The ordinary kind of odd
Even if you’ve been living under the rock that is quarantine, you’ve probably heard about the George Floyd protests erupting across the world for the last week. The purpose of these posts is to break down the stuff I’ve seen white people posting in response to this movement. In Part I, I covered topics like …
It’s different every day. Today, for instance, I feel like an entire hive at work within me. Bees have partitioned my bones into their waxy cubicles. Their buzzing is the backdrop rhythm of a city in motion and my thoughts are a sweet elixir on my throat. Writing lets me do this; pour honey from …
Well, they pulled the trigger and I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s hard to think what I have to say is important when every letter has “sorry to inform you” in the second line. What am I supposed to do with that? Pull up the planks of those sentences and nail together a raft as …
This hour seems truly godless. This dark hour alone, when everyone is asleep or crying through their prayers, and sweating blood isn't a problematic symptom. Everyone's sweating blood now. Get a wipe, get a mask. You're not special in your suffering. This hour seems truly godless. This loud hour when the masses are the murderers. …
What is it about these days that used to be so sacred and intimate? How I’d measure my time between settlements, watching diligently for the anomaly of civilization among the weeds until I finally arrived at their gates? How every moment between was just a matter of waiting, not being, not real like my Saturdays? …
Lucy took a deep breath in and held it. This time it would work. She could feel it. She hit the button on her toy wand. The pink star lit up and the wand sang its muffled, pre-recorded track. Lucy held her arms out like in the pictures and drew swirls in the air. When …
“The roaring twenties” she chimes, voice like magnolia soap bubbles and chinking crystal. Her dark bob, hard as a beetle shell, her eyelashes, Iver Johnson handlebars, and her face, with its silver-lining cheekbones, soft-focus foundation, locomotive kohl window sills, is as full as a marble moon. Her porcelain legs are kicked over the side of …
“It’s a Wonderful Life” remains as relevant as ever even as it comes up on 73 years. Every year when Christmas is well underway, I rewatch it and feel something new, which isn’t something I can say about any other movie. Part of it is me getting older, but I would say most of it's …
Continue reading "When it’s Okay for Dreams to Die: A Journey through “It’s a Wonderful Life”"
At the end of the day, when the living room lights are long since asleep, when the candied orange streetlight peers through the blinds and gushes over the static-washed room, when the covers lean over the edge of the bed, would I say it was worth it? I think so.
I’m thinking about the fiberglass threads of my bones. How they’re spun like sugar silk, bunched up like spaghetti knots. How they compose the beams and buttresses of my cathedral. How they’re pulled beyond the point of snapping. And I’m thinking about how those strings are being plucked flat by too many hands. About the round …
