I was trying to inflate myself, make myself important in some way I hadn’t earned by tagging onto something noble I was told my parents had done. Though self-elevation wasn’t new to me, I was especially driven to it in the writing class I was […]
All posts filed under: essay
Welcome to my mountain, part II
I committed my first cruelty at the innocent age of 4. And I knew it. We were a team almost from the get go, Amy and me. In the 4-kid ABBA rhyme scheme that was our family pattern, we were the tight middle core — […]
A silly lunch
I could hear the laughing getting closer and closer before they busted through the door of the drama lab, shouting out, “Ms. Clayton, do you want to know how to eat a peanut butter sandwich in one bite?” They tumbled in like puppies, these two freshmen from […]
Inspirito
“I got the breath of life put in me.” He said it slow, unable to get over the wonder of it. “There was an accident. I’ve been to the county home.” Christine and her friend Kathy had been walking across an old bridge on a […]
Flag girl, part III
So what was this flag girl part of me ready to say I am not having it? The part that, as time went on, was so in-tune with how-to details. “Hmmm, Mary Kerr keeps a garden hose at the ready in the trunk of her car,” […]
Flag girl, part II
A classmate and her mother were murdered in their home when I was a sophomore in high school, first her mother, who was shot in the basement where they were both were watching tv, then Karol, who was chased up the stairs into the garage […]
The mouse, the whale, the baby and you
A mouse takes 130 very rapid little mouse breaths per minute and lives for 1 – 3 years. A whale takes 6 whale-sized breaths every minute and lives to be around 100. It almost makes you think breathing long and slow might be a very […]
Flag girl
We heard the DOT paid great so we decided we’d stand on the highway with a flag in our hand and rake it in for a summer. What a thing; we’d just stand on a road and rake it in. Our assignment was Highway 218…mile […]
Housekeeping
He had stuff I loved. From the minute I pulled into the driveway and saw the shapely Zen garden pot the size of a full-bodied hydrangea bush, I thought the psychiatrist who chose that elegant garden pottery is the psychiatrist for me. It just kept getting better and better […]
Extra
It was a totally unorganized attempt at baby-making — just a creative round-up of skin and bones and teeth and hair and other pieces that typically comprise a human being, all bundled together in a grapefruit-sized package I had been carrying around with me for who […]
Ice cream genius
I’m in love with systems. They make things run smoothly that otherwise would bog down or not go off at all. And what I love most of all is the way they save us when we’re not inherently good at something. That’s when we need […]
Be cool. 