"Who are you?"

It's a stupidly simple question that has an amazingly complex answer.

I can give you height, weight, and age. Where I live, what I do, who I associate with. The quantitative or qualitative minutae that might belong here (and, indeed, follow) only really let a reader get a vague sense that they might know about me, but is that me?

Not really.

Anecdotal evidence of ones inner workings tend to be more effective. I mean, that's what they did in the Bible and all, so it must be effective. However, that does take an awful lot of time...time that neither you nor I have...so that's not going to work.

Those little invented "coffee chat" things seem pretty popular. But let's face it, who is truly honest about those things? I mean, if I am going to romanticize who I am to the world, that's the perfect way to do it. It starts out as "fictional", so anything that is contained in it would also be regarded as such.

Hmmm.

Not to mention that any static "who" info is out of date in about 4 hours unless it's appropriately vague.

So having painted myself into this little corner, you may now watch me walk right across the floor, leaving footprints across the room and onto the rug in the hall...

My name is John. I am 30 years old.

I am divorced.

I am in love.

I have a daughter, Brigid Rose. She is one year old in April 2002. She changed my outlook on life more than any other person. She's beautiful, cute, and fun.

My birthday is in July, which makes me a Cancer, if you believe in that sort of thing. Throw in some Aries, too, if you do. It's my rising sign.

I am an emotional creature. I work with computers, which deal wholly in logic.

Computers are my work and hobby. I don't get much of a tan in the summertime.

I wear sunblock 45, and still burn.

I spend as much time as I can with my daughter, and with my girlfriend. Since they live 3000 miles apart, I am travelling a lot. I don't mind much, although I want more time with both.

I am working hard to make that happen.

When I was five years old, around Easter, my kindergarten teacher asked if anyone was allergic to chocolate before she divided up a chocolate bunny for the class. I raised my hand, and she thought I was saying that I was. I finally blurted out, "no! what's allergic mean?" She told me not to worry about it, if I didn't know, I wasn't. But she didn't tell me. That bothered me, and therefore I never forgot that whole scene. If something bothers me enough, I don't forget it, even if I want to.

I am stubborn.

I am adaptable.

I am a cynic and an optimist.

I smoke, although I need to quit, and I know it.

If you had coffee with me, you'd be in a starbucks for all of 20 seconds. The vast majority of my coffee is consumed on the go. If I am actually having coffee with you, than you already know me.

Or I am hungover.

This needs an ending, and I don't really have much of a good one.