Alex Trabek and the Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company raised me to believe that old people did not want to be a burden to the younger generation. Over the years, they barraged me with images of elderly people making plans for their future. They set aside money. They talked at length to their neighbor Gertrude […]

Hi! I need your advice. The initial push to sell the first book is largely over. I just cleaned up my desktop and put all the Melville stuff into its own folder. Sales are okay, but it will never be a living at this rate. Kristi and I don’t do the creative things we do […]

Over the course of my life, I have known a handful of people who were “on dialysis”. If I am being honest, I really didn’t know much about it. I knew that a machine did the work of failing kidneys. I knew that these people disappeared for a few hours every other day. I knew […]

Ever since I moved to the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area, I have been listening to dumbfucks refer to the area as The Valley. Nearly every chance I get, I ask these morons why they call it that. Their response is always the same: They look at me like I just asked their grandmother to kiss […]

If you have ever known someone who lives with complete renal failure, you know about urine. Until recently, I have never known anyone living with complete renal failure. I knew that there was a thing called dialysis that kept them alive, but that was about it. Now, I am a person living with complete renal […]

My name is metten, and I have come here to complain. Since I am putting out a book soon, my time in the dialysis chair has been spent reading books on how to market a novel. First and foremost, I do hereby admit that most of these people are correct and giving wonderful advice that, […]

When I got a gross fungal infection in my peritoneal cavity, I had to switch from peritoneal dialysis to hemodialysis. When that happened, I had to go into surgery and have my peritoneal catheter replaced with a main-line catheter that went straight to my heart. I also had a fistula installed in my left arm. […]

Hi! Welcome to mettenland! There are a lot of things moving at once right now, and not everything is ready, but we have to start somewhere. Please excuse our progress as you stumble around our half-built, not totally ready websites. So…right now I am preparing to release a novel. Kristi has started making fudge again. […]

How I Learned to Stop Wanting to be a Writer and Embrace the Mentally Handicapped Child on the Other Side of the Fence So, yeah…it’s been a while. I apologize. Wanna know the actual reason why? Too bad. I’m telling you anyway. I can’t find a comfortable position to write in. For decades, I have […]