$10,000 and Mont Blanc Pen
There is this essay contest in which you can win $10,000 and a Mont Blanc pen, so I thought I’d enter it. You also get a trip to a writer’s conference in Italy, bringing the total value of the grand prize to approximately $17, 775, according to the fine print on the contest website. Even […]
Read MoreSong
Today I fell in love with a song. Its name is “The Bleeding Heart Show” and it is Track 4 on the new New Pornographers album, Twin Cinema. I haven’t felt this way since “New Slang” by The Shins. It’s curious, how a new song can be just like a new love. All day, I […]
Read MoreSurvival Instincts
One family I tutor for had two bunnies that the pet store promised them were both males. They were hoping that one of them was “just fat.” But the fat bunny was not “just fat.” He was a she and she was pregnant and she had babies. Now there are six bunnies. Things were a […]
Read MoreWhat I Do For Love
You might not think there are a whole lot of nuances to riding the bus, but there are dozens of subtle differences between a good bus ride and a bad bus ride. Having taken up with a man who lives four hours up the crowded main artery of our megalopolis, I ride the bus. I […]
Read MoreOn This Day
Today is my 26th Birthday. It’s also Joan Jett’s, Scott Baio’s, Nick Cave’s, Shari Belafonte’s, Eric Stolz’s, Tommy Lasorda’s and Wally Backman’s birthday. Wally Backman was the second baseman for the 1986 New York Mets. Today is also the Autumnal Equinox. At 6:23 p.m. EDT, the sun crosses the celestial equator and fall begins. Today […]
Read MoreMy Unconscious Takes Strange Forms
We really don’t want to hear about anyone else’s dreams unless we’re in them, and even then, it’s not that interesting. At some point you realize that it’s not you who gave this person a broken egg, or flew into a wall, but just another projection of the dreamer’s own consciousness. It’s never that revealing. […]
Read MoreAfter 9/11
I almost forgot today was today. I kept remembering, and then forgetting again. New tragedies are happening now. But then I saw the big blue ghostly lights towering in the sky like tractor beams for some alien ship and I remembered. Four years ago it seemed as if the world had changed forever and would […]
Read MoreBusiness Casual
Linoleum. Dust motes floating in the air. Fake plants. Flourescent lighting. The sound of daytime television turned up too loud. Abandoned shopping carts. These are the things that inexplicably depressed me as a child. Not all of them do now. Dust motes in the air make me happy. Linoleum makes me nostalgic for those rare […]
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