Great Expectations

Writer's Block? You have no idea.

Writing a daily blog isn't too hard, assuming the ideas of how to bring the funny are continuous. As long as the Post-it of Knowledge still has an uncrossed word on it, and it doesn't sound like a Seinfeld monologue topic, I've got a lead on a column. Granted, not all of them are Holy Puppy blogs, but it doesn't take much to get me to churn out a page and a half of funny. That said...

While blogging may come fairly easy to me, there are other areas of the written word that absolutely leave me in fits. Such a classification can be summed up with three horrifying words.

Forced. Personal. Sentiment.

It's not that I don't know how to put emotion into words; when I take it upon myself to convey feeling to someone by means of putting it to paper, I feel fairly proficient. Think you cards, notes between friends, personal e-mail - any recipient of such a document is receiving genuine me. Hopefully, if I play my words right, I will have captured the Essence du Condon. Sounds like a cologne. (Silly wordsmith, cologne doesn't talk.) (But if Cond was able to be captured in a cologne, I guarantee you the bottle would be very tall and would never break when dropped on the ground.) (Ok, too many parenthesis.) (I'll move on.)

The difference between such correspondence and writing that leaves me with a dried-up quill is that pesky "Forced" part. Personal sentiment is when Condon voluntarily conveys his feelings. Forced personal sentiment is when Condon has a proverbial gun to his back and is required to write. A set amount to write, a set time period to write it in, and my wit turns to mush.

A perfect example of an F.P.S. that just about everyone has to endure occurs in the waning days of your high school career. Once you have taken your finals with all the impetus of a sponge, there are a final few days of the school calendar to wait out before that mythical diploma is yours. Will you be staring at the minute hand until your name is called? Nay. You and your fellow seniors have a call to arms. And what is your issued weapon? A yearbook and a pen.

Being asked to sign somebody's yearbook is an F.P.S. This is not a writing exercise you have most likely applied for. No, you've been handed a pen and pointed towards a blank space. And did I mention that this ink will be immortalized in that person's yearbook, oh I don't know, FOREVER?

Yeah, no pressure.

You do your best to throw in a common memory you would have forgotted three weeks later otherwise, some sage advice for the future, and perhaps some contact information. But let's face it. Shakespeare and Hemingway didn't write their best work next to "Student Activities," and neither do I.

Modern day example - at a going away party for a co-worker, the department created a very nice framed caricature of said employee as a going-away gift. I thought this sounded good, until I realized we were all to sign this outer frame with some sort of send-off or thank you. Ack! F.P.S. rears its ugly head again. And since my office has come to expect the funny from me, I feel like eleventy billion sets of eyes are drilled into the back of my head as I grab the Sharpie and approach. Writer's Block. Again.

At last, inspiration! You've all left me with no other choice but to write the antinote.

Dear John,
Insert generic good-bye and well wishes here.
-- Chris Condon