I “stumbled upon” this blog page. Oddly fitting that as I struggle to find my “voice”, it should be about “coming out of the closet”.

I write - have done for over ten years now. But not fiction. I write for an online food ‘zine ( http://www.seasoned.com ) and what started out as informational, how-to, and food related, has evolved into opinion, commentary, ruminating.

And now I want to take it further.

We shall see.

But enough about that, well done, Jamie. I like what I’ve found on your site so far. I’ll be back!!!

On the voice thing, I don’t expect any changes. Here’s a little story that might help explain:

My father was a police officer and he was very good at sniffing out trouble. So, I pretty much got caught for every bad thing I did growing up.

However, rather than learning to be sneaky, I found out that is way more fun to be bad and own up to it from the start.

The only exception to this was the bachelor party I held for a pal of mine. We had it at my parents house while they were on vacation. I would have gotten away with that one too if the “entertainment” hadn’t brought a pink feather boa. Thought I swept them all up, but it turns out I missed a few.

We had a good laugh about that one, even though the old man was pissed that I didn’t take pictures.

The reveal is scarey, yes, but a huge step forward. And for anyone who is serious about writing (as you clearly are) and has genuine talent (as you clearly do), a convergence of Real Life and the online shadow will be inevitable. Better to ‘out’ yourself at a time of your own choosing!

I’m curious - do you have any sense, yet, of whether this might change your blogging voice in any way?

@Wendi Thanks!!! Now I need to get that next post up. My name’s had its 15 minutes.

Now we can get all comfy and hang out and say welcome to the gang Jamie!

One of my favorite names too!

Good to connect a real name to a face.

Only one thing wrong with your picture. Here you are sitting in front of an Irish Pub sign, a Guiness sign no less, and ye no have a pint in yer hand! What’s wrong with ye lad!

There is a wonderful group of people who follow posts here via email. I get nice comments from them on a regular basis and give private advice on stories. There was a nice batch of messages this morning like this:

“Thank YOU!”

“It’s about time!!!!”

“glad dat’s over…”

And so on…

Big hugs to all you lurkers and email/rss friends.

I agree that it’s far more fun just to be me. Hope it makes me more productive too.