Archive for the ‘Essays and Prose’ Category:
Andy Rooney is My Sympathy Fatigue
My uncle’s eyebrows are nothing like Andy Rooney, but he’s got ole Andy’s knack for shtick.
“On my 50th birthday I realized that if I died today of a massive [...]
I Am the Best Sloucher in the World
I can slouch whenever I want and nobody can tell me differently because I am the Sultan of Slouching. Not even old ladies carrying forty-thousand pounds of sawdust on their [...]
Anonymous
Times Square in the rain, in a bus, gliding through the crowds, Anonymous. They
wonder who we are rolling down their busy street. For a minute. There is [...]
Saeta Hodie, Absentis Cras: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
-An obituary and a eulogy to my hairline, whom I’ll miss.
Jordan Elaine Troublefield was born March 13th, 1988 on a Sunday; his hair wouldn’t show ‘til 4 months after. Immediately [...]
The Copernican System
Perhaps the Earth is not motionless, Claudius told himself. It is a mathematically reasonable idea, but he knew that would not help him find approval. He spent a thousand breathless [...]
Reassessing the Rainbow
I’m looking at a drawing. It’s scotch-taped to my daughter’s bedroom door and for this one Tate’s preferred medium is fruit-scented colored marker. She’s six. [...]
Refrigerator Organization for Dummies
You can smell it from miles away. You approach the refrigerator with foreboding caution and tentatively open the door. Suddenly, the smell has amplified; it envelops you. The Parmigiano cheese [...]
Playing for the President
A friend of mine, who insisted we refer to him as Dr. Fisher, despite the fact that he wasn’t a doctor of any sorts, had been making regular trips to [...]
The City Has Become My Zen Home
“Don’t just do something, stand there!” – attributed to Buddha by Ram Dass
Twelve years ago, when I first started experiencing symptoms of depression, I wanted nothing more than to get [...]
Roadkill
I’m working on a story about roadkill for a weekly paper in Indianapolis. It’s my first assignment for them and I want to do a good job. As part of [...]
Julia
So who are those girls born for stardom, glamour, art, or anything that is just chic? The ones who lie in bed at night just dreaming? The ones who [...]
Loss
You walk on this planet long enough and you end up with a story: a beloved grandmother or grandfather dies; a friend from high school races his car against a [...]
Nothing to Declare
I’m about to cross the U.S. border and I’m starting to panic. It’s not that I don’t like the States, because I do — America abounds with Hail-Fellow-Well-Met types. But [...]
Coffee Shop Guy
I’m not really a coffee drinker. Every once in a while on a cold day I’ll decide it’s a good idea (mostly for the “cool coffee in cold weather” look I feel I pull off very well). But on a daily basis, I can’t drink coffee.
From the Driver of a Stalled Car
It was during this ordeal that it was brought to my attention that many ignorant drivers have questions for the owner of a stalled car. Allow me to answer a few of the more frequent ones.
Rules for Guys Who Make Online Dating Profiles
Thus, it is out of the goodness of my lovingly cynical heart that I have decided to offer up some choice bits of direction for those who are interested in venturing out into the deeper waters of “internet date-fishing”.