Well, it’s certainly been a minute.

Why did I step down as admin? If you care to read on, I’ll get you up to speed:

The aftermath of Hurricane Maria quietly morphed into the first passes of eldercare on my part. Maria aged all of us in ways that none of us can deny, but for my parents who were already well into the senior zone, the mark Maria left was game-changing, and I’m the only one around to provide for their care.

And Puerto Rico’s recent inclusion into the Very Seismically Active Club™ has been a new flavor of crazy to assimilate.

I was also growing deeply despondent with the way people engaged here, a fractal facet of Anglophone culture as a whole. The zeal with which people morally policed one another was hard to engage, especially when, from an exterior POV, no one held much of anything in the way of moral high ground. I don’t pretend my culture has any higher moral standing, but that’s the point, my culture doesn’t pretend to be what it’s not. We own our warts, and they are many. But the policing and shutupsky squads became the color and flavor of nearly every interaction I made here and even I got tired of wielding the ban-hammer because, as someone pointed out to me at one point, I was becoming deeply cynical. He was right, but the problem with that charge is that the indictment of cynicism speaks only to how we feel about a sentiment or phenomenon. It doesn't address veracity or verisimilitude, and often the cynic is drowning in unquestionable empirical evidence.

So I stepped back. Initially, it was intended as a complete stepping away, but I am as much a creature of habit as any, and I’ve been part of this community for a goodly while.

To the mods and admins, I promise to uphold the kvetch I so often made, that this place was ever and always a place to discuss writing. That’s what I intend to do and I will do everything in my power to make sure I am never someone with whom you are made to deal.

To those who remember me, I may not be who you remember. Much of our interaction in the past may have been filtered through my prior position where I had little choice but to tolerate some viciously intolerable behavior. If I block you, it’s because I intend to hold to my promise to the staff, and also to a commitment to an internal locus of control, which includes the idea that I get to pick the engagements I want and swipe left on the ones that I don't.

So, on to writing…