Blah Blah Blah

Sometimes, you just sit there, staring at the blinking cursor. This goes on for a few seconds. Then, it has been a few minutes. Soon, minutes upon minutes have passed, and, before long, it's been an hour. By this point, the cursor is not only just sitting there, but it's also flat-out mocking you, you silly knucklehead who can't even put a few lousy words together.

Type something, for the love of bananas! it screams at you. Even Stephnie Meyer made a career out of this, writing about shirtless werewolves and sparkly vampires and teen angst and mustache dads and a crucial subplot involving the loch ness monster working as a welder by day while dreaming of being a dancer at night. Probably.

Writer's block. It happens to the best of us. It also happens to me.

The Angry White Loner does not only blog for "fun," because that's what this is (right?), but he actually also does a good deal of writing for his job. Yes, believe it or not, folks, I'm a professional.

Some people make a career out of using a lot of really swanky, cool-sounding words but, at the same time, don't actually "say" anything at all. They just babble, blather, bluster, cackle, cajole, chinwag, converse, discuss, double-talk, flibbertigibbet, gab, jaw, natter, parley, pontificate, quip, schmooze, whine, yak, yammer, and yap, over and over again. Some of them, in fact, even become *ahem* president of the United States.

It's almost like they have nothing better to do than to Google synonyms of the word talk.

Maybe I should have gone into politics. I wouldn't be the first Angry White Loner to do so, and I certainly wouldn't be the last.

The Angry White Loner

Am I an angry person? Most people who know me well would say no. I don't really think that I am angry by nature, but like you, certain things do make me angry from time to time. One of my college professors once remarked that my blend of wry, dry humor tends to reflect a bit of aggression, and I don't know if he was completely wrong about that.

As for the "loner" thing, well, that may not be so much of a stretch. We males tend to compartmentalize ourselves according to social situation, and while I can be extroverted on the improv stage and with those who know me best, I can also be my introverted self at church, at work, at the store, etc.

As I wrapped up 2012's picture-a-day/Project 366 endeavor at the end of December, I came to realize that perhaps there are at least also two selves on my blog: the one who posts photos, family news, and basic observations about events I attend throughout the year - cotton candy, if you will. The other side of me - call it the writer - has, for as long as I can remember, perhaps as far back as when I was given my first journal at age nine, needed a creative outlet for my thoughts and feelings in addition to said journal.

With two, sometimes three people logging in to view my posts, the demand was indeed high to create a second blog for this second side of me. Thus, from henceforth, Disconcertingly Choppy will be devoted to those "cotton candy" happenings, while the AWL will be focused on what I hope will be thought-provoking reflections and issues that we face in a latter-day world that seems to get nuttier by the day. In essence, it will be a lot like the column I used to write for The Century magazine when I was in college.

Sometimes, I will focus on gospel themes, while other times I will write on social or political matters that I feel are important. I would appreciate and would also encourage any feedback that you, my friends and readers, would like to give me.

The title "Angry White Loner," by the way, actually sprang from a recent improv show in which we played the game "Press Conference." In the game, we are supposed to portray members of the local media, and, on the spot, I came up with a blogger called "The Angry White Loner" and a blog address of the same name. When I registered for this blog on blogspot.com, I was surprised to find that nobody had claimed it.

Can you believe that? So, there you go.