Exactly one-half of my lifetime ago, I was 23, drunk most nights and, par for a course I’d been on since my single digit days, in the deep throes of lamenting love lost. In the fall of 1987, the man in question was Tony. We’d dated for what in retrospect seems like about fifteen minutes, but at the time felt like so much more. I knew, from our first date, that he was moving far away in a matter of weeks. And I know now that I saw a challenge in that, an opportunity to prove to myself and to him that I was worth hanging onto, even at a distance. Of course he saw it differently. And so when he headed off to a job in West Virginia it was with little regret regarding our time together ended, a chance at great things and a new life. I remained in Knoxville, licking my wounds, lamenting my loss, and using the FedEx account of the company I worked for to send him elaborately orchestrated packages of gifts, clinging to futile hope, a specialty I’d honed years before. more ›

Have you ever forgotten everything you’ve ever learned? I had a severe case of amnesia last week that lasted maybe 48 hours. During this period, out the window went every single bit of accumulated sage advice from friends, any wisdom picked up over years of therapy, the philosophy behind my martial arts training, each hard won bit of insight from nearly a decade of almost daily meditation and plenty of Buddhist teachings and god knows how many self-help books, and all those lessons learned in the School of Hard Knocks. In short. I got pissed off. Really, really, really, really fucking pissed off. more ›