a long time ago in a galaxy far away...

actually, it was fresno. right around 2006. i started a blog on my myspace page (i know, right?) and called it the island of misfit toys. i thought i was clever coming up with that name. i was not.

once i moved on to facebook ("it'll be fun!" they said. "everyone's doing it!" they said), i quit the blog. now that myspace is the abandoned amusement park of the social media world, i'm not sure it even still exists. 

originally, i started the blog because i thought i was the oddball. the weird kid. the one who never really fit in. in retrospect, it was probably a little contrived. more than a decade later, i still feel that way sometimes (both the oddball part and the contrived part). but now i know that there are plenty more people on the island. everyone has their own personal reserve of weird. some of it is good weird. some of it is bad weird. some of it is just "wtf, richard?!" but for better or worse, it's all ours.

and here's mine. i've learned that it helps to share. we're all misfits, but at least this way we figure out how we fit together a little better. and maybe this turns into the autobiography my mother always wanted me to write. (i do listen to you, ma) it's presumptuous enough to think i'd actually have anything to say that you find important enough to read/hear, but you'll indulge me further to occasionally tell you my story as well.

thank you. and welcome...