I've decided to stop censoring myself (as you may have guessed from yesterday's entries). Back around Christmas it came to light that several of my family members have been paying occasional visits to this site, and some of them were appalled at some of my more colorful vocabulary choices. Others were disappointed in my subject matter (too much talk about television, they said). I allowed their comments to dictate my entries, and do you know what? Suddenly blogging wasn't any fun anymore.

I'd lost sight of the fact that this blog is for me, myself, and I. It's not for you. Or you. No, not even you. So I'm going to write about what I want to write about, be it James Marsters's magnificent naked chest or my visits to the chiropractor or Star Wars or Batman or television in general or my classes or my faith or my general frustrations with the world. This blog exists for me to get it all out of my system. And sometimes the stuff that needs to be gotten out of my system includes cursing. Damn hell ass cursing!

Let's face it. I'm 28 years old. Sometimes I swear. Deal with it.

As to my brother-in-law's assertions that using swear words constitutes lazy writing and I'm intelligent and skilled enough to get my ideas across without being offensive: Thank you, but I'm also skilled enough to choose exactly the right word to most concisely sum up my thoughts and feelings on a matter and convey them with the maximum amount of impact. I'm sorry, but "I found it very upsetting that he behaved in such an insensitive and off-putting manner" just doesn't convey quite the same level of intensity as "He's a fucking asshole." Plus it's way too wordy. And, you know, sometimes the point is to offend.

I do concede my family's point that using such language doesn't portray me in a very "Christian" light, which is why I don't curse like a sailor. I try to save my cursing for when I really mean it. Which doesn't make it any more right, but as a Christian I've got much bigger things to work on at the moment than eliminating swear words from my vocabulary. And really, I don't see the point in substituting them with "less offensive" words with the same meaning. Darn, dang and damn all mean the same thing and serve the same purpose. Is it really better to use one of the former substitutes than to just say damn, if that's what you mean? I'm not convinced that it is. I suppose they are probably more appropriate if you're in the company of someone you just shouldn't curse in front of, but then I suppose it's better not to say any of the alternatives, either, if you can help it.

At any rate, this blog will contain swear words on occasion. Some of them may be pretty hard boiled. If you're offended by that sort of thing, then maybe this isn't a site that you should be reading. You are under no obligation to continue to read it just because we're related. So sod off.*

*That said, I have been gradually working British swear words into my vocabulary, which most Americans seem to find pretty inoffensive, even though they usually mean the same things as our more crass sounding American swear words. This is due to a combination of watching lots of BBC America and writing fanfic about Spike. They're starting to come pretty naturally to me now. And I just like them. They sound better, and they're ever so much more fun to say. Bugger. See? Fun! Bugger off, you poncey little tosser! Whee!