A time to rebrand

It's about how I represent. You know. How I'm bringin' myself out into the world and lettin' y'all see a piece of me. How I see myself, and how I let you see me through my writing.

To a certain set of friends, I became Debra shortly after we all started hanging out. And to them, I'll always be Debra. The bounciest on the volleyball court. The bounciest on the dancefloor. The bounciest as I go through life.

I wouldn't want it any other way, because those are some of the happiest times of my life.

When I started this blog, I had some concerns about starting something that the whole world could see and read. Still, I had goals in mind at the start, one of which was to begin feeling comfortable with writing for an unknown audience -- for people that I don't know and would never know. Business writing and technical writing and manual writing are all good, but I wanted to see about writing for people I might offend. For people I might make laugh. For people I might impress. For people that might not have to come back for a second look, but who just might want to because they were entertained. Or maybe because I made them think. Or maybe just because they thought I was hot : )

And way back then -- back in the beginning -- it was just easier to write this thing under a pseudonym. Naturally, I used my favourite nickname, Debra. Sure, it wasn't long before I freely started using my real name and writing about real details on the blog, but there will always be some distance between me and my adoring fans. There has to. After all, I'm not gonna let someone track me down and do the stalker thing. I'll never use my last name, and I'll never use my family's names.

But maybe this whole representin' thing is about showing more of who I am now, as opposed to who I was so many years ago. In the past year-plus, I've made so many contacts with people who have somehow found me and my blog. I've been lucky enough to have had those people leave some amazing comments for me. I've let friends into this blog world of mine. I feel comfortable with the idea of strangers finding me and seeing parts of me.

But, in all honesty, one of the things that has kept me from introducing everyone to this blog is the way in which I represent myself. In a sense, I'm embarrassed about being represented as Debra. Although I'm proud of the affiliation that the name means to me with my amazing circle of friends, I know that some people who aren't quite so enlightened might think that a woman's name is representative of a feminine person.

I'm here to tell ya one thing: I may be gay, but I'm all man!

Sure, I'm realllly gay and like figure skating, for instance, but that doesn't make me less of a man than, say, my brother. Nor should the nickname Debra label me the same way. Still, why not remove any ambiguity altogether? Although I love what the personna Debra represents, I don't want people to have a limited view of who I am based on a nickname. Why not stop feeling uncharacteristically confined by what others might think, simply based on a silly nickname? It's time to open the lid and let 'er rip.

I'll always be Debra to that certain group of friends. Heck, I'll always be Debra to myself. But on life is large. why insist on living small?, it's time to just be me.

Welcome to the subtle rebranding of my blog. I'm very happy to introduce myself as Jeff. I'll be your tour guide for the next phase of our journey.