Trash doves:
essay for sad magazine, print issue no. 25
[Excerpt]
It’s a singular experience, admitting to a cab driver that you have entered their vehicle with a concealed bird. I felt I owed him an explanation; if a wild-eyed woman got into the back of my car with an unseen creature scratching loudly in a Vans box, I would ask her to kindly exit the vehicle. Cabbing was, as I saw it, my only option for quickly getting the bird from Granville & Georgia to the Animal Emergency Hospital on West 4th. Taking public transit with injured wildlife is generally inadvisable, and I didn’t want to prolong the bird’s panic, evidenced by its nervous scuffling and weak vocalizations. Had I some way to communicate with it, I would have said I was taking it somewhere to be healed, where it could rest. I also would have asked if it wanted help before kidnapping it off the street. Maybe it would have declined, and I wouldn’t have been late for my date.
alcohol detox: Information page for alo house recovery centers
[Excerpt]
There are many factors that might influence someone to become addicted to alcohol, and often there is more than one cause. While some factors may be out of an individual’s control, it’s important to remember that no one is predestined for a life of addiction. When the reason for an individual’s reliance on alcohol becomes clear, we’re able to address these reasons and empower the individual in their recovery. Some reasons people may become alcohol addicted are:
Genetic predispositions
Mental health factors, like depression or anxiety
To escape from the experience of trauma or stress
Frequent drinking in social settings
mouthpiece: a review of the play by norah sadava and amy nostbakken
[excerpt]
Mouthpiece is a dramaturgical exploded-view diagram of Cass Hayward's psyche the day after her mother's death. Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken play two halves of Cass's mind - singing, jeering, collapsing and reanimating to seamlessly express the folds and flow of getting through the day.
The show opens with a darkened stage and otherworldly a cappella, impressively synchronized, then meticulously divergent. Sadava and Nostbakken quickly cease to be performers and instead become dynamic agents of abstract thought and feeling, folding together, breaking apart. They transition fluidly from grating loudness and dissonant thought into slow moments of tenderness and peace. They skillfully emulate what it's like to be inside a mind: complex without hypocrisy, both integrated and exiled, flowing rapidly from observation to judgment to commercial jingle.