- In recent months, every time I’ve written anything, I’ve pissed someone off.
- I’ve only pissed off people I like.
- I’ve pissed off people I like because they’ve discerned things in my words I didn’t mean to say, things I didn’t mean.
That’s not a comprehensive list of reasons I haven’t been writing. I’ve also not been writing because I’ve been feeling physically shitty, have been consumed (in good ways, mostly) with work- and family-related things, and just haven’t been in a particularly “N-like” space. But those three reasons above have been big reasons.
I’ve been feeling as if, if I were going to write, I’d have to tackle all my recent writing missteps. Apologize to people. Smooth over ruffled feathers. Eat crow.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not proud. It’s not that I don’t happily eat crow. And I should. I’ve written clumsy shit that’s been, at best, clumsy, and at worst, hurtful. And I regret that, and apologize for that.
It’s the opposite. It’s that I feel that, given the magnitude of misunderstanding between what I intended and what came across – on a number of posts, some of which you still can read here, and others of which I’ve taken down – the task of making things right has felt, simply, daunting. Impossible.
So I’m giving myself a blank slate.
I apologize to half a dozen people. You know who you are. I hurt, offended, or disgusted each of you differently. But you have in common with your compatriots the fact that I’m at times an oaf, and, at times, I’m not an oaf, but I am a shitty writer.
Anyway. I apologize.
And I’m giving myself a clean slate. I have permission, from myself, to write about whatever I want, without having to address this topic further.
That is all.