Hello! My name is Liz. I’ve struggled recently with how to introduce myself. Like what are my defining characteristics and modifying adjective labels? I used to go, “Hi, my name is Elizabeth, and I am an attorney.” It doesn’t really sum it up, though, and besides knowing random, completely irrelevant and rarely useful facts about law, it is such a minor part of my personality (despite being a large portion of my day to day). So instead, I will introduce myself as thus: writer, sister, daughter, scrabble-expert, crossword fanatic, burner. I bite the heads off of gummy bears and animal crackers. I can dance with only the music in my head. Recent obsessions: parallel realities, lucid dreaming, figuring out how time works, beatnik writers, fractals, creating stories. It’s fun inside my head.

Jazz great Wynton Marsalis said, and I’m paraphrasing here – Blues is the roux to jazz’s gumbo. You might have a good soup, but without the roux, you don’t have gumbo.  I think we are all searching for a little roux…