Please excuse the rest of this column. I take pride in my contrarian nature, in my ability to identify clouds on any horizon. Today, though, is not a day for me to be philosophical or intellectual. It’s a day to freaking celebrate! READ MORE
You haven’t heard from me in a few months. I do hope you enjoyed the respite, because that silence has ended, beginning today with a mea culpa. I apologize to all the InkLink readers who contacted me offering support, to the members of Hope Nation who kept me in their prayers, to the countless folks in the larger recovery community who sent texts and emails of love and support, to my old Army buddy, Ryszard Guziewicz, to the InkLink’s Editor/Publisher/Grand-Poohbah, Carol Robidoux, and to dozens of others. I am sorry. I didn’t respond to many of your inquiries about my health, each sent with love and compassion. It was wrong but necessary to have isolated in a cocoon composed of my wife and daughters, along with a very small group of close friends. Thank you all, and please accept my apology. READ MORE
I discovered a serious blow to my solitary life, a slap to my hermitic face, a forced attack on my writer’s retreat. Some bastard left a bushel of progress at the Tiny White Box, and I didn’t have the opportunity to refuse to sign for it. Let me explain.
The Tiny White Box we live in is a converted motorcycle trailer that’s six-feet wide and 12-feet long. Inside is a bed for one-and-a-half (sorry, Sam), a coffee pot, a couple lamps, heat, a microwave and, most important, refuge from the rest of the world for me to write. READ MORE
In one major part of my life, I didn’t always take such a moderate view. Since May 21, 2007, thanks to a program of recovery that remains central to my life, I have not found it necessary to drink or use any mind-altering substance. Over these 6,058 days, I’ve worked hard to become the kind of man my mother dreamed I’d someday be. I have, without boasting, made, and continue to make, progress on that goal. That is how I define my recovery. READ MORE
Three weeks ago, on my 65th birthday, my body was pierced, robots were inserted into my lungs to extract a tumor and some lymph nodes, the booty was sent off for analysis to high priests of science, I was pumped full of painkillers for two days, and I foiled a plot to kill me. READ MORE
Trigger Warning: There’s some potentially bad news at the end of this. If you want to avoid that, you can safely enjoy (or not) all of this up until the last paragraph. READ MORE
Yesterday, Hope for New Hampshire Recovery’s board of directors sent out a too-kind press release announcing my departure. This release was gratifying to read, of course, but made me sound much more professional and serious than I am. In the interest of setting the record straight, I’ve composed an alternate release. READ MORE
It’s seven a.m., November 8, 2023. Soon, I’ll board a bus to Boston to take the T and a bus to West Roxbury. There, I’ll walk into the VA hospital to be chemically knocked out. A surgical team will put an instrument down my throat. That mechanism will, I believe, snip off tiny bits of the nodule in my lung and, perhaps, a sample of nearby lymph nodes. These pieces of me—and how strange to think of a cancer as part of ME—will be sent off to mystics and sorcerers in the mountains—sorry, I mean pathologists in a lab. They’ll read my entrails and divine my future. What a funny world, huh? READ MORE
While I was having lunch with a friend today, she was, according to reports and rumors, dining with a ghost. Missy watched me slurp soup and eat a sandwich while telling me about a conversation she’d had the other night, a conversation about me. READ MORE
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