And So It Begins ...

What do you do when you wake up one morning, feeling that somewhere inside you is a Dave Barry or Monty Python or Lenny Bruce just waiting to express itself?

Years ago, you might have started a journal or a diary.  You might have sought out a nightclub and tried your hand at an amateur stand-up night.  You might have thought about writing a book or a newspaper column.  Most likely, regardless of your lot in life, these would have been mere ideas; you wouldn't have executed them, for a variety of reasons.

But today, thanks to the very medium you're using to read this, you can actually do all of those things and still keep your day job.  In fact, there's no shortage of folks on the Internet who are quite happy and content to remind you that you shouldn't quit said job after reading your postings and blatherings.

Which brings me to why I'm here.

I've always fancied myself as someone with a particularly good sense of humor.  I enjoy wordplay, puns, satire; intelligent comedy that requires you to think, to know, and to understand the world around you in order to understand the joke.

Unfortunately, my sense of humor is also my self-defense mechanism.  It's what switches itself on in situations where I am the least comfortable. 

Case in point: the very first time I said goodbye to my girlfriend/fiancee/current wife when we were dating in college, I had no problem making jokes about everything.  It ticked her off, but I couldn't help myself; I was hurting inside, but I couldn't bring myself to show it on the outside.  I've already been warned that when we finally meet my daughter's boyfriend, I am NOT to tell any jokes.

A few days ago, I woke up with the idea that I should write a humorous blog.  I don't really know where the idea came from.  It's nothing I had discussed with others.  Nothing I had been secretly thinking about, or planning, at any time in my life.  I just woke up and decided that I wanted to try and be funny, on purpose, to entertain others.

And so it begins ... a loopy, sometimes sentimental, but always irreverent look at the world I've known for as long as I've been alive.  Not every joke will hit the mark.  Not every sentimental moment will draw out so much as a sad sigh.  Not every observation will be shared by all.

I hope you'll enjoy wherever this takes us; you, as reader, and me, as author.

-- Brien