How to post comments: First you need to choose a 'profile'. You do that with the "comment as:" pull-down menu. If you have one of the official log-in accounts, feel free to use that. If you want to post completely anonymously, just pick "anonymous". To post using your preferred real/user name, but without any log-ins, then choose "name/URL". Then you simply enter the screen name you want to post as, and you're on your way. It sounds more complicated than it is. Most people will use the "name/URL" option.
About the content:
I intend this blog to mainly be a way for people to know me better. I've never kept a journal, and I think this will be a good way for me to preserve something for myself and my progeny. Plus, let's face it, I am truly horrible at keeping in touch with people. I don't know that this aspect of my personality will change any time soon, so this blog serves as a completely insufficient act of contrition. I also intend to include frank and personal portrayals of my own failings past and present and explain how and why they happen(ed). I desperately want my kids to avoid some of my own mistakes.
About the pseudonym:
I want my blog to be open to (almost) everyone who might enjoy it. However, I need my identity to remain private. First, I have a whole lot of job interviews ahead of me in life that could be hopelessly biased by interviewers knowing my views on religion, politics, squirrel poo, etc. Thus, my real name/picture will never be used here, and I've set this blog so that it is not accessible to search engines. No, this is not foolproof. But prospective employers will never enter my real name in a search engine and have this blog pop up.
Second, I am also a practicing psychotherapist. My clients need to see me as a blank slate. Whether they know it or not, reading all the personal details of my life would irreparably damage their capacity to see my counseling as objective and in their best interest. Thus, it is very important to me that my clients never be able to google my name and read this blog. And believe me, clients google their therapists. All of this could similarly apply to my job teaching advanced undergraduate courses in psychology. But honestly, I'm much less invested in most of my students.
About the quirky self-portraits:
The anonymity bit extends to pictures. I like the 'South Park' portrait because it is remarkably true to life, in a bloated, cartoony sort of way. The weird smiley face character is a tribute to Drugan, the mascot that me and my two best friends adopted in high school as our personal symbol. All three of us have his trippy 'one-eye-bigger' visage tattooed somewhere on our body. But the underlying photo is an actual picture of me underneath Capitol Peak in Colorado. It's a wicked peak to climb!
About the uncomfortably personal material:
I'm a psychotherapist - making people uncomfortable is what I do. If I offend, don't read. But I'll try to make any content uncomfortably personal in terms of what it says about me. I won't be airing out anyone else's dirty laundry. Again, I'm a psychotherapist.
Also, my wife has dibs on blogging about the day-to-day events in my family. If I don't dig into the personal, I will be severely lacking in material.
