Things Other People Said: Long Ago or Far Away

“‘Don’t go, Peter,’ [Wendy] entreated, ‘I know lots of stories.’ Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she who first tempted him.” — Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie They have everything in Neverland: hideouts, pirates, mermaids, caves, treehouses, wild animals, natives. Everything except stories. Neverland is only in the […]

Fantasyland

I was taken to Disney World as a child, but I don’t remember it. I remember the book we got about Disney World. I pored over the photos, and remembered my dad explaining that there used to be nuclear submarines, and a Mission to the Moon, and that the Matterhorn was only in California. I […]

Deserved

This morning I read that Lindsey Graham was questioning the 14th amendment. Maybe being born here is not enough, he hinted. I don’t know what it means to be a citizen of this country. I just happened to be born here. It’s for convenience that we have this born-on-American-soil rule. For the convenience of the […]

Glamour

Late at night, I pulled into my driveway and saw that somebody was standing out on my landlord’s side porch, working the grill. I had just gotten back from a three-week sojourn in my favorite city. Sigh. “Hey,” I called out. I didn’t usually talk to this guy much. He worked for my landlord, handyman […]