In the beginning...

...there was writer's block. In fact, the writer's block was so immense, that I had a hard time coming up with the term, "writer's block." But I digress.
I've thought about blogging several times in the past, but always hesitated when I got to the actual writing part of the process. Signing in with an email address, check; creating a login name...a little more difficult, but check (I have no shortage of nicknames); creating a name for the blog--ooph, even more difficult, but I've managed to come up with something of some small satisfaction before, check. Then, the first blog post.

...

It never fails. That blank empty white stares menacingly at me, and my neuroses kicks in: "the first post is the most important one--better say something profound!" "what will people think of me?" worse yet, "will they figure out who I am?" "this is going to permanently be out there for people to look at...forever!" "ten years from now (or even five; or even one), will I be completely embarrassed when I look back at this first post?"

The answer to that last one is "yes, probably." But of course, the larger answer to all of these questions is: "Shut the hell up, V. No one gives a shit, so why should you?" In fact, this is the answer to most of my fears and anxieties, but somehow over the past 26 years, that thought still hasn't quite sedimented into all the nooks and crannies of my brain where it needs to be. The question of self-presentation and others' perceptions of our selves continues to nag most people well past awkward adolescence, and into their early-, mid-, and late-adulthoods. That being said, how am I here writing this now, if I'm so worried about this coming back to bite me in the ass?

Yesterday, I wasn't feeling so well; I think my professor sneezing plague-infected goo all over me in her office a few days prior may have had something to do with it. At any rate, I was dragging along still trying to get my work done for school, bundled up in long-sleeves and a scarf despite the 80-some degree sunny CA weather (I still felt chilly), and no doubt looking like a hot mess. Scott had given me a ride to the department so that I could make some photocopies and drop a few things off in Lisa's mailbox, and I was struggling to juggle my manilla envelopes, orange-beet juice, keys and copy cards as I walked back out of the department. Shitty as I felt, I laughed when I saw Scott again--he was looking intently at me through the tinted driver's window of our station wagon, which was rolled up just enough to cover the lower half of his beard; he appeared to have a mondo-70's style moustache (we have this running joke about moustaches...I'll explain later). "You look like a creepy moustachio-ed child molester! What are you staring at me for?" He grinned. "I was just thinking about you walking out of the department wearing an argyle sweater and drinking beet juice. It seems...appropriate."

I looked down, suddenly self-conscious of my nerd-dom, and couldn't help but laugh. He was right. Wearing an over-sized argyle sweater over a Triumph motorcycle t-shirt, wrapped up in a scarf and drinking orange-beet juice, my appearance at that moment summed up some intangible core component of my personality that I can't explain any other way. It would have made sense when I was 4, or 12, or 16, and will probably continue to make sense when I am 49 and 73. So, I thought, why not have something to remind me of who I am? Although blogs are public fare, I do intend for this to be a fairly personal set of writings; call it an exercise in comfortable public presentation. As I work my way through graduate school, it's becoming more and more apparent that it's virtually impossible to build a professional public identity without first being totally comfortable with your private self; you know, the self that picks it's nose when it thinks no one is looking, and farts on the cat 'just because.' It's also an exercise in creative writing. Being relegated to composing only academic articles and papers has a definite dampening effect on any sort of fun, creative, or otherwise enjoyable writing styles. "In the Communist Manifesto, Marx attempts to blah blah blahbity blah blah blah...which Gramsci calls hegemony." *Disclaimer*--Marx and Gramsci are not boring at all; however, my writing about Marx and Gramsci has a high probability of being more boring than watching your Grandma clean her dentures.

And so...it begins. Will I be embarrassed when I look back at this post years from now? Yes, most likely. Will anyone give a flying poop about this blog if they don't know me? Maybe, maybe not. Will I still be drinking beet juice, wearing argyle sweaters and farting on my cat when I am old enough to bore my own grandchildren to tears by showing them how I clean my fake teeth with Polident? Absolutely.