It was on a sticky night in a mid-July Wisconsin, that I was born to an aspiring pastor and his country wife. My memories of early childhood are very dreamy and fluid, as if I lived underwater for 10 years.

They named me Jeffrey James for Jeffrey is the name of my father, and James is the name of my father's father. When I was 3 years old my parents decided life would best be lived apart, so they divorced and it took me a long time to understand and accept that.

My father is a patient man with kind heart and a great sense of humor. very slow to anger and understanding. Perhaps the reason that I don't have many things to say that are bad about my father is because I didn't live with him and deal with him on a daily basis. Usually just on the weekends. 5 days of preparation is probably almost enough to handle all the angst and quarks of an adolescent.

My mother, as I was growing up, was very quick to the draw when it comes to anger and taking offense, much of this I've come to attribute to an inability to accept love from herself and others, which causes the need to create drama in order to have a visual representation of how others feel by their reactions to this drama.

I love both my parents dearly, and do not see shortcomings as a reason to love one more than the other, though I may have more trouble interacting with my mother at times. I know they love me more than my average daily perception of them allows me to realize.

I have two sisters, two half brothers, and a half sister. Life felt like it was boys against the girls, the problem being that I was the only boy for most of my life. I lived in a house with 3 females for most of my childhood, and though it had it's downsides, I think I may have some insight when it comes to women in general because of this. In that respect I'm glad about how my living situation was back then.

Though I lived without a daily example of what it is to be a man, I believe my father was a prime example to me. He taught me a lot about what being a man is just though my observance. I also sensed the lack of a constant male roll model, which caused me to want to find out what it is to be a gentleman on my own. I have a love for finding out what it is to be a good man, and strive to do so in my own life. I want to someday write some sort of a guide on the topic of being a true gentlemen.

I had a love for science in my younger days, and thought of myself as a genius. I wanted to be a great inventor that changed the world with some astounding, revolutionary idea. My spotty education, and the trap of trying to 'fit in' prevented me from making much progress in that area though.

I instead found a love for music what I was about 14. I wrote music with computer software and started playing the drums. I wrote lyrics and sang with a friend I met at church around the age of 16, and have been writing ever since. I recently realized that i need to learn a melodic instrument if I want to truly create and preform music so I acquired a guitar and started lessons this year. I've now written 4 songs on the guitar, and countless songs with software and synthesized instruments.

if you want to hear some of my tunes:

myspace.com/jeffreyjamesmusic

myspace.com/tongunesonpaper