I had half of a column written, and I deleted it. It was a rant about children, and guns for same, and gun control, and that delightfully happy topic. It was based on something I heard on the radio, but never found any corroboration for. So I trashed it.

But why, really? I don't pretend to aspire to, and I don't believe that you expect, any great deal of journalistic integrity from these columns. God help you if you look here for anything more than vaguely coherent ranting, cutting satire, or general weirdness. But then again, I don't suppose that you are.

To me, you're just a...well, now that I go to define the audience, I find that I can't. Not precisely, anyway. It's probably safe to assume that the other Cant writers are reading this now, and potentially a few other people who have heard about it somehow or other. So yes, it's marginally better than scribbling down my thoughts and then casting them off into some yawning abyss. Not that I happen to know of any conveniently close abysses. I mean, besides the Internet, but I think of that as more of a screaming abyss.

So, really, we're talking...erm...I am talking about approximately a dozen people. Which is a decent number for a nice little party. I don't, you understand, particularly enjoy large parties.

Damn. Now I'm veering into actually providing specific, direct information about myself. I won't, because, as I figure it, you don't care. If I thought that you cared about what color my eyes are, which hand I write with, or how often I dance around in front of my computer in my underwear, I'd buy a webcam. (Blue; left; every six hours, facing Mecca.)

So here I am, writing for an unknown audience. Which I'm only assuming even exists. Which leads me down the path towards solipsism, defined as the theory or view that the self is the only reality. Basically, I know that I exist, because I'm sitting here in my head perceiving the world around me. As for the rest of you, I can't be sure. How do I know that you aren't just figments of my imagination? I don't, and that's the point.

However, since I've seen things and met people that I really, really hope wouldn't spring from my own mind, maybe you're all just part of a computer simulation. Maybe I'm strapped to a table somewhere, with all of this reality being input directly into my brain. Or, heck, maybe I'm just a brain in a jar. But that gets into that whole Matrix thing, and it worries me to think of a world in which Keanu Reeves might end up being the hero.

Of course, solipsism is just a temporarily interesting intellectual exercise. It can't be proven, and if it could, well, then your opinions don't matter, do they? Actually, proving it would really suck. Although I suppose you would save a lot of time otherwise spent conversing with all those imaginary people inhabiting your world. Sorry, I mean I would save time. There's no you in Reality.