Post Vacation Anxiety

We arrived home Sunday morning. All was well. I was a little tired, but I was expecting that. I wasn’t expecting so much anxiety. It feels like I stuffed so much down inside me during our trip to avoid ruining things that it’s seeping out of my cells now. I’ve got all the old symptoms […]

Fat, Gay, & in the Way: My latest for the Pittsburgh Current

What does it mean to be fat, gay& in the way? I consider this in my latest for the Pittsburgh Current “At the end of my freshman year of college, my father criticized me for gaining the fabled “Freshman Fifteen,” and I felt shame, even despair. It took me years to acknowledge that this had […]

I have Cat Scratch Disease and I’m not even kitten

Cat Scratch Fever

I didn’t see this coming – apparently, I have a lymph node infection traced to cat scratch disease. Yep, what we often call cat scratch fever.  I have Ted Nugent disease and this does not make me happy. It started for me on Monday when I realized I had a headache that wouldn’t quit and […]

Review: Weighted Blankets by Magic Weighted Blanket Helps Me Manage Anxiety

A few years ago, I read about the value of weighted blankets for people who live with anxiety. You might be more familiar with them being used for children with autism and incrasingly for adults with dementia or forms of Alzheimers. The concept is pretty simple. From the Magic Weighted Blanket website Weighted blankets, like […]

Scooping Cat Litter Boxes is Good For My Mental Health

Wood Pellet Cat Litter

No one loves this chore. Right now, we have four litter box stations – one for the kitten room, one for the upstairs feral girls, one in the attic as a spare, and one in the basement for the regular house cats. They almost never use the attic pan so for all intents and purposes, […]

‘Nowhere to breathe easy’ – That Time When Anxiety Spoiled My Chance to See Heart and Joan Jett Perform. Here’s How It Happened.

Heart Joan Jett Anxiety

We may still have time, we might still get by Every time I think about it, I want to cry With bombs and the devil and the kids keep coming Nowhere to breathe easy, no time to be young But I tell myself that I was doing alright There’s nothing left to do tonight But […]

One Year After His Death, I Have Unfinished Business with Kerry S. Kennedy

Kerry S. Kennedy Florist Collage

I use my Google calendar to track a lot things, but memorial dates are perhaps the most important to me. Because I don’t want to forget them, even if its sad to think about their deaths. I want to remember that they lived (birthdays) and acknowledge that their deaths were too soon and too sad. […]

Drag Artist Jade Elektra Wows Toronto AIDS Vigil with Her Version of ‘Undetectable’

Photo of Jade Elektra 'Undetectable'

This weekend, our Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is hosting a tribute to Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole. Their songbook is on my mind or in my ear, I suppose. So this video caught my eye when I was browsing My Fab Disease: Mark S. King writes After performing the song publicly once or twice, Jade […]

I Miss When It Felt Good to Be at Persad

Persad Center Delta Foundation Pridefest

I went in for my weekly therapy session today. It is Pride week! I didn’t expect banners or balloons, but I guess I expected some energy and vibes? Instead, it just felt the same as it has for months – a sad place with anxious folks (staff) dealing with a world that does not appreciate, […]

I Need Something Human

Foster Kittens

This week has been intense and I’m struggling to figure out what comes next for me. Not in some big grand mysterious plan sort of way, but in an introspective “Am I the person I want to be?” sort of way. On the ‘yes’ side of that question – I trapped five homeless kittens at […]