Hello, and Welcome:

     Well we made it down here and have basically unpacked.  After a lifetime spent in Southeastern Michigan, I’m now a resident of the State of Ohio (more or less, more on that some other time). My original intention was to give people a running play by play of the move itself, but as anyone who has ever moved any farther away than across town there were plenty of unforeseen issues that needed to be resolved, and everything has taken triple the amount of time that was originally planned for. So there won’t be any real-time posts about the difficulties of packing and unpacking, I’m sure they would have been hilarious or painfully tedious. I guess that will remain a mystery.

     I suppose here would be a good place to tell you what the point of this is. Well, I’m here in the heart of Buckeye country, and basically I only know three souls within a hundred square miles of where I’m sitting. I’m still basically clueless as to what I should be doing career-wise (I’m incredibly lucky to have a partner that is willing to let me play the role of “house husband” while I figure it out), but I’m hoping that getting back into writing will help me figure some things out. At the very least, I will hopefully be able to keep my writing skills somewhat sharp.

     You might be curious about what you can expect from this little project. Honestly, so am I, but I suspect that I’ll mostly be writing about what it’s like to be in a new place without very many personal contacts. Predictably, I’ll write on some topics of interest to me. So, expect posts on gluten free cooking, sports and exercise, television and movies, (probably older movies, I just can’t seem to find the time to make it to a theater) and more than likely, a bit of politics. You’ll also probably get a bit of an inside look into what it’s like to be in a relationship where traditional gender roles have been tossed on their head somewhat.  I plan on maintaining an open comments section, and I would honestly like to hear from you. Finally, I’ve decided to attempt this little endeavor without an editor. I know that can be risky for multiple reasons, but my experience as a grad student makes me inclined to think that what I’ll lose in technical proficiency, I will hopefully make up for in honesty of tone and in actual output. So, you’ve been warned. If misuse, overuse, and outright abuse of commas are like nails on a chalkboard to you, you may want to flee as quickly as possible. Otherwise, I hope you will come on this little adventure with me. Maybe we can learn a little bit about ourselves and have a laugh or two, and at worst, you’ll get a few recipes out of the deal.

P.S. I guess that this is a good spot to make a request and add a disclaimer. First the request, if you happen to know me in real life (meat space, offline, etc.) I would appreciate it if you kept it under your hat. I realize online anonymity is a pipedream, but there are some seriously unhinged people out there and I would prefer to avoid running into at the grocery store or in front of my apartment, if possible. Finally, the views expressed here are mine and mine alone; they do not reflect my partner’s views in any way shape or form.