Pos-itively a Stranger in a Strange Land

Week after miserable week, Miss Missives has trudged the dregs over here at Ask. I've grimaced through post after post: the mundane, the inane, the poorly penned. I'm not a mean person, I don't like giving out slews of flaming fingers. Well, that's not entirely true but what I really like about loitering these hallowed hallways is finding the odd gem. Oh the joys of discovering a writer that rather than labor through, you pore over each entry until you realize an hour has passed in a blink.

Now if Miss Missives didn't know for a fact that her husband, Mister Missives doesn't have the patience to blog and cannot keep secrets from her anyhow, she might have thought looking at Niagaran Pebbles, that she had found his super secret blog. Posol'stvo shares a lot in common with my mister and I thought I'd state that up front since I adore Mister Missives so it might bias me a little favorably in the Pos department.

Though his About Me is a little thin, a thorough reading of Niagaran Pebbles can tell you a lot about the man behind the Medved. For instance:

He is a language and grammar purist.
His wife breaks the ice for him and she likes to drink wine, a lot.
He is a shy crapper.
He is a graceful pragmatist.
He's conflicted about masturbation.
He doesn't enjoy constantly being sniffed
Like Miss Missives, he has seen David Sedaris read in person.
He is a boob man.
He is a closet romantic.
He has an eye for irony.
He has cross-dressed.
He might have been switched at birth.
He writes well, really well.

Here are just a few samples of really good writing:

In my youth and intemperance, I have said unkind words to innocent people out of anger. I have said angry words to innocent people out of ignorance. I have said ignorant words to innocent people out of unkindness.

I am reminded of the time when I found out that my best friend's father, who was always a very uptight and proper man named Jerome, was called Jerry at work. Jerry? Jerry is not a name for an uptight, proper, disciplinarian. Jerry is the guy who tells lewd jokes at the water cooler. Jerry's the guy you have to call a cab for at the Christmas party because he's too drunk to drive. If Jerome caught you looking at dirty magazines, he would probably whip out the belt, but if Jerry caught you, he'd help you find the good letters in the forum section.

Old age has stripped away the layers of shattered obsidian glass that made her such a prickly person to be around. She doesn't remember anyone, who she felt wronged by, anything. She is like a toddler again, filled with wonder and a little fear at not knowing where she is.

Like all of us, Pos could benefit from some serious editing. There are posts that are unnecessarily wordy that could be trimmed to highlight his best work. Still, he's not freakishly verbose and even the long posts were readable. Pos, you have clear voice which is pivotal in writing. You have beautiful phrasing, I even like your poetry.

My chief complaint about the writing is that some posts are better than others. There's the unnecessary, a little work blah here and there, and more than a handful of pedestrian rants. However, if my main complaint is that not every post grabbed me then Pos is way above the fold. Even the meh posts didn't cause my eyes to bleed or my soul to shrivel, it just made me want to skim until I hit the next great post. And who am I to say that the posts that left me wanting don't appeal to someone else because that's another great thing about you Pos, you cast a wide net.

As for the template, it's clean and unassuming. Your sidebar tends toward minimalism and I thank you, for not provoking a migraine with all manner of flashy, blinky, maptastic, statarific bric-a-brac and fauxwards. Pos, not only are you a talented writer, you are intelligent without being immodest. You are as humble as you are intellectual and you clearly don't take yourself too seriously. You are thoughtful and irreverent and you are definitely welcome around these parts, shibboleth indeed. Tell your wine guzzling wife to be careful or we might just steal her husband. There's a long line of girls around these parts just waiting for a smart, funny, introvert who can really write.