Well. What the hell am I doing here?

First of all, many of you know that "M. Takhallus" is a pseudonym. Some of you will have Googled the word "takhallus" and figured out that it means "pen name" in Arabic. Or possibly Urdu. Maybe, Persian? Really, who cares? And many of you, since I invited you here, know my actual name and previous site. That's okay: I will not have to kill you.

As I explained . . . over there . . . I became uncomfortable carrying on a PG-13 conversation when my name, and my wife's name, and my past work, were attracting kids to the site. It's perfectly okay for adults to have grown-up conversations, but when you discover the kids listening in you need to think about closing the door. So: door closed. On this site I won't use my name or my wife's or talk in specific terms about work I've done. It's hardly fool-proof, but I did at least close the door.

It would be a courtesy to me if people with blogs who want to link to this site (very much appreciated) would refer to me as M. Takhallus, and this blog as Sideways Mencken, (a name I owe to Callimachus at Done With Mirrors) although I would draw the line at suggesting you mislead your readers in any way that makes you feel uncomfortable.

I really appreciated the very kind comments many of you made during funeral services for my last blog. People say all sorts of nice things about you when you die. So each of you is hereby released from the burden of all that bullshit and you should feel free to denounce me, attack me, ridicule me, and even point out my spelling errors. I wouldn't want you guys around if you weren't at least occasionally contentious.

Incidentally, those of you who guessed I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut for long can now collect on those bets.

I have always wanted my blog to be a sort of extended outdoor cafe where we all sit around a table, drinking espressos if the sun's up, something stronger if it's dark, and talk. Sometimes the discussion is serious. Sometimes we tell stupid jokes. Sometimes we just check out the passing talent. From time to time tempers flare. And then we order another round and laugh. At the end of the day I stagger back to my vast, spare, beautifully-decorated, perfectly clean (hmmm, somehow the kids and the animals don't appear in this fantasy) New York or Paris or London loft knowing more than I knew when I woke up that morning.

I should say up front that this will be a group blog. God the Father (GTF) has agreed to blog here from time to time, and my off-his-meds friend Hyde will also contribute. (That's right, I'm casting myself as the saintly Dr. Jekyll. Shut up.) And I want to give credit to the webmaster who replaced the off-the-rack blogger template with this one he found, set up my site meter and my Google ads and will soon have my blogroll, my profile, my Technorati and my Digg connections hooked up: my nine year old son.

Thanks for dropping by. Check back.

This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on Thursday, August 10, 2006. You can leave your response.