Writing this first blog feels a bit to me like filling out forms for a personals Web site: “Hi, I’m Hannah, single, straight, 27 years old, in Sarasota. I like sports and television, nights at the theater followed by booze at the Bahi Hut. I’m a Leo, and my favorite color is green.”

But that, as far as I can tell, is what this is all about: a little bit of Sarasota from my unique and below-average-age point of view. The area’s population seems to be getting younger (10 years ago, some would have argued that younger was the only direction left to go), and I sometimes hear the old guard mumbling uncertainties, wondering how younger folks are living, working and playing in this traditionally fuddy-duddy environment. This blog can serve as an illustration: I, for one, pay a quarter of my income to rent an apartment of less than 200 square feet. But from my door, I can walk 50 yards in one direction to grab a pint at an honest-to-God college bar, or 50 yards in the other to watch the sunset over Sarasota Bay. I’m not rich or retired, upwardly mobile or even all that cool, but I can usually manage to entertain myself in the 941.

Besides, I was born and raised here. I ought to have at least a little insight to share.

Of course, nothing is more self-affirming than being asked to write about one’s own life. Friends of mine, bless ‘em, profess to be entertained by the e-mails I send when I’m bored, sleep-deprived or hopped up on caffeine. And I’m happy to think I create a little joy by casually describing whatever horrendous embarrassment I’ve most recently inflicted on myself and/or my family. But I’ve always been disappointed that those letters were, up to this point, so financially unprofitable. At last, thanks to this blog, tales of my exploits can be legitimately linked to a paycheck. All those e-mails about how I drunkenly propositioned a guy in a kilt on Halloween were, it turns out, actually job training. I’m really liking this new direction my career has taken.

And Mom, if you’re reading this, that kilt thing never happened, by the way.