Why

Why am I doing an on-line journal?(Version Two)

That's a very good question, and I'll attempt to answer it now, seriously.
I was flabbergasted by the first on-line journal I read, Jessa's Journal. I then discovered several others, Sage and Willa and Tracy and... on and on. At first, I thought, "No, this isn't real. There's something else going on here..." I soon discovered that yes, this is real, those are real people out there, saying real things about their real lives...
I just had a thought. I'm a pretty damned gullible person. I'm easy to fool, people have done it all of my life for fun and profit. All of this IS real isn't it? Would someone please tell me if it isn't? Please? And yes, I'm serious. I want to know if these people aren't real and I'm a fool. You can fool all of the people...etc., and you can fool Doug all of the time, too.

Note: 22 Nov 1996: Shelly (AKA Jessa) proved that not only can you fool Doug, you can fool everyone on the 'Net. Unless you have a conscience... Which she does, else we would never know. So far, no one else has "come out"!
Another Note: 08 APR 1997: Sage went off-line, for a number of reasons, harrassment being one of the major ones. I am sad to have her gone.
I've always wanted to be a writer. I started before I got into high school. I was in the wrong clique to get into journalism in a big way in high school, though. Then my brother Dan (Jon, actually) got into it in a big way, writing for the All Hands the Navy publication. He finished school with a BS in journalism and went on to pay his dues at various newspapers. He won a Pulitzer working for the Baltimore Sun and then several years later, he won another one. Needless to say, he's a brilliant man and a fantastic writer. And there is no way I could compete with him. Nor do I want to.
However, I still have this itch that can only be alleviated by writing something. So I write stuff. Poems, songs, pages of gibberish. And, although I used to be really shy about showing people my stuff, I've got over it. I'll show it to the world. The world can like it or not. At this point, I should say, "but I don't care!" but that would be wrong. I want people to like what I write, I want people to like me, I want people to hear the message that I have. Sometimes I'm not really clear on what that message really is, either in my writings or in my own thoughts. But I will try to make it as clear as possible to you. And even if you never really get my message, you will get to know me, and hopefully, I will get to know you, too, and we can all learn more about this wonderful and confusing world we live in.