Browse Topics
Adolescence
Celebrations
An old man and a butterfly, a beloved friend’s housewarming, a hysterectomy
January 1988Taking Risks
Catching the eye of Harper and Row, being the first one into Chico Creek every spring, being tethered to the clothesline
June 1987You’re Weird, Irene
The woman sits there a while and then we can see her face changing. It looks like she’s got all the troubles in the whole world. Her face crinkles up and she starts to cry. She wipes away her tears but they keep coming down and flowing into her toothless mouth.
December 1986Relieving Ramona
I like Ramona. I want to win the lottery, pay her brother back for the car, bounce her and the baby out of the attic apartment.
June 1986The Smell Of The Vineyards
Luz lived with her mother and sister in the Raisin Capital of the World. In September, when the grapes were drying between the vines, the whole valley smelled of wine.
January 1986Red Dawn Over Tweetsie
When I saw “Red Dawn,” I realized that a private and relatively innocent part of my adolescence had become tribalized on a mass scale, and from that fact flowed a palpable undercurrent of menace that had never been there for us.
November 1985The Secret Of Life
I recall another day back in junior high. He wrote upon the blackboard large: DNA/RNA. He pointed to the letters lying there like some Kabbalistic mantra, then said, “This is the secret of life.”
November 1985For You
I did my job. I picked her up when her mother threw her away, I handed her over to the shrink when the time came. I did my job. I’m the stepmother, not abnormally wicked.
September 1985
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