Pulling out of a flare is a tricky business. You get better on a very slow upward trajectory, with occasional “two-steps-back” days from eating too volatile a mix of ordinary ingredients (oh, BOY, do canned tuna and hard-boiled eggs not mix) or too “advanced” of an item. Yesterday, after weeks of not tasting an uncooked [...]
change
A good friend of mine recently decided to quit smoking. She’d quit before, which obviously means that the quitting didn’t quite “take.” So this time, she decided to quit differently. First, she’s investing money in the deal. For them amongst us what is on the cheap side, money can be a powerful motivator. As my [...]
I have been thinking a lot about love and friction, only not in the way your mind maybe-perhaps just jumped to, if you are like me and we are both, like, 12. I have been thinking about love in terms of what I love, and whom I love, and how those two things intersect. For [...]
I officially ended 13 months of Self-Imposed Sabbatical this past weekend, in rather a hootenanny-ish way, ergo my delay in actually getting something posted today. I’ll write much more about the event, about the sabbatical, about the lessons I took from them and the ideas that have begun coursing through me again largely because of [...]
I’ve done a handful of interviews for the presentation I’m giving later this week, which has renewed my appreciation for the skill involved in asking the right questions. My previous experience with this valuable journalistic skill has been minimal, but similarly instructive. It took an shockingly long time to draft a set of questions for [...]
I believe in the essential goodness of people. I may forget it here and there, when I’m pressed for time, or not well-rested/-fed/-clothed, or when some deep, emotional trigger gets pulled. But usually, and fairly quickly, I recognize these lapses as such. They’re my (temporary) deviations from an essentially optimistic, basically loving worldview, brought on by [...]
It was 1.1.11. The first day of a new decade, all shiny, all ones, all the promise of a big, brave, beautiful new year stretched out before us. It was the reboot, the fresh start, the alpha to 12/31/10′s omega. It was hope, objectified. It was intention, projected. Or, you know, it was what we [...]
You think to yourself: “I can do this!” or “This will be good for me!” or even “It doesn’t matter.” And so you smile when someone asks how things are going, broadly, you smile, with most of your teeth, and you flick aside what’s left of your heart, and you stick out your hand and [...]
Back in September of 2002, I started drawing my colon. I first drew it on the day after my second-ever colonoscopy, the day I was finally told how bad off I really was in unequivocal, Western-medical terms (“aggressive onset,” white-cell count, colostomy, etc.). I continued drawing it once per day, every day, for months afterward, [...]
