The search for an ideal life.
Our neighbors moved out suddenly the other week. A couple of retirees, Mike and Margie were the chattiest people on our block. Desperately trying to leave or get back into the house, it was easy to get trapped in a very one-sided conversation with Mike while his dog pooped on your grass. “That’s Moon, short …
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 …
