Victorious — Brad Dell

When feeling hurt or sad, I find my escape in rereading the books of my youth. They divert my mind from my woes and remind me that at least I’m not facing Voldemort or a clandestine agency bent on…

Many people think I’m reckless … and I guess I really kind of am. I blame a doctor for that. Years ago, I had a showdown with yet another infection that threatened to end my life, or at the…

In my last column, I described how nearly dying made me a better person. That might imply that I flipped a brain switch to become a more rad version of Brad overnight, but that’s not how it happened.

His little ribs rose, then fell, then rose, then fell, then stayed still. The spark left his green, curious eyes — I swear it wasn’t a trick of the light. They were dull … dead. I loathed myself for…

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” said Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore. He proceeded to describe bombing a hill, and how the resulting carnage “smelled like victory.” He then frowned and said sadly, “Someday this war’s…

I’ve been bored during my six weeks of isolation. But sometimes boring is a synonym for peaceful. Yes, it’s been a peaceful time of silence and introspection. For example, in all my sitting around, I realized something really cool:…

A surreal winter, huh? Pandemic pandemonium. Over and over. “I can’t believe we even have to think about this stuff. COVID-19 is like fiction.” It’s real. I write this during week three of self-isolation. I ain’t scared for myself.

I’m always promising people I’ll write a memoir … at some point. Once, I got 46,853 words deep before realizing that my writing style had evolved enough that, “Mmm, that draft is trash.” Recently, I gave it another jab.

I haven’t tasted much energy over the past month. Thanks to steroid withdrawal, I spend most of my time near home. It’s not all that bad, honestly, to sit around and do nothing. “Doing nothing” can be productive.

Since August, I’ve been irritable, in hermit mode (distressing for an extrovert!), a little depressed and unfulfilled, and having difficulty sleeping. Plus, I’ve been urinating about seven times nightly, which sounds funny but is a special kind of torture.

Loureen and I waited for our travel buddies to pass through airport security. Soon, we would be on a plane to Jordan, where we would provide various forms of support to Syrian refugees escaping civil war. Loureen, wise and…

Six months ago, if I had been tied to a very uncomfortable chair and tortured for weeks while interrogators screamed, “What is your greatest fear?” the only things I could have come up with would have been maybe ……