When my friend moved to Washington DC, she came back one time and she told me about a guy in her class who she really liked as a friend. But he had written her this very passionate "I want to be more than friends" letter to her. And she shared it with me, even though she knew that he would not like that -- I mean, that he was kind of viol- she was violating his privacy.  And I was really blown away by it. I mean I just, I just really -- there's something about the writing I really liked. I liked his handwriting, I liked the way he expressed himself, I thought it was really cool the way he put himself out there for [name], and I -- I'm not entirely sure how this came about, but I said, "I would love to meet this guy. Like, I would like to like, write to this guy."  And she's like, "Go for it!" And so she put us in touch, and we started writing each other back and forth, like really long letters, like every single week. And we would -- we got to know each other very well, and we actually started to have really strong feelings for each other. But here we are, living like, really far away.  And we went out to DC, and I got to meet [name], and we spent time with him, and then came back to -- so, that was a fun trip. Here's the thing. When I met [name] in person, I was not attracted to him. I, I don't know what it was. Like, I just didn't feel the chemistry. I loved his mind, he had been a fabulous pen pal. I had really strong feelings for him, but meeting him, it just didn't play out like I thought it would.  And, um, he -- and it's not like -- I mean, he sent me a picture, I sent him a picture. Lots of pictures actually, but just for some reason, we just didn't click, and I -- aw, man, it was awkward. I mean, I think I hid it a little -- I'm sure I hid it, I mean, I tried to be normal about it, but I did not get swept off my feet like I hoped I would. So, anyway, it could have ended better. [Laughs] But we did stay in touch.

On Saturday, I had taken myself to the Culver's in [town], where I live. And I was sitting in the drive-thru window waiting area. I had gotten my pop and I was waiting for my grilled cheese sandwich with bacon, which they make, that is very good. And a large moving truck decided to go through the drive-thru waiting area and go through and side swiped my lovely car. And I wasn't hurt and it -- but the sound that it made when it hit my -- and side swiped my lovely car was awful.  And of course, now I'm doing all the wonderful things you do with insurance and police reports and all this fun stuff -- rental car, because my car had a big gash in the tire, so it was undrivable. And all kinds of things like that. So, fun times.

A time I didn't listen to a doctor was, I had been in the Dominican Republic and I’d gotten home. And a couple days later I was wearing jeans and I just remember my legs were so itchy. And for some reason, in my mind, it made sense ‘cause it was kind of hot, and I thought that because I was wearing jeans -- I don't know, I just didn't really track that it was an issue. And then I went to change my pants and was horrified, because my legs were all blue. And I realized later it's because I was like itching the dye like into my legs. I was itching them so -- and probably it was kind of hot and I was sweaty. But, then I also noticed there was like a rash. So I went to the doctor, said, "I was just in the Dominican Republic, you know, I've got this rash. I'm little bit worried about it." And they said, "Oh, it's folliculitis. It'll go away." And folliculitis is just a very general term for inflammation of the follicles. Like it’s – I’m trying to think of an equivalent diagnosis. I don't know. It's kind of like when people just – um, maybe this is actually not a good analogy. I was gonna say when people say, like, oh they have IBS or they -- for just like anything kind of related to gastrointestinal, but there's probably a much better analogy. I am not a doctor, as it turns out. But anyway, I just was feeling really nervous. Um, we'd had some other like, weird health things on that trip. Somebody I'm pretty sure got bit by a tarantula. Their foot like swelled up to the size of way, way bigger than it should have been. Somebody got an amoeba. So I just like -- and we were in an area, I was doing like mobile medical stuff. Like, I was just like very exposed to lots of things so I was feeling not confident. But I really had no recourse. Like, I didn’t know what it was. I didn't have any, as far as I know, bites or like, open wounds that could have gotten infected. So I didn't know why it would have happened. And I was at the time in college and I was a microbiology teaching assistant. I was telling…

I was playing pickup basketball just before the basketball season. I was in 10th grade, the start of my sophomore year, so I was 15 years old. And my big thing as a basketball player was, I played 100%, all the time. Like, I didn't always feel like I was quite as gifted from a skill point of view, so I felt I had to make up for that with effort and hard work. And all I knew was, I couldn't bring that effort and hard work to an actual game if I wasn't practicing that in practice. Like, it's like a classic, "You have to practice how you play" type of thing. So even in open gyms, I was a hard worker, and I didn't like to give up on plays. And so, I remember there being a point where, in this open run that counted for nothing, one of my friends broke out into the open floor. Looked like he had a wide open layup. There's no one else back on defense to stop him. But I loved chasing players down. I loved a good chase-down block. And usually, I kind of just lurk in the shadows and wait for them to feel like they've got a step on me, and then I meet them at the rim and I would try to swat their shot away. But this time my friend on the other team was so far ahead that I was like -- in my head I was like, "I don't think I can get this one. I think – I don't know what I'm doing. What's the point of -- why am I even running?" And to even have the vaguest shot at affecting this layup, I had to run at a full sprint, and then I could not set my feet when I jumped. You know, a lot of times there's a little like one-two step that you take prior to elevating in basketball, or a lot of athletics. But I had no time for that. So I was running at a dead sprint and my jump had very little elevation ‘cause I was going so fast I couldn't really spring and explode. And I jumped off of one foot, and it seemed like there was no deceleration in my jump. However fast I was running is exactly how fast I was moving in…

I was running some errands with my sister, and my niece is autistic, and she, she’s not nonverbal. She’s starting to get her words more and more, here and there, but she still doesn’t use them all the time, and she especially isn’t always a “hello,” “goodbye,” react-to-her-name kind of girl. But she was saying more and more and more things recently, and especially when we’re driving around, if me and my sister go anywhere together and she’s of course with us.  And I was going to get my – we pulled in the driveway for my sister to drop me off, and I was just getting ready to head out, and grabbing my things, and my sweet little niece kinda just made a noise, like – I don’t remember exactly what the noise was. I don’t even think it was really a word, but it was very obviously, like, getting my attention. Like, “Ey, ey, ey”’ you know. But not like that, you know. So I turn around to see, to say, “Oh,” you know, “goodbye.” And I look, and she’s got one little finger pointed out. And she’s looking at me like she wants me to like poke her fi- – do it –  like, the only way I can describe it is to do the ET thing. You know, to like put your, put one pointer finger to one pointer finger and just kinda touch. So, I just do that with her, and the second I do it and say, “Bye, sweet [name]!” she smiled so big, and it just melted my heart because she doesn’t, you know, always show that kind of reactive emotion like that. So that was really, really special, and I hope she continues to do little ET goodbyes with me. That would be so precious.