Welcome to Velvet Nerve

I have a habit of noticing things, remembering things, and occasionally making them everyone else's problem.

I write because I have something to say, although I'm not always in a hurry to say it. Some things require a little distance. Others require a considerable amount of restraint, and I've never claimed to have an unlimited supply of that.

I appreciate nuance, a well-placed swear word, and the satisfaction of being technically correct. I can be patient, diplomatic, even accommodating. But I have my limits, and a rather unfortunate tendency to become exceptionally articulate once I've reached them.

As for Velvet Nerve, I suppose this is what happens when someone with too many thoughts and a questionable commitment to keeping them private learns how to build a website.

I have an entire professional career in the nonprofit sector, working in housing, homelessness, addiction, and the various complexities of being human. It's work that requires patience, discretion, compassion, diplomacy, and a remarkable ability to remain composed when circumstances are anything but.

There are expectations that come with that. How you speak. How you respond. How much of yourself you reveal. You're expected to be professional, measured, and endlessly mindful of how you're perceived. And I understand why. I take those responsibilities seriously.

But being good at maintaining your composure doesn't mean you don't have a personality underneath it. Nor does having a professional vocabulary mean I've misplaced my ability to tell someone to fuck off.

Velvet Nerve is where I don't have to be pulled in every direction. Where nothing is urgently required of me, nobody needs an answer, and I don't have to make myself available simply because I'm capable of helping. For once, I get to decide what deserves my attention, what I have to say about it, and whether I feel like explaining myself at all.

It's a personal archive, first and foremost. Somewhere to put the things I've written, made, collected, or otherwise become disproportionately invested in. There will be longer pieces, passing observations, unfinished ideas, photographs, and whatever else manages to hold my attention long enough to end up here.

Some of it will be deeply personal. Some of it will be entirely unserious. I reserve the right to be sentimental on a Tuesday and an absolute menace by Wednesday. I contain multitudes, several of which could probably benefit from supervision.

I don't particularly care for the expectation that everything personal must be inspirational, that every difficult experience requires a tidy conclusion, or that everything published must serve some greater purpose. Sometimes I write to make sense of something. Sometimes I've already made sense of it and simply have more to say.

And sometimes, quite frankly, I just want it on the record.

This isn't a portfolio, a manifesto, or an attempt to convince anyone of anything. I'm not particularly interested in curating a more palatable version of myself for public consumption. There are enough places in life where that's expected.

Here, I get to be as precise or as unreasonable as the occasion demands.

There's no particular theme to what you'll find here, and I have no intention of imposing one for the sake of appearances. Some things may raise questions I have absolutely no intention of answering. Others may come with considerably more explanation than anyone asked for.

And perhaps, somewhere among all of it, something I say will resonate with someone. Not because I've got life figured out or have any particular wisdom to impart, but because we're all stumbling through this for the first time. Some of us just make considerably more ridiculous mistakes than others.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I don't particularly need them to.

Anyway, welcome to Velvet Nerve.