A couple of days ago, our very own PolitiBunny published a VIP piece on how her daughter told her friends what mom does for a living, and their reaction "surprised TF out of me." The good news is they thought it was no big deal. But as Sam wrote, writing for Twitchy doesn't get you invited to a lot of career days.
I had a plumber at the house the other day who asked what I did. "I'm a writer," I said. I used to say I worked for a website but always felt compelled to clarify that it wasn't p0rn. Saying I'm a writer isn't much better, though, as most writers tend to be insufferable people. I'll usually add that I write about the news, or if I'm feeling really brave, politics.
I never talk about what I do, except with my family and my in-laws. I have a Facebook account but rarely post — I'm mainly there to look at guitars and kittens. I keep my conservativism to myself and it allows me to keep what few friends I have left.
It was a little different 11 years ago, when founder Michelle Malkin and her husband were writing for the site. It was cool name-dropping that I worked with her, as she was a regular on Fox News at the time.
As I've said before, I've had friends who've drifted away after they underwent the transformation from conservative to flaming liberal, mostly through the influence of spouses, so I don't bring up politics, and they (usually) don't either.
Not to mention that I live in a very blue suburb of a very blue city. Way back when, a girl saw a Bush bumper sticker on the back of our SUV, flipped us off (with our very young kids in the back), and then cut in front of me and slammed on the brakes. This was over a bumper sticker, of which she had many. That was enough to trigger her to almost cause an accident. I'm not doing that.
Fortunately, I have my wife and all of you to take politics with. Meanwhile, I walk my dog past all the houses with signs urging me to vote for a constitutional amendment to make abortion legal through delivery, which will almost surely pass. That's life where I live. I think my neighbor is the only other Republican in the city.
My kids are grown and their friends don't even consider what I do for a living, so that's cool.
So "writer" it is, and that's usually the end of it. Not that I'm not proud of what I do, but covering the absolute insanity that I cover, I'm just not in the mood to "out" myself. If I were trans I could fly a flag on my house and everyone would love it.
You know those, "In this house, we believe …" signs? I'm often tempted to mock one up to see if anyone actually reads it. In this house, we don't believe in "science," we believe in the scientific method.
I did wear my cool Townhall Media shirt to a doctor's appointment the other day … pretty brave, huh?
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