I'm Terrible With Titles. (So, uh, hey.)

Hi, my name is Brendan. I’m new to Steemit, coming here off of a few friend’s recommendations. Facebook has grown ultra tedious as of late, so I came here looking for something novel. Hoping to meet similar folks who are eager to learn, grow, share, explore, etc.

Facebook has become somewhat toxic, namely because of the large ego-presence that envelops every interaction. It pretends to advance the causes of interpersonal communication, but instead, forces a dialogue where there shouldn’t be one. It becomes, not just a discussion between two men– two women, a man and a woman, whatever– it becomes social theater where everyone’s phantasmagorical misconceptions of themselves take free reign, and they actually imagine that the lies they tell about themselves shadow reality.

But I’m not really on here to complain about the vapidity of social media, rather, I’ve come to share a little bit about myself.

I’m a 32 year old man, from the Wisconsin Midwest. I live with my wife and girlfriend, and we are an active… throuple.

(That’s the word, right?)

We have no children, four dogs. Three pitbulls and a frenchie. They are named (in order from left to right): Hank, Tamia, Domina, and Molly.

All of them are trained in Latin, but they don’t mind if you mix it up with English. To be honest, me using Latin these days is akin to a mother screeching at her child by their middle name. They’re just like, oh, crap, he’s putting “us’s” and “um’s” at the end of shit again. Be cool.

I actually met my wife while I was incarcerated in the Green Bay Maximum Security Institution. We were penpals for four-years before I was released and she moved to America. We met each other on a prisoner penpal site called Write-a-Prisoner. She was a teacher/psychologist from the United Kingdoms, southern England to be more specific.

After we had our visit, I was later sent to a super-maximum facility named MSPF, where I spent 24/7 in solitary confinement for a year. I was allowed one 10 minute phone call every two weeks, and still she wrote to me every day, faithfully obviating the madness. In total over the years, I’ve spent close to 4 ½ years in solitary confinement. It was definitely an experience which was both terrible and self-confirming. I suppose, that when you are no longer able to distract yourself with the presence of others, you must either become someone you enjoy talking to or go mad. (Pretty sure I’ve done a little of both.)

While I was incarcerated, I started a company called Inmate Scribes. It was my mother, (then) fiance, and myself who started the venture. To put it plainly, we run a computer service for people who are incarcerated. Our company manages email, social media, penpal sites, dating sites… we do Google searches, contact people on their behalf, and even create websites for certain prisoners working on their appeals or innocence project.

I was incarcerated for 8 years. From 2004-2012. But before that, I was a pretty avid hobbiest-programmer. I’d learned C++, PHP and MySQL at around the age of 13, so it only made sense that I found a way to automate a service industry for all the folks locked behind bars in America.

I guess I’ll address the elephant in the room as well. While on leave from the military, back in 2005, I was arrested for armed robbery. To make a prolix story succinct, my friend was growing marijuana to help pay for his child’s health insurance (who had a degenerative bone disease); he was robbed, I robbed it back. No one was hurt, no property damaged. Nevertheless, I was sent to prison for 8 years, and am currently on parole until 2022. I was 19 years old at that time, and have spent the majority of my adult life in maximum security prisons. Getting out was one of the happiest moments of my life, and four years later, I still look around me at times wondering how I made it to this point.

Since being out, I've also had an amazing opportunity to meet another amazing woman who has (against all reasonable perspicuity) entered my life, and a few months ago, she moved in with me and the missus. It has definitely been an interesting experience, but all of us get along wonderfully. I think in a situation like this, the friendship between all individuals involved has to take a hierarchical priority. Polyamory isn't about sex, despite the fact that most people try to frame it in that particular light. It's about friendship, ease of life, and creating bonds with someone which lay outside of the traditional family mold.

On to other topics! I am a music aficionado, I both sing and play guitar. I’ll post a couple links below:

I am a lover of all things fantasy-book-and-tv-related, I love jiu-jitsu, chess, video games, programming, and philosophy. I’m working on a fantasy novel, but that is more a of a long term project I’ve got on the back burner at the moment. I mostly enjoy epic fantasy series, such as: Sword of Truth, Malazan Books of the Fallen, Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, Game of Thrones, and of course, Harry Potter. (Don't judge.)

I’d love to meet some new people here, so if you’d like to chat, just leave me a message below and I’ll be sure to respond. Thank you all for taking the time to read this!