Murder.

The vet tried to kill my dog.

Raindrop loves pills. Well, she loves the cookies that deliver the drugs.

But this week, the vet gave me the wrong meds.

Conflict.

The receptionist recognized me as Raindrop’s dad. Said Raindrop was one of her favorite pups. I picked up the refill of the pills I ordered.

Something told me to check the bottle as I walked to my car. The label was correct.

Something told me to look at the pills. They were a different size.

Something told me to go back inside. But I hate conflict.

Avoidance.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the pills just looked different this time.

I looked at the number on the pill.

I was in the parking lot. I had to find my glasses. I had to find good light.

I had to Google the number on the pill. But I had a bad phone signal.

I needed the password for the vet’s WiFi.

Surely this was unnecessary. Surely the vet wouldn’t make this kind of mistake.

The real problem.

I was getting angry. The inconvenience. The danger. The threat. Poor Raindrop.

But I was also focused.

I had a clear task. A clear purpose.

That felt like a relief compared to what was going on at home: writer’s block.

I had a lot on my plate. Writing a new play. Editing a new novel. New Byrontology post. And I couldn’t make progress on anything. My computer felt like a steel door and I didn’t have the right key.

The pill drama was a welcome distraction. And, it turns out, the exact thing that would eventually clear my creative block.

The fight.

I went inside the vet’s office. Pointed out the problem.

Raindrop’s dad became Raindrop’s protector.

The pharmacist was horrified, apologetic.

Big explanations and sincere apologies, recognizing the danger, the gravity.

I also recognized imperfection.

When someone else is imperfect, I can forgive it.

When I’m imperfect, when my work is not perfect, not so much.

Good company.

I tell people all the time: “I love imperfect books. I love imperfect podcasts. I love imperfect Instagram posts.”

But the rule didn’t apply to me. My work always has to be polished, considered, complete. To earn the right to exist.

But nothing is really perfect.

Spielberg re-edited E.T. The Extra-terrestrial. George Lucas re-edited the original Star Wars. Almost every author and creator I know wishes they could go back and make changes to their published—and sometimes celebrated—works.

Next step.

Is my job to create or to be perfect?

Keep going. Edit later.

When it comes to that steel door, turns out I don’t need the perfect key. I just need to stop waiting for one.

TL;DR

The vet made a mistake.

I’m easy on others but hard on myself—and sometimes that causes creative paralysis.

My job is to create, not to be perfect.

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IN THE NEXT BYRONTOLOGY

Five Things That Changed My Life This Month—including seeing a friend do something magical on stage. And I discovered my new favorite actor on TV—you should know about her, too—maybe you already do.

DIARY OF A SOMETIMES SAD GAY WRITER

In my diary entry this week, a lie came unraveled and made my latest novel feel more honest, enjoyable, and rich. Here’s what happened…

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Happy birthday?

Crying on my birthday started at a young age. My most memorable meltdown was turning thirteen.

My parents were divorced and I was living with my dad. He could build a house from scratch or fix a dead car in an afternoon. But his best advice for a weeping son was a confused stare.

I was confused, too. What does this mean? Am I broken? How come it seems like everyone else can just eat the cake without the crying?

Helpless.

I didn’t have a therapist back then to talk about milestone distress. Didn’t have the internet to look up liminal anxiety. Didn’t have TikTok to get advice about mortality salience.

My only source of help was from my limited, fenced-in world of rural Louisiana where people didn’t seem to worry much past their own pastures.

My pasture felt small. Lonely.

Grow up.

My friends were part of the problem. They were flirting with dangerous things—girls and sports!

I didn’t want girls.

When my best friend said he was going to start playing basketball, I pulled the “B” encyclopedia off the shelf to learn the rules of the game and said to myself, “I guess it’s time to become an athlete.”

It didn’t take.

I cried at the call to “grow up.” I didn’t want to say goodbye to my He-Man action figures. I didn’t want to put play and imagination in the attic.

The escape.

Boy Scouts saved me, accidentally. I hated camping and learning about knots. But we took a field trip to a television news station in New Orleans and I saw a bigger life.

I aimed for it, every weepy birthday bringing me closer.

I went to college in New Orleans, got a job at that same television station, found my first therapist, found likeminded friends.

Still, sometimes, I cry on birthdays.

But this year was better.

I now understand what’s happening and how to fix it.

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The heat.

My husband’s blood was boiling. Mine, too.

I was upset because I wanted to work on my new play but was having trouble forcing myself to be creative.

And then our thermostat broke.

Sweating.

Palm Springs can be perfect—palm trees, blue skies, and sunshine everyday. But in the summer, paradise has a price tag of 100 to 120 degrees. Our thermostat read 86. Then, 87.

The heat I put on myself to work on my play turned literal. And that’s when my husband’s temperature started going up, too.

We needed a new thermostat.

It was 4pm. I feared we wouldn’t survive the night—our bodies or our marriage. The business day wasn’t over—I had time to call an electrician or HVAC expert. Or—

“I can fix this,” I told Steven.

The repair.

I’ve proven myself to be handy. Or, at least, audacious. I grew up watching my dad fix things. He’d turn off the circuit breaker to change a ceiling fan. Or, he’d attach jumper cables to a car battery to get the engine started. I was always watching him, always ready for huge explosions that never came.

I’ve repaired our dishwasher. I’ve hung television sets. I’ve changed brake lights on my car.

How hard could it be to install a new thermostat?

Surely, that’s easier than working on my play.

Power loss.

The thermostat hit 88.

I did my research. I bought a new thermostat. I flipped the circuit breaker.

The clock passed 5pm. The thermostat passed 89 by the time I removed it.

The wires were a tangle. They didn’t match the instructions in our brand new “easy to install” Ecobee.

Tricky, just like writing.

Panic. I called the Ecobee help line. Closed. Our usual electrician didn’t answer. Our usual HVAC repair was closed with no emergency or after-hours number.

I could see the future. 90 degrees, then 102, then Steven and me trying to sleep in flop sweat and rage.

Getting hotter.

Steven wasn’t the only one who’d suffer for my failure to fix the thermostat.

Our friends Jeffrey and Justin were arriving to play the board game Wingspan with us. No way they’d sit in this hot house.

I was dialing other electricians and HVAC companies when our friends walked in. I said, “I’m in trouble.”

The drama would soon offer a big lesson on DIY projects, and a big breakthrough on my creative process.

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Dying.

He reached for his last morning sunrise.

His lower body paralyzed, dirty, wet from the sprinklers. He tried to drag himself across my backyard, back to before, when he was healthy, fast, feared.

He didn’t look anything like the propaganda on pest control trucks. Soft gray fur—the same shade as our dog, Raindrop.

Petite. Pink paws. Teeny claws, all the details they’d include in a Pixar movie.

“Oh, God,” I said. Way better than calling him a rat.

Still dying.

There was some blood. But Google said he was probably poisoned. That he wouldn’t live much longer.

I couldn’t leave him in the backyard, my dogs prowling nearby, him pawing at nowhere.

I crumpled some paper towels and lined the inside of an old Amazon box. I gently shoveled him inside. His whiskers twitched. He pushed and pulled at breath.

I put him in a safe, shady corner of the yard. I covered him with fabric we use to protect plants from the sun.

He scratched at the cardboard.

“It’ll be okay,” I told him.

The plan.

I wondered if this is what I would want for myself—to let my mortal machine run its course in safety and shade of a sunny morning.

I’ve heard of putting a critter out of its misery. But, yikes. Google said letting him pass on in the shade is better than how most people might treat him.

I’d give him time to pass away in peace. Then I’d toss the Amazon box. And it was trash day, so that was convenient.

I’d work the day away, collect him, take the trash out, and go to a special screening of the RuPaul movie Stop That Train—a friend of mine was doing a Q&A.

The problem.

When it was time to end the day, get ready for the screening, I went to the backyard, to the box.

My little gray friend was still pawing. Still breathing. Looking at me, wiggling those cute ears.

“Goddammit!” I said. Then, “Sorry. I know this is your life. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the situation.”

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Victory.

It was one of those writing days that make me love being alive.

I sat at my desk in the morning with a mug of hot coffee and suddenly it was 7 p.m.

I forgot to eat. I forgot to feel insecure.

I finished a draft of a new play and sent it to a collaborator for notes.

Defeat.

The note was: This is off.

Oh.

Oh no.

The note was smart, generous, correct. Which is the best kind, and the most annoying kind.

I could see it instantly. I wrote a solid piece. A solid first draft. But it was absolutely not the story I really wanted to tell.

I built the wrong house for the moment. Okay. Time to rewrite.

Then a force field went up around my desk.

No way.

I’m not being dramatic (I’m being a little dramatic), but I could not get my butt back in that chair.

I tried everything except sitting down.

I even drove to Los Angeles for a He-Man event with my friend Erin—our friend Mackenzi Lee wrote a great novel about Teela from the Masters of the Universe movie—and on the drive, ideas came. Good ones! Real solutions!

Nope.

I got home and approached my desk and the force field was humming back at me: Nah. Nope. Get out of here.

This went on for days.

The ideas were in my head. The chair was right there. And the distance between them might as well have been from here to Eternia (He-Man’s home planet, look it up).

While in LA, I also saw a friend who talked about ADHD. And because my phone listens to everything (hi, phone), my TikTok algorithm started feeding me ADHD hacks.

Hacks.

One of the hacks stopped my scroll: Make your desk a happy place.

I looked at my desk. It was a monument to obligation. To-do lists facing me like a firing squad. Every visible object whispering you’re behind and will never catch up.

No wonder some animal part of my brain had decided this was not a friendly place.

So I rearranged it.

I moved the to-do lists so they’re not in my face. I pulled my favorite childhood He-Man action figures from my closet and put them on my desk—my new coworkers. I even hung my old He-Man castle on my wall. (Pending husband’s approval.)

Breakthrough.

The force field weakened.

I sat.

I looked at my little plastic friends.

I smiled.

I was in the seat. And getting to work didn’t feel as impossible.

I learned some other helpful hacks.

Here are five things that pulled me out of the ditch this time.

Maybe they’ll help you, too.

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The trigger.

A guy I kinda know sold a work of art for a lot of money.

He was all over newspapers and magazines and, the worst, my Instagram feed.

I felt deep, primal jealousy.

I’ve felt it before. With friends, colleagues, and even my husband.

The spiral.

When I saw my friend’s success, my inner toddler was screaming, “I want that!”

I felt shame for feeling jealous. I felt anger for feeling shame for feeling jealous. I felt sad for feeling anger for feeling shame for feeling jealous.

Then, my sometimes secret weapon: I got curious.

Human and Ancient

Maybe it’s human and ancient to feel jealous. Maybe it used to help us monitor our standing in the tribe.

And our modern tribe—society—seems to value money and recognition.

Then I bought a can of low-sodium black beans at Ralph’s and had an epiphany.

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Danger

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.

I was drowning.

Illusion

I stepped outside. Stared at my office. Outside looking in.

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 for real. Little legs getting no traction. Spinning in circles.

I saved him. And myself.

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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.

CULT MEMBERS ONLY

Deeper confessions, revelations, and resolutions not for public.

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Scary.

Our dog Shirley is dying—in my mind.

She’s perfectly healthy according to the vet.

According to x-rays and bloodwork and diplomas.

But I have a feeling.

The problem.

We adopted Shirley when she was three years old because our energetic puppy, Raindrop, seemed to need a playmate.

Shirley was the shelter’s go-to for training and calming other dogs.

Soon, she was training all of us on matters of love and life.

There was extortion. There was crying.

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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.

See it here.

The storm.

The weatherman made the words “squall line” and “dew point” sound sexy.

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.

Sunny forecast.

The weatherman and I worked at the same TV station.

It was a small town—so small we also 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 summer temperatures,” he’d tell viewers. “Things are about to get really hot.”

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

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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.

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It comes to your email.
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When nothing else helps,
I made something you can hold.

See it here.

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.”

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

See it here.

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.

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.

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.

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

See it here.

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!

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

See it here.

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.

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

See it here.

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.

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

See it here.

Actually, any friend would have been fine.

I was twelve when my dad decided we needed to get away from the government.

We left my school, my friends, and moved north of New Orleans to a literal village where I saw overalls for the first time.

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

See it here.

I tried 4-H. Absolutely not. I was a boy scout only long enough to snag the outfit. Then, I found this thing called youth group.

The town’s only Catholic church was billed as The Little Cathedral in the Woods. The “woods” part was accurate. The “cathedral” part was rebranding. It had been a barn.

The youth group was all misfits. One kid was bald by twelve. One girl needed a bra she couldn’t afford. There was an orphan. And me: effeminate and insecure.

I didn’t have to be alone anymore.

I took to it. Our priest named me Altar Boy of the Year. Twice. I walked old people to their cars. Mothers wanted their daughters to date me.

All I really wanted was for the other kids to like me. It wasn’t happening.

I had to try harder.

I shook hands like a politician. I spoke like a local anchorman. I wore a T-shirt that read Top Ten Reasons to Stay Roman Catholic. And it listed all ten. On the front of the shirt.

I insisted on leading a prayer at every youth group event, softball games and movie nights and one time at a livestock auction to watch this kid named Andy show a goat.

I made everyone hold hands. I waited for silence. When all you could hear was the breeze and Andy’s goat, I delivered a prayer so grand it sounded as if directly from Jesus.

It was directly from The Bodyguard.

At the end of the movie, Kevin Costner is protecting a politician at a meeting when the chaplain says, “Heavenly Father, please be with us today as we meet in friendship and duty…”

At the end of the prayer, the music BOOMS and Whitney Houston nails her iconic: “And IIIIIIII… will always… love youuuu.” I memorized it.

To my mind, every time I recited it, everyone was in fucking awe. I was emboldened.

If those kids wouldn’t call me their friend, I’d make them call me their president.

I conspired with the Sunday school director, Miss Ethyl, to draft The Constitution of the Youth Group of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. “Make me in charge,” I asked. She loved me because I occasionally helped her pick up sticks and pinecones littering her yard.

I planned trips. I chaired meetings. Before a concrete ramp was poured outside the mobile home we called our Community Hall, we buried a time capsule which was an old Coke bottle filled with photos of us, handwritten hopes most of us would never realize, and newspaper clippings about Pope John Paul II from my personal collection.

I threw myself a party on my final night as president. Term limits. Kneecapped by the very constitution I wrote. I still smiled.

I decorated the mobile home with American flags. I hired a DJ to play I Will Always Love You during my closing speech. Very moving except for a few seconds when he accidentally played a snippet of some song called Gangsta’s Paradise.

When I visit my dad now—don’t tell the government—I sometimes stop by that little cathedral in the woods.

I don’t recognize anyone. No one asks to shake my hand anymore. Miss Ethyl died. Even Whitney Houston is gone.

I still have that prayer memorized. For emergencies. And on occasions when I think of my old youth group. We were there for each other, helped each other grow, and they mattered to me. Maybe it wasn’t friendship, but something deeper.

The concrete ramp is still there. I’m probably the only one who remembers the time capsule under it.

I wonder who will find it, long after I’m dead like the rest of them.

I hope it’s an effeminate, insecure, lonely kid. I’m certain part of my spirit will be in that village, in those woods, outside that little cathedral, watching. I’ll stand on that ramp. I’ll hold my chin up. I’ll whisper to him, Hey, friend.

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

See it here.

The directions to the fancy party are still warm from the printer.

I dress carefully. Brand new outfit. Verrrry Instagrammable. But—

I’ll never wear it again. It’ll only ever remind me of the crying. It starts at exactly 12:00:01 a.m., those sobs under fireworks.

I’ve done this at many NYE parties.

I’ve cried in guest bathrooms. In one of those pantries with a frosted glass door that says “PANTRY.”

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

See it here.

After, I’d say never again. But then, again. Again.

I was young.

Then I learned—by accident—one way to stop spiraling over the holidays.

My worst New Year’s Eves were in my twenties. I once met friends at a party in New Orleans where everyone immediately scattered to better parties or disappeared into bedrooms. I wasn't out yet. Not a party kid. A former Altar Boy of the Year, for God’s sake.

I left.

I walked alone down a residential street in the freezing cold. Through windows, I could see other people having lovely nights. I only knew it was midnight because fireworks went off overhead, looking at them through teary eyes.

Then, a big night where I didn’t cry.

A favorite question of mine to ask at parties is, “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Someone will ask me, “How about this weather?” and I’ll ask them, “Do you love your father?”

That’s how I ended up in conversation with a retired literature professor who was spending his golden years exploring BDSM.

At some point, I asked him the meaning of life. Typical.

He didn’t pause.

“Happiness,” he said, “is about managing expectations.”

Of course it was him. Of course it was someone fluent in sadism and masochism who understood holidays.

I wept less after I adjusted my NYE expectations. See friends? Reasonable. Bed by 9pm? Achievable. Change my whole life? Crying. In a taxi. In an inoperable van in the woods in Louisiana (only once).

It’s different now. Any tears that might come are happy. One year, I went on a midnight hike with two close friends. Another, Steven and I went to Paris and, exhausted by a day of sightseeing in the freezing cold, shared a box of chocolates and bottle of champagne and went to bed early. Another, we threw our own party where I could’ve cried in my own bathroom for a change, but I didn’t need to.

Why the years of chasing overnight change? Maybe to face change head-on, defang it since it’s inevitable.

But change doesn’t need a Dick Clark countdown. It doesn’t care what I’m wearing. It comes, sometimes with heart break and sometimes with Prosecco. I try to prepare all year with mindfulness practices, therapy, and making art—maybe that’s a book or a webseries or a Substack, but often it’s a walk or working in the yard or taking photos of Raindrop and Shirley.

I never needed to adjust my life, just my expectations.

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

See it here.

I was open-veined on all the dating sites: OkCupid, Match, Jdate—and I’m not even Jewish.

No boyfriend. No traction. No momentum. Nothing could quiet that voice.

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

See it here.

Whitney Houston once sang, I’d rather be alone than unhappy. Eventually, I accepted both.

Then, Steven. We were an 80% match on OkCupid. Doesn’t science matter? We met for coffee. He touched my arm.

Steven. Ridiculous name for an incredible guy—handsome, brilliant, playful. And somehow interested in me? I was skeptical.

We kept seeing each other. This birthed a new anxiety—how fast could I screw it up?

The Christmas Test.

Steven and I had been dating for a few months. Christmas was approaching. I figured, sink or swim. I agreed to go home with him to Maine to meet his family.

It was me testing him. It was him testing me.

A first meeting of family is worse than a first date. Family is where you find out whether you really belong. Family doesn’t hide the truth.

We booked a flight. Instant regret.

Win them over. Or die.

Watching Steven with his nieces and nephews, I fell harder in love with him. And my insecurity kept splitting me open.

Then, another question. Was his family testing me?

I was originally from Louisiana but got the hell out of there as fast as I could. I was fully Los Angeles by now. All city. All sunshine. No snow shoes. No winter coat.

I told his mother the snow was beautiful. “Try shoveling it,” she replied. Steven’s sister wanted me to mount something called a “toboggan.” His brother asked if I had any tips for “deep frying a turkey.”

I wanted to fit in. These were good people—even despite what was happening to that poor turkey.

This was a Rom-Com kind of family. A Hallmark Channel kind of family. They always had Christmas movies playing, like Prep and Landing or Die Hard or Christmas Vacation.

On Christmas Eve, they asked me if I liked lobster. As I was explaining vegetarianism to blank faces, my cell phone rang. They were still staring at me as the caller ID displayed her name.

Beverly D’Angelo was calling my phone.

At the time, I worked for Carrie Fisher. One of the strangest parts of my job was clearing Carrie’s home voicemail. Not because of stalkers or fans, but because of her mother. Debbie Reynolds left long, rambling, affectionate messages that sometimes came with unusual housekeeping instructions and were later followed by a quiz.

Eventually, I forwarded Carrie’s home phone to my cell so I could intercept Debbie before the answering machine filled up.

Beverly had called Carrie’s home line in Beverly Hills, and it transferred to me, standing in Steven’s family’s kitchen in Maine.

I wanted to duck into the next room, shield them from my 24/7-ish job.

But, this was Christmas Eve, with Christmas Vacation blaring on the TV, and nothing could have been cooler than me having one of the film’s stars on the line.

The kitchen was quiet. The snow stopped falling. The turkey in the deep fryer stopped screaming.

I put Beverly on speakerphone. The voice, sultry, confident. She was a badass. The call was quick, easy, Beverly would try Carrie’s cell. I hung up.

I looked around. And yes—for a moment, I thought: Now they think I’m cool.

But then, dinner was served.

They had made lasagna for me—vegetarian, “a first-time recipe,” I was told.

“Beautiful out there,” Steven said of the snowy evening. “Try shoveling it,” his mother replied—a standard, playful retort. Not an attack on me.

And the next time I was offered a toboggan ride, I was told not everyone gets the invitation. (Very sweet, but still, absolutely not.)

The call didn’t make me cool. It made me present enough to see they had already folded me into the rhythm of their day, their family jokes, their lives.

Steven and I married in 2021.

I still think of that Christmas, how the call didn’t create my place in the family, it decorated it.

A Christmas wish: May we always decorate what makes us interesting.

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

See it here.

Fantasy.

Before I met her, I fantasized about letting my gold 2002 Nissan Sentra drift across the double yellow lines of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

A cute little collision was all I wanted—nothing fatal or disfiguring—just enough to send me to the hospital so I could get a good nap.

My big dream of becoming the next Katie Couric had disintegrated into me working the overnight shift writing scripts for local news anchors so they could live their dreams.

Then, I got an email: “Any chance you wanna work for Princess Leia?”

The mission.

A friend worked for Carrie Fisher’s agent.

The Star Wars icon needed a new assistant and I checked a few boxes.

Her team wanted someone gay because apparently Carrie could be, ahem, amorous. And they wanted a writer who could help her with her books and theatre work.

I drove my good old Sentra to her mansion.

She needed help.

I needed a hero.

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