Words.

The only job I have ever had that was not based on words was 12 years ago, when I got poison ivy from weed-whacking behind a mechanic's shop.

When I got ice cream and milkshakes for townies, I talked more than I worked. I talked to get the job; I talked to make people like me; I talked. This was maybe the second-least talk-based job I've had.

When I was a teenager and talked to teenagers about teenage things for a living, we would just keep talking after I talked. Then later, I talked with some teenagers and adults about what we should talk about next week.

When I talked to people to find out what they wanted to eat at Texas Roadhouse, my highest sales item was the sound coming out of my smile. People gave me money if I was funny, or if I was pitiful. Isn't that weird? One time, a table of seven people waited an hour for food I had never asked the kitchen to make. Once in a while I forget to talk to the right people at the right time.

When I went to college, they were like, "can you please send us some words about stuff you do and stuff you've done and who you are?" And I said, "sure." I sent them some words about me talking to teenagers and me talking to strangers and me talking from stages and times people like pastors and English teachers have talked nice things at me. One of my friends talked to them about me, too. Then they said, "can you come talk to all of us in person?" I said, "sure." We talked and they gave me a scholarship. Talking rules.

Then my dad, a career talker, said I should come talk for him. I was like, "heck yeah." I talked to people with him for a few years. Sometimes, I would talk to a group of people for thirty minutes straight and only paused to laugh or for water.

While I was doing that I started talking to teenagers again - a new setting this time, about six years after I stopped being one myself. I kept doing that, and I'm still doing that. Sometimes I talk too much, sometimes I don't talk when I should. But when I talk, I like it.

Somehow, each turn I take, talking is ever more present in the things people pay me to do. Isn't that weird? Words have always been the fire turning my wheels. They're not usually the reason I want to go, and they're not the place I'm trying to get, but as I sit here typing this, I find that my wheels do not like to be still.

-Luke