Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Enchanté, so they say

An introduction, if needs be.

About me: Fresh-off-the-boat graduate from a four-year undergraduate program in English. Nervous whipper-snapper approaching his quarter-century mark (I'm 22). Nail-bitingly anticipating the next seismic life-change (i.e., my PhD in lit begins in August). Boy on the terrifying precipice of adulthood in the most unstable of times. (Hopefully) nascent poet. Flamboyant faggot; or, single gay moving to the big city. Card-carrying feminist. Voracious reader of just about everything. Borderline alcoholic, lover-of-cigarettes, internet-addicted, cocktail-party-nightmare. In short, I should have been a starving artist in the 50s and 60s, when 'starving artist' was still a respectably trashy profession. [Insert innumerable other factoids that will likely bore.]

On why I've had the egotism to embark on a blog: I've been called a pretentious bitch enough times for the jibe to ring at least a bit true. I've also been itching to stretch my writing bones beyond the confines of the classroom and/or poetry; and this is where the arrogance comes in. My thinking is this: if I'm hoping to spend my life's work on, and bamboozle cash from, a ceaseless project in scholarship and professional intellectualism, I might actually say something of use to someone outside of the Ivory Tower. Besides, I don't get to share my ramblings on film or music or culture or life in papers on Woolf (from whom my blog title is drawn) or poems that I attempt to wrench from my more-often-than-not insignificant experience. In other words-why does anyone blog? In this day and age, if you think your thoughts might have some value outside of your head, then you start a blog. I'm (officially) hopping on the bandwagon a bit late. I've had livejournals, facebook, Twitter, fora, and so on and so on, but I'm ready to refine the art of my blogging. I want to use this as a space to take blogging seriously, rather than as a little cubby in the big world-wide-web where I can bleed on the digital page.

Again, in short: Words are my life. I'm ready to share.

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