Black dog Friday.

One of the things I like about writing a blog--a blog that seems to have at least a modest number of followers--is that it follows, in a sense, the old paradigm of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny.

That is, writing my blog is a lot like writing my way through a day at work.

In the first and most important case, each day I have to face a relatively blank page, a directionless, briefless, amorphous page--a page that needs to be filled.

Sometimes, to be fair, topics, assignments and the like, present themselves to me and I know in short order what I need to do with them.

Other days, like this morning (this could be a certifiably rotten mood talking) it's just me and a very needy page.

Something needs to go on that page.

Something that will either clarify or provoke a response. Something that will, in the least, get a discussion going.

As I've said before, I write this blog fast.

I do little pre-writing and virtually no pre-planning.

I write, most often, like a journalist reporting on something he's just happened upon.

Often work demands present themselves in similar ways.

No one quite knows what needs to be said.

I guess because I can write fast, I get the ball rolling. A lot of times it rolls in the direction of "that's not how I would do it." And that's fine I guess. Because I know if I didn't start with a line in the sand, a point of view, a discussion about what needs to be communicated might never have begun.

I think that's one of the values of having a writer around.

Especially in a world that seems trending in the direction of being "word-free," or at the very least "complicated-thought free."

Lately, and it's probably because I feel so often out of my work-comfort zone, I feel I do a lot of saying the word "green." Primarily so others pay attention and are prompted to say, "no, yellow."

Frustrating.