Intro

Of course, the more I became a journalist, the less I could write anything not strictly based on triple-checked facts. Five months into my full-time newspaper career and I had to abandon the opinion writing I had so enjoyed doing for five years for my father’s Web site. Oh, I had been so full of fire, so outrageous. It had been delicious to witness the emotions I caused in people, even the nasty comments they left me. A preposterous 17-year-old writing about “false morality.” Unfortunately, I eventually had to drop that persona for that of a 22-year-old who could sound neutral and also like she gave a rat’s ass about the outcome of a sewer board meeting in 750 words. I simply could not channel my loose-cannon self anymore. Plus, expressing one’s opinion publicly in matters such as politics, religion and sexuality, as a reporter, is frowned upon in a big way (at least when you’re small fish like me). Just ask the editor who forced me to take down something I posted on my own Facebook page regarding gay marriage. (For the record: I AM IN FAVOR.)  

But I’m not here to rant about my past life as a newspaper reporter. It gave me a lot of great friends and useful skills I intend to keep forever. It taught me to make accounts of sewer board meetings readable – and gosh, if I can do that, I can make anything sound interesting. I’m actually here because I’ve been hurting to express myself in any way I want again, and to make it public, in small edible bits and as non-resume-or-cover-letter-like as I can (I have also written too many of those, so please forgive me if things come out that way here). I do enjoy the attention of being read, or I wouldn’t have gone into the writing business;  but don’t worry, I do not feel the need to write stuff that would make my professional contacts blacklist me and my (sometimes quite liberal) parents disown me. I’m a classy lady. (So please be classy, as well, in your comments here if any.) Actually, my editors were nice enough to let me write a PG-13 poetry blog on the newspaper Web site back in the day. That, and break-up letters, were pretty much the only things I didn’t feel the need to fact-check. Maybe I will bring some of those PG-13 verses back and also put some new ones here. Maybe I will bring in some music as well. And travel tales. Definitely travel tales. I feel like some of those need to be put on “paper” – finally, after a long, stunned silence. Yes, stunned is the word. It’s been a – cliché alert! – whirlwind, these past three years. In the next post, I’ll tell you how I think it all started… 

Well, well. I think this is enough for an intro post. I realize I should have said who I am and such here, but in case we never met, I'd rather have you find that out gradually as the details come out... just like in a developing news story.