2021

Well hi there!

Hello me, or you. Whoever you/we are, reading this right now. It's been a long, long while. Sit a spell and let me tell you about the last seven years. Aside from the pandemic -- we all know about that one.

Fair warning, this post is going to be a bit self-indulgent, but I promise (to whoever you are, for whatever reason) that they'll be more substantial later on. I realized, going back to read my old snippets here, that a lot of my writing is for me. I write impulsively, usually inspired by something that upsets me, as a way of parsing through the mess. Sometimes it has the nice side effect of actually being entertaining but mostly it serves as an emotional time capsule; reflecting back on what I was thinking and who I was at the time is fascinating, and probably a lot more interesting for me than it is for you.

If you reading this is not me, I mean. If you're me, that last line makes a bit less sense.

The problem with this of course is that I end up only writing when I'm in trouble.

And, I've been in a lot less trouble in the past seven years. Which is excellent for me in general, but maybe not so much for trying to be a prolific or accomplished author, until I change why I write.

Since my last post, I've finished school, secured a job as a software engineer at a major telecom company, and then quit it after almost five years to be able to focus on game development. I also met a wonderful man, who I'm still with. And your timing is impeccable -- we talked about the matrimonial elephant in the room the other day, though that's a story for another time. You're the first other person I've admitted that to, dear diary. Don't tell anyone else, at least not yet.

It'll be a secret just between you and me.

Know your audience, they say. I've referred to "you" as no fewer than three different people at this point, and while my inner editor and any of my English teachers would be reeling, cringing, and/or gnashing about it, I think that's probably the best way to ensure that this Very Secret Information and Long-Winded Introspection never sees the light of publication.

If you are actually you, however, then I've failed/succeeded miserably.

So I guess for now, this is just a reminder that my writing is still as wonky and timey-wimey as ever.* I'm in a much better, more secure place in my life that I shouldn't need to use writing as a crutch or for medicinal purposes quite as much. Having started this new chapter of my life as a freelancer, I thought it would be appropriate to also commit to digital paper a new chapter in this dusty old blog.**

I hope you'll stick around. You being me, that is. And also you being you.

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*There were a couple of lines and literary mechanisms that I'd recognized from microfiction I've written since. I guess you really can't teach an old dog new tricks, even if they've forgotten they were old tricks to begin with.

**So dusty that my bio had fallen off, I had to sign up for Blogger to try to recover my Blogspot account, and ten minutes of poring over FAQs about the exact steps to get it back proved useless until I just set up a new account and was then able to access it again after the system realized who I was and that I was, in fact, with the band.