Hello Again.

Four columns have come and four have gone. Some mail I have received has asked me who I am. Others ask the question indirectly in their confusion as to the mood and temperment I have from one column to the next. Well, I am currently, as you read this, am living across country from the only home I ever knew, in Chicago to live with my best friend and what I call my new family. I said there would not be a column this week, but I am bored at 3am again and I figured I can pound something out to get us acquainted. Before I fade away.

Who am I?

Not to long ago I asked an emotional question of the posters of Whatthefuck.com, I gave them my good and my bad, my pride and my shame, and I asked the impossible. I asked them to tell me what I was. Sometimes you can feel separated from the race, like your alone in an ocean of names and faces. Everyone looking every which way but the way you desperately want them to look. At you. Well, I got all sorts of answers, however the most striking was the one person who said that I was honest and further on my journey to humanity than they even hoped to be.Ê I took this statement seriously and thought long and hard. Do I really want to be one of these things that inspires such loathing in me? On the other hand do I want to classify myself with those who stir emotion in me that I thought was impossible? I think its a question that we all face. I think that if you ever find out who you really are, you die. I mean once you understand yourself, you have the key to everything else. Once you got that, nature says, "Shit... another one figured it out..."Ê And WAMMO! You get hit in the head with a flying hubcap from a 57 chevy, and after 54 hours of intensive care that wipes out your family... you die. Depressing... but true. (How's that for a tangent?) Bottom line I have no Idea who I am and I don't plan on figuring it out any time soon. I'm happy that way I guess, feel free to tell me what you think by the end of this, every little bit helps.

What I do know. I'm a person, same as everyone else. I have a few qualities that make me unique... but who doesn't? As some know, I am a bit of a hardass. I take shit from no one, well, that's what I like to tell people. I am quick to anger, and I don't tend to mince words.Ê I am a product of all of you. Truly I came here originally to be a 24-7 asshole, and it worked. I was a royal cock. Strangely people liked me for it. It is something that vexes me to this very day. But hey here I am. Grey. And yeah, I go by Grey in real life.

What is the most significant emotional point of your life? This question was set before me earlier today. I sat there and I thought about it. first I thought about what the person who asked wanted to hear, y'know to get the desired reaction. Well, that struck me as horribly shallow, and it seemed like a question that deserved to be answered honestly. Then something occurred to me. Rather, nothing did. I can not think of one thing that stands above the rest as a emotional turning point in my life. I felt weak and inexperienced. Then I re-evaluated and answered thusly: "I am 21 years old. I have seen a lot of hard times and a lot of really excellent times. I have even been lucky enough to love, but I am only 21. Less than a fourth of my life has passed. I'm still a baby, and though I have walked in shadows that would bring terror to other men, others have seen enough to silence me forever. So I guess the point is that this is it. I suppose the moment you asked me what it was, that was it. Realising that I am still new to this and that I have a long way to go."

Ok so here we go. I have written shitty columns lately and this will be no exception. I'm just going to tell you a few things, and then tell you good-bye. It's has been in the cards for a week or so now. I just have this muse that I must satiate and I cannot give you GREY WARDEN and still sort out the darkness from the stars. If you know what I mean, good for you, I'm not even sure what that means.

I found out how to lie a long time ago. I was about 5 or so, I assume this because This occurred in preschool. It is one of my most vivid memories. I was playing in the sandbox when I was accosted by two children that we as well as I, playing in the yard. They told me in preschool terms that the sandbox was property of another child. Well, I told them that I would play wherever I pleased and if their friend did not like it then he could tell me about it myself. It was not long before this child came to me to stake his sovereign right to the sandbox. It ended in a face-off toe to toe. He hit me 4 times in the stomach. I stood fact. and looked him in the eye. Then slapped him open handed across the face. He ran off crying. My first fight. The first time I enjoyed hurting something. I felt proud. I had taken his best, given him my worst, and bested him. I smiled as he ran off crying. Very shortly he came back with the teacher. I was horrified. I was in it for sure. She looked at me. and then at him. Then she did the oddest thing... To this day, I don;t understand what went through her mind. She simply said "No" and dragged him off by his arm. It was a big day for me, that's also the day I learned to lie. The look on my face was one of surprise and disbelief, I can only assume, and this was the impression I think she got. She then bought My innocent unwilling lie, and I learned from it. Since then I have destroyed with my penchant for lies. Only now do I understand what they really do. This was said to you to better illustrate who I am.

I'm sitting here, illuminated by the irredesant glow of a monitor in a dark room, tendrils of smoke dance about my head from the smoldering cigarette at my side. My eyes bleak. I am alone here... Alone and on a quest... This incessant tap-tapping of the keys to give me council as I make this voyage. I am teaching you as I learn myself. I mean, as I learn MYSELF. See, I'm still separating the darkness from the stars. I want to cry to you, to help you to hold your hand, and lead you past the stymies that I have stumbled on. I hate the human race for what it's doing, and the urge to help it is stronger than even that hate. Can you please understand that? I know it is irreverent and convoluted, but I think the message is simple. I love all of humanity just enough to hate it just enough to want to save it.

Such folly eh?

I was laughing the other day with the best friend I ever had about the NSA. How that if they knew the things I was thinking they would do a little more than watch me. *laugh* I suppose that that's another secret. To think of yourself as just a bit more important than you are. A part of maintaining our own sanity. No one want's to be insignificant. You want to know how to be significant. Call your mother. Find that friend you laugh with over a dinner and tell him or her just what it is that makes them special to you. I have one such friend. Laughingly I have known him probably far less time than you have known your special friend. He is my personal Jesus. I love this man. He makes me significant. Call a stranger and thank them for answering the phone. All these little things we do, they impact everything so subtly in a million ways. We ARE significant. I hope.

I've been thinking... Life is a big thing, and death is bigger. We walk through each day searching for the secret to surviving. We never really find it do we? Sure some do, and those are the lucky few. Love is a funny thing. I'm not talking about romantic love, I'm not talking about the love of a mother for a son, or the love of the ocean for the sky. Fuck that. I just I'm talking about all of them. Sometimes I look up and see everything all at once. everything to come, and everything that has passed. All the Creatures and all the things. It's just so good. Its like never dying all in the span of a few seconds. All I can call that is love. Love is a funny thing.



Goodbye.



Some of you loved me, some of you hated me, and many others just did not care. That's ok. I do not hold it against you. I'll still pop in with a column from time to time, when I get an especially large bug up my ass. As some of you know, this is more often than ANY of you would like to know about. By suggestion I add this note. If I get an overwhelming response to this column asking me to continue, I will.. Weekly as always. IF you all really want more of this. I will provide. I hate to keep my public wanting. :)

OK then, without the intervention of a great deal of you I leave the team of WTF columnists, for the time being.

I await your letters on this with much anticipation.

And I leave you with this, cheesy as it may be.


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You gotta know when to hold em,
know when to fold em,
know when to walk away,
know when to run.
You never count your money,
when you're sitting at the table.
There'll be time enough for counting,
when the dealings done.
Every gambler knows,
that the secret to surviving,
is knowing what to throw away,
and knowing what to keep.
Cause every hands a winner,
and every hands a loser.
The best that you can hope for, is to die in your sleep
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As always.

The Grey Warden.