Well, it's where you begin. Or where I begin for you; at least for those of you who haven't been reading what I've been writing elsewhere.
Let me start over (despite the fact that doing so only creates another layer of beginnings, further frustrating the purpose of this brief introduction):
This is where the official public offering of my writing begins outside the confines of those who know me personally. Though this isn't really accurate either, because I had a previous blog, back in 2005, when blogs were really just becoming popular. I kept that blog for just over year and euthanised it when I had nothing more to say and not enough time in which to say it.
This is my first post on this blog. There.
It's been three months and six days since I landed in London.
In the course of that time I've turned 31, travelled to Spain, started a job which is causing me panic attacks, learned a lot about how different far-away friends are once you live in the same city and how the same is true of close friends once you move 3,000-odd miles away, been rejected by 2 law firms at the interview stage, been rejected by countless others solely upon the strength (read: weakness) of my CV, drank my way to unconsciousness on many occasions, taken no fewer than seven different illegal drugs, many repeatedly and on a regular basis, been unceremoniously kicked out of the friend's apartment where I was living, been groped by a potential landlord, went home with a man I met in a bar and had loud, rough, unapologetically sleazy sex, moved in with a relative stranger, emptied my bank accounts, borrowed money from my parents and generally attempted to balance social irresponsibility with re-establishing myself as a successful adult in a new city.
It is not going well.
As my valid career, lawyer, slips further from my grasp with every passing day on which I do not practice, I have begun to consider other options. The most inspiring stories I've read about people following a passion to success usually involve choosing to walk away from a lucrative profession, such as the law. I was afforded no such choice. I took my current role out of desperation, having arrived in London after 14 months of unemployed bliss, my savings long-since evaporated and my checking account quickly approaching a figure which would necessitate no comma. Given the choice, I would have gone back to a big soulless law firm and an undeserved six-figure salary. Then, years down the line, student loans paid off and illusions shattered, I would lie in my king-sized bed in my million pound flat in Kensington and stare at the ceiling and decide that it just wasn't worth the frustration any more, and that I was going to take my savings and leave the law and write.
Instead, this happened: In one of an ongoing series of Facebook Notes I had written titled "The Expatriate Dispatches" I went on at great length about my current employment and living situations and laid bare my personal hell (The text of that note will appear as the next post in this blog). A friend responded "I saw this spy movie once, it may have even been James Bond and in it the super villain is playing chess with his son. His son is at risk of being checked and the father asks him what he should do because he feels surrounded and unable to escape. The son replies with super villain coolness, "find a way further in." If only you could write your way out of this."
This is my attempt to write my way out of this. Maybe it's just a daily mental escape. Maybe it's to keep my writing muscle primed as I attempt to put together something larger for publication.
Not everything you read here will be true. Most of it will be at least based in truth, but names will have been changed. Events may be embellished or wholly made up. People who never existed will likely meander in and out of frame.
Of course this may all change or I may give up or 1,000 other things may happen. I really don't know.
I'm not really good at this introductory stuff. Too much exposition spoils the fun.
So now then...
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