Who Am I?

My chiropractor (an avid reader of The Six-Fingered Monkey - I know, WTF? Right?) recently asked me why I blog, or, more specifically, if blogging, for me, was some sort of personal therapy.

Exactly.

When I fill out profiles online or little boxes that ask me to state my occupation, I typically use the word, “writer.” More specifically, I prefer the terms, “freelance writer” and “humorist.”

Writing is in my blood. I can’t explain it. I’m not saying that I’m a good writer. I just write. It is what I need to do in order to stay sane.

Whether writing a press release for a client or a silly blog post here on this website, I never really know how many people have read my words. I don’t know if anyone enjoys what I write or if they hate it.

None of that matters though, because I am fulfilling a personal need.

I’m selfish like that.

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know that I spend a lot of time bitching. I bitch about about everything, and then I try to find humor in the insanity that is my life, while doing a whole lot of soul-searching along the way.

In the end, it works. It makes ME feel better. Then, I disappear for a little while and I come back when I have a new gripe, an epiphany, or some sort of funny story to share.

In typical Six-Fingered Monkey fashion I have a whole lot of things to bitch about right now, not the least of which is my fucking bullshit day job, more never-ending arguments with the mother of my children over holiday schedules, and an asshole of a cold that won’t seem to go away, no matter what I do!

You know what I’m not gonna be bitching about though?

Burying my children this week.

That’s raw, huh?

There are twenty families, just a stone’s throw away from where I live, who will be burying kids roughly the same age as my boys... Helpless children who died tragically and senselessly at the hands of one really fucked-up asshole who managed to get his hands on a bunch of guns that, frankly, shouldn’t even exist.

Yeah, fuck you and unfriend me on Facebook if you can’t handle my opinion.

I’m sad, I’m angry, and I feel guilty.    

Guilty?

Yes. I feel guilty.

As a parent, who spends an inordinate amount of time out here talking and thinking about himself, I feel guilty and, although I struggled with whether or not to even mention the Newtown tragedy here, I realized that I couldn’t move forward without at least acknowledging those lives lost on Friday.

Though I have my opinions, I’m not going to get into the gun control debate, I’m not going to discuss the importance of recognizing and dealing with mental health issues among our young people... I’m not gonna write one word about what happened.

Instead, I’m just going to step back and ask all of you to join me in putting our own problems aside for a moment and simply read the following 26 names and then say a quiet prayer for each and every one of their families.

Charlotte Bacon, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Rachel Davino, 29

Olivia Engel, 6

Josephine Gay, 7

Ana Marquez-Greene, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Dawn Hochsprung, 47

Madeleine Hsu, 6

Catherine Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

Jesse Lewis, 6

James Mattioli, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Anne Marie Murphy, 52

Emilie Parker, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Jessica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Lauren Rousseau, 30

Mary Sherlach, 56

Victoria Soto,27

Benjamin Wheeler, 6

Allison Wyatt, 6

I’m not a religious man, by any stretch, but today I thank God that all of my loved ones are accounted for this holiday season.... because, really? Nothing else matters.