On sickness, health, and creative frustration — Are you tired today, too? Are you, like me, having trouble focusing on your job, on the emails or spreadsheets or cash register or fuel pump or customers or vendors or students or patients or clients or jackhammer or snowplow or the fucking malfunctioning drive-through speaker? Good! …

A dispatch from the summer of 2021. — I wonder if they’ll believe us when we tell them how bad it got. In my mind, when I imagine us talking about it, it’s dead and gone but we’re still alive — you and me and everybody who is still here. We are old and we are healthy. …

You’ve got to be careful with Greek mythology and other forms of journalism. In the past two years, I’ve listened to over a dozen audiobooks in this subgenre. At first I played them at night, wondering why I could never fall asleep afterwards. It took me a few months to…

Addiction, social media, and candy corn perfume — It’s a warm Halloween, and I’m wearing: blue eyeshadow; candy corn perfume; one to three Fenty Skin and/or Fenty Beauty products; Jordan 4s (Retro OG Bred from 2019 but based on a colorway he wore in the ’89 playoffs, don’t worry about it); a blue bra that nobody else can…

With apologies (and gratitude) to Hunter S Thompson — We were somewhere around Flatbush Avenue Extension on the edge of the Manhattan Bridge when the cold brew coffee began to take hold. Every now and then when life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then…

In which a certain devil meets a certain whale — Author’s Note: This story blends horror, folklore, and fantasy. It includes depictions of violence, addiction, suicide, and other difficult elements. It also includes happiness, humor, and healing. A few of the photos are probably NSFW, unless your boss is cool. Please take good care. I hope you enjoy the story. …

Some tips on how to (maybe) find a good therapist in the U.S. — Have you felt sluggish, unmotivated, and inclined to cry more easily or go into a fiery fit of rage since last week’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade? If so, I can relate! Today I was pondering why I’ve felt so down, despite all the good things in…

A republic, if we can keep it. — “I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.” — Molly Ivins “So what, my dear compatriots? How will you label me now? Un-American? It won’t fit, I’m afraid. I’m even more American than you, only against the grain. Which, if you will think a moment, serves to put me in the tradition.” — Henry Miller, STAND STILL LIKE THE HUMMINGBIRD, 1962

The experiments didn’t hurt, usually. They were more psychological than anything else. I know I’m still fucked up from some of it, but I’ve learned how to deal with the memories. For example, I always panic when I see a butterfly, but I know how to calm myself down right…