By way of introduction

It's 2010, and I think everyone in the world has a blog, now. You aren't complete as a person until you're typing out all the intimate details of your life, to be forever captured for internet posterity . . . or to be used against you in a court of law. Everything we do is now fodder for everyone in the world to nod in agreement, laugh at, or revile. It's just the way of the world.

So, of course, I had to finally join in. I haven't blogged consistently since the halcyon days of LiveJournal, though I've tried a few times before - I just never felt like I had an angle or anything truly interesting to say.

Turns out that my life has gone in a new direction, and whether anyone reads this or not, I need the space and time to vent and give some voice to my raging and conflicting thoughts and desires, and to possibly find some levity in both my personal situations and the world at large. This blog, therefore, isn't really about anything per se, but more like a heat sink for my overworked and underappreciated brain.

The name of this blog is kind of an inside joke to myself, and the name of a song I've recently started working on. I've always been a total martyr-type, always on the lookout for a hopeless cause to fall on my sword for. I have also often found myself drawn to people that I felt "needed saving", which has been a constant roadblock in my own growth and development. This habit has died hard, truthfully. I'm still working my way through it.

Saint Sebastian, for those of you who aren't Catholic or a recovering Catholic like myself, was a martyr who was strung up on a tree and shot with arrows by the Romans for preaching his beliefs. Improbably, he survived this unfortunate encounter. After being nursed back to health by a woman, he undid all her work by heckling the Emperor at a parade, and was clubbed to death and his body thrown in a privy. This man and I, in a lot of ways, are loudmouthed, kindred spirits.

As I enter my thirties, it seems more and more obvious that I have to stop stringing myself up to trees for all those Roman arrows, and maybe I need to start looking out for my own best interests. I'm on the verge of being single again, which is dominating my frame of mind at the moment and may just be the catalyst for this new outlook of mine.

I've been married for the past two years, to a very nice girl from Texas. Sadly, we are completely and utterly different in almost every measurable way -  from how to best raise our two young daughters, to our religious (or non-religious as it were) beliefs, to simple matters like musical tastes or how best to spend a lazy weekend. Our courtship was fun, because we were so out of each other's wheelhouse, but when our first daughter was conceived it turned into "let's stay together for the kids" very, very quickly. The rest is turbulent, tumultuous history.

It's still unclear whether she's going to pack the kids off to Texas or not, or when our divorce will be finalized (that shit is EXPENSIVE), or even what I'm going to do with myself. My occupation has been parent and homemaker for a year now, and I have to start all over, in a way. I should be frightened, but I'm mostly just excited to see where my life takes me.

As for the blog, I may get heavy like this sometimes. . . I have a lot of stuff to work through, and writing has always helped me. Since diaries and LiveJournal are SO 1993, a blog is clearly the best answer.

Just as often, I may be extolling the virtues of Ketel One vodka to virtually every other beverage ever created, linking to monkeys playing guitar, or discussing politics or Proust. No, just kidding . . . . I have no idea who Proust is. I used to date a poet, and the name just stuck.

So, stick around. Tell your friends. Tell them to leave the slings and arrows at home, though. . . this is a celebration, bitches.