You know how when you haven't seen someone in more than a year and they ask you, "So what's been going on with you?"

There's that little moment of debate where you wonder if you should just say, "Oh, nothing, just working, you know, same old thing," or if you should really detail what's been going on for the last year and just lay it out there.

Usually it depends on how well you know the person.

I feel like the last few weeks, things have been so busy and crazy that most of what I've been writing here has been abstract, vague, not really about my life at all. And when that happens for an extended period of time, I begin to wonder if people who've come here late in the game have any idea who I am or what this is all about.

Not that I have an answer for that, mind you. I'm just saying..

So, hi. I'm Omar. I write a bunch of stuff here. Sometimes it's funny. At least it tries to be funny. Sometimes it's a little more serious. If you click over there on the left, where it says "Happies" in that blue circle, you can read way more entries than I even know how to deal with. Seriously, there's a lot there. One day I looked at how many old entries there were and it made me very, very sad for some reason. But trust me, when I get sued for defaming someone, those entries will be gone in a flash, so read up while you still can.

I don't really sell anything here, but that may change soon. I'm looking into selling some Terribly Happy merchandise. Not T-shirts (or not just T-shirts). More along the lines of stuff you can play with at your desk when your boss isn't around. Fun stuff. Toys and such.

I write and perform with a comedy troupe that's had a really successful run over the last three years. We performed at a huge theater this weekend and although we didn't sell out the house, there were over a thousand people on one of the two nights. We got a good review from the hometown newspaper.

I hang out with celebrities sometimes. Luckily for them, those stories are usually made up.

I'm 26 years old. I live in Austin. I write and edit for a living, although what my job actually entails can vary from day to day. I work in a very small office apart from most of my co-workers and we usually keep the lights very low, creating a techie, cave-like environment. In the summer, when it's over 100 degrees here, this begins to seem like a very wise thing to do.

Instead of living in one place and knowing everyone in town, I moved around throughout my childhood. For three years, my family lived in Germany, and I think it was a very formative experience. That's where I started writing. That's where I met some of my closest friends. That's where the contents from my view of the world moved from a tiny box in my head to a large, open expanse.

Starting this week, my life will temporarily resemble a huge blank canvas. My obligations with that comedy show just ended Saturday and now, as happens every six months or so, I'm looking for something inspiring to move me forward. There are a few writing projects and one comedy thing. In the next week or two, I'll decide where I'm going with those.

I have a cat. She's very political.

Sometimes, I think too much. Usually it happens when I try to write something and instead of having a solid or funny idea in my head, I start to ponder the nature of writing, what it's all about, what life means, that sort of thing. It makes for some pretty leaden thoughts. The good thing is that most often, it's a temporary affliction.

Everything I write for this site, practically, is written with music blasting at me. I don't go into what I'm listening to when I write (right now it's Rage Against the Machine's "Renegades of Funk"), but I think my tone changes depending on the music.

The first time I fell in love, I was 15.

Just because she's a waitress doesn't mean you get to call her "Flo."

Sunday night, because of circumstances way too complicated to explain, I ended up eating by myself at a small restaurant/diner near my house. I was sitting there reading the weekly alternative newspaper (hey, what do you want? It's free.) and accidentally listening in on a conversation four guys were having about some girl they all used to go to school with. One of them had run into her waitressing at a restaurant. The guy couldn't stop marvelling over how this girl (who he spoke of with obvious contempt) only wanted to be a waitress. "That's it," the guy said. "I asked her if she's going to school or what she wants to do and she said, 'I want to be a waitress.' " He spoke this as if it was the most unbelievable thing in the world. He went on to talk about a disastrous date he had with her, but by then I couldn't listen anymore. I was so disgusted by the smugness, by the assumption that this girl was somehow beneath them because she was happy with where she was in life and not striving for something else.

At the same time, it occurred to me that since I moved to Austin from Oklahoma, I haven't found a group of guy-friends to hang out with. In Oklahoma, I had a close group of friends, and we spent many a night at the coffeehouse, making each other laugh, talking about our equally disastrous love lives.

As annoyed as I was by these guys, I envied them, too.

Did I mention this site is usually funny?

Don't worry. It's bipolar like that sometimes.