Hemming and Hawing

I began my toast at my brother Lee's wedding with the line, "Those of you who don't know me may imagine me to be a man of few words." I got a smattering of laughs and a heartfelt sigh of "Oh, GOD!" from my Aunt Qui in the back of the room because those who do know me know better. I can't seem to use five words when fifty would do the job just as well.

Accordingly I was hemming and hawing all over the place a week ago at dinner with our friends Tim, Jim, and Doug when I wanted to tell them about my new blog. "Well, you know, there's something I've been wanting to do for a while now...and Inki thinks it's a good time to start...and I don't know how interested you'll be...but we're both pretty excited about it...and....and..."

After a couple of minutes of adroitly dancing six times around the point and back everyone in the room was sure I was telling them that Inki was pregnant. She's not, just for the record, and when I got around to saying that the announcement was that I had started writing a blog, the disappointment in the room was, well, more than palpable. I think I even heard a groan. So when I told our friends at the party last night about this blog, I wanted to avoid the mistakes of the past, so I started with the words "I'm just going to tell you this straight out" in the most direct and determined way I could manage. Which, of course, led everyone to believe that I was going to tell them that Inki was pregnant. Which led to further sighs of disappointment. It seems even those who try to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Or maybe it's just me.