I am working my tail off, trying to catch up on a ton of schoolwork, when I get this:

I can barely see straight! I mean, I know it’s a tiny little story, but it’s mine and it has been published! You can check it out, here, and I hope you enjoy it!

T

One of my loyal readers (no…it wasn’t my mom; It was the other loyal reader) pointed out to me that my tagline indicated a proclivity for hats, yet there was nary-a-hat to be seen on my site. Well, not wanting to disappoint half of my viewership, I thought I’d occasionally showcase an actual hat while I ramble about its metaphorical position on the rack.

The pic–to the left–is the hat rack that sits inside our home’s front door. On it, I see (through the artistic haze) a hat that I wear when I’m with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, a couple of concert hats (Jimmy Buffett and DMB are in there), at least three Put In Bay hats, my I Believe In Santa Claus hat (boy, is that one a post in itself), and the hat that’s been brought most into focus: the Under Armour runner’s hat. I thought the last one in the list was the best one with which to start, as it hits on a couple areas in my tagline.

A future blog post will go into depth with when and where I started running (spoiler, it wasn’t until I decided to quit smoking), but this post is about wanting to change my tagline. You see, Musings of a Chubby Barefoot Runner and Hat Aficionado sums me up, nicely; however, I’d really like to put a line right through Chubby. I don’t want to get rid of it, altogether. I want it to remind me, every time that I look at my blog, that being the gluttonous lazy slob that I was had consequences and I need to be a better role model for my boy. But, I also need to remind myself that the best role model I can be is to be happy, healthy, and successful and let him see me and aspire to be the same.

I figured out, a couple of years ago, something profound about the saying I wish I knew then what I know now. You know what it was? It’s the same thing we’ve heard all our lives: learn from your elders. That is the time-traveling wonder that we all have at our fingertips, yet most of us don’t see the power in listening and learning from the mistakes our parents made. I know that making your own mistakes is vital to becoming the adult that you will one day be (at least, I’m guessing that will happen when if I become an adult), but I also have to wonder if some of the more successful society members learned early on how important it is to see the future through the eyes of a parent’s past.

So, there is the hat of the day. I wear it when I slip into my Be Healthy and Live Longer mode; however, it also serves as a reminder that what I know now only happened because of everything I was then.

Покa!

T

Hey, there: Welcome to my blog!

Okay, here’s the thing. I spent the last eighteen years in the emergency medical services field, and my sense of humor is…how should I put this…a little disturbed. It’s okay, though. There’s quite a few of us with a twisted sense of reality. I just want you know that some things you may see and hear in my blog could go against conventional norms. That being said (yes, that was my PSA, warning you to proceed with caution: the coffee is probably hot), I hope that you find the variety and abnormalities intriguing, funny, a little off, and (above all) worthy of revisiting (and…there’s the shameless plug, begging you to drive up my self-confidence with your continued viewing of my blog).

I heard a bit of writing advice, recently, that encouraged we writers to write about what makes you uncomfortable. While that can be taken a couple of different ways, it really made me think about what I want to write. It also makes me think if it makes me uncomfortable, it will probably make others uncomfortable, and there’s a big, wide world of like-minded sickos that may like to read what I’m writing. But, as I was sitting at my desk today, I realized that uncomfortable can mean more than squeamish (you know, like thinking about a spider dropping from the ceiling and down the back of your shirt, getting lost and biting his way out…you’re welcome), it can also mean something that you’re afraid of. That’s where one of my upcoming shorts is going to focus: on something I’m afraid of. No spoilers, though, other than to say that I nearly cried while I was laying it out in my mind.

I’m not sure what else I can tell you to expect from my blog. I don’t really know what to expect, myself. Joshua Millburn stated, in his video about blog creation, he believes there are two kinds of expression: Expressive and Communicative. I truly hope to be able to express myself, in both of these manners, using this blog. I am full of useless information that I’ll occasionally use to bore you, and I’ll also use this platform as a shameless plug for any and all work that I’m trying to drum-up (I know…I can’t wait, either!).

So, thanks, again, for stopping by. I’m looking forward to sharing a little with you and I hope to get some replies, as well.

Tschüß!

T