Block party

The history of writer’s block is steeped in literary tradition. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a couple of famous essays on the subject for Esquire, in which he compared his creative state to a cracked plate — forever imperfected. On a less historic scale, how-to manuals such as the Little, Brown Handbook, make it a primary selling point that, among some 500-plus pages, the confounded writer will discover how to disgorge her mental hairball. And there are, of course, the classic Dos Passos doodles.

So...the above paragraph took three days to write. If I had to pick an appropriately unwieldy metaphor for my efforts lately, I would choose a magically self-resurrecting piece of electronic equipment — perhaps, say, a Mac laptop with a faulty logic board. You know: It seems like it’s shut down forever, but then one day, at random, it boots up again, works just long enough to make you wonder if all is well, and then locks up, displaying only that blasted blinking folder-with-question-mark icon. I could go on for at least a few more sentences in this vein, but I’ll spare you.

Things are good here in Austin. I got a call back from a certain prominent national newspaper that will henceforth remain anonymous to ye Google gods. I interviewed Monday for a part-time, ahem, Post as a reporter’s assistant. I’d be working alongside the region’s beat reporter out of the Austin bureau, with my office window facing the state capitol building. It’d be mostly just research malarkey, but there is the eventual opportunity for bylines in the fishwrap, and, in my case, maybe even the chance to take a couple photos. Lilly also interviewed for the job, so let’s hope one of us gets it.

In the meantime, I’m not even going to pretend anymore that I’ll be writing regularly in this space. I just wasn't cut from Blogcloth, I don't think. I’ll try to post a photo almost daily. The number waiting to be edited increases exponentially, it seems. I might also drop a dime of NBA knowledge from time to time. But when it comes to compositions, I’m going to try another outlet for a while. Whence I return, I shall offer up the most eloquent paean to Mi Madre's you have ever seen.