I was never athletic. I used to stutter and stammer when I talk-I still talk with a lisp ;also, my "s"'s sound like "z"'s, and my dipthongs are a little shaky. I even still have a little bit of that "Lawn Guyland ax-sent". Also, I always appeared "different" from the others. Therefore my strengths are limited growing up-hence the shyness, the nervousness and so forth when I was younger. I'm much better now, I am able to look at someone in the eyes and I get an occasional "what?" here and there, I'm okay. Still though, throughout all the chaos in my younger years, writing was a thing I was always good at. When I first heard the old Shakespearean cliche "The pen is mightier than the sword", I took it quite seriously and quite literally. There were times when I was actually asked to be a Cyrano DeBergerac and write stuff for guys to pick up girls with. Some were just not good with words and here I was saying or writing stuff to get girls that I will never get. I also doodled pretty well and I did underground comic books in junior high and in college. There were SO underground I only wrote (or in some cases co wrote and co-drew) only one comic. Actually, some of the group I hung out with in my undergraduate school (Stony Brook University, home of the Sea Wolves) consider me a legend- mainly because the comics weren't about them! Hence my love for dark comedy and satire.
I went through my thing in my younger years and my "thing" in my current years is quite different from what I wanted to be. I wanted to be writer, and at times I still do. I just never had time to write that "great American Novel"- I realized that my goal in life is to help others and try to be a pillar of the community. Writing took a back seat, a need to pay the bills and being part of the community (b/c "that's where the money is") took precedent over being "the next Norman Mailer". So instead of living as a writer in Chelsea, Manhattan in my luxury apartment smoking a pipe and being draped over with sexy hot young babes in various states of undress, I am sitting here as a Home Care/ Mental Health Worker in a trailer that I share in the small town of Hudson, North Carolina eating a brownie and incessantly typing as I'm being draped over by my hungry dog hoping I'll drop a piece of brownie. As chocolate is bad for dogs as living in a fantasy world is bad for humans, I try to stay realistic in my approach. I like what I do as a care worker and this part of N.C. is fairly nice. People need me down here, and I'm okay about that.
Yet, there is a part of me that STILL wants to be that writer! I still want to be that rock star that I wrote about in a previous blog. When I got into MySpace and realized that one can blog about ANYTHING, I ripped into it! For the past two and a half years, I've been chugging along and completed over 175 blogs on MySpace. I have over 5000 hits on my blog tallies (about 35 hits per blog on average) and I had some of my blogs ranked on Top Blogs, I even had a few top 10's in a few categories! Somewhere in those 35 hits, I probably average 25-30 readers since some repeat-read my blogs. There are those who think that my blogs (for lack of better terms) SUCK, but that's their opinion! Obviously there are those 25-30 readers who think otherwise. My blogs aren't for everyone- especially the Conservative and what I call the "Orthodox Literati" who pick and probe and dissect every word I would write. Then again, some Conservatives have agreed on me with some political blogs and those "Orthodox Literati" wouldn't DARE read a blog on MySpace since it insults their wannabe intelligence, so I say "HRRRRUMPH" to them and a good day, sir! I do it for those 25-30 people who obviously found a home in my blogs, and I thank them for it! Besides, 30 Brendan fans can't be wrong!
If I get a phone call or an E-Mail from The New Yorker , Harper's, National Lampoon, or The Huffington Post asking me for an interview to write for their magazine, I will jump at the opportunity! Yet, a part of me would dread that part since I will leave I job I know well-- helping others and people that benefit from my help. If there was an opportunity to write freelance as I still work as a Social Worker that will be great. Yet at 44 years of age, fame is fleeting for me. Again, I have to accept reality-- then again, the future is unknown. If anything, having the 25-30 people reading my blogs is my reward. Maybe there is a good looking single 30 something, 40 something year old female in the midst that is looking for a guy who likes to write stuff at random, heyyyyyy!!! Maybe I won't have an apartment in Chelsea and I don't smoke let alone a pipe, BUT it'll be fun if a chick would drape herself over me as I write my latest masterpiece! I am Brendan, and I write the blogs!
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