Man in the Mirror

This past week has been rather tumultuous for a variety of disconnected reasons. I've often found myself just feeling off-balance, and not always knowing exactly why. It's just been...one of those weeks.

The week, of course, culminated with the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. In all honesty, I had zero connection to Farrah Fawcett and was not at all affected by her passing, as sad as it was. The King of Pop, however, is a different story. His passing, I feel, marks the Elvis moment for my generation. And while I certainly won't compare the death of Michael Jackson to that of President Kennedy, I am fairly certain that it was one of those moments I will always remember...I'll be able to tell my kids exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news broke.

My purpose in writing this post is twofold - first, as a sort of ode to Michael Jackson; second, as a study and criticism of all of us who are producing odes to Michael Jackson. Contradictory and self-effacing...yeah. But why should I assume that my reaction is all that different from anyone else's?

As for the former purpose...My first glimpse into MJ's death occurred via Facebook (suffice it to say that I could write an entire blog post analyzing that fact alone). It took a few minutes for the more reputable news agencies (CNN, etc.) to catch onto the news. While TMZ entertainment was reporting Jackson's death, Wolf Blitzer was still busy filling time by insulting Americans' knowledge with a description of comas and cardiac arrest. Within a few minutes, however, everyone was on the same page - at the age of 50, he was gone. Just like that. I found myself far more moved than I would have imagined had anyone asked me what my reaction to such a thing would be. That night, while driving through the first legitimate summer night in Boston, I rolled down the windows and turned up the Michael Jackson tribute playing on the radio, rediscovering and appreciating his songs like never before. It was a simple case of "you don't know what you have until it's gone" syndrome. As I've had time to think about my reaction, I realized that it actually makes much more sense than I originally thought. Two of my very first memories in life involve James Taylor and Michael Jackson. As a young, impressionable child growing up in the '80s, I declared myself a Michael Jackson fan, sight unseen, music unheard. I remember watching the Super Bowl halftime show one year, when I asked my mom who that crazy lady was performing onstage. "That's your hero, Michael Jackson..." she replied. Oh.

As my music tastes matured and I actually had a clue what I was listening to, I can't ever say that I was ever a legitimate MJ fan. I had a special appreciation for the song he wrote for the Free Willy ending, and of course, any self-respecting human being appreciates Thriller, but that was about the extent of it. As I've listened to and downloaded songs over the past few days, I've begun to develop far more of an appreciation for the man's art. Like Elvis and JFK before him, personal missteps or not, he was an icon and a household name. My kids, should they ever exist, will never understand.

Now to the latter purpose. All of these tributes, personal and commercial, leave a weird taste in my mouth. On the one hand, they're well-deserved, and certainly understandable considering the sudden circumstances behind Jackson's death. But I also feel as if this is a particularly sad case of "too little, too late." Why is it that we can only truly praise people once they're gone? Why is it that we can only forgive a man the error of his humanity once he is no longer here to defend himself? Jackson was far from a saint, engaged in many a reprehensible activity, and was likely a prime contributor to his own early demise - but why is it only now that we give him credit for the good in his life? I've proven myself no better at this than anyone else, which is why this question is all the more interesting to me. Why are we so adept at honoring people in death?

Secondly, the shock surrounding Jackson's sudden passing is telling. The man died at 50 from cardiac arrest. I've watched an otherwise healthy 53-year-old die from the same. I've watched a basketball-playing 21-year-old die from the same. People die before they're supposed to all the time. We don't all live to be 78.11 years old, and yet most of us conduct our lives as if we will undoubtedly live to 78.11. Worse, we expect everyone around us to live to 78.11 and treat them accordingly. It's okay to fight today...they'll be around to make up with tomorrow. As jaded as I probably am at this point, the fact is that sometimes that's just not the case. And singing someone's praises in death just isn't the same as doing so when they can actually hear the song.

"Who I Am, Who I'm Not, and Who I Wanna Be..."

This promises to be an excessively personal post - one which violates my rules for submission into the blogosphere. Fair warning to all. But that, as any who read further will find, is exactly the point today.

Where an actor's job is to be something other than what he really is, a musician's job is to be painfully, brutally honest about his life. Such was my friend's observation to me as we sat on this blustery, rainy June day waiting for The Fray to begin their set. It was one of those insights that continues to softly play with my mind hours and days after its origin. For one thing, it is a thoughtful and unique way of looking at these arts. As polar opposites, perhaps? It explains the horrendous musicians-cum-actors and vice-versa who are poisoning entertainment these days. Further, it pokes at the psyches of the people who might become involved in said professions in the first place. The escapists and the brutally honest ones. I've always been a better actor. I've always wished to be a musician.

As I stood watching The Fray, and specifically frontman Isaac, I often found myself taken aback in awe. At the end of several songs, it literally looked like Isaac's breath had been taken out of him, that he didn't want to end a song, as if he was actually, physically connected with the music. I'd stop belting out the song at that point, drown out the crowd noise around me, and just watch Isaac. The end of "How to Save a Life", in particular, gave me goose bumps, my eyes glued to Isaac and his piano as if the 10,000 people around me simply did not exist. Isaac wasn't putting on a show - he was feeling this stuff for the umpteenth time - the pain of the story that brought him to write that song - the same song that strikes at specific events in my life every time I hear it. Yes, this was honesty, on a grand scale, a baring of part of this man's soul. It's why, I now understand, songwriters sometimes guard their music so closely. It's why we beg them so desperately to share their music. It's honesty to which we can relate, but which we do not have to bare ourselves. It's the honesty we can admit to ourselves, if not to the outside world. It's publicly sanctioned and approved. It's why I, the actress, delight in listening to music, but do not write it (at least not for public consumption).

When I was in Kindergarten, I was taught that honesty meant telling the truth if you'd done something wrong - not lying. When I was in grade school, it meant taking your test by yourself -not cheating. When I was in high school and college, it meant citing your sources - not stealing (credit to The Fray for my blog title, by the way...). Not having really engaged in any of those activities, I considered myself an honest person. As an adult, I'm learning there are a few more elements to this concept we treat as so elementary. Honesty is all those things - not lying, not cheating, not stealing - but it's more than an opposing force. It's a positive entity in and of itself that, in my head, loosely translates to "dealing with stuff," or, to use a negative once more "not pretending"..."not acting." It's what Isaac is doing when he's crooning for The Fray. To use an example from real life, it's what we don't do when we turn our heads away from Darfur or Dubai, pretending that genocide and exploitation do not exist. It's what we didn't do when we were busy kidding ourselves that the Holocaust wasn't real. It's what I'm not doing when I tell myself "Everything's ok" when it's not.

Real honesty is a very scary thing - this facing demons, not running away from fear business. Real honesty shared is even scarier (hence my admiration for musicians). I've recognized a pattern in my relationships over the past several years that involves an awful lot of sparring, name-calling, and general I-don't-really-mean-it nastiness. Of course, in my mind, these are crucial elements in any healthy relationship (if you can't joke with your friends...who can you joke with?), but I sometimes feel as if I take them to the extreme. I seem to have this idea that throwing an "I love you" in there every now and then will convince people that I actually do love them in spite of all my posturing. Recently, I've been called on this behavior a few times - this seeming fear of ever letting anyone know how important they really are, that I really don't know if I could live without them. Or, less intensely, this apparent fear of just simply being nice - as if I don't think that's enough to bring or keep people in my life. It concerns me that maybe no one really knows me - and through no fault of anyone's but my own - because I'm just so damn afraid of being found out. What scares me even more is that maybe, as a result, I don't really know anyone else, either - again, because I haven't left myself vulnerable enough for anyone else to take a chance on me.

When, I wonder, did I construe some lesson into thinking I had to act so tough all the time? Did my rather unorthodox childhood screw with my psyche THIS much - and is it fixable before it's too late? I remember, very vividly, being in first grade and given a picture of a flower to color. I refused the flower, angrily announcing to my teacher that, "Flowers are for WIMPS!" I wish someone would have seen me then for the scared kid I obviously was.

On Coasting and Coasters

Fear. That four-letter word we're all born with, human and animal alike. God's intended life preserver. Whether human and conscious of the feeling or canine and instinctually threatening the lawn mower which clearly means us harm, fear is meant to help us survive. The funny thing is that, sometimes in doing so, it prevents us from living.

Mom died 2 years and 2 days ago. That means that I have been surviving for 733 days, living every now and then, perhaps, but mostly just suriviving. The heaviest, deepest, most paralyzing fear struck me on the day that she suddenly died. A fate worse than my worst fear landed square in my lap. I had never, for a single second, considered a life without Mom...at least not for another 20 years or so. In the days since, I have attempted to describe my mother in many different ways to many different people, always somehow falling short of explaining what she really meant to me and why her death so utterly transformed me...so terribly messed me up. My early descriptions were of her as a "net"...she'd catch me if I fell. I'd lost my safety net. Later, I'd describe her as my "brick wall". She was more than a rock. She was an infinitely extendable, impenetrable force. Today, I realize that "trampoline" might be the most apt analogy yet. She provided a surface from which I could safely leap. She caught me, even cradled me when I came back down. And then she coaxed me back up again, this time higher than the first. She provided the launch pad, but also the landing pad, and she never let me settle in any one landing for too long.

So what I lost that day, amongst a million other tangibles and intangibles, was my trampoline. It was yanked from my yard in broad daylight, replaced by a dark and often seemingly bottomless hole. I have lived rather uncomfortably in my comfort zone since then, ashamed and often bored, but nevertheless safe from harm. It's as if I fenced off the back yard and installed dark curtains in the windows so as to shield myself from the hole. Excepting what some might consider a precipitous leap in moving to Boston, I have done little to face up to the struggles in life since Mom died. For the most part, I've avoided consciously creating additional fear for myself, afraid that I would become overwhelmed and somehow implode. While I could never fairly be called an adrenaline junkie, I had begun to pride myself on living life just a little closer to the edge (quite literally, in some cases involving bus rides in India...) Losing that courage meant losing that pride, and in turn, all of the confidence that went with it. There lies the birth of a vicious cycle.

Now to the coasters part. I've been mortally afraid of roller coasters for as long as I can remember. The fear has basically been driven into my being. "My name is Megan, I'm 5'7", my eyes are hazel, I don't ride roller coasters." My parents despised theme parks when we were kids and only took us after my sister and I had nagged them into submission. I rode one coaster as a kid...the probably now-defunct Scooby Doo roller coaster at Carowinds. After much trepidation on my parents' part, Dad rode with me. I remember getting off, being more grateful than ever before for terra firma, and thinking I'd never, ever, ever go on one of those death traps again. I didn't get back on a coaster until December of 2007, at 22. My giggling sister rode Goofy's Barnstormer with me at The Magic Kingdom. I almost screamed myself out of my seat. It didn't help that we won the honor of riding in the front of the coaster. Space Mountain was most definitely out of the question. In the interim, I avoided theme parks as much as possible, capitulated when I was dragged along, spent many hours sitting by myself as my friends giddily waited in endless lines for another thriller, and presented a horrendous first impression of myself to the people I was starting college with on the first day I met them (Carowinds, of course, being their bonding location of choice). Coasters became more than a quick route to the grave...they began to symbolize a personal failure. They were a party I was invited to watch from the window.

When I received the invitation to head to Six Flags New England with some of Jose's dental school class, my natural inclination was to politely decline. Why once again subject myself to purse-holding? Why watch the party, when I could simply avoid it altogether? Something else, however, took over and made me go. Whether it was the thought of actually missing out, the sheer boredom of another day spent in front of the TV, or some supernatural force I've yet to identify, I decided to go. I'd give this whole deal one more shot. I was absolutely determined to ride another coaster, and this time, it was going to be outside of Kiddie Land.

After collecting some thoughts about how to conquer one's fear of roller coasters over the internet and popping a Dramamine to stave off any undesirable physical reactions, I joined the line with everyone for the first coaster, a moderately-sized wooden contraption that looked as if it was about to collapse, "The Thunderbolt". I knew that psyching myself out in the line was the worst thing I could do, and I was actually remarkably calm, despite verbal diarrhea indicating otherwise, until we got up to the car. Then the survival instincts kicked in. The Fear. The big drop was not quite as bad as I had remembered, but I can't say that I thoroughly enjoyed that ride. In fact, I almost cried afterward, more from the realization that maybe I really couldn't do this after all than from any actual pain. I'd spend another day toting around other people's stuff, wasting money, and worst of all, feeling like I'd failed yet again. Then came the coaster that broke down, the "Mind Eraser", the one Marlayna recommended I not ride because it actually hurt. That one broke down just before my friends were set to board, and watching them play guinea pigs and ride it first after it was fixed was legitimately one of the scariest experiences of my life. It really didn't look like another coaster was in my sights.

Until "Flashback", a short, boomerang style looping coaster, whispered to me. Sure, I'd go upside down in loops. Sure, the drop looked nasty. Sure, I'd ride half the thing backwards. But fuck it. Let's go. I'm sick of this. Jose by my side, listening to me whimper about kittens and daisies and how I wanted him to adopt my cats after my imminent demise, we backed up the initial incline. Oh shit. This was a horrendous idea. Worst yet. And there was really no way out, short possibly of screaming like a banshee and faking a heart attack. Oh crap, here we go, down the drop...it's still sending my stomach into my throat, but...I've felt that already today, so it's not so unfamiliar and scary. And wait, we're looping and...all of a sudden, my screams of terror turn to screams of joy. I catch myself shouting "Woooohoooooo!!!!" and, embarrasingly, "Yeeeeehawwww!!!" We get back to the top, prepared to fall backwards along the same track. Oh God, can I survive that? Jose asks how I'm doing...to be honest, I was loving life, but not sure how long that would last. "Wait, and I'll tell you afterwards...." Then we drop, backwards, loop, corkscrew, done. HOLY SHIT! I'VE CONQUERED YOU, BITCH!!!! I'd done it. And I was smiling. Even though it really felt like my kidney had fallen out of my back. I must have been as stiff as a...well...you know. It took awhile to build up courage again, as Flashback was such a short ride that I was convinced I couldn't survive a longer one. I couldn't manage "Bizarro", the signature thrill ride that spans the whole length of the park and boasts an enormous sheer drop. But I was joking in the wheelhouse for "The Dark Knight". "THIS IS FOR HEATH LEDGER!!!!" I yelled, as we left safety. Up, up, up, a gorgeous view of the Connecticut River, but I can't enjoy that right now because I'm about to die. Daisies, kitty cats. Oh shit, here we go....wait...wait...this is fun...I'm actually enjoying this...I'm yelling in...ecstasy again, instead of sheer terror. No, no, the ride can't be over yet! I want to do it again...

And so I conquered a few coasters. I'm still terrified of those big drops and any coaster without a shoulder harness, but...I rode 1.5 times more coasters today than ever before in my entire life. I went upside down. I went backwards. I went upside down while going backwards. And damn, if it didn't feel good. Like the running that I've dared to face again recently, I met fear in the face. I have zero idea what it was today exactly that prompted me to throw up the shades and, if not leap into the hole in my yard, at least peer over its edge, but I have an idea that it had to do with the liberation that comes from the healing power of time, the exhaustion from so many years on the sideline, the strength (and peer pressure, and testosterone-induced sense of pride) that comes from having your best friend look you in the eye at the top of a coaster and tell you it's all going to be alright, and the comfort that comes from knowing you're a few hundred feet closer to heaven, if only to visit for a split second. As out of proportion as it sounds, the symbolism marking today was utterly significant, and I'll look back to it for inspiration time and again. Mom would never have believed I rode such coasters unless she saw it with her own two eyes, and today, I'm positive that she did.

Northern Exposure

"Watch out for moose on roadway." It's a sign like this that reminds me every time I take a road trip of why I like taking them quite so much. It's a predictable surprise, really. On a long enough road trip, there will always be something ridiculous that crosses your path, whether it be an actual moose or a sign simply warning of the creature's imminence.

New England was always an ephemeral concept for me. Being born in and having grown up every year of my life in North Carolina, I actually conceived of New England as basically every state north of Washington, D.C. And maybe Canada, too. Those damn Yankees harbored really irritating, often incomprehensible, infinitely mockable accents. They boasted personalities as cold as a New England winter. And despite their condescension towards the South, they descended in flocks to the NC beaches every summer (WHY couldn't they just use their own???) After living in Boston for 5+ months, I can confirm that some of those preconceptions were right on the money; others not so much. At the very least, I can now name the 5 states that actually comprise New England (and Nova Scotia isn't, surprisingly, one of them...)

All winter long, I desperately wanted to take off for the wilds of New England. As is typical for my adventurous side, I was intrigued by the Interstate signs pointing to New Hampshire...Maine...Rhode Island. If a place is listed on a sign, it must be close, right? I also knew that venturing up to frigid Maine in the middle of winter probably wasn't the most sound idea in the world, and so I held out until spring.

I finally got to add Maine and New Hampshire to my list of conquered US states this week, as I embarked on a whirlwind coastal photography journey with a friend. In two hours, we'd passed through three states and hit Portland, Maine...a feat impossible in the sprawling states of the South. We'd passed the aforementioned moose caution sign in Maine and imagined just what it would be like to hit a moose and have to tell our friends about it. We arrived to a dreary, rainy Portland morning, made sketchy as well by the old fishermen who delighted in gawking at us. I was about to give up on Portland as a worthwhile point on the map when we found the Old Port area, full of pre-Revolutionary style houses, cobblestone streets, adorable boutiques and restaurants, and....lobster crates. Cliche as it sounds, I came to Maine for the lobsters. Hanging out around the fishmarket, watching the neighborhood cat fed scraps, the unmistakable aroma of seafood-to-be wafting through the air. THIS was the Maine of my mind's eye (it didn't matter at all to me that this "Maine" only encompassed a couple of Portland's blocks...it was there). As ubiquitous in Portland as the sketchy washed-up fishermen were the meter maids. I concluded that Portland must live on lobster and parking tickets alone. I was especially amused (for lack of a better word) to find a parking ticket on my car. Granted, I'd run out the meter. But only by a few minutes. And I really didn't mean toooo.... Portland was officially dead to me. That is, until I gave the ticket a read and immediately noticed the most conspicuous words were "WAIT! YOU MAY NOT HAVE TO PAY THIS TICKET!" Indeed, one's first parking violation every 6 months is forgiven in Portland. I retracted my previous disdain for the city and determined that it must instead live on lobster alone. Or maybe that's WHY there were so many meter maids rummaging around...

In any case, we explored the George Washinton-commissioned Portland Head Light and marvelled at the beauty of the Maine coastline, even on a sunless day. We hit the two lights at Cape Elizabeth and I enjoyed an absolutely fresh lobster roll. There is no seafood so fresh as that which can be observed to be caught immediately adjacent to your eating establishment (translation: the lobster traps bobbed in the ocean just outside the front door of the Lobster Shack). Kennebunkport came next for a view of the abodes of the Coastal Maine gentry (including, we think, the Bush compound). We finished up Maine at Cape Neddick, York Beach, probably my favorite of all of our day's stops. The lighthouse sat on a quaint rocky outcrop, enormous homes hung onto the cliffs above the sea, kids scoured tidepools for salty treasures, fishermen pulled in the catch of the day (literally, a huge fish while we were there), and gulls posed for photographs (seemingly, at least) on jutting rocks. We then crossed back over into New Hampshire and drove through Portsmouth to the one-mile-square New Castle Island. There, we found the fort where the colonial army stockpiled their provisions for the Battle of Bunker Hill and, after a little searching, triumphantly spotted Portsmouth Head Light from an empty, quaint, rocky beach. Our last stop took another hour and a half to reach. My GPS decided to pull out its sense of humor and lead us down a very windy, verrrry backwoods road to Wingaersheek Beach outside Gloucester, MA. I didn't appreciate such humor until we came upon some breathtaking marsh views and passed by some awe-inspiring houses. Arriving at the beach itself was a tad anticlimactic, as the target lighthouse sat quite a ways away from us. But the point was...we made it...moose warnings, sketchy seamen, parking tickets, funky GPSes and all.

In my short time in New England up to this point, I have constantly revisited my opinions about the place. It's kind of like studying abroad, the love-hate relationship that I have with Boston and the region. Road-tripping helps to cement my belonging here, if only a little. I feel less like a tourist and can carry a little conversation now about the best spots on Nantucket or the farmer's market in Portland. The weather still sucks. It's mid-June and we were in sweatshirts and jackets for the duration of our trip (rainy and 55 degrees!) People are hit or miss, in large part dependent upon the weather! Native New Englanders are a tough breed. Many of these folks are descendents of those who weathered the original voyages to this country - their grit is in their genes. But they're not all bad, and they just require a little cracking sometimes. As I was paying for my dinner on the long road home to Boston, the clerk asked me where I was from. I get sick of that question here sometimes. It's like I'm back in India and can never, ever blend in. My accent always gets the better of me. At the same time, I'd never want to lose that North Carolina tinge in my tongue. In any case, I answered him, expecting to hear the tired refrain about the South. Instead, the clerk replied, "Oh, well, I'm from Texas, and I knew you didn't have that accent these people do up here." For an insignificant moment, an ally in this frozen New England tundra. I wanted to hug the man from Texas. Funny thing is, though, he's as different from me as any New Englander...

I know why the Northeast migrates to North Carolina in the summer. New England's beaches are scenic, but 55 in June?!

HOME...Watch this movie...

http://www.home-2009.com/us/index.html

On Running, Mountains, and Mom

Running.  The word has always struck fear in my heart.  Suicides at basketball practice.  Squares at soccer practice.  Even cart paths during golf practice.  I've never, ever been good at it.  I could run all season long with my teammates and never attain the same stamina that they could.  Looking back, it probably had something to do with my as-yet-undiagnosed asthma.  And a little psychosomatism, too.  I willed myself to suck.  And I thought those kids who ran cross-country were plain out of their minds.

And then my mom died.  I enjoyed running for the first time in my life that summer and fall, so much so that I ran on the treadmill when the weather was bad (and if there's anything worse than running, it's running in place...)  Perhaps "enjoyed" is the wrong verb here.  I immersed myself in running.  Like never before, I was able to fight through the stomach cramps and the burning muscles.  The physical act was certainly symbolic of my mindset at the time.  Run away from this nightmare as fast as you can.  Don't let anything get in your way.  Things became even easier when I found something to run towards as well - the 5K run/walk being planned in memory of my mom.  And so I, who had peaked at the age of 9 with an 8-minute mile, willed myself to run 3.1 miles.  In 4 months, I'd managed to do it, even going so far as to conquer the mountainous Washington Duke Trail.  The day after my mom's 5K, I stopped.

I ran again yesterday for the first time, nearly 2 years after my mom's passing.  Jose and I are training for Japan, or more specifically, the climbing-Mt.-Fuji part of our journey to Japan.  Attempting such a feat would probably just be stupid after having considered bowling as the extent of our physical activity all winter.  And I want to get to the top of that mountain.  1) It's a volcano, and climbing a volcano is definitely on my bucket list. 2) It's the tallest mountain in Japan. 3) The sunrise over the Land of the Rising Sun is our reward upon hitting the peak.  I realized yesterday, however, how hard it is for me to run again.  I almost broke down in tears halfway through the run when it hit me that this was the first time I'd run for something other than my mom.  The something other than my mom is the problem.  As badly as I want to conquer Fuji, the mountain can't even compare to my mother.  Maybe it's my brain chemistry.  Or maybe I've just lost all semblance of motivation in the 2 years since she's been gone.  But whatever it is, these runs around Boston Common have become one of the more difficult endeavors of my life (and not just because my thighs are so heavy today that I can barely sit down).  That's good, though.  I need to learn how to fight again.  And thankfully, I've got Jose by my side (or, more accurately, several steps ahead of me) in his ridiculous red running shoes, singing his own version of "Party Like a Rock Star" ("Body Like a Rock Star...") and intermittently yelling "BEER!" back to me as motivation.  At least it's a scene my mother would undoubtedly appreciate...  

The Fish Tank

Blogging.  Since its gain in popularity, I've had an uneasy feeling about the Internet journaling phenomenon.  Journals, after all, are meant to be private pieces of writing instead of fodder for public consumption, aren't they?  Apparently not anymore.  As our privacy goes the way of the dinosaur with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, so goes the antiquated notion of a diary hidden from the view of a sibling's prying eyes.  Instead, today, we email the aforementioned sibling the URL for our blog.  We invite them to read that diary.  

Granted, any of us who choose to update our status on Facebook, report our every movement with Twitter, or reveal our deepest (?) thoughts to the world wide web with a blog do so willingly.  To a certain extent.  The pressure placed on our subconsciences to involve ourselves on social networking sites is immense.  These days, we really don't want to miss a thing, or we might quickly find ourselves out of the proverbial loop.  I just wonder what all this public sharing is doing to the human psyche...to our ability to have a private thought.  I certainly will not write this blog as I would a journal meant for my eyes only.  What effect will such personal censorship have on the human race?  More than ever before, we live in a glass fish tank, our every move (and now thought) subject to the "comments", "thumbs ups" and general opinions of others.

All of that said, here I am.  I haven't written in awhile, and it feels strange.  I'm sure a psychotherapist would tell me I need to be writing.  So here goes.