(no subject)

[muckefuck]

In his most recent entry, lhn frets that he doesn't do enough to make for an interesting journal. This seems silly to me, as he thinks a lot of interesting things and, in general, I find reading intriguing ideas more sitmulating than reading about enjoyable events. That's why I patterned my journal after mollpeartree, who writes more like a columnist than a diarist. (Or, at least, a diarist in the Bridget Jones mode; for all I know, turn-of-the-century literary diaries were routinely anthologies of short essays on life, love, and the meaning of it all, but somehow I doubt it.)

Of course, then one falls into the trap I tried to avoid with the Koreans: If you put off contributing until you're at the top of your form, your entries dry up and your friends (and your Friends) wonder what's up with you. So there's obviously a balance between essaying, venting, and just being chatty to be struck, but I don't know that going out and Really Living Life is a necessary prerequiste. Face it: If you really had a fascinating, thrilling existence, when would you find time to write about it?

Since the only "interesting" thing I seem to do is eat out, I've been meaning for some weeks now to write up a list of my most recent food adventures. Stay tuned. Most recently, we tried to eat at the North Pond Café last night and were turned away for lack of reservations despite the fact that the dining area was more than two-thirds empty. What's with that? Oh well, we accomplished our primary goal, which was to distribute the stale bread that we left behind on our last trip to the park, two full weeks prior.

Some of it went to a congregation of ducks (mostly mallards, with four or five wood duck pairs) across from the Nature Museum, the rest fell to a smaller number of their kin (no woodies, but a few odd-looking specimens of even smaller size)--only one big enough to eat--and a rapacious school of small bluish fish lurking in front of the café. These little guys reminded me of piranha. Often, smaller fish will take a bite at floating bread and, if it's too big to swallow, leave it be. Not they: Even sizable pieces were generally shredded before a waterfowl could get near them. We had hoped to lure some of the large koi we spied in the murk, but they never seemed to come within so much as a foot of the surface. The geese, off in a cove on the far side of the pond, were even more aloof and were not drawn by either feeding frenzy. Geese are just so full of themselves. Mark my words: Their day of reckoning is close at hand.

Comments

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

You know, I never thought about it before, but my journal might be unconsciously patterned on the Thraliana, the journal of an 18th-Century woman (Hester Salisbury Thrale Piozzi) and the subject of my BA thesis. It's basically a collection of stray thoughts, village and national news, complaints about her husband and his business, accounts of her encounters with literary lights of the day (Johnson was a houseguest for several years), and her own poetry (sometimes in Greek). In some respects, it is a repository of her own thwarted literary ambitions; her use of the suffix "ana" was a play on the titles commonly given to collections of unpublished papers and letters of literary figures at the time. She received the journals with "Thraliana" already embossed on the covers by her husband, Henry Thrale. Interestingly, news about her children and various domestic concerns were recorded separately, in her Family Book.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that, if you have any literary ambitions at all, a web journal is bound to become a repository for them. It probably makes no difference even if they aren't thwarted, since then you have a rep as writer to keep up. The few times I've kept a hand-written journal, the style has been workmanlike (at best) and somewhat telescopic (though nothing like the VSDs). Since I can't forget my audience--however small it be--when writing here, I just won't allow myself to write that way. Not even in my private entries, since I might decide at some point to reveal them.

[lifeandstuff.livejournal.com]

I agree. LHN rocks and was just being silly about fretting about doing things to liven things up. The posts are great and don't need livened up. Obviously, you three all do great essays, whereas I mostly whine about my work day. So, I like all of yours better, but I'm hoping 10% of mine (or less) are actually vaguely entertaining in some way that makes it wortwhile to read over the forced activity of working.

In other news, my work is really sucking... ;)

[lhn.livejournal.com]

In his most recent entry, lhn frets that he doesn't do enough to make for an interesting journal. This seems silly to me, as he thinks a lot of interesting things

Thanks!

Since the only "interesting" thing I seem to do is eat out, I've been meaning for some weeks now to write up a list of my most recent food adventures.

Speaking of which, if you're ever up for a trip out to the western wilds, the New Rebozo restaurant in Oak Park strikes me as your kind of place. In addition to a tortilla soup to die for (we usually split it, and if we didn't feel guilty about the idea of just ordering one appetizer that would probably be enough-- though the rest of the food is quite good) the owner, Paco, is extremely friendly and gregarious. He makes a point of personally showing off the day's specials to all the customers (actually showing them on a plate as he describes them), and he always seems glad to talk to people. (We're a little too shy to really talk much, but he seems glad to see us anyway. :-) )