Academics say what?

I self-describe as a recovering academic. What does that mean? Well, it means that putting me in the middle of a dinner party with three doctoral candidates, an editor for a kick ass press and her fiance who intimidated me five years ago before I really even knew him will create extreme anxiety and the sort of social dysfunction that I have come to know as myself.

Mike left town this morning, so threw a dinner party last night, inviting some of the nicest people I have met in a long time over for a dinner/birthday party for himself and the above mentioned editor. I will often be cynical, and likely come off as an ass, but if I do so in this post, please know that these really are some of the nicest and most sociable folks I have run across in a long time. I mean no disrespect.

That said, in some ways I am glad that I am done with school. I don't want to surround myself with towers of books, but I don't know what I want to surround myself with in their stead. I am likely guilty of talking obscure Italian DOCs like they talk critical theorists or lecturers due in town, but I am happy with what I know and what I am studying and practicing. This is all to say that even the reclusive and socially dysfunctional me was welcomed into their pack, their conversation and their joy. I love that about humans, and experience it so rarely. Here's to good conversation, in Berkeley of all places.