Synthesis
The whole package. Jon and I started watching Lodge 49 when he was still sleeping in the parlor after his back surgery and first radiation treatments. We...
Fools
Our relationship was sudden, and accidental. I arrived October 29, 2004, by train with a few suitcases, to Seattle from Chicago. By October 31st, I kissed...
Bury Our Friends
The tree planting with Jon’s soil went very well. It was a good weekend overall. The kids, including my best friend’s kids, did most of the digging. There’s...
Supplemental: Vernal Equinox
When I was in my 20s, I had a very Chicago suburban roommate who invited me to join her family for their big Easter brunch. The kind of cultural family...
Choosing to Be Here
It had never occurred to me that I would want my tattoo artist to be a sadist. On this most recent Friday, I sat for my latest piece of body art, a bit of...
Be (anywhere but) Here Now
Fucking torture. I can’t be sunny about it. It’s lonely. How do you spend so much time and never get tired of someone? I know it’s lucky. I get that. I wish...
This is the noise that keeps me awake...
I spent probably three or four glorious years part of the Chicago goth scene when I was in my mid-20s. I found a home there, with the music and my friends,...
Empathy for the Dead Ones
CW: The usual grief and death, disordered eating, body shame stuff “Wow, I never met him, but I really respect the guy,” he said, on a stretch of highway...
The Drop
Wrapping the line with a larks head around the big toe, then around the second, around the foot, then the third toe, holding on, then a gasp, a yelp. Turning...
Soil
CW: Death, Cancer, Human Composting We drafted our wills in 2019 in the weeks before Jon went in for his back surgery to remove the tumor and vertebrae that...
The Year of Whatever
It was a moment of vulnerability that wasn't vulnerability. "Don't you have any guilty pleasures?" he asked, as I sat against the low leather passenger seat...
The Weight
CW: cancer, eating disorders, pregnancy loss, dysmorphia The radiation treatment was located near a mall, where a jeweler could take a link out of Jon's...
Body Affirming
CW: body stuff, trauma, death I bent over the sink to wash my hands. I was dressed in workout gear I had mostly purchased during the pandemic, for use mostly...
You are not god. You cannot fly.
CW: bodies are gross, so is death All cops are real. All cars are real. Do not use the phone. Do nothing to your hair. These are just a handful of guidelines...
A Month Ago - They Say Grief Is...
Facebook Dispatch December 8, 2025 at 10:44 PM Facebook memories has been semi-regularly coming through with images from 2 years ago. I mean, during that...
