How I’m Resisting Social Anxiety During These Holidays

social anxiety

Resisting social anxiety, holiday edition. Anxiety has been a mighty foe of mine since forever. In addition to missing outings and events, it has severed my ties to my friends and colleagues. My world grew much smaller, but I didn’t even feel it happening. When I was forced to leave my home 3+ months ago, […]

A Day With Social Anxiety

Mental health Awareness Month Anxiety

Today is Saturday. My wife and I decided to run some errands. We set our schedule the evening before – we wanted to accomplish several things Go to the shoe store for her to get some new sneakers Drop my ballot at the County Executive Office PIck up a curbside order from Target Stop by […]

Toilet Paper, Sanitizer, and Social Anxiety in a Pandemic

Toilet Paper, Grocery Shopping

Here’s what I don’t understand – why are items that are available in restricted quantities NOT available to buy online or via a curbside shopping service? Is it logistics? Too few employees to take half a delivery of TP, alcohol, and wipes and set it aside to fill deliveries/shipments and put half on the shelves? […]

First Daze of School

Pittsburgh Elementary School

It’s back-to-school time: do you love the start of school or dread it? Living, as I do, in a family with no school-aged children, no children at all and no one attending school, my feelings at best are mired in nostalgia and too many hours on Facebook. Ahem. My original thought was to make a […]

Celebrating Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety

There’s a grey area between social butterfly and hiding under the covers in your pajamas avoidance. When I bring up my social anxiety with casual friends, I get some interesting – if gentle – pushback. I certainly *do* a lot of things, especially with Ledcat. But I avoid many, many more things because they are […]

That One Time At The Dyke March

Pittsburgh Pride

So one year, I was asked to speak at the Dyke March. I was flattered, but I’ll say right here – I blew it. I was absolutely terrified to speak with this group of women and felt like I had nothing to say. I was super anxious and I did not prepare and it was […]

How To Do Less With Less

Gary Vaynerchuk

The Prompt: What do you want to do less of in 2014? I’m striving for relentlessly upbeat here. First, drive less. In 2013, I put less than 500 miles on my personal car. Granted, we put a lot of miles on Laura’s vehicle, but overall I drove a lot less. How I will accomplish this will […]