Dear M—, It’s Me Again, Amy
Dear M—, I’m writing to ask about your goldfish, Javaunte. Is the World’s Oldest Goldfish still alive? * I’m sorry for the names I called you a few years ago. I’m sorry I wished you were hit by a...
View ArticleSouthpaw: One Week as a Leftie
Day One Because I have my father’s proclivity for drinking and my mother’s lack of grace, I trip on a loose stone of the homemade fireplace while cleaning up after the party, and land my right hand,...
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Adopted Siblings: Susan
Part One in a new series about brothers and sisters I have adopted throughout life as an only child. I adopted Susan as my sister when we were two years old, in daycare. It wasn’t daycare, really, not...
View ArticleChristmas 1984
We sit at my grandparents’ long dining room table, the worn green tablecloth unfurled, revealing years of red wine stains. My mother places a cassette recorder in the middle, trying to get it exactly...
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Choosing Not to Know: A Review of In Defense of Monsters
Astrophysicists work to uncover a Theory of Everything, the mathematical equation of all life in the universe. Religious zealots describe heaven and hell in florid detail. Tarot cards, constellations,...
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I Know Who You Are
I was seventeen when a new millennium reset the world. I started it by drinking a bottle of cinnamon-flavored liquor at my own New Year’s Eve party and passing out in my room, sleeping right through...
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Against the Pursuit of Happiness: A Meditation
Listen. Happiness? It just looks different on people like me. —Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water In Ithaca, New York, Tibetan prayer flags hang...
View ArticleThe Public Man
My father died on November 12, 2012. The date matters. My mind clenches the details, hugging tight the hairpin curves of my memory. I am the cartographer of this map. November 12, 2012. Though it was a...
View ArticleCommuning with Cancer
My father’s urologist projected the CAT scan on his computer screen, pointing out the major organs like battle sites on a Civil War map. My father’s body, my homeland. Bladder. Liver. Intestine....
View ArticlePlaying the Odds
On the last day of his life, my father bought two scratch-off lottery tickets. We had just finished a lap through the Price Chopper, filling a cart with foods his urologist said he should eat during...
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The Faces We Carry
Yesterday, I woke up with a familiar sensation, or what, for me, is a familiar sensation: a tingle in my upper lip. A slight, hair tickle itch. Fizzy, like I’ve rubbed my mouth with the skin of a...
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