Well it's 2008-- time I start using this here internet

Okay, so that subject is a bit of a misnomer (great way to start off this blog). I am actually quite heavily involved in several websites, blogs, and message boards in various forms, screen names, and--on occasion--even using my actual government name.

This, though-- this blog I want to be completely separate from everything else I am a part of. I don't want this to have any connection to anyone I know in real life or cyber-life. I want this to be a completely autonomous, freeform area in which I can spit out my thoughts, concerns, loves, hates, fears, and everything else that goes through my brain.

Ostensibly, I want this to be an online equivalent to my pen and pad that I've relied on heavily since high school-- writing without the fear that one person or another is going to read it, and what will she say if I write that, and this entry is terrible they're gonna think I'm a bad writer oh my god I'm an awful writer I need to make this entry more entertaining.

Nope, this one here is strictly for me. Any time I write for an audience, there's a little spin to what I'm saying, a little nod to whoever might be reading, a little hesitation on my part about how this will affect my real life. However, in this case, I will be completely brutally honest to myself and to my take on life. This will essentially be a series of rough drafts; unedited mental spewing that may at times get ugly in both prose and content.

My biggest issues are not much more dramatic than struggling to pay rent and bills on time and maybe some things involving friends and family, but this blog is also not a means to show off my life struggles and ache for validation. At least I pray to God it doesn't become that. There is nothing worse than reading a blog that consists of nothing but bitching about each and every little thing that happens to the writer in his or her privileged life.

I want to start out with the things I am grateful for, which is all too often ignored on the internet in favor of all the things people hate about life. I have a fantastic beautiful girlfriend of about two and a half years, and if all things go the way I'd like them to, she will be my wife and the mother of my children. I say that without my heart skipping beats and with a dry, sweatless brow. Not a bad situation to be in there.

Also, I have a handful of wonderful friends, on whom I can rely for pretty much anything. Their lifestyles range from married with kids and owning a home in suburbia to recovering relationship junkie in New York City who is finally free from all attachment and brings home a different woman every night. Oddly, I feel a connection and an understanding to each of them.

I have a steady full-time job that pays just enough to keep me going there. Between my rent, car, and bills, I just about break even with each paycheck, usually with a little debt growing each week. This is the main source of my stress at this point in my life. It almost makes me long for the days of girls being my biggest problem, but luckily I took notes of that era, which I can look through and see just how much more complicated those issues were. If my biggest problem is a numbers game, I think I can figure out how to deal with it in time.

Finally, I'm very close with my family, which I am incredibly grateful for. Not a lot of people can go home and actually look forward to hanging out with the people they grew up with, but between my sister, cousins, uncle & aunt, and grama, I always have a great time. My mother is a bit of another issue. I love the woman and appreciate everything she has done for me, and I often do enjoy spending time with her, but it really can only last for so long before I start to lose my mind around her. Luckily we have a bunch of other family members to keep the attention loose and unfocused.

I'll wrap this up now by saying what exactly I want out of this blog. As I said, I am not writing to any particular audience, nor do I expect to gain any sort of readership at all here. In fact, I am not going to advertise this blog on any of the previously aforementioned message boards or web sites that I frequent, as I'll save that for my less personal endeavors (the one notable exception being the digitizing of my old high school journal--with names and places all changed-- that I've let a few people become privy to). This, however, will be a completely isolated oasis in which I can get my thoughts down much quicker than with the old pen and pad, and if people happen to read it, then so be it.

So hopefully this proves to be nearly as meaningful as the writing I did in high school, in which I figured out things about myself I never realized were inside of me and discovered insights about the world that would have never occurred to me had I not actually sat down to think long enough to get some words down. Because at the end of the day, all I'm looking for is to improve upon my own life through introspection.

I'm selfish like that.