paralyzed

Every day, I get a word-of-the-day from dictionary.com. Most of the time, it's some obscure word that I've never heard or read, like yesterday's word: "perspicacity," which means "Clearness of understanding or insight; penetration, discernment." Once in a while I get cheap words like "compliment," or "frivolous"-- I mean, come on. But the real meat, the saucy stuff, I mean the kind of words you want to use in your highly acclaimed novel or Billy Collins-himself-loves-it collection of poems, those words go in the folder. "Good Words," I call it.

Today: "Unfledged": 1)lacking the feathers necessary for flight. 2)not fully developed; immature.

September 29: "Doff": 1)to take off, as an article of clothing. 2)to tip or remove (one's hat). 3)to put aside, to rid oneself of.

September 3, 2005: "Busker": One who entertains (as by playing music) in public places.

I have sixteen pages of good words in this folder. I'll be shocked at myself if I ever write or speak two of them in an intelligent way.

See, I'm too lazy to be a writer. I don't have that unction to sit down everyday and spill my emotive veins on a keyboard, paper, or napkin. I just don't got it.

If I ever write anything, I'll have to have five people translate my memoirs from an intensely elaborate eye-blinking code, like that guy who wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. And I'm not even paralyzed.