When you live for your kids, but they don’t live for you — The worst I have ever felt about myself as a human being was in relation to my role as mother to my three kids. That’s the god-honest truth of it. Let me say that again. The worst, shittiest mental health I have ever experienced — across the span of my…

So what are you going to do about it? — I got into a scrap on a Medium Facebook group post tonight. I didn’t mean to — I went there to look for funny memes to share in the group chat I’m in with my girlfriends. …

Meet spatial sequence synaesthesia, the beige crayon in the box of cool, quirky brain things. — The first time I worked out something was different about my brain was during English class in high school. “This is just a fun little exercise, nothing major. You have thirty minutes to write the opening paragraph of a story set in a time different from today.” Pretty normal, right…

Why curation is the key to a better reading experience — Let’s get down and dirty, fast. You’re following too many people. This is broadly applicable to most of your social media accounts, but for today, we’re going to just talk about Medium. I’ve recently come back after a two year hiatus. No hard feelings on either side, I don’t think…

Fantasies about a simpler life — I had that dream again last night. The one where I live in a cabin in the woods, with so much land around me that I can’t see my neighbours or hear traffic. …

How a dental crisis gave me a much-needed wake up call — “You’ve got a raging infection in your tooth. We’re going to have to do another root canal, I’m afraid — it’s worse than the last one. I’m surprised you lasted this long with the pain. That abscess looks really nasty.” Another root canal? Are you kidding me? I’d just gone…

You’re not as important as you think you are. — Oh God, please stop. Stop yelling your own name into the void. Just stop. I’m so sick of flicking open Medium (or turning on my television, or scrolling through social media) and seeing the same damn thing over and over. You know what I’m talking about. That particular whiff of…

Tapping into the emotional connection between words and melody — When I sit down at the computer to write, nine times out of ten, it’s with music playing in the background. I do this consciously — I can’t write with silence. But I also need to be able to absorb music without necessarily focusing on lyrics. …

How the cannibalistic serial killer gained his superfans — For many of us, our first introduction to Hannibal Lecter was via Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film, The Silence of the Lambs. Who can forget the delightfully sinister Anthony Hopkins’ psychological flirting with protagonist Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) while a deranged fellow prisoner masturbated in the next cell over? Lecter is…