After College and a very brief detour into and out of a graduate program in philosophy, I became a professional skater for five years. Some of my favorite small constructive pieces I’ve done are from this time. I continued making stuff/art even when I was back in graduate school. I recall giving another philosophy graduate student one of the drawings below. She was also adopted, and we both felt that this was a source of our interest in metaphysics. As children, we both had been bludgeoned by society’s cultural and legal bias towards defining “real families” biologically. People throw the word ‘real’ around. But this word is weaponized. Makes for damn good philosophers, but that’s no excuse.