Communications Breakdown

I remember years back when I was generally drawing a blank, I tried to write a song called, "What I Want to Say." Don't try this at home, now, folks. It went something like this: "What I want to say, what I want to say, what I want to say to you. What I want to say in my special way. What I want to say is true." There was another part: "You bend, me you break me, you love me or you hate me ..." and that's about as far as it went. All this is a rather elaborate way to say I've been having computer problems all day and am not very much in the mood to blog. Still, during these hardscrabble times, I believe very much in persistence, in the simple nobility of jotting something down and getting something out. Jack was talking about how both of our first posts seemed very melancholy. Of course! The party's over. How could you not be melancholy? But I also get his point: We have to get past the melancholy if anyone's ever going to read this blog. Rather than melancholy, I'd like to revisit that classic, supposedly untranslateable Portuguese word, "saudade." Which roughly translates as nostalgia, but there's more. I always explain it thus: Its the feeling you get after you've visited Brazil for the first time and you've left a girl behind, you may not love her or anything, but she's back there and you're here _ and usually _ because you went for Carnaval (why else?) _ it's cold in North America and you've got saudade. I guess in that way it's also kind of like the blues. On the positive tip, it was a really nice day out today and I met a guy from work who lives nearby who said he bikes in every day and does it in about half an hour. So maybe I'll be getting back in shape and saving some subway fare.