Every Story Has a Beginning. I'm Choosing to Make This Mine.

I keep thinking to myself: "Have I really become that person?"

 There's this blank, white field on a website on my computer screen. The cursor blinks at me, clearly annoyed at being summoned only to have its time wasted. It reminds me of when I was a teenager and I’d receive a new journal as a present – I was into that kind of thing – and I’d open it and stare at that first page for what seemed like forever, agonizing over WHAT could POSSIBLY be worthy of its innocence. I’d keep it somewhere handy, for when that delicious tidbit of wisdom would arrive and I could cement it into existence forever and the book would be proud to be a part of history. And then someone would buy me a new one, that would supplant its predecessor, and the whole process would start again.

 I still have dozens of journals from that era – empty tomes I’ve trucked from place to place in the intervening years, having never found the perfect words to deflower them. As books tend to do, they’ve amassed to a considerable weight, yet it never even crosses my mind to get rid of them. Like a monk whose vow of silence encompasses EVERYTHING. And though I never wanted to admit it – and probably still wouldn’t admit it out loud – the symbolism of their emptiness has transformed for me. I no longer see them as innocent and virginal. I see them as undeniable proof that I’m afraid I have nothing to say.

 And that’s why, staring at the angry cursor in the blank text field, my thoughts are “have I really become that person?” rather than “I can’t wait to put this out there.” We live in a world where one of the most popular websites simply superimposes babytalk over mundane pictures of housecats. A lady in a teddybear onesie humping a foam finger generates four days of nonstop news coverage. Our culture hangs on the words of an overweight, under-educated 7-year-old beauty queen, going so far as to have them emblazoned on clothes.

 And I’m afraid I have nothing to say.

 I’m a 30 year old gay man. I am a Gemini, and whether you believe in that stuff or not I fit the description so well I probably did it on purpose, if subconsciously. I am owned by a dog. I eat too much. Sometimes, I drink too much. Often, I masturbate too much. I curse a lot (FUCK. See?) I think BOOBS is the funniest word in the English language, followed closely by TITTIES and TWAT. I have almost 700 Facebook friends. I do my laundry regularly, but fold it once in a blue moon. I sing: very well. I have four novels and six screenplays in my head. I’m terrified of death. And I have something to say.

 I’m statistically the “most intelligent” person in a room of 10,000 people, but it thrills me when people think I’m dumb. I talk twice as much as I should, read half as much as I should, and very legitimately have squandered an astonishing amount of my adult life NOT doing the things I’m OBVIOUSLY meant to be doing. And I have something to say.

 Currently my heart is broken. At night I’m terrified that it will never feel whole again and I will die alone and bitter in obscurity. During the day I pat myself on the back for how well I seem to be doing and how adult I am being about the whole thing. There are minutes when I want to die. There are hours when I marvel at how beautiful life is. There has never been a second when I hated him for breaking my heart, but there have been plenty of seconds when I hated myself for “losing him.” And I’m self-aware enough to know those last two words deserve their quotation marks. And I have something to say.

 I’ve developed a razor sharp wit that I can summon at the speed of light, and it has earned me a reputation that arrives in a room an hour before I do. People around me seek my approval because they fear my judgement. I am at once pleased and horrified by this. I affectionately refer to it as my “Dragon Complex,” hence the name of this… collection of thoughts. Okay, blog. I fucking said it. I’m becoming “that person.” I’m starting a… a blog. I fucking HATE the word “blog” and I’m starting one.

 I want people to read this. I want to be so interesting that they make a movie out of my blog and Meryl Streep will be in it somehow and everyone will love her part of the story but hate my part of the story and wish it were all about her. I want to go viral, to have my posts shared bazillions of times on the internet and have 16-year-old rappers advertise their shitty singles in the comments section of websites that exist merely for the purpose of sharing blogs like mine. I want fat Christian moms and vengeful twenty-somethings to disapprove of me while pre-pubescent transsexuals and elderly cancer patients find inspiration in me. And despite the fear that nobody will read this and that I have nothing to say… I want people to know that I DO have something to say…


 Boobs. Fuck. Boobs.