He was drowning.

The weight of a paperclip. Legs going in every direction, all six of them.

I offered my finger. He held. I carried him from the pool to the grass and set him down and said, “Have a good life, friend.”

He’s not the first June bug I’ve plucked from my swimming pool. But he’s the first to save me back.

Worthlessness

That night, I’d been struggling.

Writing.
This very post.

A small thing.
That felt like a huge thing.

I couldn’t find the right clump of pixels to tap onto this screen. Every idea felt wrong. Every draft hollow.

I sat in my office—the one I designed with Byrontology in mind, carefully mismatched chairs, a sturdy table, a room to say something meaningful happens here.

And nothing was happening but my computer laughing at me.

I felt worthless.

Identity Collapse

I have a performance-based identity.

My therapist says as kids, some of us learn that we only have value when we perform. Look presentable. Get good grades. Behave.

And when the performance stalls—when the book hasn’t sold, when the idea for the latest post isn’t coming, when the hair isn’t behaving—self-worth can evaporate.

It’s called identity collapse.

I’m very familiar. I was Mr. Catholic until I realized there was no place for gay people in the church. I was a TV journalist until I burned out. I was a movie star’s assistant until I quit and became nobody again. I was young and healthy and got cancer. I had long hair and cut it off and felt immediately less cool.

I have Byrontology, but can’t finish a post.

Illusion

I stepped outside. Stared at my office. Embarrassed. Too hard on myself for not getting the job done. Too hard on myself for being too hard on myself.

June bugs were throwing themselves at lights. And at least one June bug threw himself into the swimming pool.

Maybe he was also chasing a light. A reflection of a light. Chasing an illusion.

Drowning. Little legs getting no traction. Spinning in circles.

Help

For relief, I try not to reinvent the wheel. Philosophers have addressed this across the ages. The problem of self, identity, meaninglessness.

Kierkegaard was no help.

Nietzsche, no.

Camus, I just can’t imagine Sisyphus happy pushing his boulder up the hill again and again and again.

Instead, the most helpful advice came from the most unlikely guru.

Cult Members Only

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Spitballs are shockingly difficult to get out of your hair.

I can't recall a thing about high school algebra. But I can tell you about the spitballs Scott launched at me from the back seat of the bus.

I can tell you about empty, dirty candy wrappers shoved into the slots of my locker.

And spending the long lunch break alone in the school library just to feel peace.

I had one true friend. Loneliness.

I daydreamed about how things would be different in college.

And they were.

Higher Education

In college, no spitballs.

Extracurricular activities didn’t involve sweating.

I joined a club that planned campus lectures. A few fellow members became my close friends.

Peace? I found it. For a while.

The Shock

My new friends all lived together in the female dorm, so I’d linger outside their building and leave messages on all three answering machines.

When’s breakfast?
When’s lunch?
When’s dinner?
What are we doing tonight?
What are we doing this weekend?

In college, I didn’t eat alone anymore.

Until one day I asked what time we were going for chicken tenders and fries.

Silence.

One of my friends said, “Um.”

She said, “The thing is—”

And then she said, “You’re needy.”

Needy

I’d never heard the word before. But I didn’t need to look it up.

I got my chicken tenders and fries in a Styrofoam container. I took it to my dorm room ate alone that day.

And the next. And the next.

My friend’s comment didn’t feel mean. It felt true.

It rested comfortably beside other things I hated about myself. Like being nerdy. Like being gay.

But those things had less sting in college. Nerdiness was encouraged. Will & Grace was a hit.

But neediness didn’t have such great PR.

Empty, Abandoned, Useless

I tried to be less of a problem.

I stopped asking so many questions.
Stopped lingering outside their dorm.
Stopped assuming I was invited.

On endlessly open nights, I’d walk the campus.

Loyola New Orleans was quiet in a way that felt staged, like a movie set after hours, my own drama.

Empty streetcars toiled along under oak trees on St. Charles Avenue.

Academic buildings had lights on so you could see they were empty, abandoned, useless.

On those nights, all the learning was happening outside, the lessons of my own footsteps. Wondering if my friends were at parties. Wondering if they noticed I wasn’t there.

I turned to my old friend from high school. Loneliness.

Loneliness

He was available. Affable. Had a sense of humor about my Styrofoam dinners. “Where’s mine?” he’d ask.

But I noticed something else. He sure was needy.

My friend Loneliness was always around. He wanted so much of my time. To constantly make himself known. To nag about how to spend each long, solitary hour.

I started to wish my friend Loneliness would branch out. Not be so reliant on me. Why couldn’t he make other friends?

I imagined telling him, “You’re needy.”

I’d say, “I can’t shake you.”

I’d ask, “Why does your attention seem intense, heavy, desperate? Like your life depends on being with others? Like your safety depends on it?”

Suddenly, Loneliness reminded me of something. And it shook me. And it healed me.

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Here’s what’s inside.

• The personal stuff. Deeper confessions and revelations and how I process feeling jealous or lonely or stuck. Not public posts. For cult members only.

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Not numb out. Not scroll.

Just… go somewhere.

Feel something. Be inside a story. Care about people I’ve never met.

These are the podcasts I go to.

The first one pulls me in every time. Truly one of the best writers/storytellers I’ve ever heard.

The others are like close friends I can turn to when I need a mood change.

Read more

Most stories—novels, films, television shows, and even gossip between friends—have a simple, foolproof structure.

I don’t reinvent the wheel.

Read more

I was crying in my bathtub and posted a note on Facebook.

It was the day Carrie Fisher died.

Read more

She’s perfectly healthy according to the vet.

According to x-rays and bloodwork and degrees.

But I have a feeling.

The shelter said Shirley was three years old, but she’s always seemed older.

Our one-year-old pup, Raindrop, needed a playmate, and Shirley was the shelter’s go-to for training and calming other dogs.

She’d been at the shelter for a while. Her sister, Laverne, was adopted without her. Later, Shirley also got adopted, but was brought back. Twice.

“The problem is Shirley doesn’t really like men,” the shelter guy said. He looked at Steven. Then at me. Then he said, “She’ll probably like Byron best.”

That was three years ago.

Just like Shirley trained other dogs at the shelter, she’s trained all of us.

She taught Raindrop how to howl.

She taught us to yell, “Loud noise,” as a courtesy to her before we use the blender.

She barks at guests when she’s ready for them to leave.

A few weeks ago, we adopted my mom’s 12-year-old dachshund mix, Belle. Shirley became morose.

“She’s probably just yielding to the new, most senior member of the household,” Steven said.

“OR MAYBE SHE’S SICK!” I said.

I started counting the white hairs on Shirley’s snout. I compared photos from when we adopted her to now. I considered the way she looks at me sometimes.

Strangely, I don’t feel this way about Raindrop or Belle. They seem fine.

Raindrop is playful. Belle is energetic. Shirley seems pensive.

“Are you thinking about death?” I ask her.

Shirley looks at me as if to say, “Just give me a belly rub.”

I cry. The snotty kind. “I hope we did right by you. Thank you for protecting us. You’re a great sister and friend.”

When I was a kid, I didn’t use stickers. I was saving them.

I don’t wear my favorite clothes. I’m saving them.

I pre-mourned our previous dog, Tilda. Previous relationships. Previous jobs.

At one job—where I was happy!—I worried every day I’d get fired, and had the stress and diarrhea to prove it. I was getting fired in my mind every day. Traumatizing myself. The kinder thing would have been to actually get fired. At least then it would have only happened once.

Shirley takes her time on walks.

She eats slowly.

She naps in the sunshine.

Maybe it’s not pensive. Maybe it’s presence.

She rolls over. She just wants belly rubs. Probably without me weeping about nothing.

“Keep belly rubbing,” she says.

“Okay, okay,” I sob.

“At this rate, you’ll probably die first,” she says.

“I love you,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s the spot.”

I think.

Here are postcards from my marriage.

Five years of marriage and something is off. Five years, I think—Steven keeps track of dates. I’m bad at math and directions and seasons and intersections and daylight savings and remembering to turn off the fan in our bedroom. Our marriage doesn’t feel like ones from TV or movies.

When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

See it here.

I never dated anyone seriously before him. I’d go two weeks, then get bored. A therapist asked if I wanted a clown or a boyfriend. I met Steven in 2013 (I think—he’d know). We laughed constantly. At words like grundle. At stupid dog videos. At each other. I told that therapist I found both.

One night I was exhausted, but we were supposed to have a date. I canceled last minute and assumed he’d fuss like others had. Instead, he said, “No problem. I’m here to make your life better, not more stressful.” I moved in with him.

We wanted careers as artists. We stayed up late writing, then reading each other’s work, saying it’s great, keep going! When one lost hope, the other took the torch, said this will be funny one day, and we’d laugh about that. I wasn’t thinking 10 years ahead. I just wanted another hour.

I wanted his family to love me. I worried about my clothes, jokes, hair. I asked him, what if your nieces and nephew think I’m the clown in our relationship? He said “they do and that’s what they love about you.” And that made me smile. A big red clown smile. Matched his.

Something is off. The word marriage isn’t enough. For our art. For our dogs Raindrop and Shirley and Belle. For nighthawks eating bugs over the pool. For the backyard gopher we named Wellington. For how he can’t load the dishwasher correctly. For when I can’t remember how many years. For another hour. Love, B

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When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

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Five years of marriage and something still doesn’t line up.

I thought I knew what this was supposed to feel like.

In this episode, I tell the story of:

• Meeting a man who was never boring.

• The moment I realized he was here to stay.

• How we built a life out of art, humor, and a gopher in the backyard.

This is a story about commitment, confusion, and what love actually feels like when it doesn’t follow the script.

Byrontology: Stories. You. Feel.

→ Read the full story, see pictures, get my free book at Byrontology.com

He’d wave his arms over a map of the town and tell us what to wear.

“It’s gonna be hot, hot, hot.”

He was magnetic. Charming. Handsome.

But I didn’t just watch him on TV.

When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

See it here.

We worked at the same TV station in a small town—so small we lived next door to each other.

When I moved into my apartment, he helped me carry my sofa up the stairs.

His smell lingered. It was not of cologne or laundry detergent. It was of sweat and sunshine and something alive. A scent you want to roll around in.

Get ready for springtime temperatures. Watch for allergies.

I was new to being a reporter.

I was new to being gay.

I had spent years trying to pray it out of me. Youth group. Confession. Bargaining. I didn’t date. I didn’t touch anyone. I believed what I had been told: that being gay was something rotten inside me, and if I followed it, it would lead to disease, isolation, death.

The weatherman was older and wiser. He was comfortable in his skin. He took me to the little local gay bar. He showed me life, not death.

He told me he didn’t want a relationship. I assured him I understood.

One cold Saturday night turned into a warm Sunday morning. My first time. No bolt of lightning from God. We weren’t struck dead. We embraced.

I woke feeling at home in myself, still in his bed, watching him in a way the camera never could.

Those closed eyes. The man from TV, his face soft on the pillow beside me. His smell all over me. His aliveness, too.

My new aliveness.

Bundle up. There’s a cold front on the way.

Working in TV in a small town didn’t pay well. So when a two-bedroom apartment was available and would save us money, I pushed for us to move in together.

The weatherman resisted until I promised again—“I understand. I know we’re just friends.”

I learned the details of his life. His toothpaste next to mine. His razor in the shower. His favorite margarita mix in the freezer. His bedroom on the other side of a thin wall.

I worked the 10 p.m. Sunday newscast and came home, excited to watch the latest Six Feet Under.

I opened our apartment door and he was tangled with another guy in our living room, cuddled on the same sofa he’d helped me carry upstairs when I first moved to town.

The two of them were watching the final minutes of Six Feet Under.

My purple Pier One Imports candle was burning. It was an expensive splurge and I had been saving the candle for a special occasion. It was nearly spent. The house smelled of it.

I couldn’t smell him anymore.

It wasn’t the first time he was with someone else. But it was the most painful. It was the first time in our place, and the first time I couldn’t deny it.

He broke my heart. Or, since he was always honest with me, maybe I broke my own heart.

I got a new apartment the next day.

We both cried when I told him.

He understood.

But there was still something I didn’t.

I needed emergency therapy. The only appointment I could find was with a therapist who worked with kids.

I was a 22-year-old man, sitting in her office on a little sofa for children, Barbies and Legos scattered at my feet, while the therapist sucked on a lollipop intended for her tiny clients, as I explained, teary-eyed, “I was in love.”

She slurped, pulled the lollipop through her lips with a wet smack, and asked, “How do you know it was love?”

I made a living asking questions. Of politicians. Of celebrities. Of everyday people on the worst days of their lives—their home burned down, their husband was arrested. I’d stab a microphone at them and ask, “How do you feel?”

For the first time, I knew what that felt like.

Was it love?

Her question followed me for years. It hovered over new relationships. Is it love?

It hovered over jealousy, anger, longing.

Am I really angry?
Am I really jealous?
Is this really what I want?

I saw other therapists over the years. Different offices. Different couches. Same pattern.

The question was always more powerful than the answer.

Was it love?

Yes.

But not the way I thought.

I was in love with life. With taking a risk. With stepping into something I had been taught to fear. With letting my world expand. With giving myself over to something more than someone.

I’ve seen the weatherman since.

Still handsome. Still moves the weather in me.

But we’re different now. The forecast has changed.

I’ll always love what we had. Him smiling at me through the TV. His toothpaste beside mine. His face on that pillow. The way he changed me.

I don’t watch weathermen the same way anymore.

I picture him instead—arms sweeping across the map of our story.

“Sunny. Warm. Beautiful.”

Byrontology is a hug.
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Free option available.
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When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

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A TV weatherman showed me sunny days and a broken heart.

I was 22, newly out of the closet, and convinced I had found something real. Until a storm cloud moved in.

In this episode, I tell the story of:

• the small-town weatherman who showed me some firsts

• the moment everything broke

• and the one question from a child therapist that changed how I understand love, jealousy, and pain

This is a story about early love, self-deception, and what happens when you finally question your own feelings.

Byrontology helps overthinkers and the existentially exhausted feel less alone and find meaning in the absurd, the awful, and the everyday.

→ Get the full post, pictures, video, or visit the bookstore at Byrontology.com

This is a very special Byronbook I wrote after moving my mom into assisted living.

She was cool. I spiraled.

This book documents what helped me find myself again.

Anytime I’m feeling gray, I turn to these very personal lessons from life, therapy, Carrie Fisher, and at least one self-help guru from the 1980s.

I wrote it, designed it, printed and folded and stapled it, and can mail you one if you want.

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This is a very special Byronbook I wrote after moving my mom into assisted living.

She was cool. I spiraled.

This book documents what helped me find myself again.

Anytime I’m feeling gray, I turn to these very personal lessons from life, therapy, Carrie Fisher, and at least one self-help guru from the 1980s.

I wrote, designed, printed, folded, and stapled it, and can mail you one if you want.

Hold this Byronbook

Get a physical copy I hand made for you →

Get Your Copy

Already a Paid Subscriber

Instantly download and/or read this Byronbook here →

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This is a Byronbook I wrote because Carrie Fisher once told me, “Take your broken heart and go make art.”

It’s about a time I like a failure. And how I found my way back.

It’s about perseverance, being creative, facing setbacks and looking for meaning in life. Sometimes it helps.

I wrote, designed, printed, folded, stapled, and can mail you one if you want.

Hold this Byronbook

Get a physical copy I hand made for you →

Get your copy

Already a Paid Subscriber

Instantly download and/or read this Byronbook here →

Read more

I can’t think clearly. Everything feels heavier than it should.

When that happens, I don’t guess anymore. I pull some books off my shelf.

This first one I recommend is always within arm’s reach. It’s tattered, warped from the bathtub, and stained from crying.

It changed my life.

The others I use when that one isn’t enough.

Read more

His stories are propulsive, immersive, and catnip to my brain.

I’ve read him for years trying to figure out how he does it.

In this book, he shows you.

The others taught me how to actually do it myself.

Read more

Get BIG GAY WEDDING

Big Gay Wedding follows Barnett Durang, who plans to marry his fiancé on his mother’s Louisiana rescue farm—without telling her first. As hundreds of guests descend from the “heathen coasts,” family wounds and small-town tensions collide with glitter, love, and unapologetic joy.

Over one unforgettable week, this unlikely wedding becomes a riotous, tender celebration of love, identity, and letting the future look different from the past.

Schitt’s Creek meets Father of the Bride.

Audiobook narrated by actor Noah Galvin (The Real O’Neals, Dear Evan Hansen)

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When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

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Get A STAR IS BORED

A Star Is Bored follows Charlie Besson as he embarks on a chaotic, hilarious, and unexpectedly tender journey as personal assistant to movie star Kathi Kannon—icon, author, eccentric, and whirlwind of Hollywood chaos.

Over three wild years, their bond deepens into a fierce, funny friendship that forces Charlie to confront whether he’ll live on the sidelines forever or step into the leading role of his own life.

Inspired by the author’s time as assistant to beloved actress and author Carrie Fisher.

The Devil Wears Prada vibes, but queer and with heart.

Audiobook narrated by actor Noah Galvin (The Real O’Neals, Dear Evan Hansen)

Get A STAR IS BORED

“Wildly funny and irreverent... suffused with complex sensitivity.”
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“A sweet goodbye and an ode to friendship... it delights.”
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“Incandescent, uproariously funny, and tender... a love letter to Carrie Fisher and Hollywood.”
— Variety

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When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

See it here.

Mom never called that late.

“Byron, I have nausea and I’m sweating and I called 9-1-1 and I’m having a heart attack and paramedics are here and I’m going to the hospital.”

She hung up and the TikTok resumed playing—“They had nine spacecrafts in the hangar”—but now, who cares?

When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

See it here.

Leaving California, rushing to my childhood home in Louisiana, I cried a little at the airport.

Poor Mom.

I cried for me, too.

I caught myself thinking, I don’t want to do this. That’s the exact thing I said to myself before I had chemo. That’s what the task ahead felt like—hard, consuming, emotional.

I also did want to do it, to try to be Mom’s hero. I’m good at problem solving. Staying calm. Being steady. When you’ve been Carrie Fisher’s assistant and held her hand through electroshock therapy, you can do anything.

Two stents later, doctors praised Mom’s heart, but saw she had difficulty walking. Her knee had given out weeks earlier. They sent her to 20 days of inpatient physical therapy.

I started deleting more from my calendar, sending apologetic emails. Replies came back: “No problem! You’re a great son!”

If I was being a great son, I wasn’t loving it, living in my mother’s rural cottage. Isolated. Rain. Extreme cold. I had to run water so the pipes didn’t freeze. No tofu at the grocery stores.

I cared for Mom’s chatty bird, JuJu, and sweet dog, Belle. I drove Mom to cardiologist and orthopedist appointments. I felt the weight of a wheelchair for the first time.

I learned everyone’s name at Mom’s rehab. Hello, Miss Clara—she had a fall recently. Hi, Mr. John—always holding his face to an Alexa speaker and asking it to play Lawrence Welk over and over.

Belle kept me warm every night. Other family members and neighbors gave me hot meals and king cake. A friend visited from Los Angeles for a weekend. I bought local New Orleans coffee with chicory for the cold mornings.

20 days turned to 30. Doctors wanted Mom to move permanently into accessible housing. She says it was the hardest decision she’s ever had to make. But she found bright spots—the fountain outside her window, the cappuccino machine in the lounge, excellent jambalaya.

I signed paperwork I didn’t understand. I wrote her name in all of her clothes.

When Mom was settled and content, she sent me home, but not alone.

Coffee, Coke Zero, and Belle were my companions for the fifty-one-hour drive back to California in Mom’s old Toyota Corolla, stuffed with keepsakes she asked me to protect for her, including Belle.

I crossed state lines. I crossed time zones. I crossed back into my old life.

When I got home, Steven, Raindrop, and Shirley welcomed Belle and gave me kisses like nothing had changed.

But something had.

No more waking early to turn off Mom’s pipes. No more long commute to her rehab to bring her an iced mocha. No more Miss Clara and Mr. John. No more organizing and scheduling and sorting her medications.

My body didn’t know I was home, waking at 4:30am every day. Even the dogs stayed in bed—including Belle.

I had work to do but couldn’t open my laptop, couldn’t think about making art, couldn’t brush my hair or get out of my sweats.

I hate calling it “depression.” I feel like I haven’t filled out the proper paperwork. Maybe it’s not even the right word.

Pensive? Sure. Malaise? Definitely. Melancholy? If that’s the thing from 1842 that’s treated with leeches, then, yes, probably a lot of that.

Mostly, it felt like collapse. Purpose collapsed—writing a book proposal was lame compared to the real life stakes of helping Mom. Hope collapsed—seeing how the healthcare system treats seniors, and one day, who will haul my yearbooks and treasures in the back of their Toyota Corolla?

I tried to honor appointments.

The dentist said to smile. Absolutely not.

The pilates instructor said, “Use your obliques.” I don’t even want to be alive right now.

Some hero I turned out to be.

I should not be collapsing. I should be grateful. I should be back to normal. I should be strong. I should not need rest. If I’m not productive, I’m worthless.

4:30am again.
Then, another day, 5am.
Then, another day, 6.

Eventually, the dogs decided 6am was reasonable and joined me. All three.

It was a week before I could open my laptop. My battery recharged.

No moment of enlightenment. Nothing superhuman, except I stopped trying to be it.

Sometimes feeling depressed requires more. I’m grateful this time it required less.

Finally, one day: 7am. And a smile.

Belle snoring beside me.
Palm Springs light on the mountains.
The last of the chicory coffee.

My phone lights up with my mom’s name.

This time, it doesn’t interrupt anything.

I answer.

Byrontology is a hug.
It comes to your email.
Never junk.
Free option available.
Includes welcome gift.

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When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

See it here.