Out of the Box

Last Saturday my husband and I went to a professional boxing match. It was a first for both of us. He'd won the tickets by calling in to a radio station. We thought we were just going to see one fight, but it ended up being seven fights including two "co-main" events and a "featured" fight.

It was a new world experience for me, and I was amazed at the atmosphere and the language used. I don't mean to suggest it was bad language. It was language unique to the boxing world. Words that I rarely hear in my day-to-day life were surrounding me. I was familiar with them, of course, but still I was entering a lifestyle that has a different lexicon than my normal life.

Plus the line to the women's bathroom? So short, that I could get right in. The line to the men's bathroom? It stretched out well into the back of the arena, and there was a long wait. Oh sure, it had something to do with the ratio of men to women at the event, but still, no line for the women's bathroom at a public event? It is unheard of, in my experience.

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with my experience, but I did take some notes to keep the memory fresh, so if in some distant future I want to write about professional boxing, I will have some first-hand experience and notes to help me do so.

Plus being in a different atmosphere that uses a different lexicon made me aware of my own world and the various lexicons I use daily. As a writer, it never hurts to stretch your awareness of language.

What I found most amusing was that, during the final fight, a young guy sitting near me was getting quite mouthy. He was enamoured with the name of one of the fighters. The fighter's name was "Dicky," and the young guy was yelling encouragement to Dicky, and in doing so, he was thinking of every possible combination that would go with "Dicky" and still have to do with fighting yet had a sexual overtone to it. And I was impressed with the variety the young guy (who was being assisted by liberal amounts of alcohol) came up with. The guy was having fun with words.

When was the last time I had fun with words? Every day I think about the words I use, but when did I just have fun? Sure, I've played Text Twist lately but that's not what I mean.

And, so, on this Monday morning, my advice to the writing moms out there is two-fold: 1) Make time to step out of your box and experience something new; and 2) Make time to play with words.