[EDITOR’S NOTE: After Mr. Champion made an appearance on a nationally syndicated talk show and was told by his agent to “go jump into a lake,” the powers that be (namely, the telling impetus of self-preservation) demanded that he follow the examples of others and write the following note to aid future readers who peruse his blog.]

Return of the Reluctant is about linking to news stories I am unlikely to remember and about fabricating some of the stupid ideas that mesh within my mind. While there have been references here to shrooms, alcohol and masturbation in the past three weeks, this does not necessarily mean that I am a Hunter S. Thompson type regularly engaging in these activities. As has been accurately revealed by nearly every person who has commented on my posts, there is something suspect about a litblogger who is into occasional cross-dressing and who has repeatedly claimed that he beat Sir Edmund Hilary to Everest. Never mind that I probably never set foot in New Zealand and that my birth certificate states that I was born many years after Hilary reached the summit. But I still maintain that I wrote primarily from memory and that if my head recalls the wintry weather atop Everest during the Eisenhower administration and the partial frostbite I contracted on the climb back down, then it must be true!

During the process of writing this blog, I embellished many details about my sexual experiences. In 2005, there was, in fact, a longer time period between two fuck buddies than I initially reported. It was personal shame which provoked the impulse. No, I did not fuck 2,200 midgets in a cramped Westin suite over a 72-hour period. No, my cock isn’t eighteen inches long. It is considerably smaller.

Yes, I have desired to wear a bustier and a garter so that I might be able to impress some of my hunky West Coast peers such as Scott Esposito and Mark Sarvas. Unfortunately, both gentlemen have rebuffed my advances and I have spent many hours in therapy trying to come to terms with my self-worth.

I didn’t chronicle any of this in my blog because the last thing the world needed was another blog about a balding loser who couldn’t get laid. You wanted a tale of a blogger overcoming his addiction to cross-dressing and learning to copulate without a sartorial complement.

Well, dear readers, I gave you that tale and made a tidy sum. And I have no regrets about any of it. Ultimately, it’s a story, the kind of thing you’ll see turned into Lifetime TV movies.

I’m still very much riding the horse. I’m still on the path and I hope, ultimately, I’ll get there. Preferably in boxers rather than panties.

Edward Champion
San Francisco
January 2006