Hey, everyone! I’m Ben and I live in St. Louis with my dog Sylvie and cats Marisol and Isabella. I started a very small non-profit that helps people with résumés and resource searches and WiFi connectivity and stuff, and I facilitate a baking group that makes healthy vegan gluten free reduced sugar/sugar-free treats for nutrition outreach.

I'm an aspiring full-time social worker and I've had a setback in that I've chosen to leave my position as a legal outreach case manager since I realized that some of the requisite skills I needed were beyond the scope of what I could acquire through on-the-job training in a reasonable amount of time. This was a tremendously difficult decision and I'm doing my best to stare down precarity, aimlessness, and existential angst in quantities that I haven't experienced in a number of years. I'm at a crossroads, and I thought that it couldn't hurt to try and forge some new connections while I have some extra time on my hands!! Here's some (hopefully) less bummer-y stuff about me:

• Someone once described me as a "grownup real life Doug Funnie, though not conventionally successful" and I guess that's reasonably accurate??

• I recently consumed 25 lbs. (11.3 kg) of organic grade B carrots within a 1 1/2 month span. This was a Pyrrhic victory for I am more carrot now than man; bland and awash in beta carotene.

• In my kitchen I possess many thousands of organic beans, grains of rice, and kernels of popcorn. Perhaps even tens of thousands! A wizened old-timer adorned in a cloak of avocado skins bestowed them upon me during an interminable Greyhound trek from Teaneck, along with the title Paladin of the Dry Goods. it is a tremendous burden.

• The infrastructure of the brick alleyway behind my apartment continues apace in its decay, revealing an incipient glimpse below into the timeworn remnants of an ancient underground empire from a long-forgotten epoch. I have mixed feelings about this.

• My diet these days is about 47% healthy pancake-based. What was intended as a salve in times of profound uncertainty has become a ritualized slog - a futile attempt to cling to normalcy, bereft of joy and meaning...the whereabouts of the waffle press remain a mystery. Anyway, here is my recipe for healthy oat flour pancakes:

• 1 1/2 C oat flour
• 1/4 C sunflower seeds
• 2 TBSP milled chia or flaxseeds
• 2 TBSP granulated stevia (or other sweetener)
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup apple sauce
• 1 TBSP vinegar
• 1 1/2 C water

Blend in blender 'til smooth, let batter rest while skillet heats over medium heat; make pancakes. The pancakes will turn slightly green because of the baking soda's interaction with the chlorophyll in the sunflower seeds - if you'd like, you can make believe that you're eating green alien space pancakes.

Anyway, I guess that's all I have for you for now. I like to think that I am empathetic, kind, and reasonably self-aware - if those are qualities that you prize, feel free to give me a shout!!