This is ridiculous. What am I doing here?
Hi, I’m Nick. Well, technically Nicholas, but I’m usually too lazy to use that many letters.
I’m a gay male vegan living in New York City. Queens, specifically. And yes, I realize the humor in that. I’m in my early thirties, which most gay men seem to think means I’m as good as dead. I enjoy the arts, photography, fitness, travel, theme parks, lusting after gorgeous men who will never acknowledge my existence and living in the delusion that I’m funnier than I probably really am. I live with a cat named Miss Jackson, and most of the time, even she can’t tolerate me.
I started journaling in August of 1998 (we didn’t call it blogging yet at that point) when I was a teenager growing up in Iowa. I was far more open and candid back then, which is ironic considering I was insanely closeted and private in my daily life. That also probably means that my blog was far more entertaining back then than it is nowadays, but I have an excuse for that. How exciting can life be when you’re as good as dead, right?
If you had asked the boy who wrote that very first blog entry back in 1998 who he was going to become and what his life was going to be like, he would tell you the story of someone completely different than who I am today. I don’t have the job, the lifestyle, the money, the love, or anything that I was certain my story would contain. I have, in essence, found myself now living in… the wrong story.
The phrase ‘the wrong story’ comes from a lyric from the Broadway musical (told ya I was gay) Into The Woods written by Stephen Sondheim. The entire lyrics goes: “This is ridiculous. What am I doing here? I’m in the wrong story!” I’ve related to those words quite a bit as I’ve grown up, and since Sondheim is exponentially more eloquent with words than I can ever hope to be, I have humbly borrowed them. Please don’t tattle on me.
I welcome you to join me here as I continue to write this new story I’ve found myself in. I don’t know how long this journey will last or how fun it will be, but maybe someday (fingers crossed) it won’t feel like the wrong story anymore.