A Grand Opening

There's no time like the first time. So, here goes.

That goes for sex, for space travel, for sushi. I know I'm making way too much of this. I debated for months and months about whether I should have a blog, then if I would have a blog. Then, the question: If I have one, will I let anybody know? Then the pressure of: If I have one, how do I open it?

The opening Battle Royal scene in Ellison's Invisible Man could be a start: a dozen shirtless blindfolded black men beating each others' brains out in a boxing ring with a dancing sideshow of nude White women--very American!; or perhaps like Morrison's Paradise, with a dozen dead bodies piled in an apocalyptic Oklahoma. But I'm always so serious. I should be hilarious! Maybe I'll open like Garcia-Marquez in Chronicle of a Death Foretold , dreaming of a gentle drizzle of rainfall only to awaken under a tree with my face covered in birdshit.

But once I craft this blockbuster opening, then will come the pressure of maintaining it. Will I be able to keep the public interested? Will I fall squarely on my face? Or will they all discover (underneath the stereotypical mystical poetic exterior) how dry and excruciatingly ordinary I really am?

So much pressure!

Or I could just be me.

I could just write. Which is what writers do. Which is what I've been promising myself I would do daily for like the last five years. Which I haven't.

So, here's my place to write. That's it. No pressure. No public. No image to uphold. Just a place to write. Once I furnish this place and get comfortable, maybe I'll invite you in. Until then, if you knock, the lights will be out; and I'll pretend no one's home.