"I Better Write That Down"

You will have noticed that no new material appeared here on the day of Thursday, May 12th. A persistent technical glitch from this blog's host resulted in no post being published. It seems worth noting that it was the first such day since March 9th of last year. I consider it to have been a remarkable feat that I managed to publish every day for one year, two months and three days (and was thwarted in my intentions to go on in that way indefinitely only by some manner of outside error). I am more proud still of the fact that some of those pieces were good. I shall now embark upon an effort to improve upon that streak.

In addition to today's previously scheduled (and already published) post, please enjoy now yesterday's planned offering as apology and consolation for the void unfilled by my words.

Something that is regrettably dying out is that old pastime of keeping score at a baseball game. They still have an insert for it in the program, so you can still do it, but I see few who do when I'm at the ballpark. Those who do appear to my eyes to not be long for this world, which is to say that it's not an activity for the young. Naturally I would have an interest. When I do it I find it rewarding. What otherwise would have been forgotten by the time I headed home is immortalized in pencil- every ball and strike, every hit and error.

Of course, I do that only for the memories, because I'm not a ballplayer. Other things I take notes for because I do them and want to get better. A recent example is improv. I've been doing it for a little while (as early posts on this blog will attest), and have steadily gotten more serious about it over time. A problem has been that not only I but others have difficulty remembering things we do in classes, so frenetic and packed with activity are they. I have therefore started to take notes.

I'm still working out the best way to do so. What's nice about keeping score in baseball is that generations of devoted fans have honed the system. A properly completed scorecard shows all and can be interpreted by anyone who knows the common system. My notes are not so accessible or exhaustive as yet. I hope to improve that. The main difficulty is that while some things we do in improv are slow enough to easily jot down everything pertinent, others are a whirlwind, and what I get down looks like the first words from a car wreck victim.

Still though, what's important is that I have managed to record enough that I do not forget the scenes. Reading through the notes jogs my memory, and it is never too late to learn lessons from that which you still remember. It's also nice to have the notes as a memento akin to the baseball scorecard. The nature of things sometime is that there's all too little to show for my efforts on paper sometimes, so when something tangible comes along I seize on it.