"Blog, meet Aaron. Aaron, meet blog."

We've asked the five newest Ruckusers - Kate, Brian, Byron, Aaron and Timo - to write something about who they are and what they do and post it here. Left-handed? Right-handed? Human? Cylon? You'll find out in the coming week. First up is Aaron Dean.

To begin with. I hate the term "blog," gross. It sounds so gross. Bllooooahhhgggg. I don't wanna seem like a sourpuss, but who wants to read this anyway? Not I said the Lance. I have not seen the Juno. But I am hesitant, because word 'round the campfire is they say 'blog' in it a lot for no reason, and I don't think I can handle that. I am also not too keen on this sudden onslaught of movies about the joys of unwanted pregnancy.

So, blog, meet Aaron. Aaron, meet blog.

When I was six, my ma and grandma took me to see 42nd Street at the Frauenthal Theatre in downtown Muskegon, MI.

I really enjoyed it. I was really jazzed up about all the singing and dancing and energy. And from then on... I was hooked. Gross. I hate those stories. But, it is a true story.

Theater did not resurface again until I was fourteen and and I auditioned for my first play. But I was hooked on storytelling. I spent all my time outside when I was little, acting out the stories I had read or imagined to myself. We never had money for camps or little league, but I had an allowance so I had comic books, so I had stories, and a lot of space. Fields and rivers and forests and lakes. Then I won a scholarship to art camp. And that was neat, because I was with all these kids who had taken lessons all their lives, and had been in lots of plays. They were all really depressed all the time. I am sure it was affectation. But I bought it, and it made the girls seem sort of sexy. Of this I am sure they were aware.

Then I did high school and became the "drama guy" at a rural high school that did one musical a year. And that was nice because all anyone wants in high school is niche, and I found it.

Then I went to college and it was art camp again. Only instead of pretending they were depressed, they pretended they were deliriously happy all the time, and by that time I was actually depressed. But in real life, they were too.

Then I came to Chicago, and have been working with adults who are in a little more control of their identities. And that has made theater, for the first time, tolerable.

Aaron Dean, one of the newest members of The Ruckus, is a Chicago playwright, actor, musician and novelist. He also babysits and gives drum lessons. Catch him in The Gay American this spring.