Life Experiences

We met in college—back when late-night pizza runs and procrastinated deadlines were the center of gravity. She was funny. Not in a performative, class-clown way. Her humor had this dry, left-field quality to it. We’d sit next to each other in the computer lab, whispering sarcastic commentary about the professor’s PowerPoint slides. Friendship came easily. Love snuck in quietly, like fog.

[Read more…] about The Weight of Love: My Life With a 500lb Girlfriend

Four years ago, I lost my penis in a freak motorcycle accident. I was 29. Some days, it feels like another lifetime. Other days, it feels like it just happened.

I know what you’re probably thinking — how do you even go on after something like that? I wondered the same thing. The first year, honestly, was hell. No one prepares you for this. Not doctors, not the internet, not your own mind. I spent a lot of time with my therapist. I spent even more time staring at the ceiling, thinking I’d never really be a man again.

[Read more…] about Confessions of a Man Who Lost His Penis In An Accident

I get this question all the time, usually from people who either don’t know me at all, or know my sister and then, by association, learn that I exist. “What’s it like?” they ask, as if I’m living inside some bizarre reality TV show called Model Sibling: The Ugly Duckling Edition. Sometimes I want to laugh, sometimes I want to disappear. Sometimes, honestly, I want to answer with brutal honesty, because nobody ever talks about this stuff for real.

So here it is.

[Read more…] about What It’s Really Like to Have a Model Sister When You’re Ugly

People think a long, happy marriage is some mystical secret or a rare genetic lottery win. But if you ask me, being married for 25 years and still being in love isn’t magic. It’s a series of small, daily decisions. It’s about learning, laughing, screwing up, and finding your way back to each other—again and again.

[Read more…] about What It’s Really Like to Still Be Happily Married After 25 Years

People hear “private investigator” and immediately think of trench coats, fedoras, or maybe a shadowy figure parked outside a seedy motel at 3 AM, snapping blurry photos. In reality? Most of the time, I’m just another guy in the crowd, blending in at a restaurant or loitering in my car with a cold coffee, waiting… and waiting… and waiting.

[Read more…] about What It’s Really Like Catching Cheaters for a Living

You ever wake up after three hours of broken sleep and try to function like a normal human being? That fog, that stiffness in your joints, that feeling like your brain is booting up on a 20-year-old computer? That’s my baseline—on a good day.

[Read more…] about What’s It Like To Have Fatal Familial Insomnia?