If I wrote this in verse,
It would be much worse,
So I won't even try
So just prose you'll descry
In the rest of this post.

I am a 43-year-old graduate student, a single mother, a full-time worker, a reader, a walker, and more. I sometimes wear all those hats at the same time. I live out west. Last fall, when I was in my first semester of graduate school, I was taking an online storytelling class. One of the internet links for the class led me to the Mudcat Café. I had seen the café once before, or at least heard tales about it from a friend, but decided that the link I found in the class was a bit of an invitation, so I set up a moniker and began to dabble. Shortly thereafter, (on September 14, 2009) and tragically, the man I was dating died of a heart attack. Distracted by grief, I decided to distract myself by reading the riveting and sometimes usually always irreverently engaging posts I found in the café. Then I stumbled across the MOAB. Now, I'm not really very comfortable posting comments to strangers in anonymity, but I was fascinated (and sometimes horrified) by the cadre of folks who posted to the Mother of All BS Threads. So, not wanting to miss anything, I began reading from the beginning. I can't tell you how many times my computer would freeze up until I learned to "trace" the messages! I read off and on, sometimes avidly, sometimes skimming, until finally last week I reached the most recent posts. I still can't believe you folks have been BS-ing for all this time! But now you feel like old friends to me. When I found the "how to morph photos" website, I screwed up my courage and decided to subtly say hallo.

So, for the past six months you've all helped me unwittingly through a difficult time. Thank you! And if it's all right with y'all, I'll pop in every now and then. I'd love to have a forum for some of the twiddle that bounces around in my head!

My only concern is that the friend who showed me Mudcat years ago may feel that my intrusion is an invasion of privacy. Hmmm, I'll have to give that particular situation some thought. In the meantime, Howdy!

Eiseley