Page 1 of 3

Read the Notes, Then Come Find Me

This page was left open on a reading-room table, and somehow it has found you. Introductions are not my strong suit, so let us treat this as a loose slip of paper tucked between two books, last seen in the stacks a little after closing.

A name can come later. I would sooner be recalled by a conversation than by a label. One small matter belongs here, though: I am past twenty, so if you are not yet, we will wave across the room and leave it there. I am rarely stubborn so much as slow to let go of an idea. I like to sit with an argument until it shows its seams, and I will say so cheerfully when a better one moves me. I will also explain a subject nobody asked about, at greater length if someone does. Please forgive the habit, and consider it affection in its least graceful form. Pronouns are flexible.

My days tend to vanish into work, and my nights into whatever question refuses to close, usually somewhere around three in the morning, which I am told is not a schedule. Replies may therefore arrive between "reasonably late" and "I did not forget, I promise." I am working on sleep, meals at sensible hours, and a dentist appointment, in roughly that order of difficulty. Looking after people comes more easily to me than waiting to be looked after: the small details, the unprompted check-ins, the things sent because they brought someone to mind. I keep a quiet rule about my own opinions as well. Until I have read enough to cite them, I would rather listen, and I find company that can sit in silence without it meaning nothing to be the best kind.

My interests do not stay in one place. They run through political history, old maps, treaties nobody can pronounce, ruins, and a certain sea that has slowly become a personality. I read the notes at the back before the book, and sometimes instead of it. Introductions are the least interesting part of meeting anyone. The rest is better done together..