Classic Christmas Breakdowns

If you haven’t had a Christmas breakdown yet, THERE IS STILL TIME. I had a minor one when I decided I would run into the mall and pick up a pine-scented candle. Having a pine-scented candle is part of my Christmas celebrating. It had already been a day of near-misses: friends I was supposed to […]

Steel

My darling friend, with whom I sat in the passenger seat of my own car, as he drunkenly drove it up the hill, from downtown Kansas City, to wherever we were going, it didn’t matter, the top was down, and I put in “Kind of Blue,” an entry-level, amateur jazz album, but the only level […]

Bulbs

So many things happen that you don’t know where to put. 1. I went to a wedding party. I used to babysit for a family of three kids. One of them grew up, got sick, and died. The other two were at the party. It made me think about how we were alive. We danced […]

The End of the World

Saturday morning, I was trained as a poll watcher. It was a classic meeting of Democrats, mildly disorganized, with people passionate and loving and ready to leap down each other’s throats because we aren’t as good at organizing as the fascists are. “But when do we…?” “But who is our…?” “Do we need to […]