I realized some time ago that I had amassed a great deal of written material from the last 30 years: essays, detailed letters and e-mails to friends and family , and other random jottings that I, at least, found reasonably amusing and perhaps worth sharing with the world at large. So, seeing as how pretty much everybody and their brother-in-law was taking to the Web to self-publish anything -- from what terribly cute thing their cat did the other day to novel-length manifestos (manifesti?) advocating apocalyptic revolution -- I figured, "what the hell, what's a few thousand words more charging around out there in the ether?" I've tried to keep a sense of humor in my life; it has certainly helped to keep things in perspective, and I've been aware that for a long while (probably the result of reading too many volumes of the Collected Letters of the Great and Near-Great over the years) I tend to write as if (I hope!) it will be read by a wider audience somewhere, someday. Some of it is funny, some of it wallows excessively in nostalgia and/or sentiment, and most of it is probably indicative of serious psychological disturbances that really ought to be looked into someday by a qualified professional.
And so, good people, despite all that -- or, perhaps, because of it -- I've decided to post this stuff to see if anyone else might see in it anything of value. Besides, I promised myself a while ago that I would write more and oftener, because I just enjoy the process so.
Like Hamlet says, "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come -- the readiness is all." I have no idea what the hell that means in this context (well I do, actually, as you will see if you keep reading), except that a good quote, especially from Shakespeare, is always a fine way to round off a bit of writing. And, as the playwright/director /actor George Abbott once wrote :"If it's good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for us!"
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