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.”

Life, death, dogs. Happiness and hardships. I write about tools I use to cope here.

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.

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

Marriage is full of joys. And learning experiences. I write about tools I use to help me through hardships here.

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.

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.”

Sometimes life is complicated. I write about tools I use to help me through hardships here.

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 chapbook I wrote after moving my mom into assisted living.

She was cool. I spiraled.

Am I Severely Depressed or Do I Just Need Taco Bell 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, printed it, folded it, stapled it, signed it, photographed it, and uploaded it for you.

• Paid Members: The digital version is waiting for you right now. You can also order a printed copy if you want.

Get your new chapbook

• Free Members: Upgrade now to unlock this book instantly and see everything else waiting for you.

  Unlock the book

  ---

Podcast
YouTube
Bookstore
Pen Pals

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.

sample page

Hold this Byronbook

Get a physical copy I hand made for you →

Get Your Copy

Already a Paid Subscriber

Download and/or read here →

Read more

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

sample page

Hold this Byronbook

Get a physical copy I hand made for you →

Get your copy

Subscribe and get a free digital copy

I’ll instantly email you a free digital copy to download →

Subscribe now

Already a Paid Subscriber

Download and/or read here →

Read more

It’s on my nightstand. It’s tattered from being reread, warped from being held in the bathtub, stained from occasional crying, and bent from traveling with me.

It changed my life.

The others I turn to when nothing else works.

Read more

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)

Purchase

CALIBA’s Golden Poppy Book Awards finalist

Named a Most Anticipated Book by Book Riot, New York Post, and Zibby Owens

“Hilarious! A perfect summer escape.”
— Entertainment Weekly

“An immersive novel that celebrates love of all kinds.”
— Shondaland

“Uproarious... pack this must-read in your bag.”
— Town & Country

“Chaotic in the best way... hilarious and heartfelt.”
— Booklist

“My heart grew three sizes... a poignant delight from start to finish.”
— Bianca Marais

“Quirky, tender, and hilarious... lovers of Schitt’s Creek will rejoice.”
— Kate Russo

“Filled with charming characters, empathy, and so much heart.”
— Allison Larkin

“Warm and hysterical... I felt like I hit the wedding guest jackpot.”
— Bobby Finger

“A delicious mix of comedy, romance, and family drama... brimming with life.”
— Jonathan Parks-Ramage

Purchase

Explore the Byrontology Bookstore

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)

Purchase

“Wildly funny and irreverent... suffused with complex sensitivity.”
— The New York Times Book Review

“The fun summer read so many of us are craving.”
— USA Today

“A sweet goodbye and an ode to friendship... it delights.”
— New York Post

“Ingenious... savage satire leavened with compassion.”
— Los Angeles Times

“Incandescent, uproariously funny, and tender... a love letter to Carrie Fisher and Hollywood.”
— Variety

“Funny, dishy, and deeply affectionate... the force is with him.”
— People

“A fizzy roman à clef... witty and tender.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Laugh-out-loud funny, charming, exquisitely observed.”
— Stephen Fry

“Fierce and funny... queer chicken noodle soup for my soul.”
— Jonathan Van Ness

“A love story of an assistant and his lonely, hilarious boss... it broke my heart.”
— Julia Claiborne Johnson

“I expected laughs. I didn’t expect so much heart. A terrific read.”
— Laurie Gelman

“A knockout. Riotously funny and wickedly tender.”
— Taylor Jenkins Reid

Purchase

Explore the Byrontology Bookstore

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?

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.

Podcast
YouTube
Bookstore
Pen Pals

My mom had a heart attack. I flew home. I handled it.

I was steady. Capable. Useful.

Then I drove fifty-one hours back to California and fell apart.

That’s Byrontology.

We take a broken heart and make art.

The broken heart is sometimes rejection, jealousy, or despair.

The art is the response that brings us back home—a book, a movie, a walk, a conversation, a meaningful moment at Taco Bell.

Read, watch, spiral with me at Byrontology.com.

This is all Carrie Fisher’s fault.

When I was her assistant, she told me, “Take your broken heart and go make art.”

So I did.

Hi. I’m Byron.

Come closer.

I write stories you feel.

Failure. Love. Family. Success. Depression. Meaning.

And how to keep going.

Like:

• what working for Carrie taught me about fame

• how the gay orgy tent at Burning Man snapped me out of a funk

• what I learned about love by losing my virginity to a TV weatherman

• why being a published author doesn’t make you happy

What people say:

“I’m sitting in a coffee shop reading this and tearing up like crazy.”
— Laura

“I read this on a 13-hour flight back from Portugal
and it caught me in exactly the right place.”
— Afonso

“This profound piece really hit home.”
— David

I’d like to send you something personal.

It’s a little book I wrote when I felt like a failure.

And how I found my way back.

It’s a small gift. Plus access to my favorite stories, if you want. No junk.

Not ready?

Read a story.

Get a book.

That’s what I would tell myself as a kid when I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was cute or when I NEEDED that Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

Others had a gay devil, too.

On a family trip, a relative who was even more entrenched in Catholicism than me, drove us past a gay club. “You gotta see this,” he said.

I was about twelve and we had just eaten dinner at a place where the schtick was waiters throw hot dinner rolls at you.

Outside the club, a leather daddy was walking, alone, in chaps with yellow stitching. Everyone in the car laughed. But I was thinking, “His gay devil is winning.”

Years later, the gay devil followed me to college in New Orleans. The audacity.

I saw a flyer for a campus club called Gay Outreach at Loyola (GOAL). I sent a letter of outrage to the university president, Father Bernard Knoth, SJ.

I used words like “betrayal,” “sin,” “abdication of duty.” And plenty of exclamation points.

Soon after, I got a message on my dorm room answering machine. Father Knoth wanted to meet.

In high school, soliciting donations to fund a class trip to Washington, D.C., an elderly accountant I approached said he wouldn’t contribute because he only supported Baptists. He said Catholics had it all wrong.

I researched, visited my priest, called my Sunday School teacher. I cracked open an encyclopedia and the Catechism. I knocked on the accountant’s door again and rattled off my newly learned talking points about transubstantiation and concupiscence.

The only thing we agreed upon was that being gay was evil. He was impressed. Mostly, he seemed amused. He funded my trip in full. And I learned confidence could pass for truth.

I sat confidently across from Father Knoth, his giant grand desk between us, his striking view of campus behind him. He opened a manila folder. My letter inside. He was no match for my old, trusty talking points. He closed the manila folder.

Like the accountant, he seemed amused.

But I was not amused.
I was certain.
I was so certain.
Was.

More helpful than “othering” gay people would have been if all those priests over the years had warned me that time and certainty are enemies. That time never loses.

Time came for my relative who drove us past the gay club. He left the Catholic Church over the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich.

“The Pope used to say you’d go to hell—HELL—if you ate meat on Fridays,” he said. “So I’d always eat fish, fish sticks, those damn fish sandwiches. Then they just said, ‘Never mind, you won’t go to hell anymore—our bad.’ They have no credibility.”

Time came for me, too.

College life brought friendships and education about religion that small-town talking points couldn’t survive. When “othering” stopped making sense, the rules and institutions behind it did, too.

I started to warm to the one friend who’d been with me the whole time. The gay devil. After really meeting him, turns out he’s not so bad. I actually kinda like him.

And time came for one other person.

My senior year at Loyola, I was nominated to be on an activity programming committee. The appointment needed to be approved by the president of the university.

I once again sat across from Father Knoth. I was less confident this time. I planned to pretend we’d never met. But he pulled open a drawer. Removed a manila folder. Only one piece of familiar paper was inside. My letter about GOAL, now three years old.

“I don’t feel that way anymore,” I blurted.

I didn’t elaborate. He didn’t press. He approved my appointment.

Time came for him years later, long after I graduated. Abuse allegations from before he was in New Orleans turned revered Father Knoth into, simply, Bernard.

Time doesn’t always undo everything. Not memories. Not regret.

I still see the leather daddy’s face as he watched us drive past all those years ago, that yellow stitching.

I hope he didn’t hear our laughter. I hope he didn’t spend a second thinking about it. I hope when we were long gone, he had a wonderful night, a real devilish good time.

Podcast
YouTube
Bookstore
Pen Pals

I grew up Catholic, certain, and very afraid. Afraid of desire. Afraid of other people. Afraid of the part of myself I was taught to name as evil.

In this episode, I tell the story of:

• the leather daddy I laughed at from a car window

• the furious letter I wrote to a Jesuit priest in college

• and the slow, inevitable way time dismantles certainty

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, become pen pals or visit the bookstore at Byrontology.com

1. Mom

Mom had a heart attack. She’s doing great. Like, GREAT! I’m really proud of her.

But her knee is giving her extra trouble.

I’m in Louisiana and glad to help but also missing Steven, Raindrop, and Shirley. Duality! Maybe that’s normal?

This week taught me two terms I didn’t know I needed.

• Choice Collapse—The act of postponing a decision until external forces eliminate all alternatives.

• Liminality—A transitional phase in which old structures have dissolved but new ones have not solidified, leaving identity, rules, and meaning temporarily undefined.

2. He-Man

The trailer for Masters of the Universe made me cry. I’ve loved He-Man since I was a kid.

Weird how some childhood things stay with us. I wonder what else lingers—worldviews, biases, coping mechanisms, etc.

I still have all my childhood He-Man action figures. They’re in a giant jar on my nightstand.

I’m not a psychiatrist, but maybe I loved the story of someone insecure and powerless finding strength. Could also be the loin cloth.

3. Pink (and Nate)

I was listening to music and Just Give Me a Reason by Pink and Nate Ruess shocked me. It was a live version. I seek those because they’re so much more tingly.

The music starts, Pink begins to sing, but the lyrics are wrong, the pace is off, and before I can wonder if it’s me—she stops the song.

She apologizes with absolute grace, says she forgot the words, and then starts over, on blast, no holding back.

She was fully present, dropped into reality. Here’s what happened. Here’s where we’re going next. No war. Cheers, cheers from the audience.

Can I do that? Have I ever? Really use my whole self, put it all out there like that, belting into the universe with whatever I can muster?

Listen here.

4. No Nonsense Spirituality

I often get great insights from Brittney Hartley of No Nonsense Spirituality as she documents her journey out of religious indoctrination.

I found her on TikTok one night when I was overthinking in the bathtub and searched “illusion of the self.”

Her latest post explains why some religions actually create nihilists and atheists.

My takeaway is there’s despair—or worse—in saying one’s worth must be earned (sacrifice, prayer, paying money, getting “saved”) versus our worth being inherent.

5. You!

Paid Subscribers and Founding Patrons make this possible.

Thank you for considering this project deserving to exist and for helping keep my writer hat warm. It’s been incredible therapy to work on this lately.

Thinking of you.

love,
b

P.S.
Mom’s dog Belle says hi!

Podcast
YouTube
Bookstore
Pen Pals

“Take your broken heart and go make art.”

That was the advice Carrie Fisher gave me years ago. I’ve used it to survive everything from being her assistant to surviving “ball cancer” to navigating the rejection of a novel that didn’t sell.

Byrontology is the result of that practice. It’s a podcast, a newsletter, and a community for overthinkers and the existentially exhausted—disguised as a cult. The cult part is satire. The help is real. If you get it, you can stay.

In this introductory episode, I explain:

• Why I’m ditching the pity party for a playground.

• The literal “Emmy Awards vs. Testicle” ratio of my life.

• How we use a tiny flashlight to find meaning in the absurd, the awful, and the everyday.

This podcast is only part of it. The good stuff is at the mother ship. Find the secret handshake and more at www.Byrontology.com.

I wasn’t shocked. I had found a lump. My doctor warned me it was certainly cancer and would have to come out.

He was an older gay urologist who only examined me without gloves, patted my ass occasionally, and never charged me a copay. I wondered if that made me a kind of sex worker. I loved it.

I knew I was in a comedy and not a drama when I called my dad to tell him I had to have one of my testicles removed. He asked, “Well, how many testicles do you have right now?”

My mom cried and said something like, “You have cancer? How could you do this to me?”

My boyfriend, Steven, was steady after the initial shock. He didn’t say the words but I read on his face, Ew, that was in my mouth!

I didn’t die in surgery.

The testicle was positive for cancer, but it was contained and I wouldn’t need chemo.

My doctor had recommended a solid silicone testicle implant. The selling point was when he told me, “They all have serial numbers so if you’re murdered they can use it to identify your body.” That doctor really got me.

I let him pick the size. A mistake. He made a reasonable choice, so I missed my chance to go really huge.

The fake ball went in. My dead ball went to a landfill in Oxnard. Life kept going.

I waited to feel different, to see life differently. I didn’t.

Not yet.

I turned my broken heart (broken ball?) into art and made a web series about it called Last Will and Testicle.

I met other people who had survived. And learned about many who hadn’t. (Thinking of you, Max.)

I still didn’t understand my luck. Or the risk. A ballsack was still mostly a punchline.

Five years later, it came back. New tumor. New fear. Bad timing.

Steven and I were about to get engaged. We moved into our first house together in Palm Springs with our beloved dog, Tilda. My first book was about to come out and I was about to start a new career as an author. I had longer hair and somehow finally felt kinda cool.

The world was different, too. COVID arrived. I’d be getting chemo alone. No visitors. All the stakes felt higher.

I called my dad. “The cancer is in my lymph nodes this time, so I still have one testicle left if you want to update your records.”

The night before chemo was to start, I couldn’t sleep, snuck out of bed past Steven and Tilda. I sat on the sofa looking out the new backyard where we planned to build a life, crying and whispering to my tumor, “I don’t want this, I don’t want this.”

Chemo made me nauseous and hungry at the same time. My mouth tasted like chemicals and the fake berry flavoring of some of the meds. My hair started falling out. Steven helped me shave the back.

I was the youngest one in the infusion room, one of the only ones wearing a mask. A guy with only one leg watched Fox News during his entire infusion. A tough, stoic older woman knit and glared at me as I occasionally cried under my blanket.

One day she came over. I thought I was about to get gay bashed by a senior citizen with lymphoma.

“Do you like color?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She pulled a rainbow beanie from her tote. She had knitted it for me, for my bald head. This whole time, she saw me. I misread the real diagnosis, again.

Another afternoon, as Steven took me home from chemo, he slammed the brakes and yelled, “Was that a cat in the gutter?”

He ran into the street and came back with a kitten.

Steven was a great nurse to both of us, but we didn’t keep her. My immune system was too weak. Tilda was too sick. A friend helped re-home the kitten and named her Vanilla Bean.

Cancer didn’t make life stop. It just happened alongside everything else.

After chemo, doctors told me they needed to slice me open from neck to navel and remove the tumor and my bad lymph nodes.

I wanted a second opinion and Googled “best testicular cancer surgeon” and emailed all of them. One wrote back. He was nearby, at USC. He made a small, respectable incision. He charged a copay.

I’ve been cancer-free ever since.

My book came out.

Steven and I got married.

Vanilla Bean died.

Tilda died.

I’m still here. Funny.

When my young nieces hear that I survived testicular cancer they giggle. I get it. I tell them, “The body is a miracle.”

So is humor.

Podcast
YouTube
Bookstore
Pen Pals