Rebooting, part one.

Before I start, this is funny. Natasha Aponte got her Tinder matches to meet in New York City, all thinking they’d be going on a one-on-one date. My favorite line included the phrase, "men called Jimmy."

I know I haven't written much at all for the last couple of years. There are a number of reasons for this, and I won't insult your intelligence by saying it's because I'm lazy or I have nothing to say. Neither of those things is remotely true. There's also thinking some combination of "I need to make this funny" and "I have nothing funny to say." Neither of those are true either, though those are more in the realm of false assumptions than simple untruths. What happened is far more complicated than that, so let's take a peek under the hood, shall we?

There are two thing that come immediately to mind. First is that I've changed a lot. I started writing in 2006, and what happened then was that I realized that people found my observations interesting and funny. So it was a way to connect in ways I was unable to in real life.

I've always been most at home in situations where I know that I don't fit in, because then I know where I stand. It's the same reason I try to keep classrooms cold; if I try to keep it comfortable for everyone, some people think it's too cold and some think it's too hot, which generates time-wasting discussions. If it's too cold, everyone is in agreement and there's nothing to talk about. As for my social quirks, for most of my life I felt on the outside of things (thank you Dear Evan Hansen) to the point where it was my default.

And my weird way of perceiving and processing things made writing from that perspective fun. I've always felt like I'm other. Whatever my circumstance is, I'm not of it. I may be in it but I'm not of it. It very solitary, which is great for observational writing, but not so good for relating. But over the past dozen years I've begun to feel more like I'm actually part of the things that I'm objectively part of. I made a decision a few years ago to make an effort to connect with my colleagues and my students. So I don't feel quite as much like an alien, with proper emphasis on "quite as much."

The second thing is harder to tease out. The details are personal (not sketchy or compromising, just personal and about other people- I don't share information that isn't mine to share), but some stuff happened that shook me loose from my comfort zone and put me in a completely untethered mental state. I learned a lot from this experience, which I can best describe as losing all reference points and going merely on gut feel and instinct (is that redundant? Are those two things the same?) and how it feels. but the thing that stuck out most is my inability to tune out. I can't not notice and I can't not understand and I can't not care. In the past, that's a been a mixed blessing at best and hurts like hell at worst. But it led to what transpired this past school year. Which is part 2.