Writer's Almanac

This weekend should provide essential fodder for my forthcoming (read: sometime between now and never -- much closer to never than now) meta-fictionalHornbyesque masterpiece. Since this mostly imaginary literary endeavor is supposed to be a self-reflexive exercise, I am consciously building a mental database of personal experiences to be massaged into something readable. My mental efforts are currently focused on the upcoming weekend because I will be emabrking upon my one and only stint as The Best Man.

Most of the responsibilites are out of the way. I have already planned and exectued the bachelor party, the post-reception debaucheries are in the works, and the tux is ready to be picked up. All that remains is to polish the wedding speech which so far has been the only "difficult" duty. Having a reputation for speechifying and producing random witticisms I had put a lot of pressure on myself to create an actual Speech. You know, something memorable. Something that people actually listen to rather than wait for to end. Something up there with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address ("With malice toward none, with charity for all...") or William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech ("You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."). But then again that is some pretty heavy shit for a wedding celebration.

So I then opted for a significantly lighter tack that lent itself to my random prose style. But that got out of control too. Ignoring my "better angels" -- that would be Lincoln's First Inaugural for those of you scoring at home -- it turned into an ego exercise with me not focusing on the happy couple but instead on how the wedding speech would be a great opportunity for me to present myself as the most sexually desireable and available individual at the wedding. It is amazing how quickly you can go from speaking about someone else to obsessing about yourself; solipsism at its worst. Thankfully I came to my senses and those drafts since disappeared, "Wiped clean by the wrath of God." -- and that would be Raiders of the Lost Ark for a triple word score.

Eventually I went with the Goldilocks approach and found a happy medium that was "just right" -- need I even go there? There are still a few finishing touches to be applied but all in all I think that version 3.o will work nicely. However, just in case, I have got a few Yeats collections that I am ready to plagiarize if things go South.