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I suppose that starting a blog this late in the phenomenon means that my introductory post will necessarily be a pack of clichés, consisting of phrases like "Welcome to..." and "I hope my readers..." and the like. To avoid all that crud (I do hate clichés), I've decided to skip directly to my second post. My first post has been rushed to one of the undisclosed locations among which Dick Cheney has been shuttling during the George W. Bush administration. As it turns out, this specific location is rather small. I take some satisfaction that my first post jabs uncomfortably into Mr. Cheney's back while he is holed up there.

Clever readers (whom I hereby brand "trouble-makers") may say, "You can't have a second post without a first! The first post we can see is your first post, you nincompoop! Besides, the whole idea sounds hackneyed anyway. Somebody else has already thought of it, even if I don't know who; it was stupid then, and it's stupid now!" Note that clever readers tend to be long-winded and use many exclamation points.

One other reason that I'm dispensing with my first post is that I lack any of the conventional bric-a-brac that goes into one. I don't even know exactly what this blog will be about. I have too many interests, passions, and distractions to settle on just one. (See the two words at the top of the page, in which "eclectic" is clearly a euphemism.) Also, I don't know enough about anything to populate an entire blog—maybe even a full sentence.

By the way, I'm not going to gush about what I hope you get out of this blog, either; it would be a crime to contaminate your experience with my preconceptions. (Okay—to be honest, I really don't know what I hope you'll get out of it. Even if I did, I wouldn't let on. I'm terribly insecure, and I would dread the hate (e)mail... "You fraud! You hoped that your feeble posts might mildly amuse me, cause me to think, or make by breath minty–fresh! Instead, your prose is dreck, your perspective is furnished in Early American Redneck, and my boyfriend will no longer kiss me!")

Note that hate–(e)mailers seem to have much in common with clever readers. Also, they're apparently female or living an alternative lifestyle. Additionally, note that the proper disclaimer to make where I'm from (after making reference to any sort of alternative lifestyle) is "not that there's anything wrong with that." This clearly identifies the disclaimant as a Big Person, but has the benefit of giving potential non-Big Persons nearby an additional disclaimer—something along the lines of "...though I don't go in for those sorts of shenanigans." I will avoid such disclaimers and all others like them—except perhaps for mockery purposes. Feel free to think whatever you like about me. You're probably right.

No doubt clever readers (eternally curse them!) will also have noticed by now that my train of thought lurches around like a top-heavy shopping cart with two defective wheels, pushed by an epileptic mountain goat with three of its legs tied together. (Clever readers appear to be very creative, but a little strange.) My above general abdication of disclaimers precludes me from now trying to make nice with any epileptic goats I may now have offended. Oh well.

A final way that I will reject the model of first posts is in refusing to tidily wrap up the post with a carefully thought-out and decisive closing that alerts readers to the fact that I've stopped rambling for a short while and intend to come back later to type some more. I'm not going to do that. Instead, I will