The hardest thing about creating a blog ...

... is naming it.

I should have seen this coming, but it's been six years since I created my "hotmail" address, and I had forgotten how difficult it was to compete with the billions of web users out there who are way more savvy than I am.

As it is, I am barely savvy enough to turn my computer on, much less write a "blog." I must admit that I never thought that this day would come. But, day in and day out, I do my best to teach teenagers to write, and the reality is that I have not written anything myself in ages. I need to be clear here, I love my job, but there are only so many times that you can correct apostrophes, explain the difference between "their" and "they're" or try to explain the problem with the sentence "The author uses the last chapter to tie loose ends to the reader," before you want to slam your face into the Unabridged Oxford Dictionary of the English Language.

Why a blog? It's pretty simple - I want to practice the type of writing that you do for an audience. I do my fair share of melancholic whining into a personal "journal," but I wanted to try something different. I come from a family of very talented and successful writers, and I want to do my best not to let my end of that bargain down. Finally, although I doubt very much that anyone will actually ever read these blogs, I hope that an imagined audience will make me more disciplined and creative in my writing.

So ... creative task #1 ... find a name for the blog. "Alison Hunter's Blog" is boring and lame, and if my students are going to find my writing and ridicule it (or me,) I would at least like them to have to work at the internet search a little bit. I considered "Just One Thing," a reference to the fact that my friend "ACR" and I are always yearning for "just one thing" in life to be simple, but it was taken. So was "Here's The Thing," which is a phrase that my best friend Viki and I use because everything good in life comes with some kind of qualifier. Example:

Alison: "How's the new automated kitty litter box working out?" (Note: I am not making this up. Viki bought a $300 dollar kitty litter box that SCOOPS AND DISPOSES OF THE WASTE ITSELF. It's gigantic and looks like the Death Star. I would drop $300 on this invention in a second if I didn't live in a one-bedroom condo.)

Viki: "It's incredible! It really does everything it promises - it cleans and scoops and all I have to do is carry the sealed bag out to the trash! But HERE'S THE THING ... one of the cats is so fascinated with the scooping that he leaps into the box the minute it begins to do its thing ... and it automatically shuts off as a safety precaution."

Alison: "So - it never actually gets to "scoop" itself out?"

Viki: "Well no, I've had to do it so far. We're working on it."

Unfortunately, "Here's the thing" was already taken. As was "Here's-the-thing," and, as I learned in a moment of desperation, "Here's the thang."

I quickly abandoned the idea of using some pretentious literary reference when I realized that if I did it was very likely that the name of the blog would consistently be more meaningful and interesting than the writing within it.

So then I began to think about catchy TV/movie phrases that still might be recognizable in a year, or at least funny to me. The Simpsons and Family Guy provided some frontrunners, including "See you in the car!" (Millhouse's yearbook message for Lisa) and "I'm hungry or teething!" (Stewie's explanation for throwing a faux-fit on a plane). Both taken.

I had high hopes for "Blarp" which refers to a running joke with my brother, Colin. A character in the very funny "Hot Fuzz" (if you haven't seen it, you must) only answers questions in the affirmative, with a definitive "Yarp." Later in the movie, the gag is referenced by throwing in one negative - "Narp." Colin and I have discovered that EVERY word is funnier if it ends with "arp," and utilize this gag often, much to the bemusement of everyone around us, including his girlfriend Liz (aka Larp.) But "Blarp," ... believe it or not ... was taken.

So then I started digging deep.

I'll spare you the trauma, but I begain this damn "blog" journey at 5:30, and I am about to wrap it up at 10:30, which gives you an idea about how tricky this quest has been. So let me just tell you about "The Workshed."

Last weekend I read Bruce Campbell's excellent book "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor" (if you haven't read it, you must.) In it, he points out that there is a very obvious overdub in "Evil Dead 2" where Ash "says" the word "workshed" so that audiences know where he's headed. His lips clearly do not move at all when he formulates this plan, and this has become something of a legendary joke on college campuses. I couldn't believe it when I typed in "The Workshed" and it was accepted.

And really, it's kind of fitting. In "Evil Dead 2," "workshed" is a superfluous word. It's clumsily edited in, and it's not at all necessary - the audience figures out that Ash is headed to the workshed because ... he goes there in the next scene. And now it has become a gag to watch for for every hard core "Evil Dead" fan out there.

I hope that the entries this blog will be kinda like that. They are just superfluous, unnecessary words, written for my own gratification in an attempt to leave a literary legacy other than red scratchings on student essays. And I hope that someone will be amused or entertained by the writing, even if that someone is me. If they become a running gag, so much the better.

So if you are reading this, I hope you enjoy it. We'll see what happens.

Alison

P.S. There is a chance that an "Evil Dead" purist will happen upon this blog as a result of their frantic "Evil Dead" google searches and quickly point out to me that the infamous line is not "The Workshed" but simply "workshed." Well, smartypants, I tried "workshed." It was taken.

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