OK, here’s the thing. I’ve been reading online diaries, blogs, journals, and whatnot for a couple of years, and for the last year or so, a thought has been tickling the back of my head. Why can’t I do this? I’m competent at the writing, I think. At least, I can write comprehensible technical documents, and I even make the effort to keep those from drying up and blowing away. So I’m going to lay out some of my concerns and doubts right off the bat, and hope that every once in a while I can remember to come back to the first page and refresh my memory.

What do I want to do with it?

- Well, for one, I guess I’d like to use this thing as a creative outlet. I’m sure my friends don’t always want to hear me dumping on them about the same old things, and for now this can be my outlet for that.- I’d like to keep it clean and coherent enough to use it to keep in touch with my moving-to-Colorado sister. Not so clean that I want Mom or Dad to stumble across it though. That would border on the boring. My life’s not all that exciting that it can hold up to that kind of censorship and still be readable.  

- I’d like to document this road I’m traveling down with the Cowboy. We do some really interesting things, things that I always wanted to do. Now that I finally am, I’d like to be able to remember how I felt about them. This is going to involve a lot of names and places that I may or may not change.

What do I want to stay away from?

- I’d like to not be totally boring. This is my life, after all, and I don’t think it’s boring. If it comes across as that then I may have to take a cold hard look at my writing style.- I’m torn about the pseudonyms and anonymity. I think I’d like my sister and my best friend to be able to look at this site, but I’m not sure. I can’t remember the last time I even thought badly about either of them, but what if something’s misinterpreted? Do I want to risk that unpleasantness?  

- I have no doubt that a lot of my opinions, politics, and hobbies are not going to jive with a lot of people. There just aren’t a whole lot of rednecks on the internet, and I know damn well that I’m going to be in the minority here. I’d like to not let that bother me. It doesn’t bother me in real life; I just go on living my life, so I’m not exactly sure why it would here.

- And lastly, I’m completely new to this HTML junk. I’d like to not fuck it up too badly. I’m not crossing my fingers on that one.

And with that, here goes. Maybe it will be interesting. Maybe not. I’ll figure that out as I go along.