He reached into the sink and placed an empty drinking glass inside an empty 4-cup/1-liter Pyrex measuring cup. Then he placed a wooden spoon inside the drinking glass. “You know what that means, Daddy?”

I thought for a moment. All those things nestled inside one another could only indicate a convergence, which implies agreement. “It means, ‘yes,’” I guessed.

“That’s right,” he said.

He reached in and removed the spoon from the glass, then the glass from the measuring cup, and set them down separately in the sink. “Know what that means?”

“That means ‘no,’” I said.

“Yep.” He placed the drinking glass back inside the Pyrex and then put the wooden spoon into the Pyrex, but this time outside the drinking glass. “Know what that means?”

I thought about it a moment. “Maybe?”

“No, it means, ‘I want Teddy.’”

I admit, I never would have got that one.

He left the kitchen, then came back a moment later holding Teddy bear. Then he placed the wooden spoon inside the drinking glass (indicating “yes”) and walked around the kitchen island to get his wrappers. He just needed a hand from his old pal.

So, my son, who is not quite seven years old, invented his own sign for three different concepts — “yes,” “no,” and “I want Teddy.” Children seem to have an innate ability to combine intelligence with imagination, and it’s a habit I hope he keeps long after Teddy has been tucked deep inside a closet.

This is post number 1000, or, as my son put it Monday night, 10 hundred.

I began this blog on July 7, 2005. That means that in four years and nine months writing for this space, I have averaged four posts per week. Sometimes I cranked out six or more, sometimes two or less, and for the entire first month there were only seven entries. Were I reader Simon, you would be seeing a chart or graph somewhere near these words.

But Simon has completely let his blog go, so no graphs any time soon on that front. We won’t even touch Moksha’s blog because, apparently, neither will he. Dave soldiers on, seemingly only to rub readers’ noses in his latest cruise plans, but at least he’s out there.

Lately I wrote why I might be slowing down a lot, only to turn right around and ramp it up. It’s almost like it has a life of its own. To be honest, several of those recent posts have been shortwinded (is that a word?) due to the time I’ve spent writing my latest fiction. Once I have that out of my system, more words will flow over here.

But seriously, guys, just kidding about your blogs.

1000th post. W00t!

“There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.” – J.D. Salinger, 1974

After publishing The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger certainly lived up to this quote. No hypocrisy there. Now that he has died, questions have popped up about the unpublished writing he has done since his renowned work of fiction first took the literary world by storm.

The quote made me think about why I write. I do it because I enjoy it, but I’m not as pure as Salinger. I enjoy knowing that someone, somewhere, has read my words, and even more so when I hear that they enjoyed them. This goes as far back as the first time I received an “A” on a paper graded by a teacher. Nothing thrilled me more than seeing that letter atop my work.

Perhaps Salinger truly felt no need for such validation. Maybe he had only one great book in him and, as soon as his subsequent publications revealed that, he withdrew and wrote solely for himself. One great work of art is certainly one more than most of us ever produce.

Occasionally I craft a sentence that makes me smile when I read it back. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s well-written. Even less frequently, I relish an entire paragraph. I idolize authors who fill page upon page with such work while telling a compelling story filled with interesting characters.

Salinger kept writing all his life, but socked it away for all the world not to see. Apparently the intrinsic reward was enough for him. For me, putting the words out here, and knowing there are at least a few who will read the next entry, provides needed motivation.

Perhaps many writers would do as Salinger did had they written one book that paid the bills for the rest of their lives. This obviously doesn’t include the likes of Stephen King and Michael Crichton and Nicholas Sparks, who certainly could have stopped writing years ago and still lived quite comfortably. Then there’s Anne Rice, whose religious writing seemingly is trying to make up for a former life of capitalizing on readers’ most lustful desires.

There definitely are writers who have only one book in them. Usually these are the ones that gain critical but not commercial acclaim, and win awards but not spots on the bestseller shelves. They also often are the most thought-provoking and moving works out there.

There are writers who do what the bestsellers do, or what the critically-acclaimed do, but give it away for free. Whether weaving a fascinating tale or making us care about the key players (or both), they put their work out there for anyone to read, and often open it up to comments. Some offer their work for sale in on-demand printed editions, but rarely do they make a living from it.

My favorite example is Cheeseburger Brown (a pseudonym), who cranks out quality prose that keeps readers coming back and forms the basis of a vibrant online community. His day job has slowed him down lately, but core fans have kept interest alive.

J.D. Salinger’s stance on privacy certainly would have prevented him from using such online tools had they been available in his day. As one who writes “just for myself and my own pleasure,” he would have eschewed such self-publication.

In many more ways than one, I’m no J.D. Salinger.

Repeat last three steps as needed.

I’ve had only one pen pal in my life, and she was a Japanese girl named Mayumi. I never made it to Japan, but based on what I knew of her I’m sure she has made a trip to the United States. Whatever the case, we never met and I haven’t heard from her since 1991. I wonder how her budgies are doing.

I can’t help assuming that the Internet has pretty much killed off the traditional pen pal. If it is not extinct, then it surely is on the endangered list. Humans’ insatiable and growing desire for immediate feedback has relegated pen pals to online discussion forums and blog comment areas with international participants. Not to mention free IP telephony (Skype), mobile phones and texting.

More than all that, I’m here to start a series of posts covering my first meeting with my two closest online friends. I can’t imagine getting to know two people over a two-year span this well through mere letter writing. Listed alphabetically, they are Moksha Gren and Simon. Trust me, the three of us wouldn’t be able to sustain the effort of writing and mailing traditional letters for nearly as long as we’ve stayed in touch online.

After about 10 months of planning and waiting, we finally met. Frankly, I doubt pen pals ever have had a better time over a four-day weekend that didn’t include sex nor any distant hope of it.

Not even with the drunken butterfly girl.

Nope, we were perfectly faithful, loyal blogfathers who never so much as entered a Hooters. In fact, we rarely went a half hour without mentioning our families, and those moments were for forays into geekery too deep for even our wives to feign interest.

Simon and I arrived separately at the airport between 9:30 and 10 a.m. Friday morning. My trip — a 1.5-hour jaunt from Dallas Love Field to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, paled next to Simon’s laborious trek from Alberta, Canada, with a three-hour layover in Toronto. That’s not to mention his work-related driving trip prior to that.

The Canadian insisted several times that he was fine after about 30 hours without sleep, but even meeting him for the first time we suspected we weren’t getting the full Simon. We both had spoken with him on the phone, and although glassy eyes don’t come across the lines, we would have noticed the slurred speech.

Moksha, our gracious (if bumbling) and giddy host along with his wife Moonshot and their daughter Norah, admitted early on that his plans for us didn’t start until 7 p.m. that night. We somehow kept from twiddling our thumbs and picking our noses as we watched the clock tick and the pigs fly.

We ate at a well-loved local microbrewery and then proceeded to one of many memorable firsts for that weekend.

The next installment must wait. I just arrived home late Monday night and my wife’s belated Mother’s Day kept me quite busy. As much as our wives all said it was fine for us to be away for that special day, we will not even entertain the same conflict for future meetings.

(Continued)

As you might suspect after reading here, I enjoy writing. That is a symptom of my love for words, and sometimes I will adjust an entire paragraph just to use one I like. More often than that, I tweak song lyrics. My wife doesn’t always like it, and sometimes the first thing that pops into my head wouldn’t be appropriate for all audiences. It sure is fun for me, though.

Listing my favorite words would be implausible and geeky. Or implausibly geeky. That said, here comes one now.

loquacious – (Adj.) full of trivial conversation*

To spice this up a little, let’s imagine what it might sound like in popular music. Here’s a stab at that (with apologies to Nelly for mangling his lyric and to the reader for knowing it).

Hot in Herre
(Uh) I was like, good gracious ass is loquacious.
Oh, flirtatious, tryin’ to show patience.

The original word there was “bodacious.” I’m sure Nelly chose it because it’s more succinct than “unrestrained by convention or propriety” and easier to match in rhyme than “incorrigible.”

In my version, instead of incorrigible, the young lady’s posterior is “full of trivial conversation.” I chose it because it fit the verse better than “just pulls stuff out of her butt,” which seems much more disgusting when written, and because it rhymed better than “gabby,” or “garrulous.”

I played with substituting “loquacious” for “flirtatious” instead, and that would have made sense, too. In the end, I replaced the word more similar in pronunciation.

Undoubtedly, there’s little danger of Nelly’s incorporating either into his next live performance of the song. If so, then a shout-out would be nice. That could prove to be the catalyst that pushes this blog to the next level. Now, if only I could find an alternate lyric for, “You so crazy, I think I wanna have your baby.”** Nah, that’s ridiculous enough as-is.

Before the hip-hop masses get all up in my grill, I’ll give my history with this word. That should scare them (and pretty much everybody else) away.

I picked it up in 11th-grade English; our teacher used the Reader’s Digest feature “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power” to, um, increase our word power. While I know I have uttered the word, I can’t recall a time I used it seriously in a conversation, trivial or otherwise. Nor have I used it in a written work. Perhaps all that stems from my fear that the word could be used to describe me.

So, in essence, I know what it means, but no, I’ve never had occasion to use it. Kind of like the upper-level math I learned in school. Except, I have no idea what most of it means anymore.

Reader’s Digest sponsors a free online game called WordPower Challenge. RD Canada’s version is the only one directly linkable enough to include here, mostly because you can give it a test run without registering. Ultimately, you may compete with other players, keep track of the rankings, and more. If you think you can handle facing a Canadian leaderboard, then go ahead. Finally, having a large vocabulary might actually be fun and help you crush your enemies (albeit geeky Canucks). Score!

* – Source: The multi-featured, free program called The Sage (also available in a simpler, online version).
** – Actual line from Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s “Whatta Man.”