When the diagnosis first comes it’s a shock. Like an unseen punch to the face that leaves your head feeling waterlogged and spinning, at least there’s hope to reach for. Not unlike a fall while rock climbing, the thin crevices and fissures that seemed too narrow to be viable suddenly seem like solid outposts of…
Who proudly releases the long awaited conclusion to a bestselling series while the world burns? Literally burning in some places… (raises hand, with sheepish look on face). My timing is shit. I know it. No one is excited about books at the moment—-particularly books that are more than a year overdue for release. It’s okay. Honestly, a…
So it will be 20 days tomorrow. When I woke up on the morning of May 6th, I couldn’t stand, my chest was tight, my head was spinning and nausea rolled over me, wave after wave. The Urgent Care center thought it might be a stroke so I spent the night in the hospital. After…
Around the age of 31, I started a new ritual; waking up and announcing my gratitude aloud. It seemed silly and I didn’t even say it aloud at first, worried my bedroom furniture would judge me as some new-age, hippy-dippy, crystal worshiping doofus. The improvement was immediate though not significant. I in fact, didn’t realize…
3:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 17th—Falling Water, West Virginia WOLF sat at the workbench with a soldering gun hovering motionless above the circuit board. He closed his eyes and willed mental resources to Scott’s dream prison, hoping to prevent him from piercing anymore memories of the beach two months earlier. Once his thoughts had calmed,…
I was never the soft one. I had the harsh edges and the strong opinions. A bit on the Asperger’s scale, what’s in front of my face is the most important thing in the world at the moment, and sometimes it’s hard for people like me to think about consequences. It’s haunted me my entire…
I’ve seen the phenomena before without realizing what it was. It never occurred to me that I could dig past the obvious and find a hidden well of emotion–or, perhaps it did and I just avoided doing it. A lone tear sliding down someone’s cheek can be written off as so many things, particularly when…
I have a headache. Not your run of the mill stress headache, or springtime sinus pressure. This is an ice pick to the base of the skull that radiates up and around, caressing the ear and jaw, producing guitar feedback grade tinnitus, then burrows under the eye, making me feel like leaning forward might make…
