In San Francisco in the early 90’s it seemed like everyone from lawyers to street punks was getting pierced and tattooed.   "Body Modification" was the buzzword with tattoo and piercing shops as ubiquitous as Starbucks.   Above a popular sex club sat a large school to train would be piercers. Read More

A local brewery named itself “Bad Tattoo”, a good description of far too many skin decorations. Read More

    The good folks at Retrospect are asking about tattoos and piercings – those permanent (well, mostly permanent) ways we adorn our bodies. Now, as a former dedicated follower of the “body-as-a-temple” school of thought (courtesy of Catholicism, bless their metaphorical heart), I found myself firmly in the pew, not the piercing table. But… Read More

The Puppy in the Waiting Room  I don’t know if I really remember some of the stories my parents would tell about my naughty or my endearing childhood antics,  or if I’ve heard them so often I think I do.  But I remember how we found Fluffy in the waiting room as if it happened… Read More

There was surely some apprehension people felt while waiting for medical care, but people often chatted with the front desk or each other and in a small town, it wasn’t unusual to run into someone you knew. Read More

There has to be a better way to deliver medical care. ER waiting rooms are just another broken part of our system. Read More

One hot summer day in July of 1978, I flew into Terre Haute, Indiana. I must confess that Terra Haute had a peculiar oder. The airport was full of larger-than-life photos of their hometown hero, Larry Bird, who grew up down the road in French Lick. I rented a car, got directions and began my… Read More

  Ah, waiting rooms. Those fluorescent-lit purgatories where childhood dreams went to die a slow, magazine-fueled death. Remember those giant, uncomfortable chairs swallowing you whole like a bad couch on “Laugh-In”? The only escape? Dog-eared copies of National Geographic filled with pictures of naked butts and confusing maps of exotic lands (where, presumably, dentists/ doctors… Read More

My earliest experiences with waiting rooms were rather non-existent.  That is to say, at 3, my parents rushed me to the ER when my pinky finger was tightly lodged in the fold of a folding chair.  I remember the extraordinary pain and leaving with a splint on the finger.  If I waited, I know it… Read More

Nigel understood that what he was doing in recounting his everyday activities and observations was subverting most people’s understanding of what was possible for a person with his condition. He mentioned this frequently throughout the narrative—though he never used a verb such as subvert. Read More