No Children Were Harmed in the Writing of this Poem
When a small child you have never met picks up her foot to step off a curb and into rush-hour traffic approximately thirty feet from where you are sitting, right now, idly drinking your iced coffee and...
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My Cinematic Year, Part 2: The setting.
Part 1 is here. A few days after my new roller-derby league’s first practice at the rink, I moved into my new apartment, a decrepit studio roosted atop the tiny row of shops on Main Street. My mother...
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My Cinematic Year, Part 7: In which the protagonist gets her groove back with...
If you like, see also: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. In dating, you’re considering candidates and choosing the best one you can. In job interviews, the exact same thing is happening....
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The Poverty Perspective, Part 1: Growing Up Ghetto
I kind of grew up in the hood. Sometimes people think I’m exaggerating when I say this, but it’s true. It wasn’t the worst neighborhood in town (that honor went to a place called, appropriately enough,...
View ArticleThe Poverty Perspective, Part 2: I want to be more.
To celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday, I surprised him with boarding passes to a bedroom on a train. Once we had explored our little room and giggled and marveled, I made him wait in the coffin-sized...
View ArticleHow to Win at Arguments
BEGINNER First things first: Criticize the timing of the argument. This clever ploy distracts your opponent by forcing them to focus on something they can do nothing about, instead of the problem they...
View ArticleThe Divorce Tourniquet: First Aid for the Freshly Wounded
I’ve written about divorce — oh, have I! — and a heartbreakingly common message I get in my inbox is something along the lines of, “You don’t know me, but my life is falling apart right now. Thanks for...
View ArticleIn transit.
After I saw it a few months ago, just floating there in the sky, everything started to change. I spent almost the entire year before that in relative unhappiness. I had nuked my entire life flat and...
View ArticleTriptych: 2.
I am going to do my best here, but you should know that I find this subject nearly impossible to talk about, for reasons that should quickly become obvious. Middle-class, intelligent people, especially...
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Doing good out loud.
In keeping with Rule 5 of my Do-Good Manifesto, “Do good out loud,” I want to tell you about a new effort I’ve been making toward moderation — toward walking that line between barreling onward in a...
View ArticleOnce more, with feeling.
I’m getting married again. You cannot think of one marriage without the other, or at least I can’t. I squint at other second-time brides, wondering if they’re experiencing the same duality, as if...
View ArticleShutdown Sequence
Not-quite-four years ago, I launched The Trephine, my fourth blog, with a now-deleted post reviewing a lot of painful backstory that connected old readers to my new life as a divorcee. The experience...
View ArticleWe Are Here
Jeff and I are in Madrid. Yes, my ex-husband and I went to Madrid together. Many potentially fascinating theories could explain this odd development, but here, let me save you the trouble: we are in...
View ArticleNo Children Were Harmed in the Writing of this Poem
When a small child you have never met picks up her foot to step off a curb and into rush-hour traffic approximately thirty feet from where you are sitting, right now, idly drinking your iced coffee and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My cinematic year, part 2: The setting.
A few days after my new roller-derby league’s first practice at the rink, I moved into my new apartment, a decrepit studio roosted atop the tiny row of shops on Main Street. My mother had been right:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Cinematic Year, Part 7: In which the protagonist gets her groove back with...
If you like, see also: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. In dating, you’re considering candidates and choosing the best one you can. In job interviews, the exact same thing is happening....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Poverty Perspective, Part 1: Growing Up Ghetto
I kind of grew up in the hood. Sometimes people think I’m exaggerating when I say this, but it’s true. It wasn’t the worst neighborhood in town (that honor went to a place called, appropriately enough,...
View ArticleThe Poverty Perspective, Part 2: I want to be more.
To celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday, I surprised him with boarding passes to a bedroom on a train. Once we had explored our little room and giggled and marveled, I made him wait in the coffin-sized...
View ArticleHow to Win at Arguments
BEGINNER First things first: Criticize the timing of the argument. This clever ploy distracts your opponent by forcing them to focus on something they can do nothing about, instead of the problem they...
View ArticleI’ve been stuck at Stage 2.5 for like … twenty years now.
STAGE ONE I will be happy when I’m not so cursed. Why does the universe insist on subjecting me to my own individual laws of thermodynamics in which my life is empirically more difficult than everyone...
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