This Is Me — Before We Start
This whole damn thing started because I offered everybody a beer.
That's pretty much the truth.
I started posting some shit online. Pictures. Stories. Whatever happened to be running through my head that day.
Didn't have much of a plan.
Still don't, if we're being honest.
Then people started showing up.
At first it was a few.
Then a few more.
Next thing I know, there's thousands of you people watching me drink coffee, build decks, go fishing, talk about my kid and apparently paying way too much attention to what kind of underwear I'm wearing.
Didn't see that one coming.
But somewhere along the way, people started asking questions.
A lot of questions.
Some were normal.
How'd you get into construction?
What do you do when you're not working?
What's it like raising Tucker?
Some got a little more personal.
Why don't you date?
What turns you on?
Are you gay?
That one comes up a lot.
Jesus Christ.
And then there's the shit some of you ask that I'm not answering in this book or anywhere else.
You know who you are.
I started answering some of the questions online, but the more people who showed up, the more the same questions kept coming back around.
So I thought, fuck it.
Let's just answer them.
Funny thing is, somewhere along the way this turned into more than that.
I thought I was gonna sit down, answer some questions and be done with it. Instead, some of the damn questions made me start thinking about shit I hadn't thought about in years.
And I ended up telling you a hell of a lot more about my life than I planned to.
There's stuff in here I've never really talked about before. Things about growing up. Things about Tucker. My marriage. Grandma Arlene. Getting older. Shit I'm afraid of. Shit I'm still trying to figure out.
Hell, there's at least one thing in here I've barely told anybody.
So I guess if you've been following me and wondering who the hell this Joe guy actually is, you're probably gonna know quite a bit more by the time you get to the end.
Maybe more than you wanted to know.
That's your problem now.
Not all of it, though.
I'm still allowed to have some damn privacy.
This isn't my life story.
Hell, there's a lot of my life I haven't talked about.
Some of it I might someday.
Some of it I probably never will.
I've been around long enough to have some stories.
Good ones.
Bad ones.
Some shit I'm proud of.
Some shit I'm not.
That's life.
And I'm not writing this because I think I've got something figured out that everybody else doesn't.
I sure as hell don't.
I'm a contractor from Tennessee who's spent most of his life figuring shit out as I went.
I wasn't much for school.
I didn't have some big plan for my life.
Still don't.
I've screwed things up. Changed directions. Started over. Made money. Lost money. Raised a kid. Got divorced. Built some shit. Tore some shit apart.
And somehow ended up with a bunch of strangers on the internet wanting to know what I think about life.
That's still a little strange to me.
But I like it.
I like talking to y'all.
I like writing this shit down.
And every once in a while somebody will tell me something I wrote made them laugh, made them think or reminded them of something in their own life.
That's pretty cool.
Don't make a big damn deal out of me admitting that.
So that's what this is.
You asked.
I'm answering.
Some of these answers are probably gonna be longer than you expected. Some might piss you off. Some might make you look at me a little differently.
That's alright.
I'm not trying to convince anybody to like me.
Never have.
I'm just gonna tell you the truth as best as I know it.
And if we were actually sitting around talking about this shit, we'd probably be outside.
I'd have coffee if it was morning.
Maybe a beer if it wasn't.
There'd probably be a fire going if it was cold enough.
And Tucker would eventually walk outside, hear what we were talking about, call me an asshole and go back inside.
So that's how I'm gonna treat this.
Nothing fancy.
Just me answering the shit you've been asking me.
Grab yourself a beer.
I'll get the first round. - Joe
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