Want to write? Look in the pantry...

I was talking about superheroes a few weeks ago, and I was reminded this morning that I already KNOW a superhero – Clipman! Yes, Clipman – mighty superhero, defender of office justice, keeper of the file cabinets, AND he knows Word Perfect! It’s Clipman! My acquaintance with Clipman goes back to that time I spent working at Hi-Tronics, where we used Word Perfect but no one really seemed able to completely grasp its intricacies. But lo and behold – Clipman arrived one day to rescue us from our confusion. And I think he may have tidied up the filing cabinets, as well. (Actually, that might have been me…) Seriously – Clipman was hanging on my dad’s office wall for so long that the original background paper was faded and wrinkly. But it was imperative that Clipman journey from New Jersey to Texas, so my dad traced over the original wrinkly paper and gave Clipman a new sheet of paper to call his home. He is now guarding the halls of ANS, where he no doubt restocks copy machines with extra paper and fills empty staplers. Maybe he even turns on the coffeemaker in the morning. Because that’s just the kind of superhero that Clipman is…

And that’s about it for now. I’ve got nothing here… my mind is strangely devoid of interesting insight at the moment. Although I’ve always been told that if you can’t think of anything to write about, you should just start to write. It seems sort of contradictory – if you don’t know what to write about, how can you write? And yet, usually, it seems to work. Shall I try it? Okay, maybe I will. Has anyone read any Chris Van Allsburg? He’s actually a children’s author and illustrator, but a few of his books have been transformed into movies – Jumanji, The Polar Express, and that new one, Zathura (which I have to admit I’ve never read… didn’t see the movie, either). Anyway, one of his books was called “The Mysteries of Harris Burdick” (I’m having a déjà vu – have I mentioned this before? Perhaps there was another day where my mind was blank and I wrote about it in a blog post…). The book is rather simple – it’s merely a collection of strange illustrations (I’d say they range from melancholy to downright scary…) along with vague captions. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the book, but the one picture I can remember was of a man holding a chair over his head, looking poised to smash a strange lump under the carpet. And I can’t remember the caption at all – but the purpose of the book seems to be to fuel imagination. The pictures and the captions aren’t supposed to make sense – they’re supposed to be a jumping-off point for a larger, more complex story.

But I suppose just about ANYTHING could be fuel for imagination. Much in the way that writing leads to more writing, I’m amazed by the progression of my thought process at times. I can look over at my pantry door, which reminds me of food, which reminds me of all the great food I ate in San Francisco, which makes me think of how nice vacations are, which makes me think of all the places I’d love to visit, which makes me think of foreign languages, which reminds me of a family I was sitting next to at a restaurant the other day who were speaking a language I didn’t understand – but I did distinctly hear the words “opposition” and “Pakistan” used several times. Which made me wonder – what sort of opposition were they talking about? Was it opposition towards Pakistan? Was it opposition IN Pakistan? Was it opposition to the seemingly never-ending construction we’ve got going on in this city, and maybe it would be better to just go hang out in Pakistan until it’s finished? I guess I’ll never know. But now, every time I look at my pantry door, I’ll be thinking about the opposition in Pakistan…

And see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about – how strange it is to go from one idea to something completely different within the span of several seconds. And how strange it is to have absolutely nothing to write about and STILL be able to fill up space in my blog…