not actually saying anything that you want to say? Rambling? It seems a bit more complicated than that. At any rate, that’s what I’ve been struggling with the past few days.[1] Not to mention I’ve just been very busy and reasonably tired. But I’ve been trying to put together two blog posts, one on Speaker for the Dead and one on education for work, and I’ve had this “more than rambling” issue with both of them.[2]

This week has been busy but fairly routine. Monday after work I was going to go out and see some sights and different areas of the city, but I got home and was more tired than I expected. On top of that, I hadn’t seen Paul all weekend, so we shared a bottle of wine and just traded stories for a while. Also, I started a new book (which isn’t helping with my writing issues), so there was plenty for me to do at home.

Tuesday we were fortunate enough to start class late, and our guest speaker was a US Marine who had just completed a tour in Afghanistan. It was quite interesting to talk to someone who had been on the ground, see pictures, and understand much more of what the day-to-day issues are in the field. That night one of our friends had “won” a happy hour at a place named McFadden’s, so Paul and I went there for a couple hours and once more decided we were tired and turned in early.

Wednesday evening (yesterday) was quite fun. At the urging of Roxana (Paul and I cooked dinner at her place in this post), Paul, Evan, Roxana, Kaitlin and I had all bought tickets to a DC United soccer game (a Major League Soccer team). Before the game started, Kaitlin looked up at the clock and asked why it was already moving. Roxana looked up and said it was probably just how much time until kick-off. I finally looked up, looked at them to see if they were being serious (realized they were), and leaned over and said, “Guys the clock says 7:32:05. That’s the actual time. It’s actually 7:32.” The both laughed and Kaitlin voiced her fear that that would make it into the blog – so of course I included it.

The game, unfortunately, was a relatively dull 1-0 loss. However, it was interesting to see how United States soccer stacks up to European soccer – most importantly the devotion of the fans. The “crazy” section was able to keep noise going the whole game, but I must say it was nothing like European fan bases, even those in Austria. Also, many of the songs they sang were adapted from European teams, so Paul and I could sing along.[3] It was fun to go to though, even though it was incredibly hot and sticky, and we had a good time.

One of my bosses (Burns Strider) leaves Saturday for a couple of weeks of work and vacation, so they ordered in pizza for lunch today (Thursday).[4] I’ve still got two weeks left here, but it is crazy to think how fast this time has gone by. Anyway, the pictures below are from the DC United game. I’m hopeful this weekend I’ll get to see some family members in the area before it is too late! Katie Lovett and I are also planning on playing tennis tomorrow evening – it’s supposed to be 102 tomorrow so that will be interesting.

As always, at some point I’ll find a way to put up a post about Speaker for the Dead. Just not yet.
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[1] And if this paragraph isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what is.

[2] Katie Lovett, I’m banking on you being able to come up with an appropriate term for this.

[3] Actually, a lot of teams use the same tune and put their own lyrics or team name in it, so it isn’t particularly creative at all.

[4] Burns used to work for Hillary Clinton. Today he told us an interesting story about how no one at the State Department was responding to his emails about someone he knew that was stranded in Nairobi, so finally he just emailed Hillary. Within 30 seconds she had responded and within 12 hours the whole situation was handled.