Nice to meet you. What do you do?

It seems to me that when you are introduced to a person for the first time you should ask them something about themselves. Something personal, I mean. Unfortunately, the most common question is, "What do you do?"

I do a lot of things. I quilt, I paint, I walk my dog, well you get the idea. But that's not what they're asking. They really mean, "What kind of work do you do?" Somehow a person's employment has come to define the person. That doesn't sound reasonable to me.

What is even less reasonable is the response most people give. "I work at ??? Company." The question wasn't, "Where do you work?" It was, "What do you do?" So now we're taking it one step further--defining a person by what he/she does and where he/she does it. If the answer to the first question is, "I'm an engineer," does it matter where? Is the question meant to define the value of that person's worth?

As most of you know, I'm a writer. Or at least that's my job. For whom do I write? I write for Central Florida Lifestyle Magazines. Would you think more of me if I was a technical writer? Or if I wrote for Vanity Fair? (Or maybe less of me, depending upon your opinion of those examples.)

Here is a link to my articles in the September issue of Central Florida Lifestyle Magazines.

http://bit.ly/axcJh5

My point is that people who clean toilets are just as important as the President of the United States. After all, without them, we'd all be sitting on dirty tiolets! (Anybody who was in NYC during the garbage strike knows what I mean.)

Welcome to my world

In my earlier writing career most of my work was done at night, either longhand or on an IBM typewriter. Finally I was convinced that the new technology would not take anything away from my writing but allow me to write faster, edit more easily and produce essays, stories and poetry in a more efficient manner. Thoughts came quickly then, as they do now, so typing 100 words a minute is definitely an advantage.

Family life changed my habits. The corporate world forced a hiatus in my writing while I raised children and kept house. Those days are gone. With the children grown and gone, I left my cubicle in the marketing department and came back to writing, as I always knew I would. Admittedly, it interferes with my housekeeping. Dinner isn't always on the table at 6 o'clock. Ah, these are the trade-offs but they seem minor.

Being a professional contributing writer to Orlando Home & Leisure (http://www.ohlmag.com/) and GRAND Magazine (http://www.grandmagazine.com/) I am able to make enough money to support my habit. Many of my articles are written around celebrity interviews that I've done.

In the present and immediate future, I am concentrating on my upcoming book, a memoir of a famous person who did not receive the recognition he deserved. This blog will document my work on the book.