In the halcyon days of my youth, when I used to dream Great Dreams of someday becoming a writer, I had some…strange…ideas. I always pictured “Puddin’ the Writer” as having a pipe and a tweed jacket with those elbow patches, and spending his evenings calmly before a roaring fire, hound at his feet. He’d either be reading classic literature or scribbling away at his latest work, something full of intrigue and action yet still emotionally compelling.
Apparently I was expecting to be living during Edwardian England too, for some reason.
Anyway, fast forward to my 39th year, and it’s pretty safe to say that THAT dream has effectively been chucked out into the street like a freeloading in-law who kept eating all your “special cheese”. You know, the pricey French stuff you won’t even let the kids eat.
So, no pipe, no jacket, no roaring fire. I also don’t scribble by hand. My handwriting is barely legible enough that I can read my own meetings notes and somehow distill meaning from the alien-looking skritchings. Oh, and my dog? Yeah, she’s a beagle with a healthy dose of Chihuahua mixed-in (somehow…I still don’t get the physics of that particular union), and she likes my wife and kids a lot more than she cares to spend any time with me.
Did I miss anything? Ah, yes…the final coffin nail in “Puddin’s Writing Fantasyworld” comes in regard to the material I spend most of my time working on. Because for every hour I spend concocting something I hope might prove not hacktastic enough to include in a book someday, I probably spend two hours writing blog posts about beer.
In fact, just today I have a new blog post up at Hoperatives about choosing awesome and unfamiliar beers when you’re on vacation and staying in a hotel room. And as if that wasn’t enough already, I also had the privilege of cobbling together a paragraph or two about beer for Doc (that’s Paul Daugherty, sports columnist for Cincinnati.com and Si.com) to squeeze into his daily blog, The Morning Line (TML).
So, what’s a fellow to do with his dream all in tatters? Well, it’s not as bad as all that. Sure, I’m not living like some sherry-sipping landed country aristocrat, but that’s okay. I like my life just fine, and I like writing blog posts, especially for other people. If that makes me a bit of blog whore, well, I can think of worse things to be.
And if you couldn’t tell from the fact that I spend more time writing about beer for others than most anything else: I like beer. It’s a pretty damn safe bet I probably wouldn’t make a very good a sherry-sipping gentleman anyway.
Cheers!
Pud’n
Puddintopia 