Somewhere between the advent of beepers and Facebook, email chain questionnaires were born. They were ugly things, devoid of html formatting or interesting content. Each one had more questions than you cared to answer, most of which were the sorts of questions that had no good answers. One questionnaire could meander past your breakfast, through your sock drawer and land right on the weirdest way you could think to die. And by the way, if you had a goldfish, what would you name him?

I liked reading them.

Back then, the internet really did just have porn on it. There weren’t a lot of ways to waste the whole day on your computer if you weren’t up to watching strangers bang, so you could get pretty sucked into those god-awful chain letters. They were better than work, after all.

But answering them? That was a horse of a different color, breed, and diet. And if you were me, it was a soul eater. The first one I ever answered was easy, of course. I was just honest. My favorite color was probably black back then. And I didn’t eat breakfast. Socks were tall and flashy. With holes. Death never occupied my mind despite my gothy look, and any goldfish worth his salt was probably a baron. Baron Von Poopypants sounds about right.

No sweat.

Until I saw my pal the next day.

“I just thought you’d be more– funny.” She shrugged. ‘You are a writer, after all.”

And there we are. The reason I learned to hate those damn emails. I was a writer and people expected more of me. The public baring of the most banal and trivial bits of one’s soul was simply not enough for a writer. I had to be clever. I had to be witty. Maybe poignant. Maybe deep. Whatever I was, I had to be on.

It is why I am not much into letters. My correspondences tend to be short. It is why I have never had a blog.

Until now.

I’m not sure what shape this blog will take, but I expect it will be about writing and place and mischief. I will probably howl a bit.

And maybe, from time to time, I’ll say something funny.

But then again, maybe I won’t.