ABOUT

Phase 1

Helped care and advocate for a severely developmentally disabled sibling. Did a weird amount of backyard wildlife rehab. Walked a paraplegic squirrel named Rocky the Baptist Preacher on a leash and harness. Wrangled and occasionally dissected an absurd number of rabbits for unrelated reasons.

Phase 2

First homelessness experience. Met a dentist who was hanging out in the park answering the street community's questions. Buddy got stabbed; I got recruited to go do the gauze packing and rebandaging for a couple of weeks. Helped talk a bunch of other kids at the youth shelter into seeing the Dracula ballet with my mom. Ask me about the rubber band ball story.

Phase 3

Fell into doing body piercing for a while. Discovered that kids these days will gladly spend longer with you, spend more money, and even take initiative to follow up with progress reports, if you invest the time in educating them about why not to use peroxide.

Phase 4

Joined the tiny team at Westwood Animal Hospital from January 2010 to August 2012. Observed firsthand that thorough preventative care and patient education (or in this context, client education, although I did explain to a dog how a heartworm test works once) is really the key to successful patient outcomes, and ultimately lowering burden on care systems as well as lowering care costs. Got sprayed with an unnameable green goo from the eldritch horror leg of a dachshund mix with an unnameable disease. I fear nothing.

Phase 5

Graduated from Colorado School of Healing Arts and went into medical massage therapy practice. I caught flak for setting sliding-scale rates, but it worked for two years, and I learned how it can work longer and better. Specialized in lumbar/pelvic, shoulder/upper back, headaches, and injury/surgery rehab. Failed to take adequate care of myself, developed wrist issues, had to stop practicing. Later -- after becoming homeless again, while living primarily in cars -- I worked for a couple of Massage Envy locations. In 2016, a brilliant psychiatrist was on my table once, engaging me in all kinds of interesting conversation, and told me that there is inherent virtue in people who aren't driven by truth/logic.

SDASDFSAF