Instead of a corsage, it was Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human. I was a freshman going to the prom with a junior named Doug. He was a deep thinker and thought I might be too.

Doug and his parents were from Chicago, which made them exotic in small-town North Carolina. They were also into new age spirituality. Doug learned the art of pranic healing – the cleansing of chakras with crystals – and practiced on me. (I think that my chakras were beyond repair even at the tender age of fourteen.)   Continue reading →