Mad Mutterings

An AI-rendered image showing a statue of three women, their hair covered in shawls and their eyes averted, who are leaning on and comforting each other - in the style of the Pietà.

The Weird Sisters of Centro Clinic

Three witches preside over the methadone clinic. Their weird magic keeps the viscous methadone syrup flowing through the temperamental machines that dispense it. The Three Sisters' pulsing power prevents fights over girls and drug debts; it sometimes cleans urine samples of the illegal drugs present in them (especially when freedom is at stake), and it ensures that the door to the facility's only single-occupancy restroom unlocks itself when someone is overdosing inside...

2 days ago10 min read

A YouTube video thumbnail with a black-and-white picture of a young, striking-looking trans woman on the left and a photo of photographer Mark Laita (an older, white man with stringy hair) on the right, with the words "The Road to Hell" along the border between them.

I'm Back

Fall 2025 life updates: Going viral on YouTube; Trump's E.O. criminalizing harm reduction services; my writing projects and methadone taper.

Nov 67 min read

A very cute cat with jade eyes and black, grey, brown, and white stripes; she is laying with her paws on the keyboard of a laptop while looking back and glaring at the camera.

Still Alive; On Summer Hiatus

For the first time since I started this blog, I'm taking a break. Catch you on the flip side!

Jul 131 min read

A normal curve with stress level on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis; the curve shows that performance level increases with stress up to a certain optimal point, after which additional stress decreases performance.

The Stress-Performance Curve for Civilization

It's past time to reevaluate the social contract. Unprecedented social ills, including record-breaking levels of mental illness and addiction, secondary to a widespread, pernicious breakdown in community have led to more people feeling adrift, empty, and angry than ever before. Is the fix about optimizing our individual interactions with social systems, or is the only possible cure systemic change?

Jul 67 min read

An image of the author's mid-twenties Egyptian friend (male) holding the author's poodle, an epically beautiful pooch who is resting on a bed; he has medium-length, curly hair and a thoughtful expression as he looks off into the distance.

No Ordinary Piece of Wood

A scene sketch that I wrote to help me develop two characters who have been in my head for a while. I'm disappointed by the representation of relationships between gay men and straight women in modern fiction; typically, such relationships are peripheral to gay or straight love stories, and they tend to present as lukewarm cliches. I think that there's room for something both darker and deeper - a dynamic that I've tried to get at through Luke and Lila in the story below.

Jun 2910 min read

Split screen showing the author of this blog (mid-thirties white male) with a shocked expression in one panel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi giving an update on the second Trump administration's first 100 days at a roundtable in the other.

Reaction Vid: Pam Bondi Saved My Life (and 258 Million Other Americans')!

In an epic stroke of idiocy, Attorney General Pam Bondi asserts that the fentanyl seized at the border over the past three months has saved 258 million U.S. citizens' lives (current U.S. population: 340.1 million).

Jun 152 min read

A lock of hair and paw print from a recently deceased dog

Patsy Crosses the Rainbow Bridge to Paradise

My friend Patsy, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who has been a part of our family for almost 13 years, took her final trip to the vet this week.

Jun 85 min read

An untitled 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat that shows an angry-looking skull composed of several layers of heavy strokes in black as well as bright red, yellow, and other colors overlaid on each other; underneath are text and symbolic images

Perfect High

There once was a boy named Gimmesome Roy. He was nothing like me or you. / 'Cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do. / As a kid, he sat in the cellar, sniffing airplane glue... /

Jun 14 min read

A graph from OrbitMedia that shows the decline in bloggers experiencing strong marketing results from 2016 to 2024.

Four Hard-to-Swallow Truths About Blogging in 2025

Is blogging dead in 2025? The post-mortem.

May 1810 min read

Caravaggio's painting of a youthful, inscrutable Bacchus (1596)

The God of Wine (Poem)

The God of Wine is in my bed. I give him solace; he gives me dread. We leave silhouettes of acrid sweat: Fallen snow angels; a holy mess...

May 41 min read

DreamVR Pod for use with Dice (ladicetrole) treatment

FDA Approved: Dreams Do Come True With Dice (Ladicetrole)

Dice (ladicetrole) is part of a novel group of combined pharmacologic / virtual reality treatments known as Positive Visualization Actualizers (PVAs).

Apr 133 min read