On Thursdays, at 9:46pm the alarm on my phone scared the shit out of me for exactly one second. Maybe less. I might have lowered the volume but that would have defeated the purpose. On Thursdays, fourteen minutes before bedtime... Read more →

Sincerest apologies to Jillian Lund as I've selected an image with a CLEAR copyright indication. I'm hoping she, and or Picture Puffin Books will consider it honest advertising and forgive me. Coolest book ever. Amazon tells me the grade level... Read more →

Rachel sat at her desk wondering when, exactly, her baby brother became something she didn't understand. Sometimes the disconnect was extraordinary, as if he'd slipped and let some part of that alien human loose in front of her. The result... Read more →

She likes to hear about her childhood. "and then what did I do? What did I say after that? Did I really do that?" "Yes, Boo, you really did." We're walking and then we're not. I wait and she doesn't... Read more →

Every square inch of a very large desk is covered with paper. Stacks and stacks of paper, but so orderly, so neat. Each stack tidy as a brick, the relevant context and content of my life organized by brute force... Read more →

This is what an eleven year old Prius cannot do: 65 mph uphill in the rain with about four times the load it can reasonably be expected to bear. All three vehicles had about four times the load they can... Read more →

They came from Sugarland in Texas; hadn't been there very long, and before that Ohio and before that Connecticut. In Sugarland, he pronounced himself done. He was sixty, or almost, and he was done. My dad, he tells a pretty... Read more →

When Talia was three, she got lost in the garden behind the house. She stomped in circles around the same copse looking for a break in the underbrush; there was none. When the moon was full, she howled. Nanny didn't... Read more →

Yelena stared at the wall and nurtured her rage. Om Shanti, Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Om... fifteen minutes every day. She refused to cut her hair, but clipped her nails to the quick. She was ordered to the shower... Read more →

I think all married people do this; at least that's what I tell myself. No matter how hard we try, we lose bits of ourselves over time. Commitment is a horribly abused word. As with the word, literally, it rarely... Read more →