It was a dark, moody sunrise from the top of our office building that day, No Roof Access. The kind of morning you can’t tell if the sun is really there, it’s just a band of white below the cloud… Read More ›
Memoir
‘The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys’
I leave work sick and catch a bus home. Catching a bus isn’t easy when you live in the suburbs, you have to catch different buses and string them together. Then, you don’t get right where you need to be…. Read More ›
Part-time blogger, full-time ass
I started re-reading Don DeLillo’s White Noise in October, inspired by connections to how our media was handling the Ebola crisis. Ha, ha: look at me! Blogging about Don DeLillo and Ebola! I have a third of the book to… Read More ›
The strength of strings
All the blood ran out of his face when my boss said they were putting me on a plan. It’s not the kind of plan you want to be put on. I became aware of my body language, uncrossed my arms,… Read More ›
Song of my 40s, still life
I can palm the cat’s head in my lap when she’s napping in the morning and it’s still dark — with just candles and Brian Eno playing, sometimes you can’t tell if it’s even on, that’s the thing about ambient… Read More ›
So what about the mid-life crisis?
Charlotte and I decide to walk to the lake. The lake is about 10 minutes away, she’s 7, and it’s the first time we’ve walked there together, just the two of us. She’s balancing along a stone wall about four… Read More ›
Secretary’s Day
I was sleeping with a girl from the Costume Department. They thought she was gay, they thought I was gay, and we played along with it — Ha, ha, “We’re gay!” They thought she was gay because she’d started going… Read More ›
Carson Street slideshow, 1994
We are in Michael’s boyfriend’s apartment, getting into Michael’s boyfriend’s bag. Michael is gay before anyone else in Pittsburgh. He wears scarves and earrings with hoops and looks beautiful but doesn’t act like a priss. People talk behind his back… Read More ›
Running the days out like tap water
I think about Charlotte coming down the steps in the morning, her hair a bird’s nest, the pitter-patter of bare feet across the floor. When it was especially hard early on in parenting, Dawn reminded me it wouldn’t always be… Read More ›
Saving butterflies in books: making memories fiction
Dawn’s trying to help her mom figure out how her laptop works, on the couch. The two of them marvel over how simple it can be when you do it the right way and it’s like the seven wonders of… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 