Since 42 is, in fact, the meaning of life, I thought I’d commemorate the milestone of total enlightenment with a blog post about who I am, after four+ decades on the planet. I don’t post much these days — too busy writing elsewhere, it seems, along with class prep, personal pandemic management, reading, taking in new cats, etc. But here it is: a birthday post in which I state all the things that I am — or think I am.

I am 42.

I am the husband of Crystal O’Leary-Davidson.

I am a novelist with two books out by two different publishers, working on a third.

I am a procrastinator.

I am obsessively organized in some ways, but I know that a closet door covers a multitude of sins.

I am fearful of the fall semester when those of us who teach have to step back into a classroom we aren’t ready to receive and teach students who may or may not be ready to receive us. Which I suppose could be shortened to a more general statement about myself: I am fearful. Fearful of the future, more than anything else, which lately seems like a hydra: lop off the head of one problem and two more spring up in its place.

I am grateful to have a steady gig that allows me the benefit of working from the home I am also grateful to have.

I am irritated that I’ve ordered a number of masks to wear teaching in the fall and they have not yet shipped.

I am indebted to all the readers and friends I’ve made in my unexpected realization of a lifelong dream, twice over, and I don’t take a single moment of it for granted.

I am going to vote for Joe Biden and a 100% Democratic ticket in the fall because I believe Republicans have lost their goddamned minds.

I am unsettled.

I am driven by the desire to look ever forward and have serious issues living in the moment.

I am selfish.

I am hopeful.

I am nice.

I am mean.

I am absolutely certain that Kelly Marie Tran got short shrift in the third Star Wars film of the new trilogy, arguably among the most disappointing of Star Wars movies. (I believe that “Rey. Just Rey” would have been the perfect answer to that old nosey desert woman’s question.)

I am Andy, not Rebecca, which I’ve been told would’ve been my name if I’d been a girl. Maybe because of this, I’ve always been partial to Rebeccas.

I am very fond of plastic slipcovers for books.

I am fond of werewolves.

I am going to one day revise the manuscript of the werewolf novel I’ve written and get it published somewhere, I hope.

I am not afraid to go to the movies by myself, though I’d never want to go again without my wife. That said, I just really want to go the movies again, don’t you?

I am delighted to admit that in the years between college and graduate school “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS got me through a very difficult time.

I am late for a departmental English meeting.

I am 42.