So I have this new gig, and it’s ridiculous. I am now getting paid to write about alcohol. As with all my writing endeavors, I’m making very little – less so in this case because I have to go to places, imbibe, and then write about it, so foom! There goes my paycheck! But it’s fun. It’s my name in places. It’s my ego arching its back and rubbing its head against the leg of the kind publication that has let me do something so crazy insane awesome. It’s me, forever indebted to the Universe. It’s the job every shiftless, overeducated and unemployable liberal arts graduate thinks he should get to have.

It’s me telling my twenty-one year old self, after he got rejected from Teach for America and the Peace Corps, that things really do end up working out, at least a little, and have a drink because later you’ve got some writing to do, mister.

The other thing about it is that it’s really steady work. One of the weirdest things about being a journalist is the Black Hole – as soon as something’s filed you have to turn right back around and churn out something else, or guess what? NO MONEY FOR YOU. Sometimes the other side effect is NO PAPER FOR ANYONE ELSE! I always tried to drill this into journalism students’ heads when I was Teaching Assistanting them, but I’m not sure how many of them got it. No resting on your laurels! No patting yourself on the back! Wake up, get yourself some hair of the dog, and get right back out there, Mary! Work work work! Drink drink drink! Chug chug chug! Write write write! Lather, rinse, repeat.

Almost all my other gigs have been jobs of convenience. I could write when I had time and the world wouldn’t stop when I didn’t. Now, I find myself scratching and clawing to keep up with the pace. The weirdest thing of all is how much I love it. This week a piece of mine got rejected. Straight-up rejected and sent to be with Jesus. But in corresponding with my editor I realized – this is going to make me better. What’s happening right now will not happen again, because I’m better now. I know how to do this – or, I know more.

So – beer me!