A picture of the writer Gore Vidal, who looks to be in his twenties. He is a classically handsome young man with a strong, straight nose and full lips curved slightly upward into something that is not quite a smile. He stares somewhere beyond the camera, looking fierce and contemplative.

In Search of Lost Time: New Year, 2026

Holiday 2025 life updates: An original poem, plus reflections on childhood, living abroad, my relationship with my fiancé, and my thoughts on three memoirs that I have recently read. I also discuss my hopes and plans for 2026.

Dec 28, 202518 min read

An AI-rendered image showing a statue of three women, their hair covered in shawls and their eyes averted, who are leaning on and comforting each other - in the style of the Pietà.

The Weird Sisters of Centro Clinic

Three witches preside over the methadone clinic. Their weird magic keeps the viscous methadone syrup flowing through the temperamental machines that dispense it. The Three Sisters' pulsing power prevents fights over girls and drug debts; it sometimes cleans urine samples of the illegal drugs present in them (especially when freedom is at stake), and it ensures that the door to the facility's only single-occupancy restroom unlocks itself when someone is overdosing inside...

Dec 14, 202510 min read

A YouTube video thumbnail with a black-and-white picture of a young, striking-looking trans woman on the left and a photo of photographer Mark Laita (an older, white man with stringy hair) on the right, with the words "The Road to Hell" along the border between them.

I'm Back

Fall 2025 life updates: Going viral on YouTube; Trump's E.O. criminalizing harm reduction services; my writing projects and methadone taper.

Nov 6, 20257 min read

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TRAIN OF THOUGHT

In Search of Lost Time: New Year, 2026

Holiday 2025 life updates: An original poem, plus reflections on childhood, living abroad, my relationship with my fiancé, and my thoughts on three memoirs that I have recently read. I also discuss my hopes and plans for 2026.

Mad Mutterings

Dec 28, 202518 min read

The Weird Sisters of Centro Clinic

Three witches preside over the methadone clinic. Their weird magic keeps the viscous methadone syrup flowing through the temperamental machines that dispense it. The Three Sisters' pulsing power prevents fights over girls and drug debts; it sometimes cleans urine samples of the illegal drugs present in them (especially when freedom is at stake), and it ensures that the door to the facility's only single-occupancy restroom unlocks itself when someone is overdosing inside...

Mad Mutterings

Dec 14, 202510 min read

The chemical structure of the opioid SR-17018, whose full name is 5,6-dichloro-1-(1-(4-chlorobenzyl)piperidin-4-yl)-1,3-dihydro-2H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-one.

SR-17018: Great Promise; A Grave Warning

SR-17018 has been hailed as a "magic bullet" fix for opioid addiction, which can produce painkilling effects without tolerance or risk of overdose. Is the hype justified?

Addiction and Recovery

Nov 30, 20255 min read

I'm Back

Fall 2025 life updates: Going viral on YouTube; Trump's E.O. criminalizing harm reduction services; my writing projects and methadone taper.

Mad Mutterings

Nov 6, 20257 min read

A very cute cat with jade eyes and black, grey, brown, and white stripes; she is laying with her paws on the keyboard of a laptop while looking back and glaring at the camera.

Still Alive; On Summer Hiatus

For the first time since I started this blog, I'm taking a break. Catch you on the flip side!

Mad Mutterings

Jul 13, 20251 min read

A normal curve with stress level on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis; the curve shows that performance level increases with stress up to a certain optimal point, after which additional stress decreases performance.

The Stress-Performance Curve for Civilization

It's past time to reevaluate the social contract. Unprecedented social ills, including record-breaking levels of mental illness and addiction, secondary to a widespread, pernicious breakdown in community have led to more people feeling adrift, empty, and angry than ever before. Is the fix about optimizing our individual interactions with social systems, or is the only possible cure systemic change?

Mad Mutterings

Jul 6, 20257 min read

An image of the author's mid-twenties Egyptian friend (male) holding the author's poodle, an epically beautiful pooch who is resting on a bed; he has medium-length, curly hair and a thoughtful expression as he looks off into the distance.

No Ordinary Piece of Wood

A scene sketch that I wrote to help me develop two characters who have been in my head for a while. I'm disappointed by the representation of relationships between gay men and straight women in modern fiction; typically, such relationships are peripheral to gay or straight love stories, and they tend to present as lukewarm cliches. I think that there's room for something both darker and deeper - a dynamic that I've tried to get at through Luke and Lila in the story below.

Mad Mutterings

Jun 29, 202510 min read