Advice from a rare cancer survivor: stop taking no for an answer from doctors I remember the day I exchanged wedding vows with my husband. We had been together just over a year, but the first half of that was long distance, since we met (in person) when we lived…

More expat tomfoolery — I thought I would share a few basics that many people might already know but also, you don’t really know unless you live here how slightly (ahem) pedantic dear old Britain can be with the “correct” use of the language they “invented” or whatever! As with all of my expat…

hm! I am taking on this challenge that I have recently read from Lisa Beth Wright to come up with one word for the past year. I will say, my word, on deep reflection for 2022 is “Oof” Were I allowed two, I would say “FUCKING Oof”(!) Merriam-Webster defines oof, for…

Is this thing on? — I really don’t like writing these it turns out, this is my third attempt! Awkward introvert comfortable with oversharing *indirectly* oh sure, sign me up. But a full-on introduction is my idea of hell. You’re judging me already aren’t you? Anyway, hi, I’m Steff. What even is this picture? It’s…

another rant I am like many others here it seems, fed up and frustrated with my Medium feed. It’s only gotten worse in the past month. I do not want dozens of emails a day in my inbox, I don’t respond well to being overwhelmed with emails and will just…

Do you believe everything you read? When writing about certain topics, most often current events/news, too many writers are far too quick make a declarative statement as fact, more often than not in their title, when all their piece ever adds up to is an essay based largely if not…

The harder I try to heal, the worse it feels — It was my birthday this week. I was naively kind of looking forward to it. My birthday is two weeks after Christmas exactly (January 8th-happy birthday to me, Elvis, Bowie and some other cooler than me cats!). It always has a sort of after party vibe to it, which I…

goodbye dear friend I never knew The beginning of a new month nay - a New Year! heralds the 000 reset in the land of Medium We begin each day dot fresh, renewed the possibilities endless maybe this month we will strike it rich! Alas I was greeted with the…

Musing on the lesser optimized female gaze Hello. I was not expecting to find a stock image like the one above, and then one day on Pexels, there he was amongst all of the other forgettable male models. Hi, man of my dreams. If I have a type, that is…