The Old Woman Tries to Make Herself Useful. The old joke about Tommy was she was a social scientist without the social. Now she’s gone feral. She watches herself with detached interest, as though she were a subject in one of the studies she used to quantify. In her mind, she is simply an extreme […]
…..lost and found in Mexico. Vanessa suggested. I accepted. Even though I knew better. Or should have. A Resort & Spa in Cabo San Lucas where lightly larded men pace azure pools waving cocktails, whooping S-class Maybach! Royal Troon! Sanctuary Machu Picchu! where gleaming unguinous women pace parallel paths waving cocktails, crying Blue Jean Birkin! […]
KETTLE OF ONE. Igor was a smart bastard. That’s what Pete the trapper said. But Igor was also an only bastard, the last free-flying California condor on earth. Condors are sociable birds; they roost and preen and feed in groups called kettles, and by the spring of 1987, Igor was a kettle of one. No […]
Her children were dead, her husband in critical condition. But Joy had not joined them that July evening for the little family outing, was not there when they were hit by a drunk in a speeding pick-up; Joy was unscathed. Which is to say, she was destroyed. It turns out death is not the problem. […]
In movies, there’s the iconic shot of a lone person wading into a vast glittering ocean, a resolute body consigning itself to the sea. But on that sunny evening at Chesterman beach, my brother Geoff wasn’t seeking death. He was snatching life. As I watched his skeletal, beaded body creep back out, my throat constricted. […]
ARACHNORAMA If you wish to live and thrive, Let a spider run alive. LET’S BE FRIENDS There’s more to a spider than the number of legs. We would like you humans to know us. We would like to share what we know about you humans. Knowledge leads to understanding; understanding leads to respect. It’s time. […]
Wait. Where was that at? Sheeeeeeee, wasn’t no ball one, that was my sickest, most filthiest Lord Charles, man, completely unhittable pitch, kisses the corner then drops to the dirt—come on, Har-vold. Okay okay, just ball one, suck it up, suck it up, like Head Doctor says, demeanor on the mound, no flouncin’ around flinging […]
Not the very beginning, but for our purposes. Because we could muster a good argument that without the tree, there would be no human. Let us be grateful, then, for the tree. Tree: a plant with the biomechanics to support height and weight; a tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming […]
A Christmas Story. In the north end of the parking lot, men in parkas and fat pants cluster around a black Yukon, joking, gesticulating, chumming to sub-woofers. The pulsing SUV sparks red, green and blue, and stories float and knock, though no one’s listening. Loose shadows, long limbs, everything moving—Honest John’s lets them be. Men […]
…after he’s gone. “She knows by now that grief is mostly endurance, understanding over and over that the person you loved is not coming back.” The News From Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story, by Joan Wickersham ~ I wanted music. I used to play guitar, but I didn’t want guitar. I used to […]