step into my parlor

I've been thinking about this blogging stuff a lot lately. It seems that over the last couple of weeks, I've had a number of people contact me, both via the comments and also via email, and it's been quite humbling to see some of the nice things that have been said about my blog output.

When I started doing this, it was really more of a cathartic than anything else. It's one thing to scream obscenities at Chris Matthews' image on the television screen, it's another thing to actually compose my thoughts and try to commit them to print in a way that truly represents what I think. I never really expected anybody to read my ravings, and even less, to find that my words spoke to them on any level. I tend to be an ignored blatherer in real life, and didn't expect anything else in the blog universe.

With that said, I have examined this little adventure in writing I have undertaken, and have decided to break the "fourth wall" for a few minutes and speak personally to what readers I have.

First of all, thank you. Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, thank you for coming back again to read and comment more. I pledge that I will always try to bring my best critical thinking and linguistic skills to every post, whether serious or silly.

I write this under a pseudonym, and that isn't likely to change, at least not in the near future. I have an interesting life, I am both a professional musician and a college science professor, a reclusive animal collector, an outspoken atheist, and generally don't fit into mainstream American life very well, especially with my current residence in an extremely red state. I don't wish to complicate my life any more than it is, so it works best if I just maintain low profiles in all walks of life and that is why I take advantage of a certain degree of anonymity. Few of my face-to-face friends even know of this blog's existence.

I certainly don't fancy myself a pundit of any sort, I always saw myself in this guise more as a sarcastic observer than any kind of an expert. I love logic, and the illogic of our contemporary American existence flabbergasts me. However, if anybody finds a grain of truth or wisdom in what I write, it is the best result I could hope to achieve.

Because I write this for my own release, I don't generally respond to comments, and probably won't be starting to do so. Feel free to comment away, I always read them, but I don't do this to debate so much as to expound. I've already had a couple of minor comment trolls show up (wow, I've really made it!) and I neither censor them nor encourage them. If you really do wish to engage me in conversation, use the email link, it comes straight to me and I always respond.

I initially decided to not place links to other blogs. I may change that at some point in time, but I design websites on the side, and one of my precepts of web design is that it is hard enough to get visitors to your site, why make it easy and indeed, tempting, to go somewhere else? I am reconsidering that precept in this specific situation, but I haven't yet finished examining the positive and negative ramifications. If one day you suddenly see links, you will know that I have changed my position on that. One thing that has recently happened with my change to the current color/font scheme that I am using, Blogger placed editable links on this template so I at least no longer have the excuse of not knowing how to place a "blogroll" on the site. I am flattered if anybody chooses to link to me, but I will never participate in mutual quid pro quo link exchanges just for the sake of spreading my own URL around.

I sometimes go quiet for a while, I have a lot of commitments I'm juggling at this point in my existence, but don't think I'm packing it in. Sometimes, I get so aggravated by our times that I can't write anything that doesn't amount to incoherent, indignant spluttering, and I won't subject anybody to that.

So, once again, thanks for reading, and thanks for coming back to read again. I promise I will take this as a trust between us and will always try to offer you something with some valid thought behind it, no matter what the topic and whether it's just for fun or really serious. I am so flattered by the support and attention that I have received, and will try to provide you with a worthwhile visit and a reason to come back. No matter what else happens, I have been privileged to make a few wonderful new long-distance e-friends (you know who you are!) with whom I hope to stay in touch and that simple fact in and of itself would be enough reason to declare this adventure a big success from my own perspective.


One of these days I might even tell you the origin of my pseudonym...