a brief introduction

“I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.”

- E. M. Forster

My blog entries have always tended in this sort of direction–my fiction, too, but that’s another matter and has rarely been viewable to the public. There’s boundless introspection, complaining, and dreaming to be read; that said, I suspect that more than half of what I think about myself and others is untrue or misguided, and that many (if not all) of my dreams are unhealthy and ‘all wrong-headed.’

Not that that nagging suspicion is ever going to stop me from saying what I want …

What will I write here? I will write about my adventures! — What adventures? — I have yet to have them, but they will be perfectly thrilling! (Thank you, Peter Pan.) No, really. I love to travel, and I love to write about my travels–the sights, the people, the food. After all, if you’re visiting exciting places, you may as well brag about it, post gorgeous photographs, and make the rest of the world insane with envy, yes?

I also write about the things I watch, read, hear (film, television, books, news articles, web comics, music, radio, etc.). I may copy and paste entries from my other journals, respond to comments or personal e-mail (if there are any), and react to the web logs of others.

In regards to this web log’s chosen title, I have a fascination for Venetian masks and masquerade-style masks, in general. Even when representing the sinister or the grotesque, they’re beautiful and unique, no one like any other. I have collected a few over the years after purchasing my first on my fourteenth New Year, a yuletide holiday that found me wandering through Italy and Switzerland for two weeks via motor coach. Venice remains my most favourite destination ever.