Galleries
Elephant-Sized Story In A Peanut Shell
Last week I typed in X, a punk band I used to listen to when I was a teenager. A few songs into the stream came “The World’s a Mess It’s In My Kiss.”
Chance And Howling At The Red Sky
After college, I worked for a rogue Houston branch of the recently investigated and presidency-threatening activist group ACORN. We solicited monetary commitments from low-income residents with a script about how we would organize neighbors to fight the city to tear down abandoned buildings, clear boulevards of prostitutes and round up packs of stray dogs.
Backstory: Under Pressure
“Don’t stint,” my mother always said. She said it when she spread the last bit of butter on the last slice of bread, then gave it to me for breakfast. “Don’t stint. Something will turn up by suppertime. Take a big bite and enjoy now.”
The Trouble With Communicating Awe
Awe: for some of us, it happens once a year if we’re lucky. It quakes us when we stand on a bluff, gazing at a wall of silver mountains. It sweeps us skyward if we’re lucky enough to fall in love.
Backstory: Do The Write Thing
Something happens, and your body tells you it’s wrong and you swallow the language that wants to come out. The child smacked in the mall food court, the mentally challenged man harassed by teens, the homeless woman not allowed to use a restaurant bathroom: How many times have you eaten your words?
Backstory: Of Infinite Jest
Humor is lifeblood. Thank god for it. When a sense of bleakness blankets me, which can happen a little too often, humor saves.
When The Impossible Becomes Real
We went out back, put the tabs on our tongues, and before long Jesse began to move toward me. My eyes were on the undulating leaves of a viney wall behind him, the flora trying to communicate something I was on the verge of understanding …
Backstory: Behind The Journey
When I was 22, Greyhound was running a special: travel across the country with as many stops as you like for $100. I was achingly in love with the first of several men who would not love me in return.
Dream Battle: Foray Into Words
Since the blood transfusions my dreams are suffused with brassy weirdness.
