I am a piece of novelty cheese
posted October 28, 2008		 You won't care that I'm sitting in front of the computer while I eat my lunch but you might care deeply about the novelty cheese that's perched on the upslope of my dinner plate. Yes, novelty cheese...your eyes have not deceived your ears. And it's not that beloved, yet decidedly lowbrow processed cheese product known to the world as Velveeta. The cheese I behold is rather expensive, the tiramisu of the coagulated milk world. It's a British combo cheese that layers five different cheddaresque curds into one torte-like multiplex.

The cheese merely symbolizes my decade long struggle to answer a question that, although not quite haunting, most definitely niggles: what, exactly, am I?

I feel that I have much in common with that particular piece of cheese but what if either of us we're asked the world's most loaded question:

What do you do for a living?

There are days when I think about the joy of replying doctor, lawyer, accountant, biologist, photographer, banker, engineer, long-haul trucker (appealing for the unbridled propensity toward swearing), nurse, policeman, consultant or rapper (see long-haul trucker).

What do you do for a living, Ian?

Umm, I'm basically a piece of novelty cheese. Up until

 recently I've been calling myself a leisurologist. I delivered the leisurologist knockout punch to Prince Charles in April 1996 when he turned to me and so eloquently asked "and what do you do?" He was confounded. I was delighted. I probably should have said 'I am a piece of novelty cheese' but he might have gone off on the seductive charms of an aged Wensleydale or a ripe Shropshire Blue. I just wanted to study his face.

Switching gears for a moment, are you familiar with the novel idea of stuffing a chicken into a duck and then ramming the 'chuck' (dicken?) into a turkey? It's called a turducken and I assure you that I'm not fabricating this story. Hebert's Specialty Meats in Oklahoma sells a 15 pound turducken for $78.95. That's a lot of money but it's reputed to stuff up to 23 people.

Sure, it's got a cool name and probably tastes great, but It's nothing more than novelty poultry. I don't want to become known as the turducken man (that dude who doesn't know what he is).

I guess that I'll just stay confused for another few days, or perhaps another decade. Until I become more defined I'll remain...

...just Ian Varty