This is one of the best books I’ve read, ever. It’s simply beautiful, a work of art that transcends its genre. The author’s journey exemplifies cartoonist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Lynda Barry’s contention that “We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.”

How does the author keep going when she loses everything that makes her life meaningful and worth living?

This surprisingly moving narrative set in Victorian England braids together three histories. First, the making of the great Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which took seventy years to complete. Second, the life of the professor, Dr. James Murray, the OED’s third and justly most famous editor, who worked on it for the last forty years of his life. And third, the life of the madman, Dr. William Chester Minor, major contributor to the OED, an American, Yale educated physician, whose illustrious career as a Union officer and surgeon during the Civil War ended due to mental illness that rendered him “unfit for duty” and led to tragedy.

…Briefly, after Biden’s inauguration, my fear eased. But, once again I am losing sleep. And what good is that?

The Hardest Part? First, I Had to Listen to Him.

Given my introverted nature and aversion to crowds and conflict, I’ve been stumped for a way to help dismantle White supremacy. While waiting for a brilliant idea to burn through the atmosphere and crash into my head, I’ve been…

Since Trump and the GOP swept the 2016 election, it’s been one unthinkable legal change after the other in the wrong direction, practically daily. With each thing, I’ve thought: It can’t get any worse. And then it does.

It’s National Mental Health Awareness month? How ironic. Two months in to this pandemic, I’m well aware—no, I’m hyper aware that most people’s mental health, including my own, is under siege. It’s impossible to ignore. There is just too much uncertainty. And too many feelings to deal with, from bowel-churning terror to metal-melting rage and everything in between. But now that I think about it, that’s proof I’m well and healthy, and so are you, if you’re swinging the same. How could it be any other way? These are simply psycho-logical responses to an increasingly psycho reality.

You’d be surprised. Or, maybe not. It’s amazing how much trouble I get into with patients (and elsewhere), and even more amazing how often I manage to be helpful. It’s a knack. Kidding. Problem solving while panicking in free fall is a skill set, one we need now more than ever.