(Warning: I feel this is a HORRIBLE public introspective column. However, I will allow myself to be both horrible and introspective once a year. And since everyone's doing it and I couldn't find a rhyming dictionary to do a poem about Essa Rios...)

I have this friend named Mike, and he says I should write more, because he thinks I'm good at it. Typically, I tend to discount most compliments I get, figuring it's just because someone is friends with me, it's the nice thing to do to compliment me, even if you don't mean it. But Mike's my best friend in the whole wide world, and typically doesn't say things just to be saying them, so I take his accolades a little bit more seriously. So, even though he's really busy doing finishing up his summer (and last) semester at SIU, and probably won't see this for quite a while, this is all his fault. I mean, I could sleep fine if I only had one twinge of guilt (not doing a column when I had plenty of time and told CRZ I would) but two (passing up yet another golden opportunity to at least try, even if I fail, and use some of what I've got) is enough to keep me up a night.

If you're still following along, and you're a person who pays attention to the right hand column of the main page, you may be thinking "Hey, don't you recap a lot of stuff here already? What do you mean, you don't write?" but that's not what it is to me. Recapping is like being a mimic - all you're trying to do is keep up (or stop, rewind, play, repeat) with what's going on and occasionally throw in a half a cent of your own thoughts ("Remember when Lita used to be a mimic?") The action of the recap carries you, you're just along for the ride. Doing it without the action or the structure it gives is taking a huge crutch from me. Not even a crutch, a wheelchair. The result can just be painful.

On the other hand, in a column, I can spend all the time I want on talking about me, and my mental disabilities. Like the last two paragraphs.

Let's try something else: Why write recaps at all? Why do I feel compelled not to act like the other whatever million fans that are content just watching a show and maybe discussing it with friends, not recording every minute detail? Why, at same time [slash] celebrates it's second year anniversary, do I realize that I've been doing this gig for four? It seems like a good question to ask, but when I mentally went through the checklist, it kinda depressed me. That'll be entertaining for you, though.

I don't recap to get any sort of notoriety. I'm sure, if I kept this up forever, I'd be a prime candidate for the Inside Edition-type show of 2050. "The Senile Guy Who's Been Recapping TV Show for 50 Years!" And, if I really was senile, I think I might get a kick out of then. For now, not so much. I enjoy getting credit for what I do, but if I'm to be known for just one dimension of my life, I'm not sure "guy who recaps crappy TV" is the aspect I most want. Plus, any sort of notoriety around here is so fleeting - John Petrie did it than longer than I have, about bigger shows, and to a bigger audience, but two months after he stops I don't think too many people even notice him not being around any more.

I don't recap to get money. I'm very sure of that now. I mean, I figured all along that there's many one or two people in this whole neighborhood of websites that actually can make a living off this stuff, but I finnaly got the clue that even the small money's not worth anyone's time. I don't want to sound like some hippie (I leave looking like one to CRZ) but money just messes everything up. If it's not gonna make a real difference in the way I live, the pressures it brings along with it bothering with. (Not like anyone's about to pay me, but still, there was this funny time where everyone was convinced that all they had to do is throw some crap out there and stick a banner on top and the cash would be rolling in.)

It's not that I have a secret desire to take over CRZ's life, like some wacked out version of 'Single White Female", but I do often wonder how many people see me as his wannabe. I wonder a bit, too - if you fixed some of the spelling mistakes that Front Page doesn't catch for me and get rid of the odd misplaced comma. My defense is that I'm not just cloning him, I'm cloning a little bit from everyone I've ever read that I've liked. So much so that I'm not sure which ideas are actually mine anymore. Heck, this idea seems like the one he did the last day he was on WrestleManiacs before it turned all blue and scary. Sigh. (See, I told you I'd get depressed!) I try to be myself, I try do borrow from what I enjoy reading (wrestling and not), that I think you (the reader) can get the most out of. I do all in my voice. Not anyone else. But because the end product looks the same, I dunno if people notice. The first time I figure out a way to say everything I want in a way totally different from everyone else, I'm gonna start doing it. But I'm much better with melancholy paragraphs about inconsequential things than revolutionary ideas in recapping wrestling shows, as you can tell.

I don't recap to have any special influence with the shows or talk to the people on them. I reserve the right to be a little jealous of all the wrestler-type people some of the women on this site have met and told the rest of us about, because that seems very cool. However, I tend to freak out a decent amount when any one with the slightest bit of importance e-mails me. When it's happened (and people have been nice enough to e-mail me), they seem to think that I'm somehow important because I write about their show, but to me, I'm no more important then the person sitting there reading what I wrote, and it's totally bizarre to me that someone important would e-mail some random fan. It's not like I have the only opinion, I just waste more time expressing it. The whole process makes me a little uncomfortable: why should I have even the slightest bit of influence? How do I know I'm not changing what I'm saying about this show because now someone important is talking to me? Is that person planning on it? It's cool to talk these people and all, but it's all confusing at the same time.

No, it's not just for the readers either. Like I alluded to before, if a recap stops, people move on. If this was the last piece I wrote, no one's gonna care a few months from now. There's not a large amount of people who read my stuff anyway, and it's not as though (please don't take this to mean a desperate cry for attention because even though I appreciate people who do read my stuff, I feel like such a whore if readers start acting differently because I told them) I get ANY e-mails about any of it on a weekly basis. If you're still reading here, you're a select group, and as nice it is for me to have you here, it's not enough to keep me going. Even if was a large number, I don't think that would be enough for me. I like trying to be a little bit helpful and pass on the results of a show for people, but that's can't be all of it.

I think, or at least my best guess is, I recap for myself. That may sound a little silly, but it makes a lot of sense to me. The last four years of my life has been unforeseeable. I feel bad about complaining about any of it, because I'm sure some of you have had tougher lives than I care to think about, but there definitely has been some ups and downs in my own. A great deal of my life has changed and at times (like maybe right now), it's been tough to figure out where I'm going. There have been few constants, but turning on the television, watching and writing about some wrestling has been one of them. It's a weird thing to hang on to, it's a bizarre hobby, but it something that I've had throughout this time.

I'd like to thank the people who give me a chance to hold on to - all those who've put up with my tardy finishing times and worse spelling. Especially Bill M. and CRZ, for putting up with me the longest. Thanks you again for reading, and I promise not to say anything about myself and recapping for a full year.