Higher Education
From the Vault: Making the case for expanding one’s consciousness instead of pursuing an advanced degree, published in commemoration of the ten-year anniversary of my college commencement.
Read MoreBum Rib
I coughed for a month. I coughed until subway cars and restaurants emptied. I coughed until the parents of my charges came running into the room to find me doubled over, one finger aloft, wait, wait, wait. I coughed until one mother, regal, Indian, slippered and pashmina’d, came running with her two Thai maids, bearing […]
Read MoreKind of a Bummer
I’d been coughing for a week when I gave in and went to the doctor. As I opened the door to the office I began an operatic coughing fit. By the time I approached the reception desk, the doctor’s numerous assistants were peering curiously around the glass divider. Just as I stepped up to the […]
Read MoreSix Subway Rides
It is not given to everyone to take a bath in the multitude; to enjoy the crowd is an art . . . That man who can easily wed the crowd knows a feverish enjoyment which will be eternally denied to the egoist, shut up like a trunk, and to the lazy man, imprisoned like […]
Read MoreChristmas Morning
When I woke up at dawn on Christmas morning feeling peculiar and spent the next two hours naked on my knees puking my guts out, I was annoyed. It’s one thing to bring that kind of degradation on yourself through a series of dubious choices. But I made good choices, healthy choices. I ate vegetables. […]
Read More