I don’t like you thinking you know me. First things first, I’m my own man. I don’t mean it as old-timey as it sounds like that. My own person. Who happens to be a man, and the man part is important. That doesn’t mean anything about women, or about other mans who aren’t the same man as me, but it says something about my man. I mean the man I am. But that’s not first thing.
First things first, I’m from Port Orchard, western Washington, Pacific Northwest, United States, Earth. Which one’s more first? Go figure that out. If I move back to Michigan, does the Pacific Northwest matter more or less? Probably more because most people here are from the Pacific Northwest or at least they say they are because it’s great out here, first of all. Just look at the goddamn mountains. But if first-ness changes when I go there or there or there, guess that thing wasn’t exactly first after all, was it? And—you can’t get around this one—since when does where I come from make me who I am? That sounds like the Wild West or Nazis. Howdy, fella, where ya from? or gassing anyone who’s not German enough. I’ll be damned if my own first thing is something I don’t get a say in.