Old, half-timbered houses with uneven beams buckling and bent into one another like two drunks steadying themselves. Everything on its side, lead pipe handrails caught in their footings, ivy-choked trees. Pale morning birdsong, footpaths leading down the valley ending in… Read More ›
Nirvana
Day 15 in Scotland, coming into Oban
The Latvian-Scottish hairstylist in the salon across the street from our flat holds my hair up in the mirror, both of us looking at it, and says it’s a disconnected style, which I ask her to define but she can’t… Read More ›
The Needle and Thread, Seattle
I am with two Canadians in a waiting room in Olympia, Washington: the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. I don’t really know what they do, I’ve just been sent here by my vet to… Read More ›
Drunks are like fruit trees
I changed my pants today, which is notable because I took a vow to keep wearing the corduroys until I got the garage done, and that was a week ago last Tuesday. Yesterday, I found a draft of a story… Read More ›
A Near-Life Experience
I drank too much and stopped in 2001, but started again about nine months later. I told my doctor I stopped drinking and when he asked if I was alright I started crying and so he gave me the number… Read More ›
Chantez, chantez
Laurent told my mom he had to go to the car to get some things, and gestured for me to join. It was the kind of gesture that implied wrongdoing, a wink from across the table. We were in the… Read More ›