Why do breakups have to hurt so badly? If we all ran amok and naked—cuddled with those we liked with no consequences, like an episode of Bachelor in Paradise—the world would spin off its axis. There must be some societal checks and balances. Evolutionary biologists conclude that post-breakup pain and reflection are required for us to […]

The power of the human mind is wonderful and boggling—except when it turns on you, peppering your psyche with staccato queries about your relationship. One minute, your partner’s grandeur is so intense, it’s cartoonish. How did you ever land such a splendid fish? The next minute, you’re spun into a vortex of doubt, placing them under intense […]

Despite driving a pickup and owning steel-toed boots, I’m not a “man’s man.” I don’t look or sound tough, and I feel awkward at Home Depot. I own a gun, but it’s for caulking showers. My life is a dichotomy in that I’ve spent years in Taekwondo and I love football and rodeos, but I […]

I used to be the life of the party and hoarded friends like wine corks. I don’t know when or why I acquiesced on solitude, but today I prefer plants and my own company over others. And it was long before a pandemic afforded me the excuse for social exile. As I age, I also […]

The airport is an unruly place. It’s opposite world. People who otherwise rarely move are seen sprinting to Cinnabon. High fashion is Birkenstocks and yoga pants. Happy hour starts at 7:00 am. Stepping over sleeping adults in fetal positions is expected. And all purchases are made within a 400% inflationary market. The Boarding Process: Humanity Has Left […]

It’s the ultimate insult to mental illness injury. Toby Keith once said, “I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m good once as I ever was.” It’s also pillow talk for many people on psych meds. Treatment emergent sexual dysfunction (TESD) is more stigmatized than mental illness itself. This is why so few patients […]

I currently share the mixed blessing of being in cancer remission with my mom. It’s not genetic; I’m adopted. I’m remarkably grateful to be in remission with her, but uncertain how, as a non-smoking former athlete, I succumbed to a smoker’s cancer diagnosis on my birthday. Or, far worse, how my mom was hit with a […]

Men don’t get a lot of compassion – not as a gender, not toward one another, and not toward ourselves. We are the more impulsive, less-refined gender that has not progressed much since our cave-dwelling days, though we’ve learned to use salad forks and sneeze into our arms. Sadly, and perhaps due to our ruffian […]

  I don’t purchase many big-ticket items, and never do I buy things sight unseen. So the premise of procuring a human this way makes my head spin—even as I was lucky enough to be adopted from Children’s Home Society in Oakland, California. The perspective of being a shelter kid Returning from visiting my mom […]