In the Mark Doty interview I mentioned Monday he compares using words found in a thesaurus to donning someone else's clothes. Hmmm. I'm sympathetic, but I know I appreciate using a thesaurus to remind myself of words I've forgotten I know. And the words I encounter in the thesaurus sometimes redirect my thinking in the same way words I encounter in the dictionary do. Writing can be like wandering*, in a good way.

*roaming, roving, ranging, nomadizing, gadding, gadding around or about, following the seasons, wayfaring, flitting, traipsing, gallivanting, knocking around or about, batting around or about, prowling, drifting, straying, floating around, straggling, meandering, rambling, strolling, sauntering, jaunting, peregrinating, pererrating, divagating, going or running about, going the rounds; tramping, hoboing, bumming or going on the bum, vagabonding, vagabondizing, taking to the road, "travel[ing] the open road"–Whitman, beating one's way; hitting the road or trail, walking the tracks and counting ties.