Dear Readers

If I were normal, I wouldn't do this.

A normal person would have stopped writing this blog a long time ago.  They might not have even started it.  Really, who in their right mind would continue to write a humor blog when, after two years, it has merely doubled it's audience from the fourth month of its existence?  Who would take the time every week to write a thousand or two thousand words about a topic they came up with, mostly on the fly?  Who willingly subjects themselves to the scrutiny of dozens of strangers?  Where is the motivation coming from?

This is not a complaint against my audience.  I love my readers, and that isn't lip service.  Those of you that read the blog, and like the blog, are fantastic.  You get on the Facebook page, and you interact with whatever lunacy or idiotic thought I throw up there.  Many of you have known me in real life, so you understand that maybe I'm not the most well balanced person, and you get where my humor comes from.  That doesn't stop you from sharing the blog with your friends and family, who don't know me, but still sometimes get a kick out of what I do. 

One of my very good friends once told me that while most of our friends were really good at one thing, I had a whole bunch of things that I was ok at.  He meant it as a compliment, and I took it as such.  I am mediocre to ok at a fair number of things.  I had a terrible band in high school, but I loved every minute of it.  High school theater, as cringe inducing as it can be, was like a drug when I found it.  Sports did the same thing.  If it had been up to me, I would have just been in college to act in every play I could, and sing in the acapella group I was in.  I was never great at any of these things, but I was at least passable.  I took it personally every time I didn't get a part, because that was one less chance to do what I was good at, and what I wanted to be doing.  Thinking about it, it's almost unsettling how much time and effort I put into things like the blog, things that will give me even just a tiny modicum of happiness. 


The motivation for me is there.  Kevin Pollak calls it the "Hey, Look at Me" Disease.  Doctors might call it some form of depression mixed with a need for validation, but Kevin's sounds funnier, and isn't far off, so we'll go with that.  I've always been happiest when I'm entertaining people.

I'm a person that, for the most part, can't do small talk.  I understand the concept, and know how the execution works.  I can even do it, to some success.  I don't enjoy it though.  It's not something I am good at.  I can shotgun emotion and feelings at people through music, performance, or writing, but I am terrible one on one.  It's one of the myriad reasons I don't have relationships, and definitely one of the reasons I cling tight to the friends I have had for over a decade.  They know me, and they admit that they know how to deal with me.  It is so much less work for me than trying to be likeable for new people.  See?  I find it easier to blast my feelings in public than anything remotely intimate.  This is the person you are dealing with for your weekly jollies. 

This is a thank you for the past two years.  For the people I know, and people I have never met, that come back and read what I've written.  It's a thank you for those that put up with me talking about this ad nauseum, like it's something that is important to everyone.  I understand it isn't but it is to me, and I appreciate you humoring me.  This is a thank you for putting up with the mania I put out when it's there, and for the maudlin, pandering, begging for attention that seeps out of my needy brain.

Hopefully this builds some good will before The Mauling of The Faithful later this week.