We don’t associate drinking with birding. Why not? Both can be an escape. Both can make you act nutty. Both can be addictive.

But forget all that. We’re not going to talk about birding and drinking. It’s been done already, and done well, by the well-done blog, “10,000 Birds.” They covered the subject earlier this week.

Reading their post got us thinking: The real problem isn’t drinking and birding. It’s drinking and WRITING ABOUT birding.

Or, drinking and writing about anything.

Writing when buzzed can be an occupational hazard. Creativity’s juiced and inhibitions float away. You crank out stuff that reads like Hemingway. Until next morning when it reads like crap.

They oughta add another warning to booze bottles and beer cans: “Don’t operate machinery, be pregnant, drive vehicles, watch birds, or write anything while using this product.”

There ought to be a term for drinking and writing, equivalent to DUI (Driving Under the Influence). This could be: “WUI,” (Writing Under the Influence).

And there’s a related crime: “EUI.” (E-mailing Under the Influence).

Once you hit the send key your tipsy email zooms like a Peregrine Falcon into the world of permanent things. You can’t take back a word.

The two-fisted poet, Omar Khayyam, wrote: “…the moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor all your piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.”

Sobering words. We know them all too well after we’ve pressed the send key when “EUI.”

The whole thing’s a downer. Thinking about it makes you want a shot of Jack or one of those Australian beers that come in two-fisted cans. Just don’t write anything afterward.

Or if you do, and you will, don’t hit send.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 9:59 pm and is filed under "Daily Sightings" A Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.