Hello! from The Book of Mormon (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

Hello, David.

In early 2023, I put 170 words on the screen for you explaining a writing project and my intentions for it, and how I’d use this writing project to share some updates about my life with you in essays and songs. I’m typing over those words right now. I never got around to doing what I intended to do, which probably means I should instead intend to do something I’ll actually do.

So here we are. I’m not going to wait until I write 10 essays with 10 related songs and then and only then pass it off to you for reading and listening. I’m just going to start writing, and telling you what’s been up, and maybe a song will help that along and maybe it won’t, but at least I’ll have started writing and sharing. And that’s something I’ve been needing to do since at least early 2023.

I chose three words at the beginning of this calendar year to serve as guideposts: progress, politics, and present. As in striving for, not backing away from, and needing to be more. So it is progress that compelled me to finally sit down, replace those 170 words with 220 new ones, and actually get started.

Don’t know where it’ll end, but I guess that’s the point.

-Matthew