On Starting Again

I don’t write anymore.

Likely it’s a romantic notion, but I think of myself as wildly more interesting when the way I entered the world was from behind a keyboard. More likely I’m just at a place  where it’s the younger version of myself that I am more intrigued by than where I find myself today. And for about a ten-year period, writer was how I would have self-identified, even though the period where I tried my hand at making my living this way was much shorter.

Perhaps it’s a more universal sensation than I think, at least among English majors and would-be journalists. I once suggested in an interview for a teaching position that all English majors were frustrated writers. I did not get the job. I suspect I offended the star-chamber that was interrogating me. So it goes.

So if I were so wonderful a writer and it made me so fascinating why don’t I do it anymore? The answer I would have given the last few years that I’ve been working in politics is campaigns need one voice and it hasn’t been mine. In most cases writing in public forums was a firing offense, with good reason. I’ve signed non-disclosure agreements I intend to keep long past the point where anyone would give a damn.

And when I moved from a campaign office to a congressional office, the same rules applied. But I no longer find myself employed in that venue, if you watched cable news or Saturday Night Live about a year ago, you know the reason why. And I don’t plan on going into any more detail about that.

So, freed from the burdens of being a political hack, what should I be talking about? Politics still matter to me, though experience has guided me away from being an ideologue and more of a partisan, though I would claim for somewhat virtuous reasons.

Television and movies still interest me, and through the wonder of Netflix I am now on the cutting edge of 2005. Did The Sopranos jump the shark in Season Six? What should have won for Best Picture in 2003? Return to this page to find out.

Sports remain a personal passion of mine, and the main reason I still have a television. And nobody’s ever written from the perspective of the long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan before. I can have that territory all to myself.

What won’t I write about? Besides what’s noted above, I’m not sure. Unlike some friends of mine who have successful blogs, I am reluctant to talk much about myself personally. I’m guarded by temperament and sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between honesty and narcissism. I tend not to want to open myself up that way. But I suspect if I stay with this on a regular basis, I will start writing about issues that affect me personally, likely in a more universal way.

So I return to an old persona adding one more voice to the cacophony of the internet. If I keep up with it, I may turn out to be 20 again.