writing my bachelorness

Music: Big Electric Cat: Eyelash (1998)

Well, the blog seems to have taken a dark turn the last few posts, so it's time for something upbeat. Mr. Sunshine I am not, but, Dr. Black Nails does have a hunger for humor and misses Shaun's belly laughs. So I thought I'd reveal that I do have a lighter side of writing; but first, the set-up.

One of the happiest coincidences of living in Austin is that many life-long friends also live close by: Shaun, my buddy from LSU, relocated to Denton; Christopher, my buddy from grad school, is just up the road in College Station; and Brent and Valerie, also grad school buds, recently moved to Leander, about thirty minutes away. Anyhoo, Valerie and Brent work full time running a cooking and recipe website, cdkitchen.com. I remember in grad school Valerie did "Chili Dog Kitchen" as a hobby (and I remember when Chili dog was still alive, their loud and hyperactive Dalmation; his companion, Pepper, is still kickin' but getting oldish). Over the course of almost a decade, however, the website exploded to like the fifth largest cooking website in the world (you can credit me for that, because I'm sure it was my insistence that Valerie upload some grits recipes that sent them over the edge of success).

Anyway, Brent and Valerie took me out for dinner recently and asked if I'd be willing to write a weekly column. They had this idea for a bachelor-specific column. They've had my cooking (I ain't a bad cook). And I do write for a living. So I says what the hell, I'll try it out for six months. I do worry I'd run out of cooking related things to say, but we'll see. In any event, my first column debuted today. Here it is. I'm trying to stay upbeat, but I worry my sense of humor does not comport with a "general public" sense of humor. I mean, I do find fart jokes very funny. Few people do(do).