In the manner of my mom’s partner Eberhard I held my head under the hand sink and let the cold water run over me and down my torso as I stood and grunted, examined myself and got dressed. It makes… Read More ›
Memoir
Tourette’s
There are times I come out of the men’s room at the Microsoft campus and can’t remember where I am. I look left and right, I pick a direction and walk with confidence but it all looks similar and slightly… Read More ›
Factotum (for Peel)
After college I moved to the beach and got a job delivering pizzas; my friend Peel moved to New York and dabbled in homelessness and then on to Portland, where he fell in with a group of shoplifters who returned… Read More ›
Last Valentine’s Day, in Berlin
Last year on Valentine’s Day we left Berlin by train in the late morning, and though we had great weather our time there, that Sunday it was gray and wet (like how you’d picture Berlin in mid-February), but it made… Read More ›
A branch the size of an oar on a medieval slave ship
I worked a couple hours in the yard cleaning up branches and breaking down limbs clipping, sweeping, yanking out roots and pruning, stuff we probably should have done in the fall—then just got in the car and drove out to… Read More ›
The Sponge Factory diaries (Philadelphia, ’95)
Perhaps Philadelphia got its edge from the fact that the mayor ordered the bombing of a house in a residential area in 1985, a house with children and potential convicts inside — or perhaps it was like a jealous younger… Read More ›
One hard week in the south of France
Last year at this time we were ending our stay in the UK, having left Germany for 90 days and now returning: we finished up in Bath and spent a night in Canterbury, then caught the ferry from Dover, drove… Read More ›
Whether we feel it or not, the earth moves beneath us
It was the first night this year that didn’t fall so hard. If it had been a theater production and a light cue, they changed the fadeout from 30 seconds to 60. Though unseen, hope stirred underground and you could… Read More ›
Now vaguely familiar
We rode the Tube to the West Kensington stop and got off to visit my old friend there, who lives across the road from her ex. We took the elevator to the top floor and when we got out she… Read More ›
A message for a Golem one morning
Clouds spun out in pillowy strands, like cotton candy. The frozen leaves on the rhododendrons collapsed in on themselves like umbrellas. They had a copy of The Corrections in the lending library on the dead end street so I nabbed… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 