Hello. As you may or may not know, this is my last post for my Gallimaufry column. That’s right: it’s time to say good-bye. And as you may or may not know, there are many ways to say good-bye.

One way is to simply wave your hand from left to right. But just one hand. Strangely, if you do this with both hands, you’ll create a “look at me!” motion. Stranger still, if you do this with both hands and shake your head, you’ll create a “No, don’t do that!” motion. It’s amazing how one additional motion can create such a message. For instance, if you do everything I just mentioned while also smiling, you’ll go from “No, don’t do that!” to “It wasn’t me who planned this surprise birthday party!” And if you do all of that while, at the same time, looking at your arm that’s bleeding from a gunshot wound, well, you picked the wrong guy to throw a surprise birthday party for!

Of course, the problem with that scenario is that you did not, in fact, plan the surprise birthday party. It was actually your friend who planned it. Your friend should’ve been the one that got shot. Life isn’t very fair, is it? You didn’t even want to attend the surprise birthday party. Really, tonight you just wanted sit back in a reclining chair in your living room with all of the lights off except for the torchiere lamp next to you and read until your heart’s content. A novel, preferably. Something thick. A 1,000-pager. Like Murakami’s 1Q84, which you just bought. It could be the first hardcover in which you took the book cover off to preserve the integrity of the book as a whole.

Anyway, that’s the kind of night you were hoping for. But, no. No, you’ve got to go and get shot in the arm because of some misunderstanding. Well, that’s life. Life is just a series of misunderstandings, from the day you’re born:

1. Oh, you didn’t want me to be a breach baby?

2. Oh, was I being a bad 3-year-old when I tied your dildo to a rope and walked it like a dog into the center of the Christmas dinner party for all our family to see?

3. Okay, got it now: studying is good, being stoned for three years’ straight is bad.

Misunderstandings.

Okay, I’m trying to put this off. I’m stalling because, like Boys II Men said, ‘It’s so hard to say good-bye to yesterday.’ Which, when you think about it, makes absolutely no sense. It should be, “It’s so hard to say good-bye to today.’ It’s the present that’s hard to say good-bye to. I think the operative word in ‘Boys II Men’ is ‘Boys.’

So good-bye, constant reader. And good-bye, every-now-and-then reader. And to those who are reading this column for the first time: you’re too late. But good-bye anyway.

I Love You,

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P.S. On a serious note, I’d like to thank Roxane Gay and everyone at [PANK]. They’ve been incredibly supportive, and I thank them for giving me the opportunity to write for their blog. I’m extremely grateful. All the best.