Blog, with modification

The last thing I wrote on this blog was, “Stay tuned next week for Issue #3 of Ask the Biological Anthropologist!”

That was almost 3.5 years ago.

I’ve begun writing new posts on multiple occasions since then, only to get distracted and abandon them.  Something — a new house, a second child, lecture prep, grading, etc. — has always interrupted to demand my attention, and the result has been a series of unfinished thoughts languishing in my ‘drafts’ folder.  At one point, I tried to use this start-and-stop cycle as a framing device for yet another new post, referencing the “time is a flat circle” speech from Season 1 of True Detective (it was still a timely-ish reference at that point) before beginning to opine on the ever-relevant topic of “work/life balance,” but that too fizzled.

It turns out this man is not the fount of wisdom he initially appears.

I didn’t just have writer’s block; I had writer’s ennui.  And as more time continued to pass, the problem compounded until it reached the point that it seemed anything I wrote would be an inadequate follow-up to my increasingly long bout of inactivity.  Only a truly clever/insightful piece of writing can make up for such an extensive absence, my inner monologue repeatedly informed me. What you have is neither. 

Peas in a pod, he and I.

Well, I have decided to ignore my inner monologue and instead embrace the idea that the perfect is the enemy of the good.  I’m determined to start writing again, even in small doses, and am thus relaunching The Tinkering Primate.  The thrust of the site has not changed: I will continue to think and write about anthropology and evolutionary biology, and to share musings about life in general, and the academic world in particular.  Erstwhile readers will notice, however, that this relaunch is accompanied by a “slight modification” (as Darwin would say) to the site’s design.  Thanks to an awesome act of altruism by my artist sister-in-law*, I have an amazing new banner!

So here’s to renewed creativity, inspiration, and non-ennui (nonnui?).  And in the spirit of scientific rigor, let’s try this experiment again:

Stay tuned for Issue #3 of Ask the Biological Anthropologist!

 

*Her name is Adriana, and if you need a wicked awesome pet or animal portrait (that’s my dog Gromit, below), you can check out her website here.  She also makes beautiful ketubahs, which you can see here.