I’ve been kicking around a lot of ideas with Kiersi involving monsters lately. So I suppose it’s not surprising I had a dream about a monster. The dream was simply an image: in my dream, the monster was terrified and I was chasing it. It was oddly satisfying.

I’m thinking I’ll turn it into a short story or involve the idea in the project we’re talking about.

Well, now that I’ve determined a direction for my writing here, I’m realizing the troubles I’ll face with that direction. Most significantly, how do I write a bunch of essays about myself without sounding (or being) narcissistic?

I hope it’s clear that this is a place for self-exploration, not self-inflation.

It’s been a rough time for the r-blog the last year or so. I originally started it as a bit of a joke about the whole blogging thing. At the time (waaaay back in 2003 or 2004), blogs were really taking off as a fad, and that seemed funny to me. Not because I think blogs are bad, or stupid, or anything like that. Nope, I think the idea of self-publishing online is brilliant. Everyone can write. The thing is, not everyone can write. Well. Not everyone can write well, I mean.

So, the r-blog started out of irony and a desire to write with a new voice. Actually, it was originally just a redux of the voice of The Page, the humor periodical I created in high school. the r-blog brought the same irony-with-a-touch-of-arrogance of my previous work, with part of the joke being that I generally faded into the background while my publication’s ego took over, a gimmick equally (or more) ironic in the world of blogs as in the world of print.

Being a blog that was a self-mocking-but-serious joke about blogs was funny for awhile. Then something weird happened: my blog started actually taking itself seriously. What the hell? I think it had to do with my move into the world of freelance web design, the very same world most of my send-up inspiration came from (besides teenagers on livejournal and myspace). In this move, I somehow totally missed the potential to create an even more ironic satire, and instead found myself actually blogging about stupid shit like CSS hacks and, in a totally unfunny way, things other bloggers had said. My assimilation was complete.

Fortunately, my salvation from the maws of the generic beast of blogdom was at hand. My eccentric teenage web host (I think we’ve all had one of those at some point in our lives) gave me warning that he’d be quitting the web hosting business and turning off the server. Of course, lazy schmuck that I am, I didn’t really get around to totally backing up my WordPress database that held the annals of the r-blog. Oh no.

I had also recently come into development ownership of a glorious content management system called dreamscape. I decided to forget my blog’s WordPress past and start from scratch. No looking back.

Which brings us to the r-blog of today. What is it? What is its purpose? What does it mean? Why can’t it just get a date to the prom like every other blog? What is the shortest distance between two points, really?

Tonight, the r-blog gets a purpose.

Frankly, it’s not like it’s a very good purpose. But hey, can you do any better? This blog’s new reason for existing will be to publish my (usually) nonfiction autobiographical short stories and essays.

Damn, that sounded boring when I wrote it. "Click, click, click, cliché!" I heard. Yeah, I’m taking a slight turn for the serious, and a slight turn for the dark. I’ll probably write about culture, depression, socialism, and other boring shit. You probably won’t like it. Sorry.

No more technology blurbs. No more CSS gook. No more posts about the latest design elements I’ve added to my blog. Damn, I’m sick of reading those. Stop, internet. Please.

Strangely, this new direction is a return to my original goal for the r-blog, to write for the sake of writing. I’m ditching the alter-personality (you might see it sometime in the future… somewhere…) and really focusing on writing. I hope you might find something interesting or thought-provoking or something here at some point. If you don’t, I hope you find something worthwhile somewhere, because we all need that. Frankly, I don’t really care where you find it.

This is for me.

It’s not like I’m starting blogging here regularly. That would be silly. However, I do know that a few people visit the r-blog, and so if you’re my friend and trying to find some things out about me, this one’s for you.

• I recently went to Disneyland. I love that place.
• I haven’t written any poetry in awhile. I’d like to, though.
• I enjoy cooking. I make up my recipes as I go.
• I think the MacBook Air looks astounding.
• I’m setting up LightSpeed at MudPuddles.
• Since finding out that it’s actually good for you, I’ve renewed my addiction to coffee.

My name is ryan miglavs. I run this site. At one time it was a mighty blog, but a series of occurrences both incidental and coincidental have wiped the slate clean on the r-blog.

At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll put the old content back up. For now, this will be my playpen to try out some things with my new content management system, dreamscape.

I do have big plans for this little blog, so venture back soon if you think of it.

[love],
[ryan]