There’s a thing going around on Twitter today that I thought would be fun to bring to the blog: Five topics I can talk about for 30 minutes without any preparation. I’ll add one bit of context here that feels implied by the question, but I want to make it concrete: I imagine a lot of people, including myself, could ramble on about something for 30 minutes, even something they know nothing about, if they had to. So, I’m assuming that what’s implied by this question is that you could talk cogently and coherently about a particular topic for 30 minutes without any preparation. Otherwise, it seems like cheating to me!
Professional wrestling. If someone just asks me if I’m a fan of professional wrestling, I could go off for 30 minutes. If someone asks my opinion on a particular wrestler or match, I could go off for 30 minutes. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’m asked to speak about professional wrestling and I can’t somehow go off for 30 minutes. I don’t even have to talk about WWE, of which I’m a noted homer for to achieve my 30 minutes.
Horror movies. I love horror movies and I love talking about horror movies because it’s such a diverse playground: Do you want to talk about modern, prestige horror? Let’s go. Do you want to talk about the classics from the 1970s? I’m in. Wes Craven? Alright. Zombies? Heck yeah. Whether some films rely too much on gore or jump scares? Sure. Anything you want, I can deliver it. To me, there’s much overlap between pro wrestling and horror fandoms; we’re basically marks looking for our next high, whether that’s in the ring or on the silver screen (in the form of scares).
Food. Is there anything that’s more of a common denominator among humans than food? Aside from weather, work, sleep and the fact of our existential crisis and dance with death, I can’t think of anything else. Food is so much fun to talk about. I can talk about the latest meal I just whipped up. I can talk about trying out HelloFresh (more on that soon!). I can talk about the latest whacky cereal I just tried (more on that soon, too!). Or the latest beer. Or my dislike of pickles, as I recently did on the blog. On and on, folks. Heck, coffee alone could be its own category here!
Writing. As someone who writes professionally with a newspaper and for fun via the blog and fiction/poetry otherwise, I enjoy talking shop about writing with other writers. Now, I’m not much for grammar talk. I don’t have a strong opinion at all on the Oxford comma. But if you want to talk about what makes a story hum and vibe, then I’m your man. And not just related to what I write or how to write, but I enjoy talking about what I like to read, which itself could be another category.
Dogs. Dogs are my love. Dogs keep me sane and happy. Dogs embody unconditional love. So, if you want me to talk about dogs for 30 minutes, I’d be happy to go 90 minutes. Again, I’m not some nuanced genius about dogs; I can’t talk about the best dog food or the nuances of specific dog breeds (heck, I’m as bad at identifying dog breeds as I am identifying fruits), but I can talk about my love for them and my experiences with them at length. Now that I’ve added fostering dogs to my world (more on that! I still haven’t written about my experience with fostering), I could easily get to 90 minutes talking about that experience alone.
What are your five items?
Milam's Musings 