Description Addict

I can see it in my wife's eyes. I don't even realize it when it's happening until it's too late. She has lost all interest and some of her consciousness. I've been overly-describing something for at least a full minute.

Everything I write is far too long. My blog posts (obviously),  emails, texts, conversations, and even in articles I post for the school paper (at least my initial drafts). With great flourish and minimal effort, I thoroughly describe anything I have even the slightest bit of enthusiasm for. There's a lot of ego involved in my motives. I can admit that, but more than that I'm addicted to employing extravagant ways of telling people about the things I want them to be interested in.

That's where the ego comes in. I do WANT them to enjoy that joke I heard on that 8 year old podcast episode just as heartily as I do. I love or enjoy a thing or it made me laugh or smile so, in my personal ideal of the world, everyone will and should also enjoy it. I do this for movies, podcasts, tv, people, jokes, animals, food, and most especially with music. I will break myself trying to convince the listener (or reader) that their next step should be to consume the thing I'm telling them about.

Minute details don't necessarily get the spotlight for every tiny aspect of the thing I'm expounding on, but I do dig further in than I'm sure anyone else might (let alone more than anyone has a tolerance, desire, or need for).

How about an example:
One of my favorite things to hold and use is a freshly sharpened pencil. I can't let the lead get even the slightest bit dull before the temptation to hone the end of my #2 starts to knock at my concentration. I try to stave it off by spinning the wood, littered with fingernail and teeth marks that come during my most contemplative moments. This does help for a time. I love the feel of the small, sharp edge of the lead as I spin it 45 or 90 degrees and scratch the paper with rough, acutely ridged tip of this unused side of the writing utensil. It always happens, though that after a few minutes, I've worn all of the smaller points of the tip of the lead and begin feeling the itch to sharpen and regain the narrow lines of my writing.

With movies, my habit of launching into a bright and thorough enthusiastic retelling of the entire plot including character profiles and setting descriptions started when I was a little kid. I think this is actually quite a common ideal: that on your way home from the movie theatre, the child tells you all about the movie you two just watched together. I get the feeling other people grow out of it. I would say I just evolved.

Many times, when I am able to empty out my thoughts into a writing like this, it helps me to process my bad and good habits and make a change. I can tell you now that writing this post will do very little to reduce the amount of descriptions nor shorten them. It's just too much fun to be creative with my adjectives. Upon my first compeltion of this post, I was proud that it was only four paragraphs...Obviously my creativity moved me to squash that idea.