I have, sitting on my desk, the name and email address of a woman editor in Chicago. I don't know what she edits, if she's even in the kind of editing that I'm interested in doing, but the name and the email address are waiting for me anyway. There, through my mother's vast connections, for me to make use of. I can write this woman with any questions about the editing profession that I want. I can even, if I wish, express an interest in an internship with her over the summer.

So, why haven't I?

This always seems to happen. I'm quite skilled at imagining my future, but the instant it comes to actually living toward that future, I freak out. And there's absolutely no good reason why I do this. Honestly, what could go wrong? I ask her questions, she answers them. I decide to pursue the internship, find out if I like editing as much as I think I might, and if anything goes badly, I'm moving out of the state, anyway, so no one will ever have to know.

I wish, often, that I were the sort of person who just jumps into things. An adventurous sort, someone who doesn't have to talk herself into trying new things---even new things she really wants to try. How do I turn my brain off? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Ha. I bet Bueller *would* know!


You are 'regularly metric verse'. This can take many forms, including heroic couplets, blank verse, and other iambic pentameters, for example. It has not been used much since the nineteenth century; modern poets tend to prefer rhyme without meter, or even poetry with neither rhyme nor meter.

You appreciate the beautiful things in life--the joy of music, the color of leaves falling, the rhythm of a heartbeat. You see life itself as a series of little poems. The result (or is it the cause?) is that you are pensive and often melancholy. You enjoy the company of other people, but they find you unexcitable and depressing. Your problem is that regularly metric verse has been obsolete for a long time.

What Obsolete Skill Are You?
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