Last week, I cancelled all of my social media accounts.
I went AWOL from Facebook.
I went off the Twitter and Instagram grids.
I ghosted on Snapchat.
I went completely, utterly, and early Vin Diesel Pitch Black.
I felt like I needed to gather myself, so to speak. I wanted to dedicate all of the time I spent scanning through status updates, perusing the comments sections of political posts and looking at pictures of my much cooler friends to healthier, more worldly experiences. After one week of sitting around and having absolutely no idea what to do with all that extra time, I decided that I might as well blog. It gives me an outlet to write down what I'm thinking, and if someone decides to read it and enjoy it, good on them, right?
So, for those of you that don't me, I guess I should provide a little introduction. I am 33 years old. I have a Y chromosome. I was born in western Pennsylvania and raised there for the first five years of my life. Around the beginning of my sixth year of existence, my parents divorced, my mother realized she was a lesbian and we up and moved to a suburb of Baltimore, MD. My father married another woman, made two new sons, and pretended to forget that I existed for the next decade.
I grew up an only child, spending my time with books and the various incarnations of Nintendo. In high school, I met a girl I liked enough to put a ring on her finger and keep around for the last sixteen years. She makes me laugh. She has given me four beautiful children, who will be referred to by their nicknames in this blog. There's Bear (8 "and a half, Dad!"), Bug (5), Bean (3) and Skittle (5 months). They are the most amazing people I've ever met, and being their Dad is the coolest thing I've ever done.
I have a job that I do to feed the children, but that's mostly irrelevant. I went to college and changed my major about seven times. I ended up with a degree in Philosophy, and I'm starting an MBA program in the Fall. I know I'm a sellout. Sometimes I imagine Jean Paul Sartre just scowling at me from across a French café, but that's a discussion for another time.
I was in the military for a while. I wasn't anything special, but I gave the Army 3 years of active duty and 5 years of part time service. I can't complain. I never went to war, and the VA has given me a home loan and paid for my college. Though controversial in 2003, deciding to pretend to be a Soldier for 8 years worked out pretty well for me.
I used to be a runner. I'm working on getting back to that. My left foot and knees like to argue with me about it. I'll win that argument.
I'm a giant nerd. I grew up with comic books and the X-Men cartoon. I love Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, old school video games, Star Trek, Firefly, Dungeons and Dragons and nerdy board games. I used to play World of Warcraft. I'm an avid fantasy footballer. I wanted to be a botanist for a short period of time. I'm fascinated with religious texts, even though I don't believe in any of it. I met my wife doing musical theatre. The coolest thing I did as a teenager was play Mercutio in my high school production of Romeo & Juliet.
I'm blogging because I need to write to keep my mind organized. I need a place where I can be creative, even if it's only with the way I organize my thoughts into the written word. I need somewhere to post my thoughts without worrying about whether or not it will offend my friends. I'm mostly going to blog about my family, but I might also blog about politics, religion, what might happen in Game of Thrones or how much I hate grad school. Regardless, rambling is my therapy, and this blog is my therapist. If you're reading this blog, I hope you find it enlightening, amusing, or at least slightly worthy of the time you spend pooping at work. Excelsior!
