Today I'm sorting through my desk at home, and I come to the task that marks the New Year for me; a faithful ritual that I observe annually, without fail. Although looking at that picture - what the hell happened to 2003? Never mind that, today I fill in the last page of my 2017…

I am back home in North Carolina for a month to take care of a ton of medical appointments - dentist, endocrinologist, primary care, psychiatrist, dermatologist and, of course, my annual mammogram scan. Of all of these appointments, the mammogram has to be the hardest. As most of you know, my mom died from breast…

I'm driving up the highway from North Carolina through the mountains of West Virginia to see my dad in Charleston. There's a wedge of ice underneath my windshield wiper and I watch it slowly melt as the miles go by. It takes a really long time. I think about ice and mountains and all the…