Things Are Okay With Me These Days...

As "okay" as things can be, right now...

A warm welcome to new subscribers! We have an amazing group of friends now, with a lot of new Yale friends and a lot of friends from our mutual friend Eve’s blog, plus friends from all sorts of places, many I know, many I have not yet met but look forward to meeting!

I try to keep this blog a little light and funny, since we all have enough nightmares right now, and I encourage all of you to suggest a topic. Some things that come up a lot: Star Wars references, Billy Joel lyrics, cats, and how to change the world or our own little part of it.

I’m sticking with the Billy Joel lyrics today. The title is from our first Billy Joel song, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”

Things are okay with me these days
Got a good job, got a good office
Got a new wife, got a new life
And the family's fine
We lost touch long ago
You lost weight I did not know
You could ever look so nice after
So much time

Things are… different with me these days. October 7 changed everything, though in my own life some forces had been seeming to conspire to change things long before. The human brain can’t help but try to make meaning out of things, and I perhaps do that to excess. But I am who I am - efforts to change me have failed.

By way of introduction or catching up:

After twenty years as a union organizer and Director of Organizing, almost entirely in healthcare, I got my Masters in Public Health from Thomas Jefferson University. I proceeded to work in harm reduction for people who use substances for the following years. Meanwhile, I was a COVID Case Investigator for Pennsylvania for a year (it’s like compulsory service if you’re and MPH to join the pandemic effort) and taught public school for three years in the poorest parts of Pennsylvania, including right off of Kensington Avenue. I liked a lot about teaching but the second death threat from an eighth grader with access to guns was the last straw, so I’ve done some other things since. Lately I’ve been freelance writing and working with my favorite biochemist, Richard David Feinman, to spread the word about low carb nutrition for diabetes and obesity. My writing was in harm reduction for years, and I continue to write about that, but I was branching out into other issues right before recent events.

Here are some links to my writing, in somewhat chronological order:

I Stand With My Jewish Friends

Sex Heals Trauma

The Beauty of Female Passion

Switching to drug policy…

Fired For Cannabis Impairment at Work? (My short trip to law school - thank you Professor David White)

Cleaning Up After the Drug War - The Work of An Expungement Attorney Interview with a real life fighter for justice, Michael Hoffman, Esq.

Probably my most-read article of all time:

Deprogramming from AA: When a Fellowship Becomes a Cult

And my book with Kenneth Anderson, MA, of success stories from our 10 k member, worldwide organization, HAMS (Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation Support), for people who want to change their drinking through non-12 Step methods

Better is Better: Stories of Alcohol Harm Reduction

There’s a lot more - I’ve been freelance writing since 2016 - but that’s the basic idea.

I’m so happy to have you all here, and please do share and invite our friends, those I’ve met and those yet to meet, to join us.

I take flower pictures. I believe that flowers can bring us together. I love urban flowers peaking up from a sometimes difficult landscape to say hello.