2005-05-28 - 7:57 p.m.

>Happy Birthday, Auto-saboteur

Today is my blog's first birthday. One year ago, I started writing in this space. My hair is longer, my beard is gone. I still work the same boring job. I am in a new apartment. I have a new camera. I am still with my one and only Bee. I am a few pounds heavier (okay, like ten. Some people might call that a "few"). My health is better overall than it was this time last year (in fact, despite insane pollen allergies, I am feeling pretty good). I still haven't learned the chromatic harmonica (no further than I had last June). I have read a big pile of books. I have watched too much TV. I haven't played enough games. I've seen my family too little. I've seen my workmates too much. Am I different now, than I was one year ago? Yes, I am. Subtle differences.

This is also my 125th entry. That means I have updated on average every 3.42 days. And yet, and yet...

I just don't feel like I am really completely here on this page. Being who I am, I never tread on toes if I can help it. If I can avoid hurting feelings or offending sensibilities or reducing myself too much in the eyes of others, then that is what I do. Of course, this means that what I write here becomes homogenized a bit. I want people to like me, so I don't say everything. So here you go, here are some things I don't really want you to know.

1) I am such a messy person, it might be painful to see. I have joked about this from time to time, but seriously, I have this habit of just piling papers onto papers onto books onto discs onto components onto flyers, etc. I don't leave food garbage around, so I'm not like moldy-gross-messy, but I am disheveled-leave-things-on-the-floor-messy. I carefully aim all photos above floor level, so as to avoid the shame!

2) I smoke pot. Not every day, and certainly less than I did a few years ago (until a couple days ago, it had been a couple months since I indulged), but it is one of my little vices. It's not a social thing either. I smoke off by myself somewhere and walk around and watch grass blowing in the wind. Or I come home and press buttons on this computer. Or I write music. It is embarrassing, though, because so many people just shake their head and think "what a stupid man" when they hear that. It is not fun to be dismissed. And we all have our vices.

No, I'm sorry sir, your camera's 'red-eye' function does not work on that kind of red-eye...

3) I like toy guns. I don't know why - I am not violent or gun-loving at all. Some may leap on me for this, but I am all for gun control. But I have a pile of toy guns (the kind that shoot little suction cup darts) that I keep out of sight because if I don't I will constantly brandish them all around the apartment driving Bee crazy. I especially like my buck rogers space gun.

4) I have a really evil sense of humour. I keep it all nice and tidy around here (well, I let loose at Kelly's now and again), but I have such an unacceptably twisted sense of humour that, unless you were just being mean, and not funny at all, you could not possibly fashion a joke that would offend me. Really, the more taboo the subject matter, the funnier. I envy some of you diarylanders who really let it fly. I wish I felt that comfortable. But I would hate to lose the sweet and kind friends I have here by being offensive.

5) I seem to think that other people are totally capricious. Intellectually, I realize that none of things I've mentioned are really very serious or even uncommon. But viscerally, I believe that all these awesome people that I know through diaryland will just collectively wash their hands of me, that diaryland servers will whir monstrously as user after user transmits a pontius pilate click, and deletes me from their list. I know that you are better people than that. You are not so quick to forget this year of my peeling away of onionskins. You people know me better than most. So my meager admissions are not so much, not so terrible, yes?