I did it – grumpymarty.com! I thought about doing it, even told a few people I was going to do it, and now I did it. Question is, what the Hell do I do now? This page is pretty bare bones. Of course it is. The page is bare bones because I have yet to figure out how to do anything more than what I am doing right now, write some poorly constructed sentences. If I am perfectly honest, I have very little idea concerning what is going to happen when or if I hit publish. It was a mystery as to whether I could even get on here to write this. I have no idea who is going to read my words or if they will ever even find the site. Do I sound confused, lost? It’s okay, I am lost and I am totally fine with that.
I quit drinking many years ago while in university and soon after getting off the sauce, discovered that I couldn’t sleep. Insomnia is a common but usually temporary consequence that we booze hounds have to contend with once we stop drinking ourselves comatose on a regular basis. Trust me when I say that we alcoholics have an infinite ability to create a shit storm of chaos, both for ourselves and everyone around us. When the tap gets shut off though, payment comes due. For me, that meant coming to terms with the monumental mess that my life had spiralled into. One of the ways I coped was through literature, more specifically, I read Hemingway. Hem was the one author we were told to not read due to his proclivity for drunken destruction but for some reason he spoke to me. Hemingway made me want to write.
I wanted to write, but I didn’t write, at least not in a creative sense, for many years. I finally conjured up the requisite courage to step out on this limb after being exposed through books and tv shows to a couple of chefs turned world travellers – you may have heard of them – David Chang and Anthony Bourdain. Both mavericks doing what they wanted to do and not really caring where it led them because for these two, it wasn’t about the end destination. It was the journey of discovery you made while getting to the finish line.
And you know what, they had to start somewhere. I start here, I start now. I will never write like Hemingway or even like Bourdain. it’s foolish to even contemplate competing with the likes of those two. I am not going to compete with anyone. I am just going to try and live my life and write about some of the more interesting aspects of it. I don’t know how to blog. I don’t even read blogs. I do know that there are not many guys my age that do blog. I also know that there are many things I want to write about. Hopefully you find what I write about as interesting as I do. Hopefully you decide to join me on my journey. I have no idea where we are going but I’m pretty sure it will be fun getting there!
Happy New Year!