As I’d learn, he was my excuse for not wanting to go home. The boys in my life are traditionally buffers against the women who hate me.  Not literally, but that’s the sum of it.  My father never protected me from my mother so I look for solace in the dominant male presence.  I know they have the ability to cut down inflated female egos, especially when they are pretty.  I can cut down a bitch in the mean way.  The don’t-get-back-up way.  A pretty boy can cull the same egotistical bitch with average nonchalance.  That’s the shit they base 80s movies on.  High school drama, fundamentally.  I’m not looking to dethrone the Homecoming Queen.  I never did.  I didn’t accept the comparison.  It’s apples and oranges.  Like equating beer to wine – mainly because I’m aging very well.

One of the strengths I developed in the cut-throat social culture of the 21st century is apathy.  I’ve literally seen all sides of social structure and I’m here to report we’re all full of shit.  Basing beliefs on ancestral hatred and consistently feeling better when someone else has it worse than you.  The Mobius strip of guilt permeating our DNA.  Building charitable fronts to hide the instinctual greed that perpetuates our species.  I’m not an expert in anything except what I’ve seen.  Silently, I witness a lot.

Sometimes, I feel like people are baiting me into conversation.  When that happens I’m always looking for the hook.  There are genuinely interested parties that I’ve held at arm’s length for weeks before accepting they might be interested in the actual person I’m becoming.  There are two forms I seem to take in public.  My first incarnation is mysterious and often annoying.  An aberration in the normal landscape that bears noting at least on one dimension.  To witness my second form you must gain my trust.

The lucky ones get a look at who I really am.  Some people have peered over the edge and quickly retreated.  Those that linger will sometimes get invited in to my life and start to get the whole story.  They all know I’m here to write my story.  I talk in public and tell stories on stage but all of that is tertiary to my ultimate goal.  The Book.  I want to write down the things I know so far.  I want to share my power with the world.  I want to encourage a difference of opinion by opening up the playing field.

Our world has fallen victim to the limitations of its language.  As our vocabularies shrink our ability to express individual opinions diminishes.  Abandoning our expression to the lowest common denominator limits imagination and stymies efforts to relate with other people.  I want to see a more dynamic approach to language that affords a gap in understanding.  In some stroke victims, they can think of a concept but not know the word.  They name synonyms or recite the definition but that actual word eludes them.  There is proof that mispelilng wrods dosen’t affcet raednig comprehension in most people.  Why do we let the power of a particular word dominate our understanding of the concept?

I have very few principles I’ll stick up for.  Freedom of expression requires more effort than just allowing speech.  We have to allow speech to define our differences without vilifying the language.  There are classic examples of taboo words I could bring up to illustrate my point.  Or, I can leave it to the imagination and your reluctance to supply examples proves my point.