By Cheryl Stowe
The world seems to be going to shit in multiple different shapes, sizes, colors, flavors, and textures. We have a complete reliance upon technology coupled with a generalized inability of un-prepped Americans to care, provide, produce for themselves, having zero survival skills. Rob and I say to each other at least once a week that […]
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When Ana was first learning to talk, we weren’t sure what she should call my stepdad. Mom and Steve were just dating at that point, so “Grandpa” wasn’t yet appropriate. But we all knew the relationship was probably headed toward marriage, so “Steve” wasn’t quite right either. While we struggled to find a name, whenever […]
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Rob and I had been dating for over a year, and had been living together for just a few months, when I woke him up in the middle of the night, climbed on top of him, and pinned him down. (This is not a sex story. Those who have arrived at the wrong classroom are […]
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I urinated all over myself in front of four mothers and their small children, whom they clutched to themselves in horror, in a Pilot Travel Center gas station restroom just over the Kentucky State line in 2005. Ana looked on in stunned disbelief as the dark spot spread down my jeans. The warm liquid traveled […]
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When I first came to a full understanding of the severity of my injuries in the intensive care unit, everything was still burry. My vision was of colors, light, and movement alone, like an impressionist painting. Words made sense, but only at a strange instinctual level whose sole purpose was to differentiate small talk from […]
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“Cheryl, stop chewing on your tubes.” A disembodied male voice speaks to me out of the darkness somewhere near my feet. I realize I am chewing on something soft and pliable in my mouth. It sticks together when I bite down in a not unpleasant way. It is difficult to breathe. “Cheryl, you’re in the […]
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(From TEDx Furman University, “Shatter” – March 21, 2015) On March 29, 2005, I survived a serious car accident. After a long night of dedicated alcoholic consumption, I trusted someone who said he was “totally cool to drive”. He wasn’t. And less than 48 hours later, I woke up in an intensive care unit. I […]
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My parents were in town this weekend. Friday night we all went to the Country Diner – which is literally 50 yards from the base of our driveway, on the same side of the street. The sign reads, “Country Diner – Since 1948”. We met the owner Betty Jo who came to our table to […]
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I went out to smoke this morning, and was greeted with a surprise: It’s Ballentrae Community Yard Sale Day. No, thanks. Dante may have left “holding a yard sale” off his list, but it’s somewhere in my Top 40. Twelve pirate garage sale signs have magically appeared in our front yard overnight, like a bed […]
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