Household Words 10

The night at the end of Christmas is always hoarse and muffled. My mother fell asleep during “Notting Hill,” which was one of her gifts. Because Monique was there, the overflowing trash got immediately evicted. We still had lights, wreaths, and a poinsettia on the mantle, but the shiny paper and ribbons were out. Next […]

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My ceiling fell in during the ice storm of 2003, exposing rough wooden beams. It made my life look more like “La Boheme,” and it didn’t leak. It was just another thing to love. I already loved the clawfoot bathtub, the red brick Queen Anne house across the street, the brilliant view of downtown when […]

Flatness and Rounding

This week, Egyptians lost their patience, scaring themselves and the rest of us. David Kato, a gay rights activist in Uganda, was beaten to death with a hammer at his own home. And I ran away from the car wash like someone had a gun to my head. I love the drive-through car wash, and […]

Household Words 9

The emergency room wasn’t the panicky place I expected—there were no red buttons, wailing alerts, or breathing machines huffing. There was just my mother on a bedlike contraption, with a blue bag on her elevated knee. A loose curtain on metal hooks was drawn to separate her from everyone, though the next exam space was […]