So I want to say that I’m sorry for being such a crabby patty lately. I’m not reversing course on any opinions I’ve shared, but I have been shorter with people than I intend, and I apologize for that.

As far as excuses goes, I’m just busy and stressed. At the moment, I’m dissertating, on the job market, teaching a class, tutoring four hours a week, helping to run a massive assessment of our massive freshman composition program, taking a graduate seminar, editing a textbook, rating students for our oral English examination, doing research assistant work for a program in the Education department, working as Communications Editor for an online journal, representing my department in the graduate student senate, writing a piece for a magazine and a pitch for another magazine, reviewing three books, working on revisions for a journal article, and trying to keep the social fires burning. I’m not complaining. I love my life and I’ve made the choices to be in this position and I know there are some reading this who are far busier. I’m just trying to lay out why I’ve been a bit intemperate.

I’ll try to be better with that stuff in the near future. All of my writing is animated by emotion– I literally don’t know how to do it otherwise– but I can try and choose which emotions dictate how I work. So let’s get going.