I used to joke about Alzheimer’s…until I started to care for someone with Alzheimer’s. You know what I mean. Forgot my keys, can’t remember the name of some actor…”Oh, I’m having an Alzheimer’s Moment.” “I’m getting the Alzheimer’s.” Now…no. Just NO. If you forget your keys, it’s because you’re forgetful. Distracted. Maybe a bit of a dumbass, if that’s your bag. BUT YOU DON’T HAVE ALZHEIMER’S.

Please don’t joke around about it; you never know who is dealing with this.

Right now, we still have mostly “good” days. She is still able to pretty much handle her day-to-day stuff. She cleans her house, feeds her cat, walks to the mailbox on the corner, dresses herself. But she no longer drives; this was, thankfully, one battle we did not have to fight. She happily surrendered her driving privileges a few months back. We take her where she needs to go.

Our biggest challenges, right now, are in trying to figure out what she’s trying to say. Lately there has been a profound loss of vocabulary in addition to short-term memory. On the occasions when she comes downstairs to ask us something – when she remembers what it is she wanted to ask us – she can’t put it into sentences that make sense. Often, she ends up using the word closest to what she’s trying to say. For example, “cafeteria” becomes “dish.”

It’s sort of like reading poetry, navigating these sentences. Or solving a riddle. We took her to the cemetery on Memorial Day, and en route she announced, “I forgot my mouth.” We figured out fairly quickly that she meant “lipstick.”

Other things are not as easily arrived at. Grocery shopping is almost always an adventure in interpretation. “I want one of those things…you know…those things that the men like to eat. And women too. Men and women like to eat it.” Turns out this meant a small rotisserie chicken. Don’t ask me how we eventually got to that understanding.

What helps – for the time being, anyway – is to have her draw her needs. For while the language is slowly leaving her, she can draw – with amazing attention to detail – her shopping list.

She remembers the package design, the logo, even the words on the package, even if she doesn’t remember what the words actually mean. Everything is visual. For Mother’s Day, we gave her a fairly UN-flowery, utilitarian series of gifts: a package of colored pencils, erasers, blank notebooks. And a plastic bin to put them in. Because organization is still very important to her.

So she draws what she needs. A few days ago she came down with paper and a pen and drew a roll of paper towels. And so we took her to the store and got her paper towels.

I tell people about this, and they’re fascinated. And it IS fascinating, when it’s not so goddamn sad. This is a woman who always had it together, never had to ask for help, knew her finances to the penny, raised two boys as a single mother. As recently as a few years ago, she regularly took herself to Italy. She was a faithful reader of my blog, until even the act of turning on her computer became too overwhelming, so she gave it away.

Now, our interactions with her are similar to the way you would deal with a small, docile child. Get her in the car, make sure her seat belt is fastened, listen as she makes her observations, and acknowledge them. “Yes, that house back there was dirty; it caught on fire.” “Oh, I’m not sure why those windowshades are green; maybe the people who live there like that color.” It’s a balancing act, these conversations. It’s important not to infantilize her, or deny her maturity. At the same time, NOT keeping our responses simple and to-the-point invites circular “conversations” that invariably end in frustration and tears.

We are less and less able to give her options, or let her make decisions for herself. Sometimes she remembers that she used to be able to decide, and demands to know what her choices are. When we cave and present these to her, her face falls. “You’ve lost me. I don’t know what any of that means.” And so it goes.

“It’s my brain…this thing in my brain. Everything goes away as soon as I’ve heard it,” she tells me.

“I know. It’s because you have Alzheimer’s, Mom.”

“Yes. That.”

My heart aches for my mother-in-law. It breaks for my husband, his brother, her grandchildren. I feel guilty sometimes, because my own parents are still so sharp and engaged and able to talk knowledgeably about everything, from the political climate to some off-color joke my dad heard to how much they love the new “Sherlock Holmes” series on PBS.

And yet my mother-in-law is no less “in the moment” than they are. She may, in fact, be even more so. And that’s only going to become more and more acute as the days and months go on. The past will continue to get dimmer; we will stop having to remind her that she was once married or that she went to Italy, because it simply won’t matter to her. The future will no longer be of much concern. It’ll all be about today, this particular hour, this very second. It’s admirable. It’s terrifying.

If you have no idea who I’m talking about, here’s a brief primer: she’s a former Playboy/Import Tuner model who inexplicably had, like, a billion friends on MySpace (remember MySpace, kiddies?) and a couple of MTV reality dating shows based on her alleged bisexuality. The general consensus among those in the “industry” is that Ms. Tequila, born Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen, is the opportunistic sort known as “gay for pay.” In other words – will this get me a show on MTV? OK, then, I’m bisexual! Yay!

On paper, she’s not at all interesting. You may be asking why I follow her antics at all. What I didn’t mention in the above paragraph is that Tila Tequila is also COMPLETELY BATSHIT INSANE.

To hear Tila tell it, nobody has endured more hardships and tragedy than she has. It’s sort of like that girl you knew in college who always had something worse happen than whatever happened to you, right? You’d mention you once were in a car accident, and she was not only in THREE car accidents, she also sustained grave injuries and had a childhood friend die in her arms. Tila is that girl. Tila has had numerous “pregnancies” and “miscarriages,” one of which she live-Tweeted just hours before getting on a plane to Australia to lip-sync her hit song “I Fucked The DJ” in a couple of bars. She had a brief “engagement” to socialite/heiress Casey Johnson, which ended when Johnson was found dead of diabetic ketoacidosis (Tila, never one to pass up an opportunity for publicity, romped around in her yard posing for pictures the next morning, looking kind of sad).

While this is all typical z-list celebrity fuckery, Tila really shines brighter than them all when she goes off on one of her Illuminati rants.

DISCLAIMER: Look, I know some people out there believe the Illuminati still exist and have control over everyone and everything, right down to what I had for breakfast this morning (Illuminati-os, fortified with extra vitamin MKULTRA). I know all about the 13 bloodlines and the Reptilians and the “greys” and all that other stuff that makes it so entertaining in the way that many things on the internet are entertaining. Like kittens, and kids on nitrous oxide, and people who analyze Lady Gaga videos for satanic symbols. And I know that as soon as I post this, some conspiracy theorist is gonna get all on my wick and tell me I’m blind/stupid/sheep-like for not taking it seriously. Hey, believe what you want; nobody’s stopping you. And, for that matter, nobody’s stopping Tila, either, despite what she’d have you believe.

Which brings me back to Tila Tequila’s Illuminati Revue. Every six months or so, she takes a little too much of something which may or may not be illegal, and goes on 12-hour internet benders, most of which go a little like this:

I don’t want to tell you all of what I know, right now, because they are watching. As a matter of fact, I had a huge battle with the others for a long time and I must admit, they are powerful. But there needs to be someone, anyone, to stand up against them and for world to be restored back into peace and harmony once again…You would be shocked if I told you which celebrity has the same bloodline as the devil God I wish I could tell you more…I for one, was sent on earth from God. To be one of his angels to try to help this world that is half white and half dark. There is right now a critical war between good and bad. I am on the good side, and that is why they’re always trying to get me.

I, for one, feel so much safer knowing that there is a merciful, benevolent God who so loves this world that he sent TILA TEQUILA to look after us.

Sometimes I have to pretend to act like a ‘BIMBO’ so they dont monitor my page. That’s an act. Im sorry but that’s the only way to get them to stop monitoring. Cuz when I start being myself and speaking the truth they come to monitor me. I learned the ONLY TIME they stop watching me is after about an hour of me posting mindless bimbo type status but thats my cover up. God now I’m paranoide agin.

Yeah, I couldn’t quite decipher that, either. Although “paranoide agin” has a nice ring to it.

And then, generally, these tweets/posts disappear within 24 hours and she hints that THEY made her take them down. And her fans go bonkers, like, ZOMG SO SCARY TILA UR SO BRAVE FOR EXPOSING TEH OTHERS!!1!

Just recently, Tila claimed to have had a brain aneurysm. Or, wait, no…it was an overdose. An overdose on pain medication because she was having an aneurysm. Something like that. But you and I know that it was really THE ILLUMINATI TRYING TO SHUT HER UP.

I find this whole thing hilarious for many reasons, not the least of which is the idea that of all the people out there hell-bent on exposing the Illuminati, it’s Tila Tequila that poses the most threat to their quest for world domination. Listen, if anything, the Illuminati is TOTALLY THRILLED that Tila is writing about them so much, because her crack rants make most sane, rational people LESS likely to believe in it. Say I’m in the Illuminati, getting ready to don my Sumerian robe and direct a Jay-Z video, and someone tells me Tila’s posted this:

This goes back waaaaaaaaaaay back from the beginning of time. Also where the bloodline starts, and up til this day, you would be SHOCKED to know who is in the same bloodline and cousins as who. For instance, Obama and George bush are actually in the same bloodline, as well as Prince Charles, Brad Pitt……….. shit I better stop now before I get shut down.

I’d be all, “Great! Keep at it, cray-cray!”

My theory? Tila doesn’t actually believe in ANY of this. She is carefully carving out a name for herself as “Hot Chick Who Writes About The Illuminati” (sort of like the Ann Coulter of the Conspiracy Theory Set) because she can’t get work anywhere else. Hey, it makes people pay attention to her, right?

Or it could be that she’s just batshit insane – a glorious fireworks display of crazy, viewed from the banks of the River Wackadoo.

I feel dirty now. Time to take about five showers.

My friend is in the middle of heartbreak. It’s…well…heartbreaking. My friend is also quite a bit younger than I am, and I’m “wise” enough to know to let her cry, work it out in her way, yell if she needs to. Because I’m not so old that I don’t know that the last thing anyone wants to hear is “you’ll get over it.”

For the record, I have had my heart broken – just absolutely shattered – exactly twice. I can speak about one of these heartbreaks. It was a long time ago; I was only a couple of years older than my friend is now. I was in graduate school. 23? 24? That horrible age where you think you know everything but really you’re pretty much an infant who’s able to legally drink. That was me, anyway. I was in love, and completely blindsided by the fact that I was also, apparently, disposable.

And Jesus God, that hurt.

It hurt a lot. It literally made me sick, that hurt. I was so hurt I didn’t take care of myself at a time when I really should have, and I got pneumonia. I remember a winter of icy trees, endless papers about Walt Whitman and Adrienne Rich, and really, really good cough medicine, which I enjoyed a little too much.

When I think of it now, sitting in my house with my husband and my two cats and my Big Girl furniture, it brings about a dull pang, the feeling that someone has just given my heart a quick pinch. I still hurt for that 23-or-24-year-old, the way you hurt for a character in a movie you’ve seen a thousand times, but never tire of watching, especially when you need a good cry.

The thing is, I got over it. I had to, in order to get to where I am. But if anyone had told me as much back then, I’d have gotten quite angry. You don’t want to hear that your heartbreak is “fixable,” because it’s yours and hearing that there may be an end to it implies, somehow, that it isn’t real.

And that’s why I just sat with my young, heartbroken friend, and let her cry. And then I told her I’d take her out for sushi next week. And I will.

Me, I don’t get breakfast in bed, or cards, or flowers. I’m not a mother. There isn’t any holiday for someone like me, the woman who made a conscious decision to not have children.

What follows is not a tirade against the fact that I don’t get a special day. I know (and love) lots and lots of mothers. I admire what they do, and can’t begrudge them a day of props. What follows is simply some reflective prose about the decision I made, what it means to me, and some of the reactions I’ve encountered over the years.

I have known that motherhood was not going to be in my cards since I was a little girl. I am not ashamed to say that I have virtually no maternal instincts. I do not believe that this is a flaw in my genetic makeup. I don’t believe it’s a flaw at all. It’s no more a flaw than the color of my eyes. And yet, even in an era/society in which we presumably respect the life decisions of others, this particular decision is still one which invites a lot of unsolicited opinions and assumptions.

Coombsie and I weren’t married more than a couple of years when one of his coworkers ACTUALLY ASKED him if he was “shooting blanks,” because we didn’t have a child, or one on the way.

Now, obviously, that is just nine kinds of rude and not something we regularly encounter, but I’ve also had people tell me things that, while not necessarily meant to be impolite, still make some broad assumptions about me. For example, I’ve been told that I’m “selling myself short” by stating that I’m not meant to be a mother. Well, no, I’m not. I’m being honest. I know you enjoy being a parent, but the fact that I know in my heart, after years of thorough and careful deliberation, that I’m not somebody’s mother does not mean that I am putting myself down or denying myself something that I “deserve.”

Too, there is the assumption that I don’t like children, which is nonsense. Some of my favorite people happen to be under the age of 12. Coombsie and I have 14 nieces and nephews between us. They’re smart, funny, and good kids. I have some of their artwork on my fridge. I even have some of their artwork framed and hanging on my walls. And anyone who knows me knows that I will always rally for kids that are bullied, for kids that feel “different.” I will fight until my dying day for their rights to feel safe in their own schools. I’ve watched dear friends struggle with infertility and/or getting cleared for adoption, and ardently prayed for them to have that which they want so badly. I am not anti-children. Not wanting them for myself is in NO WAY indicative of that.

People also tend to assume that because I have no children, my life is a perpetual holiday. I can take off somewhere fun and exciting on a moment’s notice. I prepare lavish, gourmet meals when I am not out on the town, seeing and being seen. I have just oodles of disposable income and time. In point of fact, my schedule is packed. I work for a nonprofit arts organization, have my own little theatre company on the side, talk to other people in recovery, try to get an hour or two of writing in when I can, and am helping to care for my mother-in-law, who has Alzheimer’s. Many of our evenings are spent trying to figure out if “I need that…thing” means a new iron or an updated prescription. And it’s not going to get any easier. We moved here to be able to keep an eye on her…the decision to do so was a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t we? The reason why we are able to keep my mother-in-law living in her own home, with dignity, for as long as she is able to remain fairly independent, is because we don’t have the added responsibility of children. I know many other childless couples who are in similar situations. This is why I have to laugh when I hear that people who choose to be childless are “selfish.” Bite me.

I’m not supposed to be someone’s mother. I know that many people out there find this a difficult concept to grasp, particularly those who ARE mothers, or have been trying to have a child. I don’t doubt that motherhood is exhilarating, heartbreaking, and rewarding. I’m having plenty of rewarding experiences; I experience joy and despair and gratitude just like anyone else. I am not someone to be pitied, scorned, or ignored, simply because I have made a serious decision regarding my life and the way I need to live it.

I have accepted that there are some conversations that I’m just not going to be asked to be a part of. I’ve never been pregnant, never given birth, never nursed. I have nothing to add to these discussions, and that’s okay. I’ve accepted, too, that there are times during family events where I am conspicuously out of the loop, being the only sibling/sibling-in-law without children. That’s okay, too.

I’m not supposed to be someone’s mother. I am a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend, a bandmate, a godmother, a coworker, and an aunt. My life is full of amazing people; I just didn’t happen to give birth to any of them.

To the mothers – Happy Mother’s Day. To the not-mothers – you’re awesome, too.

Lisa used to publish a zine called Rollerderby, and would occasionally publish these letters from Laurielle. Nobody knew who Laurielle was. She (or he) was terribly fixated with Lisa, sending her letters ridden with em dashes and what I suppose s/he considered erotic prose. Laurielle would also write to her under different pen names, such as “Lori Roberts,” in hopes, one presumes, that one of these personalities would be so irresistibly alluring to Lisa that she would respond, and make arrangements to meet in person. And yet Lisa believed that any sort of meet-up was probably the furthest thing from Laurielle’s mind. Like Laurielle was just trying on these personalities for size, as if the act of writing these letters to Lisa satisfied some desire to be something s/he wasn’t. Maybe. I don’t know.

People want to tell things to Lisa; it’s one of her many attractive qualities. Long before there was StoryCorps, or even Mortified, Lisa was collecting stories, celebrating minutiae, making “ordinary” people infinitely more fascinating than the bona fide celebrities she also interviewed.

Writing, when done well, is an act of generosity. Lisa Carver is one of the most generous people I know. It’s no exaggeration to say that her work has inspired me for years and years, probably more so than any one writer I studied in college or graduate school. How do you repay someone for that kind of inspiration?

With little crustless sandwiches, apparently.

One day, Lisa and I got into an argument online about pizza blotting (I’m anti-blot, by the by) which somehow developed into my making a reservation for us to go to high tea at the former Ritz. After trading barbs and bons mots for so long, meeting in person almost felt like a blind date. We were nervous that afternoon because, Lisa thinks, “after a certain age (22?) new friendship stops being exciting or something we devote time and energy to, so we forget it exists.”

I think she’s right. When you’re a little girl, friendships are simultaneously thrilling and heartbreaking. They’re intense, those early friendships. In Girl World, they’re also currency. Remember friendship pins? They were beaded safety pins that you’d give to each other and wear on the laces of your sneakers. Being fairly unpopular at 11 and 12 years old, I ended up making some for myself, not aware that I had a predilection for certain patterns and colors. I fooled no one. “NOBODY gave you those pins,” one popular girl sneered at me, “Nobody likes you, and those pins are UGLY.” For the rest of junior high, I kept my head down and prayed for the day I wouldn’t have to manufacture friends.

In high school, I put on a good show. I was funny and could make people laugh, and so I ultimately got invited to the outings and parties I’d so desperately wanted just a few years earlier. But the very thing that got me “in” was also the means by which I shut everyone OUT. This is the person I want you to like, based on what I’ve observed you liking. It took me a long time to STOP doing that, even though it was painful and got me into trouble more times than I can recollect.

And so I was myself on the afternoon that Lisa Carver and I went to tea. I didn’t pretend to be anything I wasn’t.

Maybe that’s why I want Laurielle Miller’s old letters.

And so a couple of weeks ago, when I learned that she had unceremoniously “unfriended” someone on Facebook, because said “friend” had spewed some vitriolic nonsense about addicts being weak-willed scumbags that can never change for the better (or something along those lines), I had to believe that she did so because of me and my father, the two recovering addicts she is closest to. She didn’t say as much, but in so doing, I felt like I was 12 years old again, awash in gratitude for this one small gesture.

All the same, it saddens me that this is still a fairly prevalent attitude, that addiction is less a “condition” than it is a grave moral failing. It’s certainly true that when we’re in the throes of addiction, we’re predisposed to engage in some questionable behavior at best. It’s a combination of needing to feed the beast, and a greatly diminished sense of self-worth. That’s why I have to laugh at people who still think it’s a matter of “pleasure,” or hedonism. Because I’ll tell you – at the end of my drinking and using, there was no pleasure. There was – maybe – a minute or so of “relief,” which has absolutely nothing to do with pleasure, and everything to do with feeling — if only for a moment — like your head isn’t going to collapse in on itself.

Pleasure? Please.

At the same time, though, I get it. It’s hard to put addiction on the same level as most other diseases. It’s nearly impossible to equate addiction with, say, cancer, even though both can kill with the same agonizing, slow, internal insidiousness. Because with addiction comes the perception that we brought it on ourselves. To which I ask you normal, “social” drinkers: do you enjoy drinking? My guess is that you do. We did, too. The difference is that the alcohol kicked open a door that should have been off-limits, a door that you don’t have. Instead of giving us the side-eye and calling us names, you should perhaps pause and thank the deity of your choice that you don’t have that door, and will therefore never know what kind of fucking monsters lurk behind it.

I’m the “sick” one, and yet I’m grateful that my illness has given me more than a little perspective. I’m grateful for the people in my life who may not understand this entirely, but understand enough to know that this is not something I would have chosen for myself. Nobody lifts that very first drink to his or her lips and thinks, “BOY, I sure hope this leads me to the point where I’m seriously considering suicide at 3 in the morning when I’m only 31 years old!” And so, again, to those who believe that we’re amoral bons vivants who are only interested in self-gratification, I’d ask you to read the sentence above this one. Read it several times. And if, after so doing, you still believe that, then all I can ask you to do is kindly fuck yourselves. Really.

Gah. I sometimes feel that this is a standby topic for me, something I write about it simply because I don’t have anything else to write about. But the fact is that nearly 10 years into my recovery, I’m certainly not tired of talking about it, which is good, because talking about it saves my life on the daily. And because there continues to be so much misunderstanding (if not outright ignorance) about addiction, I feel it’s my responsibility to put a face on it.

I am an addict. In almost every other way, I’m just like you. I get attached to particular t.v. shows, I hold opinions on certain political figures, I have hobbies and interests and people I love. I am not some nameless, faceless wraith that is deserving of your scorn and derision, and yet each time I hear someone I know making terrible jokes at the expense of someone who suffers from the same disease that I have, I internalize it. I am in recovery, yes, and have no immediate plans to stop being in recovery, but there is not much separating me from the addled celebrity you called a “junkie whore” on Facebook the other day. There really isn’t, so please just think about that.

Now, having said all this, I will say that I do believe, quite firmly, that once you are aware of your problem, you have an obligation to yourself – above all – to do something about it. There are ways to keep this in remission. Find the one that works. Otherwise, you’re just the goddamn Titanic, and you are going to take a lot of people down with you….or at least the ones that think that by staying aboard, they can save you. Please stop kidding yourself with that tired-ass “I’m not hurting anyone but myself” line. You would be surprised by just how many people you hurt by staying sick. When I say it’s a disease, it’s not a free pass to continue to ravage your way through the lives of others like Godzilla rampaging through some cardboard Tokyo. You don’t get to act like an asshole and then turn around and say, “I can’t help it.”

The person my sister unfriended didn’t know me, didn’t know anything about me, but thought she did. She believed she had all of us pegged, and nobody was going to change her mind. I’m sorry she feels that way. I’m sorry that she lives such an insulated life that she can’t see that we’re quite capable of changing for the better. I see it ALL THE TIME.

Nowadays, I defend myself pretty well, at least when it comes to this. I don’t necessarily need my sister – or anyone else for that matter – to fight my battles for me, but I appreciate it when she does.

After ten years of being in semi-retirement from pretending to be other people, I’ve taken on this project with my friend Ad Frank. He and I have been wanting to do this for ages, and the stars had finally more or less aligned enough for us to get it together, throw it against the wall, and see what sticks.

But, oh, I am so damn terrified.

It’s not that I haven’t performed at all in these past ten years. It’s just that the type of performing I’ve been doing (in bands and with Mortified) is a lot different than what I’m undertaking right now. It’s virtually impossible for me to forget my “lines” when doing a Mortified show — my “lines” are right in front of me, in my diary from 1986. Having been away from being involved in theatre (onstage anyway — in an adminstrative capacity I’m immersed in it on a daily basis), it’s safe to say that I have become quite…rusty.

Learning lines. Dear, sweet, gentle Jesus…how was I able to memorize all this stuff before? In high school, my friend Jon started referring to me as “the walking script,” because I’d not only know all MY lines, I’d know HIS lines, the lead’s lines, everyone else’s lines, AND the stage directions. They’d come spilling out of me like ticker tape, effortlessly. In college, I absorbed scripts for 4-5 plays a year, all the while taking classes, maintaining a decent GPA, and tutoring in the school’s Writing Center. Oh, and binge drinking.

When I moved back to Boston to go to graduate school, I was writing scripts, performing them, learning the scripts from the other writers in my collective, drinking, sleeping with a series of bass players, drinking, working three part-time jobs, drinking…and I never had to call “line.” Never, ever…never.

Now – my God – it’s so much more difficult. I’ve begun having those dreams. You know what I’m talking about, if you’ve done any acting on any kind of level. You completely blank out, there’s no one there to prompt you, and people start leaving in droves. Almost every night I’ve been having this dream, waking just before the audience starts throwing putrescent, fetid produce at me.

It’s been difficult expressing how very terrifying this all is, because so many of my friends know me as a PERFORMER, and the ones who’ve known me for decades — dating back to my “walking script” days — laugh it off. “You’ll be FINE!” “You’re not CAPABLE of forgetting lines….you still remember lines from Thespian Night 1988!” And I smile, tightly, and I thank them, and then I go sit on my bathroom floor and weep. I am certain that I’m forgetting huge chunks of dialogue. I am certain that no one is going to laugh at the funny stuff. I am certain that people will start fidgeting and looking at their watches, the way you do when you’re sitting through an obvious turkey.

How did I do this before? The bicycle analogy is simply not applicable here.

But I need to a grip on myself, here. I have deliberately surrounded myself with a cast of people who love me and whom I love, including Jon. I adore working with Ad; he is one of the most brilliant musicians I know and he makes me laugh every day. Coombsie is also on board. I have this amazing safety net all around me and it’s a safe bet that the audience will be mostly comprised of people I know, and who will not throw rotten food at me (I think). And the show itself is so great, and its creator, Jo Carol Pierce, has become something of a fairy godmother to me. I think in my heart I know it will be fine, but I’m predisposed to worrying. As though worrying and obsessing will work in my favor, somehow.

It’s less than a week until the show. We were supposed to be doing two performances, but rather awful circumstances crashed into those plans and we are left with a single performance. This is something else that has shaken me and left me more than a tiny bit upset, but we’re soldiering on. The show itself is bigger than us, and certainly bigger than any problems we’ve encountered along the way. I want to, as Jo Carol says, “feel happy and truly loved,” and for the most part, I do.

I just wish I wasn’t so nervous, that’s all.

These sites are still around. Twitter and Pinterest have only increased their visibility. I’m not going to link to any of them, because they don’t need the traffic, or the attention.

Understand, here, that I have no problem with people who want to be healthier, and track their progress online. Many of these sites are undeniably inspiring, such as my friend Sheryl’s. Sheryl lost weight gradually, healthily, and along the way learned very valuable life lessons, which she has been brave and generous enough to share. The difference between Sheryl’s blog, and the many pro-ana sites that I’ve come across over the years, is a true spirit of self-acceptance, and JOY in discovering what the human body is capable of when treated well, and respectfully. Starvation is not respect. Depriving your body, brain, and spirit of the sustenance they need in order to function, in favor of some arbitrary number, is not admirable, nor is it emblematic of some superhuman display of “willpower.”

Years ago, I read an article by Mimi Nguyen. This quote has stuck with me ever since:

Who has the luxury…to go hungry…and for whom is hunger not a strategy but a normative condition, the way they exist from day to day?

Nguyen was questioning the validity of hunger strikes as a form of protest, but I do think it’s applicable in this case as well. For the pro-ana set, food’s only interest lies in how little of it they need. It’s only interesting if it’s been refused, or studiously ignored.

Here’s the thing: they have the luxury not only of having ten dollars in the first place, but also of getting to choose whether or not they’ll spend it on food that day. The homeless woman panhandling in front of the 7-11 does not have that choice. I think that once you come to understand the “politics of hunger,” as Mimi put it, you realize how hypocritical it is to starve yourself to prove a point.

People who actively starve themselves continually decry the rampant gluttony of Americans as a whole, and while it’s arguably a valid observation, I find it hard to take coming from someone for whom starvation is just as self-gratifying as buying and eating a bag of potato chips is for someone else.

I question the motives of a group of women who claim to be supportive of one another, but turn around and mock other women who are comfortable with themselves exactly as they are. Because in addition to the photos of thin women they post as “inspiration,” there are an appalling number of photos of “plus-size” models, or – worse still – candid shots of regular women they use as (cleverly enough) “reverse thinspo.” Basically, they are saying: “Oh my God – look at how disgusting she is.” And while I have innumerable issues with pro-ana websites, this is probably the thing I find the most abhorrent, demeaning, and downright evil.

When I first talked about this years ago, I honestly did not expect the vitriol I got from the pro-ana camp. Now? Bring it. Tell me I’m wrong, tell me I “don’t understand” you, tell me I’m fat. I’m not wrong, I understand you better than you think I do, and I frankly don’t give a shit if you think I’m fat or not.

You want to starve yourself, fine. But don’t you dare bring other women into it without their knowledge or consent, particularly if your intention is to berate them. That’s not being supportive, that’s bullying. And it is far uglier than any body type you’re trying to avoid.

But whither to, Nick Cave Walker?
I miss you, o walker that looks like Nick Cave.

But for Bicycle Girl, you were the iconic one,
the one for which there was no Darabont-penned backstory
(although you have been immortalized – re-immortalized? – as an action figure).

You haunt my dreams, Nick Cave Walker.

Are you still lurching about Atlanta?
Were you part of the herd that stormed Hershel’s farm?
Where have you gone, Nick Cave Walker?

I long to see you gripping the chain link fence
surrounding the prison in which our heroes – your lunch – will
seek refuge come October, your hair just
a tad greasier, your sportscoat just
a tad more
jauntily askew.

Nick Cave Walker – I have left you supplies by the abandoned
Chevy Nova on the interstate.
A new tie.
A copy of the Nocturama LP.
My heart.

On the windshield there is a message:
Nick Cave Walker wait for me here.

I am yours, Nick Cave Walker. Nomnomnom.

It’s funny. My last name is McColgan. My mother’s maiden name is Flaherty. HER mother’s maiden name was Coyle. McColgans, Flahertys, Coyles, and Dorseys are all over my family tree. It can’t be mere coincidence that I grew up to be a writer, AND an alcoholic, right?

Nobody loved to get stinking blotto on Saint Patrick’s Day more than I did. It was a lot of fun, until it stopped being fun. And I never wanted to be one of those people in recovery who sneered at everyone drinking their green beer (although even when I WAS still drinking, I never would resort to that fuckery). I do, now, question the sense in honoring what it means to be “Irish” by promoting the stereotype of the falling-down drunk.

Last year, around this time, I wrote a poem:

Roud 1173

a toast of jameson at the grave
plastic cups a quarter full of
brilliantine amber all around me
as we sing the wild rover and
for the briefest of seconds I forget
that I’m supposed to refuse the cup
proffered

we usher our dead through
with tears and poitín
and my hand grasps at air
as I stare at blanched ground
thinking I’ve betrayed my own

an old man next to me
elbows my arm
and whispers

sometimes it’s better NOT to drink

and he hoists his empty hand
to the sky – sláinte – and beams

I can celebrate what it means to me to be an American of Irish descent without a pint (or three) of Guinness. I am not “missing out” on anything today. I was brought up with many other values, and absorbed and observed many fine characteristics and talents from my Irish, and Irish-American, relatives. I love a good story. I can tell a good story. In the bleakest moments, I can find humor. I am fiercely loyal to those who have shown me kindness.

Beannachtaí na Feile Pádraig! Be careful out there.