Why am I the way I am? Who’s to say. Maybe it has to do with my dad (retired). He was a high school English teacher. I didn’t get away with sloppy words, No gots or i before e’s or aints in my house. Or, perhaps it’s because the only two states i’ve called home are, also, the only two states where you don’t have to wear a helmet to legally ride a motorcycle?

And it manifests in strange ways. There was a point in my life. when I seriously considered calling the FBI and asking them if they needed someone to decipher hostage letters. Or my unquestioned talent for conjugating other words with the F word…slammed right there in the middle.

I’ve always felt like I’m never totally there (wherever that is), but waffling between the real, concrete world around me and the one with the well-worn path of imagination.