Flabbergastery

Hello. This is the author of Pat O'Neil. I was wondering to myself whether I should write this in character, but I decided it would work better in my own voice. Up until a week ago, I thought no one was reading the ridiculousness that I was putting up here. As of Sunday, I was aware of only three readers. That brought the total of people who had ever read my blog to 8 or so. Then, Sunday evening, I was told I'd been put on a "lamest blog list" on MSN. After some research, though, I discovered that it was actually PC World magazine's 11 Lamest Blog list. At the time, my heart sank a little. I consoled myself with the saying, "There's no such thing as bad publicity," but it did hurt some, I've got to admit. I mean, it's not as if I'm writing erotic One Piece slash fan fiction or anything. However, I was still going to just let it slide.

Then, this afternoon, I find 14 comments awaiting moderation. All of those were posted in roughly three hours. To those who like what I'm doing, thank you. To those who don't, I know this is not for everyone. I would like to make clear up front, and this seems as up fronty as this is going to get, I have no illusions about what I write. I know this is not literature. I am not expecting to change the world with the tale of a guy from Iowa fighting ninjas with an army of hyper intelligent, genetically modified squirrel monkeys with the financial backing of Charles Lindbergh. If you're expecting to find literature on the Internet, you should navigate over to the Gutenberg Project's homepage right now. I suggest starting with the Odyssey and working your way forward in history from there. When you get to Huckleberry Finn, follow Hemingway's advice and quit reading before the boys free Jim. He was right, everything else after that is cheating.

The reason I began The Adventures of Pat O'Neil, and the reason I will keep writing, whether anyone reads it or not, is that our world needs a little ridiculousness. Stand up from your computer and look around you. Our world looks like its falling apart. Our economy is failing because no one was on watch. Much of the time, it seems our government is out to make our lives as unlivable as possible (don't believe me? Go to the DMV. Better yet, try dealing with DHS sometime). Our children have forgotten how to go outside on a nice day and just stare at the sky for an hour or so. Now, when you stack all of that up, maybe we need something we can acknowledge as utterly, totally insane. We can, and I include myself in this, live for a little while in Pat's strange world, knowing that, when the insanity is too much for us, we can step out again. That's why I write it. I need that. I need to know that there is a place that weirdness can have a safe home. A place that weirdness can live its brief life in our heads, make us simply happy, and then blow away like crushed leaves. From everything I've seen in the past couple of years, the natural home for weirdness is the Internet.

I am not ashamed of Pat or my writing. I am not ashamed that it is silly, confused and frantic. I do not feel bad that some people don't like my brand of humor. I've been dealing with that since I was a wee lad. I am going to continue Pat's story because I enjoy it. If you enjoy it as well, you are welcome to come. If you don't, that's all right. Maybe you could try out Dave Barry's blog. He's pretty consistently funny. If that doesn't work out, keep trying, you'll find something you like.

For those who stay, thank you. Now let's fight some Meth Ninjas.