Why write another blog? I already have three myself, but each of those has been for a different purpose than this–which will be more personal. Previously, I created a site to organize all the materials from my late wife’s life, perhaps as a way of working through grief. The other two attempts were expressions of a long-time online persona and were almost exclusively political.

As much as I’m interested in politics, it’s likely this site will have political posts as well, but my intent is that it be whatever I’m thinking and doing at the time. It will be a public diary, or chronicle, with as much honesty to it as that form can provide, I suppose. Hopefully I can refrain from my penchant for over-editing.

The other evening my son, Nicholas, was watching a standup comedian, which is one of his two main television genres of choice. (The other is geeky fare like Dr. Who, Sherlock Holmes–typical of a boy his age and tastes.) I didn’t catch the comedian’s name, but his bare conversation with the live audience was almost unsettling. Much of it was more depressing than humorous, and it seemed almost as though the audience was the man’s therapist. He held nothing back, so that the performance seemed either the bravest or the act of a mad man–perhaps both.

That sometimes ugly rawness is not my aesthetic, but I wish I could be more like him in my expression because the authenticity is inherently powerful.