Seems Like Old Times

Now that I have adopted the philosophy that a little more than a little is by much too much -- see previous post or brush up your Shakespeare -- I now appear comet-like, with great intervals between. Actually, I'm working on my scholarship today, entering the data from some paper questionnaires into the online data base that enables me easily to find (perhaps where there is nothing to find) patterns or traces of patterns or psychic intimations of pattern in the numbers.

The questionnaires were filled out by newspaper columnists of various ages, salaries and market sizes. I'll be presenting on this topic in Boston the end of this month (invitation only; don't look those 'dog eyes' at me, little mister!) and the question that is producing the best answers is a fill-in-the-blanks:

Writing a column __________ a week is like _________________.

My favorite answer so far is: "Writing a column three times a week is like cooking lunch for the United Nations three times a week."

There's a nice oxymoron implicit in that analogy: arrogance and humility.