In December, I ditched my iPhone 12 Mini (which is to say, I put it in a drawer in my desk) and started using the AT&T Cingular Flip IV, a 5G LTE flip phone. I then wrote a long, beautiful, and widely-read article about why smartphones are overkill and why a lot of us would be better off with a flip phone.

I made it about a month with that flip phone before having to go back to my iPhone.

I was not happy about it. I loved the flip phone’s week-long battery life, I loved that people had to…

“Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.

It has been a beautiful
fight.

Still
is.”
― Charles Bukowski

They say smoking is one of the hardest habits to quit because of how addictive nicotine is. Going without nicotine causes the smoker to crave smoking intensely and powerfully, so they say, creating a situation where only nicotine can bring them relief from their suffering.

Any bad habit works like that, from nicotine to alcohol to shopping to binge-watching Netflix. The longer you go without it, the more you want it, and the sweeter the relief is when you finally get it.

Friends…

People treat getting therapy like going to the dentist; something they know they should do, and maybe sometimes put on their to-do list, but don’t actually make the time to do until they face an acute disabling mental health crisis like becoming suicidal or becoming so anxious they can’t function.

We shouldn’t treat mental health like that. We should treat mental health like it’s our top priority. Mental health is the most important thing you can invest in, above and beyond career, physical health, or even relationships, because to invest in your mental health is to invest in these things…

Since I want my blog to be an inclusive place for everyone, I’d like to start off by saying that it is ok to be fat. Being fat does not make you ugly, unlovable, or unfuckable. You can be fit and be fat at the same time. Every time my overweight mom fat-shames herself by saying “I’m too fat to wear these yoga pants I love,” I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and say “The only thing keeping you from wearing the yoga pants you love is your attitude!” If you are reading this article…

There’s a coffee shop in downtown Columbus I like to frequent with my partner and my friends. This particular coffee shop is known in town for being an LGBTQ-friendly hub of leftist political and economic thought. Every day, you can visit this coffee shop and run into socialists, communists, anarcho-communists, and every other flavor of the far-left-wing.

I love it there. I love the people I meet there, the time I spend there, and the book recommendations I get there. But this coffee shop is pretty woke, and one of the woke things I hear people say frequently is “Every…

“I have fought too many times,

But I don’t think I’ve ever won.”

— Front Porch Step

If you ask my friends and family, they would say I don’t have a drinking problem. If you go by our culture’s common definition of a drinking problem, I don’t. I drink less than once a month. I’ve got a handful of stories of crazy things I’ve done while hammered, but who doesn’t? And I’ve had a few miserable hangovers too, but that’s what happens the morning after those crazy stories. …

I’ve recently given up the sauce, and to be a more informed member of the elective sobriety movement, I’ve been researching the latest of what science has to say about alcohol. I’ve learned a few shocking things.

Myth: A glass of wine with dinner is good for your heart health

Reality: Wine is bad for your heart (and every other organ)

In nutritional science, there’s a question called the French Paradox: why do French people have relatively low rates of heart disease when their diet consists of lots of things that, at the time, were thought to cause coronary heart disease, like wine and saturated fats?

This question inspired a spate of studies into French people’s diets and lifestyles, and one of these studies…

Listen up folks, because this will blow your mind: I have never had caffeine.

I have never started my morning with a cup of coffee. I have never gotten a pick me up in the middle of the day when my energy flagged. I have never had one of those weird caffeine pods they sell at corner stores. I have never thrown back a Red Bull at a bar. I have never had a caffeinated sports drink of any kind in any context. I have never had green or black tea. …