IT AIN"T WHY, IT JUST IS

OK. The old blog has been shut down and this one now continues in it's place. As time allows I will re-post some of the most commented on posts here just because I either received nice comments on them, because I think they might be of interest to the intended readers of this blog, or just because I want to.

I was really hoping that more time would pass between the time I made the first post here until now, but it is what it is. Given that some dumb-asses were predicting my demise 5 years ago, I am not going to get too worked up, but I can no longer ignore the weight loss, the almost constant pains, or the fact that other people have now noticed I don't look well.

This space will not be used to depress folks or detail the particulars of my health. From this point on I will use this forum to convince myself and others that I was here and I had an impact (good, bad, it doesn't matter- at least I DID things, instead of watching from the sidelines) and that I have at least made an attempt to understand and make sense of myself and the world around me.

Besides, if I wasn't spending time entering shit here I would probably just be masturbating, and we all know where that leads.

SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD

I have always found the notion of being eulogized rather odd, like some bizarre Celebrity Roast inverted where people go out of their way to find sickeningly nice things to say about the departed, ignoring the fact that what made them human was the sum total of their beings, not the mundane niceties. Just once I would like to hear someone stand before the congregation and say: "Joe was a foul-mouthed cocksucker with a fondness for cheap booze and cheaper women, who stole from the collection plate when people weren't looking and liked to wear womens underwear. But he made me laugh and shared his weed with me whenever we hung out, and I liked him."

I have no set expiration date or time stamp, but sometime sooner than I would like I am going to start shutting down. When that starts to happen I will be posting to this blog on a regular basis. It will serve as an "open after my death" accounting of who I really was, not some sugar-coated version of what I, or other people, wished I had been. Upon my demise, my few close ones will be sent the link to this blog, where they will be able to discover the real me, which I never shared in life.

I will be my own "Speaker for the Dead", eulogizing myself: the good and the bad, so some other poor bastard doesn't have to stand before the congregation making shit up.

Once I start updating this blog I am immediately shutting down my other blog and will only be notifying a select few of the existence of this one. For those of you who do get the invite and choose to continue to follow me here, I thank each and every one of you for the comments, past, present and hopefully for some extended time into the future. I will be re-posting some of my previous posts from the old blog, mainly the ones that show what an erudite, well rounded person I was, but for those who followed me here, you already know that the focus of this one is for leaving behind a record for my daughters to discover the things that made me human, and not just a father.

And remember this: if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, who really gives a fuck?