My First Time

A blog. Never before have I written a blog or on a blog or for a blog or whatever you say when you are talking about blogging….I have never blogged? Does that work? Okay, I have never blogged. This is my first blog. Today is the day I blog for the first time. I feel different, I must admit. I think I am radiating blogger vibes and it feels sexy…and sad. Sound familiar? Yeah, not to me either but I am sure someone out there has had an experience where those emotions co-exist (j.k., sexy/sad is my home address).

When I think of writing I immediately conjure up images of Hemingway at a typewriter in Key West with an open window, a ceiling fan rippling his already beaten up slips of paper. Or of Woolf, sequestered in her study, having trays of food brought to her door because she could not bear to break with words. A tea set is present, as is a wild bird in a cage hanging from the ceiling. And of course I think of Williams typing furiously, half-drunk in golden light with a lover sleeping in the bed next to his desk. Writers toiling, struggling privately; cocooned inside of their own imaginations for months and years until the completed (?) draft was ready to share. It took time. It took tears. It took drinks. It was where they lived. In short: I romanticize the act of writing like a motherfucker.

I don’t fashion my life to look like the inside of a precious snow globe, but I do like a bit of silk to be thrown over the lampshade: I don’t take the content of my writing or myself too seriously but there is something too quick, too easy, about a blog. It makes me uncomfortable.

But maybe it doesn’t. I’m sort of having a blast writing this (from my desk that is in a basement of a Tribeca bar. No wild bird. No ceiling fan. No lover. But I do have Diet Dr. Pepper, Swedish Fish, and Pandora is playing a solid playlist from my En Vogue station). Yeah, this is nice. When I think of people reading this and all of the inevitable grammatical errors, I’m sure I will get hot all over and my butt cheeks will clinch together really tightly. But that pretty much happens any time I share my work; whether it is a close friend reading a script for the first time, a fully rehearsed production in front of an audience on closing night, or during my rendition of Fancy by Reba McIntyre during Karaoke. So, it is no different, really. Sharing is sharing.

Okay, thanks everybody. I like blogging. I think I will do it again. Romanticizing things might work for a minute, but ultimately it is just another way to keep yourself right where you are. And baby: it’s time to move.

- Boo Killebrew