"Life sucks and then we die."  Those are some words my pastor imparted to me, years ago. And they've stuck with me ever since. He was right, after all. Life does suck. And then we do die. But, in the meantime, there's pour over coffee from Fairgrounds.  Also, in the meantime, there's work to be done.  Speaking of work I've...

 Sip of Hope is a coffee house in Logan Square that advocates for mental health.  As stated on their website (https://sipofhope.com/),      “Sip of Hope is the world’s first coffee shop where 100% of the proceeds support proactive suicide prevention and mental health education. Sip of Hope is the perfect space for breaking the...

*uses comic and video game pictures despite only discussing the movie Scott Pilgrim vs The World is about Scott Pilgrim a mild-mannered Canadian bassist who’s just looking for love in this crazy world. It’s also about Ramona Flowers, an American fem fatale with a shrouded past and at least seven evil ex-lovers (and those are just the ones out for...

I didn’t see The Last Jedi until four months after the film came out, which I guess is a crime on my part because how can you be a geek and not see THE NEW STARS WARS NIKKI. LIKE FRICK MATE, WHAT’S NEXT? YOU GOING TO TELL ME YOU DIDN’T READ THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS, ONLY WATCHED THE MOVIES? FAKE. FRICKIN. FAN. Calm down there hoss, let me speak. So,...

It’s 80 degrees in Chicago and I’ve got the day off. That can only mean one thing. It’s time to take the top down.  At 8 in the morning it’s still chilly outside, but that’s not a good enough excuse not to enjoy my youth. So I’m out to find a place to focus, cruising, living life, blasting some alternative rock trash whe-OH FRICK BASTILLE...

Photography - Faith O'Leary Prose - Nikki Macahon The Dress I used to think professionals wore dresses to compromise. They wrote to survive, they didn’t enjoy it. Professionals write articles, manuals, essays, and all other things that bored them to death. Their work was taken from them and rewritten by someone else who didn’t respect...

You know, sometimes, you just have those weeks.  You know the ones. When anything that comes out of your mouth is an awkward stutter. When you break a shadow box at work and need to spend the money you were saving for a book shopping spree to replace it. When it rains so hard that there’s a puddle of water in your car that you have to mop...

*cracks knuckles* Let’s do this.  As an aspiring writer with a following that is still a work in progress get off my baCK ‘KAY HERMONO? I’M WORKING ON IT, I do not have a lot going on in the writing sense. Outside of my part time job, the projects I’m pounding out are barely anything compared to the work load of a profession. But it...

I haven't been able to write lately. [Got a lot on my mind.] [So] I decided to try drawing instead. It's been maybe, dang, probably a year. No, wait, I did a sketch of a graphic novel thumbnail a [few] months ago.  But other than that, yeah, a year. Yikes. I used to sketch every day, did you know that? Recently, too. Like, freshman year of...

     Recently, The Plan was derailed. It was all set in motion, everything was running smoothly. And then it wasn't, and that affected me a little more then I'd care to admit.      For context, The Plan was simple.      -Graduate.      -Have a full time job waiting after graduation.  ...

I like books. I like 'em Christian, and I like 'em otherwise. But, I’ll be the first to admit Christian literature has a reputation for being sub-par, for sacrificing the story for the message. And, after thinking about it, I have to agree. For the most part. But then, if I was asked the same question about mainstream genre or YA, I’d say the...

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    So, college. I’m done with it now. And that’s great, because now’s the part where I get to finally pursue what I went to college for, what I’ve been dreaming of doing for most of my life. Writing. Full time. And I’m thankful that I got to go to the school which is now my alma mater, because they have a fantastic writing program. Thanks...