histories
TW: pet death I watched a show a few weeks ago called The Lowe Files in which the actor Rob Lowe and his sons visited an old "haunted" prison at midnight. There they met up with a scientist who studied the effects of fear in humans. Rob and his youngest son, John Owen, volunteered to wear …
Continue reading "What Rob Lowe Taught Me About Fear"
It started with the jar of loose change, the way the coins glittered in the sun. No matter where I stood in my bedroom, silver and bronze flashes swarmed around me like gnats or doubt. Without thinking, I pushed the jar off my dresser and watched as coins pummeled the floor and the jar shattered. …
I was sitting on my friend’s couch in the middle of a crowded birthday party when the cat jumped up on my lap. The woman next to me stopped her conversation to smile at me and say, “You must be a cat person.” Iris the cat purred loudly and nestled in, so I began scratching …
As the bus doors opened, a tall man planted his feet wide in the threshold and stretched his long arms to the top corners of the jamb. He wore jean shorts and an old concert tee, and he had what looked like a cold sore on his lower lip. Our eyes locked as he leaned out toward me and my …
Continue reading "Shoes, or What Not To Do When People Call You Names"
Sometime in the middle of May, in the blinking daylight hours between rolling fog and thunderstorms, the buildings along Lincoln Avenue inhale. The restaurant workers in their white aprons have thrown open the large, floor-to-ceiling windows that line the fronts of their buildings. You have to fight against the draw of their breath as you walk by them, and the …
Lisa Burkhardt's anger surfaced on her skin just like her freckles—slapdash and intense. She bragged she inherited her Irish temper from her mother and I believed it. When Mrs. Burkhardt took walks around the neighborhood without her usual thick '80s makeup, I couldn't tell mother and daughter apart. And Lisa could rant for hours using only swear words and the …
If my father heard me tell you that his mother died twice, he'd rock back on his heels, dip his chin so the tip of his cotton swab beard glanced off his sternum, and declare that she died all of three times. He would not elaborate. As you can imagine, these stories are not pleasant to recall; he rarely brings his mother …
like every jock I went to high school with somehow crawled through 20 years of space/time continuum just to slam me up against my own refrigerator
(photo credit to Robert Couse-Baker via flickr) I'd just been down the street helping Justin. He was (shirtless) that kid in the neighborhood who was nice to everyone, so I offered to help him fix his bike. He asked me to (stop staring at him) grab the little oil can from the garage. It was unusual to find …
Once upon a time, there was a writer with low self-esteem. (ha! like there're writers with high self-esteem!) After a talk with a friend, the writer decided to start a blog to keep track of the stories he uncovered researching genealogy. But the writer was scared of anyone passing judgement on things that he wrote. …
