Now, should I be brutally honest, or should I sugarcoat? I'm always torn between seeing the glass a certain way. Instead of worrying about what's in the glass, perhaps I should be concerned with the glass itself. What kind of glass is it? How much does it hold? Is the glass chipped? Maybe you should all just tell me what you want to hear, and I'll offer that right back to you. I'm sensitive, I'm open-minded, I like dogs. I smoke, except when I don't smoke, because smoking's a dirty habit, even though I enjoy smoking, when I'm doing it, which isn't often, because I hate smoking. Hell, I don't even know the color of my eyes. And you don't care about what I read or listen to. You don't care about how I spend my free time. Well, maybe you do, but you don't want the god's honest truth about all that. The sordid stories, the sickness, the compulsion, this need to consume and assimilate that sometimes overwhelms the pure enjoyment of these things. This need to understand MYSELF through these bits of music and literature. I don't want to be honest. I just want to be frank enough to realize that unfettered honesty is the one thing that can make me seem like a complete mess. I should just post a picture and leave everything else blank. And I should just leave it at that. Make up your own story. I'm a college dropout returning to school in pursuit of a career I don't really want. I'm a 40-hour drone, drunk from punching the clock one too many times. I'm a student of chess, relentlessly pursuing excellence with a frightening fervor. I'm an accountant, father, carpenter, philosopher. Right there, in that state, forced into a small little box, I am the greatest story ever told, because I have no story to tell. Put words in my mouth, and leave it at that.

Mark James Johnson