Where am I?

You might notice that things have changed around here. Curious? Nah, me neither.

Shit trickles downhill before it falls en masse. Shit trickled downhill yesterday, causing some people on board to wonder what I have been writing, and in what kind of light I portrayed them... I've been honest here, inasmuch as my innate need to entertain allows me. I'll admit that at home, hyperbole and wild exaggeration are the tools I use to make a good story flow. An Irish storyteller never lets the truth stand between him and a good yarn. Here, on da interwebz, I am honest, as this blog is a diary, as well as a way to reach out to the world, especially the part of the world that contains those people I can't be with.
So, when I was able to ask why it was that some folks were looking at me in that way a toddler looks when they're soiling a diaper, I was a little taken aback at the amount of concern that my blog has generated.
I wish to be clear, and then we'll talk about this no more: I learned how to write by writing scientific articles than needed to be fit for publication in highly respectable journals that focus on pure research, and not hack magazines like Scientific American, but places like Biological Bulletin and Journal of Comparitive Physiology. So, when I write to entertain, I still write like a scientist, which is to say, clearly and dryly. I don't infer and I don't suggest. I spell it out. So when I get word that someone is inferring things in my past posts that very definately fall WAY outside what I was sharing, I get pissed off. I didn't spend the last three years to create a gossip column. I write about my life, which has always followed a path that leads down to the sea, and some people like that, from what I can gather.

I mean, I could write about ships with living conditions that rival a low-end Pakastani Hospice, but what does that serve? I prefer to focus on the dramiatic moments that bookend long intervals of tedium, and shed light on what it is that we do, and how we do it; things that no one sitting in a swivel chair in an office would tolerate.

So, as you can see, you can't see my old posts right now. Don't be mad. I still have them. One day I'll put back the posts about lobstering, poop jokes and revenge tricks. But not today.

I'm going to take this opportunity to make some changes to this blog, as I don't believe in looking backward for too long. As I age, it isn't just my waistline that's expanding. My life is changing, too. Marriage, a child, responsibilities and the end of five years of sacrifice, all different from when I started this blog. When I began, I was running away from something, making an escape to the deep ocean from a sometimes disheartening life. Now I'm here, and good or bad, I have a place set aside for me, and I realize that along the way, I stopped running from something, and started running TOWARDS something.

I hope you'll stay with me. It really helps me feel like I'm not cut off from the world. In the meanwhile, I'm through looking backwards. See you soon!

P