The search for an ideal life.
Is 40 the age when women start turning into their mothers? Because I’ve been playing around with writing some poems lately. My mom has always loved reading and writing poetry, whereas I’ve been a little indifferent to it. As a teenager, I do remember reading a book by Billy Collins one summer and liking it. …
The Time: Spring, 1993. The Place: A Lutheran church for our Brownie Girl Scout meeting. I’m going to be honest here, I hated this Girl Scout troop. Aside from one really dear friend, the kids and grownups all deserved a badge for being completely unbearable. Occasionally, on a cool day, my mom would sit in …
I think I’ve always looked pretty young. When I was 19, I went to a movie with a younger friend and the theater employee asked if she was my mom. Everyone always insisted that I’d appreciate this when I was older, which infuriated me at the time. Yeah, everyone’s infantilizing you NOW, but just imagine …
Well, here we are at the end of the year again! New Year’s Eve can honestly be kind of a letdown. For many, it marks the end of the holiday season and the beginning of a dark, joyless winter when you’ve resolved to join a gym. You want this last hurrah to go so well! …
“I Will Buy You a New Life” by Everclear came on the 90s radio station in our car this afternoon. I remember listening to that song as a teenager, during the summer at my grandmother’s house in Minnesota. There was one of those giant, old antique cabinet radios in one of the bedrooms there. My …
“You know, I always thought it was very funny that losing your sense of smell was called anosmia. Anos-mia, you know, like schnoz-mia.” –J.D., Scrubs For most of my life, I had no sense of smell. The reason was a mystery until my 30s, when I was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called Kallmann …
“The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.” –Harlan Ellison Back in college, I met this woman in line at the Walmart photo center. I was there getting some pictures from my friend’s birthday party developed and she started chatting with me. This happened a lot when I was younger. I …
