I have made numerous attempts at creating a personal web site, as odious as that term has grown to me I insist on calling a spade a spade. Each previous site was created with the intent of sharing. Whether I meant to share thoughts, feelings, information, a game, myself, lies, or anything else, each site was designed with a very rigid structure. As a result, updating and working on each site became a chore, more trouble than it was worth.

I plan on this site being... less defined. I will have little or no seperation between stories, essays, journals, experimentational writing, pictures, or any other kind of post I should choose to make. I hope that this plan will result in a site that is easier to update and will, if things go as I plan, create an atmosphere of "ordered chaos" in which everything sort of jumbles together while at the same time fitting in some way. I have great plans for this site. Unfortunately, it is in my nature to see perfection, to mold perfection, and then to step back to watch another strive for and reach it.

So now I suppose I've covered the answer to "Why this SITE?" and it is left for me to answer the question of simply "Why this?" As I alluded before, there is a certain amount of the idea in me, as I suppose it is in every other person, that I've got something to say. I'm painfully aware that many, many people who share this feeling are merely egotists who like to hear themselves talk. We've already covered that. I am an egotist. And I like hearing myself talk. I just hope that when I talk somebody out there will choose to listen to me instead of simply hearing me, or reading me as the case may be.

Maybe I'm sounding like any self-important bubblehead who wants to "enlighten" people with his views. (As an interjection, that "his" was not gender discriminatory, it was grammatically correct. In cases of indeterminate gender, english grammar dictates that the masculine is used. Crucify me for being a pig, girls, but that's the way it is and I will NOT use "he/she" here.) The truth of the matter (and you have only my word to call it truth, take it or leave it) is that I am writing this for other reasons than a desire to get the gratification that maybe somebody somewhere is reading what I have to say. I will write and publish in an attempt to get you to think, but I anticipate doing a good deal of writing in an attempt to get myself to do the same. In the past, when I needed to think, I wrote. Now I find myself without the time to sit with a pen and paper but dangerously close to a computer, and so I will write here.

So what can you expect here? If you already know me, expect things that may surprise you. Expect things that may worry you. Expect things that don't sound like me. Expect things that may make you know me better. If you don't know me, expect to get to know me. In either case, I plan not to hold back. I doubt I will be holding my tongue, considering feelings too much, or censoring. I will generalize, I will most likely offend you at some point. Consider this your warning. No matter what I have said or what I will say, I am posting this web site for myself, as an exploration of sorts. I don't have to please you, pacify you, or flatter you. If I do, you're welcome, but don't expect it.

Now that I've said all that, let me offer to make a deal with you. Your end of the deal is this: Read what I write with an open mind. Think. I don't ask that you agree with what I say, I just ask that you consider it. If you're sitting around with nothing to do, send me email. Everyone with a personal web site loves to get email about it, and I'm no exception. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. My end of the deal is this. I will write candidly. I will write what I feel, what I think, and what I observe. I will give you the chance to see inside me. I will take "requests" every once in a while if I feel like it. I will define only one situation in which I will hold something back, and I do so only because I grapple with certain personal issues. If I write something which I read back over before posting and have any doubt as to whether it should be posted, I will flip a quarter once. Heads up, it's posted. Tails up, I keep it.

Let the game begin.