My Musings

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Sunday, December 29, 2002

Nationals, Part One: The Plane Ride

On and off throughout the course of the entire winter break this year, I’ve been trying to write a huge, monster entry about my weekend at the chess nationals in Atlanta held earlier this month. Almost immediately I saw that the entry was getting nowhere. Quick to grab the problem by the reins, I began an unrelenting campaign to end it, primarily by whining a whole lot about my writer’s block to everybody. This is what I generally do to try to solve a lot of my problems, such as the fact—as I’m sure I’ve mentioned about fifty times already to any of you who I see on a somewhat regular basis—that I’ve lost my biology book. Instead of doing something like, say, perhaps looking for the book, I instinctively see ways to bring it up in virtually any conversation. I don’t even do it on purpose. Guys—if you’re sick of hearing me complain about how I lost my biology book, I am really truly sorry, it just seems to acquire relevance to every single topic. Like the chess tournament. My lost biology book HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the chess tournament, and yet here I am, going on and on about it. But just to give you an example:

Person: I can’t believe we have a bio test tomorrow. I don’t know anything.
Boris: I know! And what’s worse, I lost my biology book, so I can’t even study the dang stuff.

Person: I don’t have a study hall because it doesn’t fit into my schedule.
Boris: Oh, I would DIE if I didn’t have a study hall. I use it sometimes to do math and history, and since I lost my bio book, I have to use the one in the study hall to read the assignments.

Person: Oh no! I left my wallet with 500 dollars cash and a signed blank check that I was planning to give to Harry and all my credit cards and my home address on top of a bar stool at the strip club I went to last Saturday!!
Boris: Well, at least you didn’t lose your biology book, like I did. It’s the most expensive book you could lose and I have to read all the chapters in study hall.

So you see, it somehow becomes extremely relevant to every single facet of my life that I, Boris Dvorkin, lost my biology book. Now, in the case of the biology book, whining, I’m sad to admit, doesn’t help. But in the course of my wailing about my awful case of writer’s block, I stumbled upon Lila, who offered me some wonderful advice. Confessing that she really lacks the attention span to read anything that lasts longer than about 19 letters, Lila suggested that I ditch the whole monster entry idea and just write about the tournament in a series of installments, which would allow me to hold true to the one page limit. I was hesitant at first, but coming up with no better solution myself, I decided to follow Lila’s advice. This first installment was supposed to be about the plane ride to Atlanta, but as you can see I’m already nearing a page and I haven’t even gotten to the part of the story where I wake up, much less the actual flight. I got carried away with the whole biology book thing, which frankly I don’t know how I got started on, and I’m too lazy to check, and too lazy to delete all this and start over, so I guess I’ll take another crack at writing about the plane ride up to Atlanta in an upcoming entry.

.: posted by Boris 6:07 PM

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