They say that you shouldn’t ever start out any sort of conversation or extended monologue with negative vibes, and I agree, which is why I’m bringing this up at the top of this entry. See, I’m about to talk about something I hate, and I didn’t want to offend the rules of order by starting this whole thing off negatively. I think the above is a smart maxim, and also, just to start off on an unrelated positive note, I think Townes Van Zandt’s song, “Nothin’” is a hauntingly beautiful masterpiece. Okay, on to the negative stuff.

Are y’all familiar with the idea of “avoidance behavior?” Clearly, even if you’re not, it doesn’t take a brain scientist to figure out the gist of what it is, but for those of you who would rather not think, it’s a theory that posits that many, many facets of behaviors that we tend to lump in with the notion of addiction are really just ‘avoidance behavior,’ that is, something you train yourself compulsively to do rather than deal with the less savory parts of being a sentient human and all the messy frustrating crap that goes along with that.

In my most recent Italian lesson, the Rosetta Stone in-app police stringently discouraged me from moving on and told me to go back and retake the last lesson, which, well shit, I kinda thought we were past that, so I skipped ahead and oh mercy goodness was I not ready for that. I will say this though: up to now I’ve been sober as a judge when I’ve done these things and this time I kinda let my natural proclivities towards being a wild and crazy individual fly and decided to do this one with two drinks in me.

Here’s an extremely obvious take: Language is, first and foremost, a tool of communication and understanding. To be sure, there is art and whimsy and all of that wrapped up in what a language is, but without understanding, without language’s primary function as a tool of communication, there can be no whimsy or art.

I recently read an article about this kid who was a pretty dyed-in-the-wool missionary from California, which, that seems a little weird in this day and age, right? Who knew? To put it mildly my interest was pretty piqued right away.

Hi, my name is Brendan. Clearly, I’m new here, so nice to meet you all. I’m sure you’re wondering what this is all about, so lemme get right to it.