I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Mostly because of the low barrier of entry. You need a pen, paper and a mental illness. I could just steal the pen and paper.
I’m well suited to be a writer. I know the English language well. I’ve spoken it as long as I’ve been potty trained, give or take. I often correct friends when they don’t talk good English. I have more time to write now that these same friends always seem to have other plans.
I’m also creative. And I know my punctuation as well. I once combined a colon and and a parenthesis to form a sideways smiley face. I’m working on how I might make a frown. These fits of genius take time.
But I quickly realized the most heralded writers are smart, witty and dead. The closest I came to any of these traits was the time I couldn’t afford the gas bill and I tried to heat the bath water with a toaster. It was a good thing my wife stopped me, I think. We have since agreed to disagree.
So there I was wanting to be a great writer but also wanting a pulse. You really can’t have it all in life. Except Tom Brady. He’s rich, handsome and has a supermodel wife. All because he can throw a ball that really isn’t a ball at all. And we thought Trump pulled a fast one.
Experience, they say, is life’s best teacher. Experience taught me that a dog with a ream of paper and a package of pens strapped to its back running out of an Office Depot doesn’t get the dog arrested–it gets the dog’s owner arrested. Apparently there’s legal precedent suggesting a dog’s lack of thumbs precludes it from unilaterally tying items to its back, according to officer smarty pants anyway.
Experience also taught me that a writer doesn’t need a pen and paper after all. A sharp piece of granite, a cinder block wall and a patient cell mate is all you need.
After my release I decided to be a lawyer. My thinking was if I had to be miserable I might as well make others miserable as well. I soon realized I was doing that just fine without the self-aggrandizing certificate hanging on my wall.
Then I happened upon a secret. I discovered my thoughts could change the world. If I wanted to be a writer I just had to think it into existence. I tried it. Nothing happened. Now the secret is my wife can’t know I maxed out my credit card believing I could just think the ensuing bills away. Drafting divorce papers isn’t what I had in mind with this whole writing business. I have since wished this “secret” was better kept.
So here goes. I’ll give this writing thing a chance. My columns will be about real life. They say life doesn’t always make sense.
Neither will my columns.
