Okay, let's try this again! I spent the better part of an hour writing this out once already, only to lose it to a 404 Error. This time, it's being committed to Text Document first!

Anyway, don't you just hate writing these things? I know I do. But I feel like I ought to because so many others have written something about themselves. So... I'm a Mormon-raised Mississippi boy, but I'm all better now. I've lived in both the country and what passes for the city in this state. For the record, I am not a racist. I do not give a damn what color a person's skin is, we're all equally capable of being assholes.

::BIG sigh::

So let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. I'm not exactly everyone's cup of tea physically. If that bothers you, there are 1,174,405 other people on Fubar as of this writing. I'm sure at least one of them will float your boat. I have a painful, debilitating disease known as hidradenitis suppurativa. It causes painful swellings up to the size of a golfball to form anywhere there's a skin fold. These swellings usually develop into open wounds that almost never heal and can leave heavy scarring in the area affected. Needless to say, this is disgusting and agonizing. I am unable to work, I depend on my family for virtually everything, and most days I can barely walk. There is no cure, only treatments that sometimes help and sometimes don't. I've had low self esteem since kindergarten, but with the emergence of this condition in late 2001 I've been depressed pretty much all the time. Mind you, I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just laying out the facts of my life for you. I actually do have a number of virtues...

For instance, I will never lie to you. If you're on my friends list, regardless of whether we have ever spoken a word to one another before, you can always come to me and talk. We may not know each other, but that's no reason I can't be there for you. I also won't give you grief for your lifestyle, profession, or whatever. Too much hate in the world to spread more of it.

I believe online friendship and love is as real as any other kind of friendship and love. People were making friends and falling in love by letter centuries before the internet or even cameras were invented, so I'll be damned if some pundit on Fox News is going to tell me it's not real anymore!

I'm a history buff. I'm no expert by any means, but I love the subject. I like knowing where we've been and how we got to where we are. I love mythology as well. It's how we explained the world before science came along, and I find that endlessly fascinating.

I'm a sci-fi and fantasy geek. My first memory is of a mile-long Star Destroyer chasing down Princess Leia's little blockade runner when I was three. Two years later, Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out. Shortly after that I found Dr. Who on PBS. When I learned to read, my mother gave me The Lord of the Rings and my father gave me Dune. I adore crossover discussions, but I don't play favorites. While I know a Star Destroyer would turn any version of the Enterprise into a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma, I'm also pretty sure a Goa'uld Ha'tak would wipe the floor with the Star Destroyer and the Lexx could smash them all to rubble with a single shot.

I'm a huge music fan. I'll listen to anything that doesn't make me want to claw my own ears off. My favorite bands are Rush, Pink Floyd, and Iron Maiden. My CD case (yes, I still buy CDs. I almost never download music.) is also home to AC/DC, Enya, Front Line Assembly, Cat Stevens, Megadeth, Pearl Jam, Steely Dan, Alice in Chains, The Cars, Johnny Cash, Heart, They Might Be Giants, and quite a lot of other stuff. I have no rap, but I do like some rap. I don't like most modern country, but the older stuff is good.

I like to read. My favorite book is Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. My parents would read it to me for bedtime and I still read it on occasion. My favorite novels are Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late Douglas Adams. I also love the BOLOS series created by Keith Laumer and carried on by various other writers.

I'm a hardcore gamer-geek. Not computer games, mind you, though I do play Star Wars Galaxies (Draik Cromwell on the Starsider server), but real role-playing games. The kind that involve a group of friends, a bag of dice, and a long-suffering GM who's desperately trying to figure out how to get the party back on track for this week's adventure. My first experience with gaming was at my ninth birthday party. We went through the original Castle Ravenloft adventure for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. As I recall, I died five times that night, but they kept resurrecting me because I was the only one playing a fighter-type and I made a convenient wall to hide behind.

So... If you've made it way down here, you deserve a gold star. I don't have a gold star. So I will say thank you and feel free to shoutbox me and chat me up anytime. If you want to rate me, add me, or whatever, that's cool too. Thanks for reading!

Since you made it all the way down here anyway, go have a glance at a great friend of mine! Her name is Veronica Rose, and she's a really sweet goth girl with a wild side! Check her out, she deserves it!





http://www.sweetgoth.com/tour.php