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The Inexhaustible Reality of Love

Reality bites. That was the name of a 1994 romantic comedy movie starring Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. It’s about four recent graduates finding out how difficult life can be when searching for a decent job and true love after college. In pop culture, that phrase eventually came to…

Hugging Is One of the Things I Miss the Most

The first time I met my wife, Jill, she told me she wasn’t comfortable with “PDA.” Being a smart aleck, I asked her why she didn’t like personal digital assistants. (The old PalmPilots were known as PDAs.) She flashed the patient smile of someone who knew it would require…

Forced Family Time

My wife, Jill, and I live in Illinois, where the governor has declared a stay-at-home order for our entire state. It’s been weeks now. He also suggests canceling summer events and has decided that children will not return to school for the remainder of the academic year. We are…

My Genetic Status Complicated Having a Baby

As I walked down the street to get my afternoon coffee one day, it appeared as if everything was normal. Unfortunately, everything was not. I crossed the same streets I normally do, walked past familiar neighborhood shops, and waved to fellow business owners. I ordered my usual coffee and said…

The Realities of Rare Diseases

Social distancing seems to be the trend these days. Several reality shows illustrate what I mean: participants practice social distancing and isolation to such an extent that everyone communicates to each other behind walls (in “Love Is Blind“) and computer screens (in “The Circle“). Now, though, this is…

New Perspectives from a Trip to the ER

This past Monday night, my boyfriend and I cooked an amazing meatball dish with garlic bread on the side. (No, I will not disclose whether I used premade meatballs and garlic bread.) We paired the dishes with a bottle of sangria we’d bought for taco night this past…