Concerning Beginnings

Hi,  my name is Joshua Eastman. I used to have roughly a million blogs all under different names, but as time went on I stopped maintaining them. This apparently upset my readership of one (my mother), so without further ado I am going to try to blog again.

I used to run a blog about funny satirical ideas I had about life and politics and what it was like to roam Israel as a teenager. Luckily, common sense kicked in and I deleted that blog before anyone I knew read it, and have since toned down my act. But I still needed to have a funny blog.

Next I briefly ran a blog on how to be a gentleman. Yes, I used this title before. But it's not stealing if it belonged to younger me, is it? He won't mind, he's to busy messing up current me's health. I tried to outline the behavior of a well-mannered man, as much for myself as my readership of...well-no one but me read this one either. So I scrapped it. But a blog with my own unique viewpoint on genteel behavior still seemed appealing.

Then I started a blog that people actually read a little of. It was called "Through Josh-Colored Glasses", and to this day remains the best title I have ever thought of for anything. The blog discussed slightly older married life in Israel and the army, but gradually got to serious for me. Also, I moved from Israel back to the States for a few years, so I couldn't truly speak about Israel with anything but fond longing and bittersweet regret. So again, a paradigm shift was needed.

Over the past few years in the states, several events have changed my life even more radically than I would have believed possible and the focus of my writings has changed (some would say regressed) again. Just before we came back from Israel I had a daughter born to me, thank g-d; healthy, vivacious, alive, intelligent. We shall call her Princess for now. She would be okay with that nickname, trust me. After a while in the states I had a son as well. He has been known by quite a few nicknames, but his handle of Jonny Shmu seems most appropriate when you meet him. He is ten times the terror my daughter is, which makes sense in an entirely chauvinistic and gender-centric way. So learning to be a father of Jonny and Princess has led to a desire to speak of them in embarrassingly glowing terms and also a need as a young father just to occasionally vent. I have also been a gamer my whole life. I have always loved games of any sort (save where you have to bet something tangible, which for me somehow always becomes pants) even though I have consistently lost every game I ever played. Ever. And believe me, that's a good thing. I am on that very rare occasion an extremely sore winner. I would like to think I have become a gracious loser, but my brothers may still find that hard to believe (more on that later.) Anyway, being back in the states has brought me back into contact with the more adult side of gaming (not that kind of adult, more roleplaying...and the hole gets deeper) and now I am writing my own games and stories for those games, hoping one day one of them will take off around my busy career of the moment.

So, I needed a place like this one. A place to be funny and sad; a place to write about games I have played or designed; a place to write about my thoughts, Israel, my kids, really a place to just put to paper anything and everything I'd rather not store in my head (before publishing remember to look up name of Harry Potter memory mirror bowl thingy for a little cultural push). Welcome again then, and don't say you weren't warned! Tread lightly, this is after all someone else's brain. Wipe your feet, close the door...I really don't know a good way to wrap up a brain analogy, but I hope this is as good for you as it will be for me. Thanks for reading!