Releasing PSAs and Shouting Stuff – A Memoir

This week I am starting a thing, apparently, releasing PSAs and shouting stuff. I feel like I am actually on a platform this particular go. I probably have many feet to build on before I am at center stage, but it is clear to me that I do not recognize the territory. So it must be …

Second Poetry Book and Holiday Update!

Here is another briefish update from the news desk of Alyssa Ruggiero, overachiever and overwhelmed planner who thinks she totally has everything under control but SURPRISE! SHE DOESN'T! (I have kept up blogging!) I am making a final push back date for my second poetry book. Between the holidays taking over and starting a new …

I Like Being By Myself

I like eating by myself. There, I said it. I like to eat by myself, walk by myself, shop by myself. This is actually a new development. Before now, you would find me at a bar by myself and even then I usually knew the bartender. But never by myself anywhere else except home, when …

And We’re Off!!!!

There is a time of year where, if I am lucky, I will remember the very best moments only, and everything else is a giant red and green blur and then all of a sudden it is January 7th or 8th and my kid is ten inches taller and I am crying about her growing …

Post-Addiction Angst

The anxiety I am experiencing when I forget to do a dish or follow-up on a reminder is unreal. I am surrounded by tiny slips of paper, a calendar, a chalk board, napkins, and a few pens. I am in the pre-pre-stages of what I picture could turn into one of those conspiracy characters in …

A Year Later, It Appears I Have Been Heard…

I wanted to follow-up a YEAR to the DAY I posted my blog about how to explain autism to small school-aged children. We are in the thick of it now, and I am so ridiculously involved at her new school already and it is only October. I have been applying a mixture of coconut oil, …

World Mental Health Day

In honor of World Mental Health Day, I want to share some things with you. Yes, it was yesterday, but every day really needs to become World Mental Health Day. Awareness of mental health should be as plain as being aware that someone has physically visible ailments. And, like physically visible ailments, it should be …

Love is a Weapon

When things like, well, everything that is going on right now happens, it is very easy to get angry. Hell, I already have several times in the last month. That was even before the Las Vegas massacre perpetrated by a domestic terrorist (because that's what it is and that's who did it, regardless of his …

The Cartoon Parent Manifesto

I am a recovered drunk/addict who woke up from that lifestyle's self-imposed coma one day and realized I wasted an IQ of 155 on trying to forget a childhood and teenage life that I had no idea was not going to be permanent. I realize, in many ways, that the last time I was sober, …

Open Letter to Parents From a Socially Awkward Mom for September 2017

Hi. You don't know me. And if you do, you don't remember my name. But you do remember that I am a 30-year-old writer and my kid has high-functioning autism because I mentioned  those things first. At lightening speed. You have already seen a lot of her support team; two of her grandmothers so far (yes, …