talkin’ ’bout journalistic courage

GirlTalkHQ recently published my essay about why journalistic courage matters right now, as journalism is being threatened at a moment when we need its skepticism and truth telling more than ever.

It was inspired by watching Tony-nominated actor George Clooney who I met in New York City after seeing his phenomenal play, Good Night, and Good Luck, about how a CBS journalist, Edward R. Murrow, sacrificed his career in order to speak truth to and about U.S. Sen. McCarthy.

The essay begins this way:

I didn’t want a selfie. I didn’t want to grab George Clooney’s hand. I just wanted to tell him something.

I stood on 7th Avenue in Manhattan at the end of a long line by the Winter Garden Theater’s stage door after having seen “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Clutching the play poster I’d purchased while I waited for its star and playwright, I wasn’t there to fangirl but to deliver a message: “I teach journalism and I very much appreciate this show and how you’re standing up for the importance of journalism.”

With a black “Good Night, and Good Luck” baseball cap tucked low on his dyed-black hair and oversized, tinted aviator glasses covering a substantial portion of his face, Clooney, the son of a journalist, signed my poster and responded to my message saying, “Well I appreciate anyone who teaches journalism.”

You can read the rest of the piece here.

new essay: ‘poison in a coffee cup’ in pangyrus lit mag

The Boston-area literary magazine Pangyrus recently published a braided essay I wrote about the impact of being severely allergic to food containing dairy products. The incident around which the piece is constructed was my accidental March 2023 ingestion of some kind of dairy product in spite of ordering an oat milk latte and a vegan burrito (presumably dairy-free) at an upscale Seattle coffee shop. My rapid consumption led to a trip to the ER.

Ironically, later that afternoon, I had been slated to attend a session at the writers’ conference about writing about one’s disabilities. I was most looking forward to meeting writer Sandra Beasley, someone whose work has delved into her life-altering and life-threatening food allergies. Sadly, I was sitting in an ER bay with epinephrine and steroids flowing through my veins when Sandra started speaking on her panel. I had to later watch her session online from the safety of my Boston area home.

Here’s how the Pangyrus essay begins:

A black bulldog, strapped into a red harness, peers over its person’s shoulder and stares at me. We’re in a line at a small, indie coffee shop, where I’m jonesing for some of that famous Seattle coffee. The bulky canine in front of me, indifferently sniffing the air once I become a boring subject to observe, is likely hoping for a morsel of some of the baked goods the scents of which are subtly threaded through the heavy coffee aroma.

A New Englander, I’m a regular at my local Dunkin’ Donuts, although I occasionally go to Starbucks to splurge for an oat milk latte. Most mornings, I use my Keurig machine to brew two cups of coffee, hoping that the caffeine will force my brain to focus, like when you need to reboot a laptop. Control. Alt. Delete.

This coffee shop near Lake Union, not far from one of the several Google office buildings in the city, is brimming with Millennials and Gen Zers, many in running gear and coated with a thin sheen of perspiration. The room is loud as benign chatter bounces off the spartan walls. I feel the sound in my chest. Scott and I — early Gen Xers — definitely feel our age.

To read the rest of the essay in which I experience anaphylactic shock — see the pics above of me in the ER AFTER I’d been injected with medications, when the swelling around my eyes had lessened and I was able to breath easier — click here.

Image credit: Pangyrus.

i’m the new face of taco salad

Over the weekend, I was alerted to the fact that a TikTok video viewed by millions used my author photo as the face of taco salad orderers everywhere.

Um …

Okay … I guess that’s right, because I do order taco salads. Having a severe dairy allergy kind of mandates that I select the safer option when ordering at a cheese-laden Mexican restaurant.

The comments beneath the video — which made me feel my creaky middle age — spurred me to write an oped about the experience of having my face used in a viral TikTok video.

The experience reminded me of the time when, on Christmas 2020, a student of mine let me know that my photo had been used by a YouTuber who wanted to “infiltrate” neighborhood Facebook groups using a fake account using my supposedly trustworthy face.

Here’s the link to the oped published today in the Boston Globe:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/06/opinion/tiktok-taco-salad/

Image credit: Boston Globe.

new post on the mighty: how covid-19 & ms make for a high-stakes summer

The second week of July marked the first string of days this year where I could not go outside because of my multiple sclerosis-related heat sensitivity. What makes 2020 different from the five other summers in which I’ve dealt with this particular MS symptom? There’s a pandemic going on.

I wrote a piece for the website The Mighty about the confluence of the two illnesses. Here’s how it starts:

Today was the first summer day in 2020 when stepping outside the house made me feel as though I was going to vomit. The moderate heat, combined with high humidity, enveloped me and made me instantly feel ill.

Somewhere, deep inside my brain, signals went haywire. The temperature regulation area of my brain has been damaged by my relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), meaning I can’t tolerate heat and humidity. Subjecting my body to such conditions results in nausea and/or vomiting, dizziness, blurry vision with bright lights in the corners of my eyes, and a weakening of my legs, as though my thighs have been infused with Jell-O.

To read the rest of the piece click here.

Image credit: The Mighty.

stat column asks: should you tell your employer you have ms?

Screenshot 2020-03-28 15.13.08 While I was gearing up to promote my memoir —Uncomfortably Numb, about the life-altering impact of my multiple sclerosis diagnosis — I realized I should probably tell my employer about both the memoir and the chronic illness.

Thus far, I haven’t had to ask for any accommodations, although I do have a handicapped parking pass to use on campus when I need it. But I thought it would be best if I told the administrator who runs my department in person. (This was well before the coronavirus caused nationwide school shut-downs.)

It prompted me to write an essay which was published by STAT News. The piece starts this way:

As I prepared to tell my employer that I have relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis, I worried about what to expect.

Maybe I’d get a shocked look from the administrator who oversees the department where I teach part-time. Or maybe I’d be quietly phased out, informed that future teaching opportunities have dried up.

This “big reveal” would be, according to multiple sclerosis advocates, a risky move.

Read the rest of the essay here.

Image credit: STAT News.

new ms-related pieces: diagnosis story & chronic illness lit

Screenshot 2019-11-05 10.03.42 I’ve written two new pieces about multiple sclerosis and chronic illness for your reading pleasure:

HealthCentral: Diagnosis story

How and why did it take two years from the initial onset of symptoms for the medical community to diagnose me with multiple sclerosis? This essay details my journey to learn something that would change the course of my life.

Chronic illness lit: Finding solace between two covers

Over on the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s MS Connection blog, I paid homage to writers who’ve shared their stories of strength and struggle while living with chronic illnesses. When you’re feeling down, reading about the experiences of others can provide an existential balm.

An excerpt:

Sometimes I just need to relate.

I need to see my experiences, my struggles confirmed instead of negated and misunderstood. I need to remind myself that I am not alone in my fatigue, in bouts of cognitive fuzziness, in my hair-pulling frustration.

I have been reading books written by those who are living with multiple sclerosis and other chronic illnesses. I’ve been quite voracious about it, collecting these tales as a way to see myself reflected, helping me feel seen and heard.

Works I noted as being inspirational include: the collection of stories Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine; Sonya Huber’s Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System, and Andrea J. Buchanan’s The Beginning of Everything: The Year I Lost My Mind and Found Myself. (My praise for Nicola Griffith’s So Lucky — a novel about a character with MS who solves a murder mystery — got edited out of the final piece.)

Read the rest of the essay here.

Image credits: HealthCentral and MS Connection.

teaching college journalism in the trump era

For the past two years, an increasing number of my university students have been asking me whether what they’re seeing transpire between White House officials and members of the national news media is, for lack of a better word, “normal.”

They often refer to the death threats journalists like White House reporter April Ryan has received after being singled out by the president for verbal attacks. They talk about how the commander-in-chief routinely labels news reporters as the “enemy of the people” (a phrase applied by dictators like Stalin, as NPR’s Scott Simon said “to vilify their opponents … who were often murdered.”). They are aghast that the president once joked about killing journalists and routinely calls those who practice journalism as “fake.” During the presidential campaign, a Trump supporter wore a T-shirt to a Trump campaign rally suggesting that journalists be lynched.

I wrote a piece for the Inside Higher Ed website exploring my struggles with teaching students how to be savvy news consumers when things like basic facts are under assault.

You can read the full piece here.

Image credit: Inside Higher Ed.

of black holes & brain damage

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has published my latest piece, “Black Holes” on its MS Connection blog.

The essay was inspired by the historic image taken of a black hole in April. Here’s an excerpt:

It looked like a glow-in-the-dark doughnut.

When the first image of a black hole 55 light-years away from Earth was made public by astronomers this spring, it was heralded across the globe. Astronomers, the New York Times reported, had “captured an image of the unobservable: a black hole, a cosmic abyss so deep and dense that not even light can escape it.” The writer described the image as “a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.”

The very idea of “a one-way portal to eternity” is terrifying in an end-of-the-world, Game of Thrones kind of way.

The very idea of a black hole becomes intimately and individually terrifying when you learn that you are carrying one around inside your brain. This is a real possibility for those with MS.

Read the full piece here.

Image credit: MS Connection.

new post: when ms messes with your sense of taste

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society published my recent post, “A Loss of Taste,” about my vanishing ability to taste foods, as comfort food that I once enjoyed now give me nothing but disappointment.

Here’s an excerpt:

Somewhere along the way, my ability to savor certain foods has waned. Actually, it’s done more than waned. In some cases, it has warped into a bizarro situation where items I’ve long loved now suddenly taste of bitter disappointment.

What food now tastes terrible to me? My beloved morning coffee (with the exception of peppermint-flavored java), several red wines I used to adore, some marinara sauces, toasted everything bagels, and even the heartiest of sandwiches, unless they’re slathered with this spicy chipotle mayo I found.

Over the past two years, my ability to taste these favorites has gradually diminished. More recently, it significantly ebbed to the point where several food and drink items no longer taste familiar. The caramel-flavored coffee I bought the other week? It was outright disgusting in my mouth.

Is MS the culprit? My taste thief?

Read the rest of the piece here.

Image credit: National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

are we in pottersville?

screenshot 2018-12-24 13.13.53 Although It’s a Wonderful Life is powerfully associated with the Christmas season, to me, it’s about much more than wishes on Christmas Eve.

The classic film is about a little guy with a conscience and a strong sense of civic duty who is trying to succeed and help out fellow citizens in a world that is run by guys who lie and cheat and boast and hoard their ill-gotten-gains at the expense of others. It’s got an evergreen kind of message.

It’s in that vein that I wrote this piece of political satire on Medium, “The Chamber of Commerce Welcomes You to Pottersville.”

In the piece, the Pottersville of It’s a Wonderful Life, has emerged from the black-and-white film into America, circa now. Pottersville is America “made great again” by a Trump-Potter character. Scenes from the film, as well as quotes and policies from our current president, are melded together to create a vision of a modern day Pottersville hellscape, one I hope shall not come to pass.

I have no idea who our modern day George Bailey (or Baileys) will turn out to be, but I think we’re all waiting for the Baileys of the world to stand up and serve as bulwarks to fend off contemporary forms of Mr. Potter.

Here’s an excerpt:

Welcome to Pottersville, our newly-rejuvenated hamlet made great again by our super-smart leader, Mr. Potter!

Here, we banish things like locally-owned emporiums which turn no profits, so-called “friendly” watering holes where not nearly enough shots of booze are sold to boost our tax base, and mom-and-pop building-and-loan operations which recklessly approve mortgages for losers like cab drivers. Such fiscal impropriety there used to be in our old Bedford Falls businesses. Sad!

However, since the ascension of our illustrious stable genius leader, Mr. Potter, we are celebrating traditional values again, ones where we put Pottersvillians first, where we keep what we have piled up in our bank vaults and don’t, as the communist Bailey family used to say, “spread the wealth.”