Dreams do come true!

A friend at work who read (what is now an out-of-date version of) Ravenswood commented that my writing style reminded her of Dave Barry.  Perhaps I should have been offended.  Ravenswood is not a weekly humor column.  It is quality young adult fiction!

(I need to learn to say this with a straight face.)

However, the truth is that I spent many of my formative years reading Dave Barry's books and columns, and I love his work.  A fair amount of my goofiness can be traced to those hours spent burrowing through a stack of Dave Barry books.

I like to think my Dave Barry addiction was an improvement over my previous love of Garfield comics.

Another humorist that I adore is Bill Bryson. He gets bonus points from me because he lived in England for 20 years, thereby also satisfying my love of all things British. He's written some fabulous books, and I have a copy of I'm a Stranger Here Myself in the library of my guest bathroom right now.  It's a collection of observations on living in the United States after spending so long in England.  You are welcome to come sit a spell if you'd like to sample it.

One of my favorite Bill Bryson books is The Mother Tongue (not in my bathroom, unfortunately).  My college roommate introduced me to this book, and therefore to Bill Bryson, when we were both English majors.  That was before I became a CPA and she became a Theology professor, both infinitely superior to that other career option for English majors: working as a receptionist.  (I did that, too.)

What is my point, you ask?  My point is that although I've always dreamed of being a bestselling novelist (and never, oddly enough, of being a CPA), I must admit that I've also dreamed of being a humor columnist.  Unfortunately, with newspaper subscriptions down, there's not a big demand for them any more.  I never really understood how you got into that kind of gig, anyway.

The good news is that with the miracle of the Internet, I don't have wait for someone to be willing to pay me before I can write my own column!  I can make my writing instantly available to the whole world.  Okay, so only a couple dozen people read it so far, and I'm "working" for absolutely nothing, but it was never about the money, anyway (she blithely says because she has a day job).  It's about the satisfaction of amusing people.

So I hope you have enjoyed my "column," and that I have made you laugh or at least given you an excuse to procrastinate.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for me to go read a bit more Bill Bryson.