Puddintopia

PuddinTopia was originally a labor of love born of frustration with my job situation a decade ago. Shortly before the arrival of our first child (the erstwhile Puddinpop), I found myself increasingly concerned and unhappy about my employment. You should be careful what you wish for, though, because a week before his birth, I got laid off. What followed was a relatively brief (by most industry standards) period of unemployment, during which I questioned nearly everything about my life other than my wife and my children. Yes, in hindsight, it was only a few months, but don’t ask the Puddinette if she thought so. At the time, it felt like an eternity. I did manage a fairly regular posting frequency those days, which I think helped me get a better feel for what I want to say here and how I want to say it.

After finally getting a job again, my posts kind of fell by the wayside. In order to get life back on track, I worked two jobs for a while, and did some contract software development on the side.   I even had my own company. Scary huh?  Anyway, for awhile, I had to have other priorities. I just didn’t have the energy for two kids and two jobs and writing. I realize now that I should have kept it up, regardless. I did, after all, still have things I wanted to say.

Since I was young, I’d always toyed with the notion that I’d be a writer when I actually grew up.  Out of laziness and fear, though, I could never quite get started on one of the many novels dancing about in my head like sugarplums. Finally,  in early 2010, I decided it was time to put up or shut put; either I need to start writing, or I needed to stop kidding myself.

Surprisingly, that actually ended up working.  I even finally have a novel in the works.  So here we are.

I guess the nextquestion is: who is Puddin, and for cripessake, man, why the name? Well, the name PuddinBoy, like all good nicknames, was given to me by some of my closest friends during one of many nights of unnecessary intoxication. I play recreational hockey and all the core members of the team got nicknames one dark evening a decade ago. I’m actually pretty lucky, myself. I could have been the “Greased Weasel”, the “Sloppy 5Hole”, “C*ckn#t”, “A$$p!pe”, “Sh!th#@d”, or my own personal favorite, “Braided A$$ Hair”. You see what I’m saying? Puddin ain’t so bad, eh?

What do I do? I’m a software engineer by trade, an employed one (thank you God, or whatever you believe in). I’m nearing the big 4-0 and although I wasn’t struck immediately with a mid-life crisis, I have begun to realize lately that it’s time for me to decide what I really want to do when I grow up.  I think I’m starting to learn a little bit about being honest with one’s self. We’ll see.

So, to sum up, I’m really a relatively chipper guy who loves his wife and his kids to death and likes to just kind of hang around and shoot the shit. Kind of like Hemingway, but without all that expatriate angst. Give me a beer, a poker game, a table full of friends (well, they’re kinda jerks, mostly, but you can’t ask for everything), and a family to go home to, and I’m pretty much a happy-go-lucky guy. Well, a happy-go-lucky guy whose life is often beset by a huge black cloud that rains crap upon him at every available opportunity, in increasingly embarrassing and soul-sucking ways. But hey, you know, still…

Do you have comments or suggestions?  Any other questions about who I am or why I do this? Don’t ever be afraid to ask.  I value your opinions. God knows that heeding my own has never gotten me anywhere good.

pud’n

PS: If you’re wondering about the big boy pants reference in the tagline, it’s from this post and this one.