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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The Orange Appreciation Award
I keep a few backyard oranges mixed in with the baseballs in the bucket I take to practice. Every time one of my teammates peeks in, he’s like, “Oranges?” question mark, when it really ought to be “Oranges!” EXCLAMATION POINT!
March 2020
How It Ends
It begins like this: You drop your son off at kindergarten. His first day of school. You think that nothing in your life will be as big as this: the moment he drops your hand, he who has clung to you since birth, since that first breath of air, first scream, first frantic rooting for the breast.
March 2020
Recipe For Strawberry Bliss
Learn the word ennui. Resolve to do something meaningful with your life. Do something selfish and stupid instead. Go to prison.
March 2020100 Dollars
Are you thirsty? Do you like to drink water? Are you from a generation that thinks it’s OK to drink water out of single-use plastic bottles? Then the world works for you!
March 2020
Train Songs
The breakfast rush was hitting its peak when we learned about the dead woman lying not far from Table Four.
February 2020
Parade Day
Today is the National Puerto Rican Day Parade. I am watching it on television in Brooklyn while the Puerto Ricans are parading up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
February 2020
Top Ten
Abby has a progressive congenital disorder, fatal, and lives her young life with a deep-running current of wisdom in her spirit, a quiet equanimity to her understanding of what it means to be alive in a day that the rest of us can only feel as hint and shadow.
January 2020The Cat Years
He stops short, horrified that he has interrupted his employer during an emotional moment. Bishop quickly wipes away her tears and says, in Portuguese, Don’t worry, José. I’m only crying in English.
January 2020
Sparrow’s Guide To Meditation
Meditation teaches that change is constant. You fool yourself into believing that you are a fixed entity, but you are not. You are a river of transforming whims.
January 2020
Next Of Kin
My friend Gina and I have a pact: Should either of us die unexpectedly, the other will retrieve the shoebox of sex toys hidden in the deceased’s closet.
December 2019
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