Something different today. I found an in-congruently charming archive of vintage pornography photos from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The sex and bodies depicted was fascinating in their lack of varnish. But more fascinating were the faces of the women. I went through the archive that depicted actual acts of intercourse (no mistaking…
Every summer I sit in the damp heat of the glassed in “Parent Aquarium” at the University’s pool and watch my daughter learn to swim. This year, as I was signing her up at the Fitness Center, I couldn’t stop looking at their rock wall. Brand new, forty feet high, weird little pockets and pinches…
I live in a town called Independence. Actually I live in the town next to it…but you know how old small towns bleed together over the century, connected by spattered little strip malls and one-story office buildings? We’ve got that going on. If my name were “Christmas Oneill,” I wouldn’t make a big deal…
You keep calling yourself fat and I keep yowling about it. “OHMYGOODDDDD You are not FAT!! Will you shut up???” Not anymore. I get it. I know why you do it. And you have every right to feel fat. Of course, I don’t think you’re fat. Because I am fat. My entire family was fat. We…
My husband had this terrifying maniac of a friend years ago. Lloyd. Lloyd accidentally got married one day, when the girl he was sleeping with turned his post-coital hyperbole into a short lived and deranged reality. Their marriage was brief and unhappy. When Lloyd was mad at his wife, he’d get up in the…
I wonder what I look like to that nicely put together pharmacist lady. She’s a graceful 45, long tidy braid, white coat. I give her the script for a fairly impressive dose of Klonopin. My skin is clammy with perfect circular drops of sweat pricking my upper lip, and lazier fat drops streaming down from my…
I Friended a sweet woman on Facebook who had gone to school with me in our tiny two-room schoolhouse. She’s a teacher now. “He inspired me to go into teaching.” I knew who she was talking about, and found it hard to believe. “How?” I asked. “Because I didn’t think teachers should be like…
Everything is changing. My house and yard are clean, so I feel happier every day. They are clean because I can pay someone to make them that way. I can pay someone because my writing is selling, as soon as I can type it. And the more my writing sells the more opportunities come…
I wrote this once before, a long time ago. I took it down. I’m ready to rewrite it now. It’s long, but it has to be. Settle in. When I ask my seven year old how much she remembers about grandma, who died when she was four, she always tries to please me with memories.…
I used to joke with my husband that when I reached a certain level of success in my writing, I wanted help with the housecleaning. Because I have tried for 15 years now, to keep a house. To keep the dirty dishes pile low enough in the sink to allow access to the water…
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