Swann’s Way

I picked eleven dresses from the racks that followed the whole, long storefront. Some of them it was difficult to see in the full harsh sun, the black ones were reverse ghosts, what were their necklines, their patterns? My arm hurt with their weight by the time I carried them to the dressing room. Latch […]

From the Chair

“This will hurt some, but it would hurt a lot more if I give you a shot in your gums,” the nice bald Russian man said. I nodded. I’d had someone push and trim along my gum line with a hideous instrument before, it had gone fine. Nerve pain in a tooth is the worst, […]

Seasonal Weather

When you can run around half-naked, it’s different. I think. Anyway it is different in southern California. Every time I visit, their lack of giving a shit impresses me. I read Joan Didion, on California: it has to work there, she says, because there is nowhere else. You are on the edge there. Which explains better […]

Levels

I was seated right next to someone, although there were plenty of seats at the counter. “I taught high school for eleven years,” I said, instead of saying, “I am a teacher,” or, “I am a writer.” In Kansas City, when I say I am a writer, I think people find me eccentric. In New York, I’m […]