About ten years ago, shortly after I graduated from college and moved to the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, I signed up for a gym membership at a discount gym in the corner of the shopping mall by the Red Line Howard stop. If you have ever lived in Chicago, you know what that particular…

My Very Own Halloween Special It sounds like something out of a low-budget horror film released in early October: A plucky young woman comes down with strange symptoms; a foreign objected has invaded her body, settled in, and is now feeding off her lifeforce. She pukes; she cries; she watches in horror as her stomach…