Yesterday we flew to Calgary, Alberta for a small conference that both Jon and I will be speaking at this afternoon. I’m supposed to talk about online identity, and while preparing for this speech I fired up the old Dell PC in the basement to take a look at the old archives from this website that I took down years ago and have not ever put back up. For very good reason, as they are the ramblings of a raving lunatic (as opposed to what my website is today, the ramblings of a sedated lunatic) and reading them makes my eyes bleed.

If you take a look at my archives right now you’ll see that they only go back to June 2001, but I started this website several months earlier in February 2001. When my family found my website I took down most of the things I had published up to that point because I realized that almost all of it was much too painful for my family to endure, and I valued my relationship with them more than I valued the freedom to publish my insanity in public. I think that is what’s called growing the hell up.

I did, however, find this somewhat prophetic post from July 2001 that I plan to read aloud today while talking about the evolution of my boundaries:

I had a birthday dinner with my mother last night, and she scared the shit out of me by suggesting that she may have found my website. In the off chance that she or someone in Utah sprouted the tiny bit of technical expertise that it takes to operate a search engine, let me say this: Mother, I love you. And the reason I’m bi-curious is because when I was 8 I asked you what a blow job was and you told me to go ask my 11-year-old brother, and I’ve never been the same after the terrible, graphic discussion that ensued. So it’s your fault.

Hi, Mom! Welcome to my website! Here you’ll find a wide assortment of reasons to be ashamed and horrified that the child you tirelessly breastfed and comforted and nurtured and loved unconditionally has discovered that FTPing her unedited, vulgar thoughts to a server on the Internet is just a little too thrilling! Too hard to resist! Stick around and watch her nervous breakdown unfold!