Okay, folks, first order of business. (And yes, this is relevant to the rest of the post, so pay attention.) My Pretend Online Acquaintance Tracey (a.k.a. Sweetney) has started a new project called Through the Fire, in which she is inviting people around the Internet (that’s YOU!!) to contribute their stories of divorce and separation. All filings are anonymous; not even Tracey will know who you are. So go and submit your tale. Be raw. Be honest. Be free.

As she says on her blog, part of Tracey’s motivation for beginning this series is that she’s done talking about her own divorce. I get that. She’s processed it, and it’s time to move on.

I know where she’s coming from. I’ve run into a similar situation as I fumble about trying to find my voice on this blog. For a while, I was blogging rather personally and painfully about my breakup. For a while, it was all I could talk about. Talking about anything else felt dishonest. I couldn’t blab on about spirituality or social justice or what have you when it felt like my soul had shattered into a thousand pieces, and I was slowly gluing it back together.

But glue I did. I settled down into my new place, started a new job, and made several new friends. If I haven’t completely healed, I’ve at least won out-patient status.

Which left me wondering what the hell to write about in this space. Is this a “personal” blog? A “spiritual” blog? A geek blog? A “kids do the damnedest things” dad blog? A platform for promoting marriage equality, ethical treatment of animals, and social justice? A collection of weird short stories written in less than 24 hours?

I finally decided: fuck it. It’s all those things. Because it’s my blog. It’s happy when I’m happy, sad when I’m sad, angry when I’m angry, strident when I’m strident. Much like Google is an extension of my brain, my blog is an extension of my soul. I think that’s the best form of “personal blogging”: not a 365-day exercise in self-flagellation, but a reflection of the depth and complexity (such as it is) of a single individual. And yes, that includes the occasional “everything is going to shit and where’s the fucking ice cream” post.

So, I’ll keep writing this odd mishmash of whatever happens to be clouding my mind at the moment. Whether anyone keeps reading…well, that’s up to all y’all. (All 3.7 of you.) If you keep reading, be apprised that my ramblings will continue to evince about as much direction as a drunk hamster locked in a dark labyrinth.

I think I kinda like it that way.