Since I’m on my college newspaper nerdfest these days, here’s a story about the time I had a cartoon drawn about me. No, no, don’t get all excited; it’s not a happy story. See, there was this guy who was on the paper with us knuckleheads, a rather talented bloke who served as our design chief. He and I were a year apart and went to the same high school, and he was fun-loving and wonderful and an all-around great guy. In fact, the two of us to see Van Halengar together and had a fantastic time, even after his car broke down on the road and we had to hitch a ride in the back of a pickup to get to the show. It was all good.

Well, the college newspaper being what it was, and all us knuckleheads being in our early 20s with maybe the sense God gave a goat, drama of only the most vicious kind nerds can dream up ensued, and through the fallout this guy made the rest of us sworn enemies—so much so that he transferred to the other commuter campus we have in the good ol’ County of Lake and became a cartoonist for them. And in one of his cartoons, he fashioned a character that not only looked like me, but hit a little too close to home with the insider information, if you catch my drift. Didn’t mention my name, though. Now, I’d heard about the cartoon at some point after it ran in the other campus paper, but I didn’t actually see it until several years after it and all the ensuing drama were semi-distant memories.

Perhaps it was a delayed reaction, but I remember being fairly outraged by the whole thing. I mean, here was a cartoon character that absolutely looked like me and was sharing not-so-thinly veiled information about me to all of Lake County (or at least the people who went to this other campus and actually read their rag)—of COURSE everyone was going to know it was me from looking at that cartoon, even though my name wasn’t attached to it. DUH, right!??


(Whatever, man. Rock on with that sense of self-importance.)

Anyway, I’m bringing y’all this story because for the first time since I rented my space here on the Innerbunny, my peeps have been kind of wiggin’ about it and what I may or may not be writing about people. And I understand that if you can recognize yourself in something, there’s a chance that other people will, too, and people as a rule want to control the message that’s put out about them. I work with it every single day of my life, so believe me, I get it.

But.

The reason I started blogging—aside from the fact that I write so devoid of character in my everyday life, I wanted to see what my voice sounds like now that most of the creativity has been pounded out of my brain; and that I, like 99.99999999 percent of all other bloggers out there, am vain and more-than-slightly exhibitionist—is because I like having a place where I can share my life and the goings-on in it as I see them. And if I talk about the people in my life as they relate to me and my goings-on, I’m allowed to do that, at least to the point that I’m not putting them in danger or sharing things they want kept secret. Really, it’s no different than me talking to any one of my closest friends, except for the fact that here, I keep real names out unless I either have people’s permission to use real names (like Tara and Kaffy) or they have a documented, public reputation. The other thing with which I take great pains is that anyone who interacts with me is likely not going to be surprised by anything I have to say here, because it’s pretty much the same thing that I’ve said to everyone else a million times already.

All of this to say, as much as we think we’re that important, the Innerbunny really is a vast wasteland where nobody really knows anyone, so it’s likely that no one’s going to know who you are.