Please Excuse the Boxes

If I was in my youngest nephew’s 1^st grade class, and the assignment was to compose a self-portrait, mine would look a little something like this...

That’s me (quit looking at my privates!!), sprawled out naked inside a restrictive box (ok, make it fast!). A more morbid me would suggest perhaps it’s a coffin; but in essence, it is an illustration of my journey traversing the world as the proverbial circle in a square peg. Quite frankly, the more I continue to grow and stretch, the deeper my fingers seem to press against the boundaries of what yall muhfuckas call reality.

Welcome! Take off your shoes, admire the photos on the wall, giggle at my baby pics, sift through my DVR, admire my porn collection and multi-cultural art, rummage through my drawers, laugh if you must but we've come so far so no tears, get nosy and thumb through my journal…if you can find it.

I won’t go all ‘80s-sitcom-jump-the-shark on you and pretend like I wasn’t an infant last season and now I’m in kindergarten [see: “Growing Pains,” “Family Ties,” et al. didn’t pull a fast one and up and disappear for a year. Like folks didn’t try to step beyond the blog/reality line and contact me to make sure I was still alive (shout out to Epsi and CNel). I won’t pretend that during my absence I wasn’t engulfed in a fulfilling yet challenging relationship that consumed me and my desire to write here. That I didn’t become completely bored by most of what I was reading from you. That said boredom didn’t reflect in my own written observations, and lack thereof. I will admit that I’m adverse to change, and that the influx of new jacks and new jack intentions altered the game and therefore my desire to be a part of it. In summary, I miss the old neighborhood (Blah, we're so *here*).

But the world out there, beyond my laptop’s screen, it stretches far beyond the power chord. The world doesn’t shut down, doesn’t standby or depend on my keystroke to function. It is fueled by interactions that I cannot control, rules that no longer require my engagement, rampant idiocy. Foolishness, to which I am particularly hostile.

Simply put, I have no place else to go. I am playing prodigal, running up the blogspot stoop at top speed, slamming the door shut behind me as god awful status and locale updates, reprehensible ring tone rap, loathsome politics, trending topics and technological advances pound on the other side, hunting me down.

So here I am, in fuzzy socks, nursing a jack and ginger, chuckling at all the memories, blowing away the dust from this blog that conceals the words "Dear Diary." Let's see if I remember how to work this thing, cuz I'm feeling real square out there in the world, and this blog here is my circle.

So if you're new here... Welcome! and all that, but please go fix yourself a plate and put your feet up. This is a strict no-coddle zone. Otherwise, you know the deal. Loosen your belt so we can catch up. But please excuse the boxes...I have some unpacking to do.