Two Abreast

Mostly when I write for this blog, an idea presents itself (or is unearthed through considerable mental struggle) for the substance of a post. After I finish writing, I contemplate the general thrust of the thing and assign it as appropriate a title as I have the energy left to conceive of. That seems like the reasonable and ordinary way for that to be done, but it is not always the way that things go. This is one of the other times.

I found myself walking down the sidewalk towards my building with a couple bags of groceries. A man was coming the other way, and there was no comfortably passing him. The sidewalk is just not that wide, even when the city is good enough to keep the weeds and trash under control (if in fact it is up to the city to deal with such matters). I thought that most people would describe the situation as being one of two people not being able to walk side by side, but I thought there was a better way of putting it.

It occurred to me that what one would say is we were "two abreast". Now, I naturally figured that the title would be apt for a post of some sexual nature, but the unfortunate truth is that a terribly appropriate post for such a title was unlikely to come around very soon, so I was faced with either forgetting the title forever or writing something that it didn't fit incredibly well just so that it would ever get used at all.

This is that post, which I admit is what they call "meta" to a considerable degree. I don't know how much I like writing blog posts about writing blog posts, considering that there is little enough interest in the blog post themselves, let along in learning about the process behind their creation. The important thing is that the title got used, and that this is what results from going through the process backwards. It's different, if not better or worse.