A little background...

I remember a conversation I once witnessed between my father, H, and my step-mother, C.  We were in the minivan, driving somewhere and C was telling my dad an anecdote from work.  But she couldn't just tell him about what happened; she had to give him the background of events lest he misunderstand something.  Needless to say, this doubled the story in length.  When she was finally finished my dad burst forth with the frustrated exclamation "Couldn't you have just gotten to the point?  Why did you have to go through all that stuff at the beginning?!"  Here C turned to me for backup.  I explained that you can't just tell someone something out of context.  To truly understand any information you must know how it relates to everything around it.  Otherwise your perceptions are skewed and you won't interpret this new information correctly.  Everything is connected to everything else.  Specifically, this related to C's story because, had my father not been made aware of the history which preceded it, he couldn't have appreciated the humor.  I don't think we convinced him, but he at least gave up arguing.

I tell you this story to stop you getting frustrated with me like my dad did with C.  I have so many things I want to talk about, but most of them require some sort of context to be properly understood.  Not all, but most.  If get distracted and go on tangents, or if I spend an entire post just building up to a final point that only seems vaguely connected--or maybe I don't even make it to the point till a later post--I beg your indulgence.  A blog is really the perfect venue for such an ambling mind as mine because it gives you the option of skipping the things that don't interest you.  I'm sure there will be plenty of those.  My mind tends to dwell in odd and minimally populated areas.  

But if I write something that *does* strike you as interesting, please voice your opinion.  I know that's sort of a given with blogs...you want comments.  But really, I can only get so far in my mental wanderings, and eventually, I start going in circles.  Real progression of ideas comes from discussion.  Feedback and criticism force you to evaluate your thoughts and improve them.  So please, speak up...