Not short. Not funny. But here.

If you write a blog as assiduously as I do (contrary to popular belief, assiduously does not mean I type it with my ass) you learn a lot about media. And life.

In fact, if I ever were in the position to hire people again, I'm not sure I'd ever bring someone in who wasn't daily involved in some sort of craft. Doing something daily forces you to see things you don't see if you're less regular about doing them.

For instance, I have always--even when living in the city, spent about 100 days a year walking by the sea. Some of that was while I was on vacation--usually somewhere warm and azure. Some was driving up to a dog-friendly beach and playing fetch in the water of the turbid Long Island Sound with Whiskey. Most was walking along the path of New York's East River. (Though we call it a river, it's not. It's a tidal estuary--and if there's any water in the East River at all, the PCBs and other carcinogens are probably salty.)

Despite my regular maritime proclivities, the sea becomes 'living,' when you live on it and see it every day. You see things you don't see even when you're merely a regular visitor. You see the change of seasons, the changing character of waves, the Rothko-like blurring of the horizon, the sky and the brine. You see and hear the life of the littoral; clams washed onto the street by an over-achieving wave, or dropped there by a gull. You see the lacerated carcass of fish that have escaped the razor talons of an osprey. You see diving ducks and geese taking off just barely like Howard Hughes' failed behemoth, the Spruce Goose. 

You see the phone poles that are home to almost-round gulls who feast on the trillions of migrating bunkers our species hasn't yet destroyed. You see hopeful fishers neck deep in the murk trying for stripers or blues early and late in the season. You see buttermilk skies, god rays and rainbows. You see squalls and storms and hear thunder and see lightning. You hear the laughter of children with buckets and throwing sand at their little sisters, their mothers tsking and perhaps dreaming of a Xanax.

The same happens, I think, when you write and publish every day. First you become attuned to your surroundings. You turn yourself into a super-human of sorts, an all-observing story machine.

Your memory is trained to remember a funny t-shirt you've seen, or a snatch of dialogue overheard. You hear sounds that are otherwise drowned out by their older-brother-sounds, the type that usually demand more attention.

Your brain becomes a giant stewpot in an army mess hall feeding ten-thousand troops a day. You throw everything into the pot hoping for a dance of flavors. Hoping that when you ladle the slop out on a thousand tin trays, something will be enjoyed and something will be gained.

You also learn the patterns of your readers and as important, the lack of patterns. 

Often I write something. I'll say to myself, for whatever reason, 'this is really going to take off.' And I get the Bronx-born equivalent of that old Zen Koan--nothing but the sound of one-hand clapping. Other days I'll say, 'well that was kind of lame-brained,' and the post will take off. 

I learned from that that it makes no sense to try to make sense out of things. Whether you're a human-brain or a high-performing computer, in so many things there are too many uncontrolled and uncontrollable variables to be able to count on anything, especially counting. 

Anyone who tells you, 'don't do x because of y,' has essentially given up. You can always do something to x that changes y, but you usually don't know what where or when.

That's really it for today.

I've found through the years that Fridays are slow days in the blogosphere. I try to counteract low volume usually by writing something funny and short.

Today's post is neither.

But who knows.

It might still go over well.