More Beer, Please

Mmmmm…..beer.  It’s amazing on so many levels.  How does beer relate to my quest to enlightenment? Well, for obvious reasons, it makes me happy, tastes good and is buzz-worthy.  It also led me to an introduction to the Editor of SD Uptown News.  To be fair, we’re not talking about your run-of-the-mill generic light beer; this was a five-course, farm-to-table, organic spread with a six-ounce starter at 13.6%.  Anyway, I digress.

As the stars aligned, we sat next to the Editor and I immediately asked if she needed any freelancers and offered my services.  I can say with 100% conviction that I wouldn’t have asked the question if I hadn’t been writing this blog.  My new found confidence and willingness to try new things pushed me out of my comfort zone and straight into a news story!  Don’t get me wrong, I’m scared shitless.  It’s been years, a decade approximately, since I’ve written a news article, but my journalism degree and brand-new AP style book will help lead the way.  Plus, I get to be objective and my opinions and views do not matter.  Presenting the facts, interviewing, and generating story ideas will be fun.  Not to mention, it will look good on my resume too.

New opportunities are coming my way and I am ready for them. Bring on the challenge and bring on more beer.  Cheers!

Book Review:

A Lover’s Discourse (Fragments) by Roland Barthes.  Published in 1978, this book dissects the emotions and feelings when in love.  As Barthes explains, “What is proposed, then is a portrait – but not a psychological portrait; instead, a structural one which offers the reader a discursive site: the site of someone speaking within himself, amorously, confronting the other (the loved object), who does not speak”.  Topics range from the recognizable, “Jealousy”, “Truth”, “The Love Letter”, to the more obscure, “The Tip of the Nose”, “Dark Glasses”, and “Clouds”. 

I was particularly drawn to the chapter, “I Love You”.  I-love-you: the figure refers not to the declaration of love, to the avowal, but to the repeated utterance of the love cry.  The point being, the actual phrase doesn’t mean much; it’s the feelings and actions behind it.  Barthes says, “I repeat it exclusive of any pertinence; it comes out of the language, it divagates – where”?  Loves comes from the depths of your heart. You show love more than you can ever annunciate it.  It is unconditional, and it is ever-lasting.  You could be in love for a day or a thousand years, and the degree that it is felt is just the same.  Forrest Gump puts it best… “I’m not a smart man….but I know what love is”.