As my career progresses I should acknowledge that the pointless personal warbling that feels so good to put to paper, glowing or otherwise, is no longer appropriate here. That this place shouldn’t be my catharsis anymore, it has to represent me as a professional to anyone who might have read one of my pieces and…
I’m proud of this. It’s the only free one available this issue, and the centerpiece. It’s about what happened when I tried to insinuate myself into a family I “met” during a estate sale, and why I did it. Ghosts of the Estate Sale — The Magazine. Read it. Hope you like it.
I’m always so surprised to find out everything isn’t exactly like I thought it was. The things I take for granted could fill an ocean, a vast and fearful one. I wrote this in tribute to a lifetime of tunnel vision and missteps. You Were Oblivious You were born on a big flat rock on…
Went to the doctor for the most routine visit; an obligatory check-in to keep my rainbow of medications bright and shining. Then my P.A, Kim, said I didn’t look right. “You’re off today, aren’t you?” Was I? Before she asked, I had just stopped mid-sentence and laid my head against the wall, because I couldn’t remember…
Today my book proposal went to the publisher’s desk for the second time. Well, not just HIS desk. The heads of every department, from distribution to graphics, gather for semi regular meetings to discuss which book they’re going to invest 1000’s of dollars in before throwing it onto the quivering, leprosy-stricken remains of the publishing industry…
Older ladies, who still color and set their hair and know how to email, sure they’re fine. Whatever. But the Bills of the world, they do something to me. Cowboy shirt, faded, not worn ironically. Khaki shorts showing the white scars of his knee surgeries, and clean white socks pulled up the calf. Straw…
I only went because I thought I might be able to still see my parent’s house on the hill from the parking lot. Also I thought maybe the doors would be unlocked. And maybe I could sit alone in familiar stifled silence, rubbing my finger pads over those same those burnt orange- carpeted pews,…
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…
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