Monthly Archives: August 2014
by Abby Zwart | Aug 31, 2014
You might call it “stuff” or “junk” or “clutter,” but I know there are many of us in this world who take genuine pleasure from a fine teacup or an antique camera or a good pair of broken-in leather shoes.
by Jasmine Smart | Aug 30, 2014
Another patient, we’ll call him Jay, has a delusion that he is Jesus Christ. He came into the room, holding his arms out wide and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
by Michelle Vecchio-Lyzenga | Aug 29, 2014
I’m reminded each time I visit, call, Skype, FaceTime, Facebook, etc. my out-of-state family and friends that—as much as I’d like it to—the world doesn’t pause while I’m in dreamy limbo.
by Brad Zwiers | Aug 27, 2014
I realize this sounds rather impressive, a Hebrew “intensive” packed with flow charts, tense paradigms, parsing worksheets, and a severe lack of cognates.
by Griffin Jackson | Aug 26, 2014
Much of the time this is not a problem. But with growing frequency, the nauseating and, often, gross social gracelessness is a deliberate act of rebellion and selfishness.
by Greg Kim | Aug 25, 2014
They’d gasp at the dishes stacked in the sink in my apartment, and my mom would chide me about how I hadn’t bought any fresh kimchi for so long.
by Lauren (Boersma) Harris | Aug 24, 2014
I thought that, to be a grown-up, I would have to know how to do my taxes. But I think growing up is when you listen more than you run your mouth. And it’s when you forgive someone. Again. And again.
by Michael Kelly | Aug 23, 2014
The question still remains I guess. What has Tinder taught me? To be honest, not too much. But it helped me to take a risk. To fight against complacency. To turn fear into hilarity.
by Robert Zandstra | Aug 22, 2014
As the eleventh cousin on both sides of my family, I grew up going to older cousins’ weddings at least annually. I grew to love attending weddings; I have always found them very meaningful.
by Andrew Orlebeke | Aug 21, 2014
If there is a silver lining to the tragedy of Ferguson, it is that official eyes have been opened to the dangers of police militarization.
by Gabe Gunnink | Aug 20, 2014
I’m realizing that curiosity, like goodness and faithfulness, is a virtue. Blessed are the curious, for they will inherit the wonders around them.
by Mary Margaret Healy | Aug 19, 2014
He did everything it took to get those photographs. If there was a particularly artistic patch of land that happened to have no bodies, he and his crew would move them into position before shooting.
by Matt & Laura Hubers | Aug 18, 2014
When the seniors put on a homecoming skit and dressed up as the various teachers, the kid playing me had a pocket full of twenty or thirty pens to throw around at random.
by Geneva Langeland | Aug 17, 2014
I sat back, dumbfounded, as these realizations came trickling in. I felt a little sheepish that it took so long for me to figure it out. God got a well-deserved slow clap.
by Andrew Knot | Aug 16, 2014
Later in the year, by then good friends, we learned that we had actually met much sooner, as naked toddlers in a bathtub. If I had known this earlier…
by Cassie Westrate | Aug 15, 2014
But if I’m being honest, I kind of hate the beach. If I must go to the beach in the summer, I prefer going before 9 a.m. or after 7 p.m. You know, with the runners or the couples.
by Will Montei | Aug 14, 2014
I’m 24. I’m old now. I have a bedtime. I pay for health insurance. I drink hot tea to prevent kidney stones. But these tickets were free, and I liked the group, so why not?
by Catherine Kramer | Aug 13, 2014
I knew it as soon as I saw it on the map with all the little pins. This was the worst. Kokomo, Indiana. It’s basically Pawnee without Leslie Knope there to keep it afloat.
by Abby Zwart | Aug 12, 2014
Reading what people would save and why is such an intimate peek into their lives that sometimes it even feels like prying. People bring photos of their wives and collars from dogs who have died.
by Elaine Schnabel | Aug 11, 2014
As a writer, I want to say I’m haunted by this question—why do we travel? In reality I’m not “haunted” by the why of travel so much as annoyed by its insistence on being answered.
by Katie Van Zanen | Aug 10, 2014
Though self-conscious in the great majority of situations, I am a dedicated wedding dancer, so even at more subdued nuptials, I feel a sense of commitment to the boogie.
by Bart Tocci | Aug 9, 2014
We drove into the night, and every five to ten miles, we’d see a light in the distance. A farmhouse, no doubt. People live there, no doubt. Where do they get water? Groceries? Where do they go to school?
by Paul Menn | Aug 8, 2014
7. Less Than Jake – “Short Fuse Burning”. I will never not love Less Than Jake. Plus, every summer mixtape needs a punk rock song about feeling misunderstood and lost.
by Caroline (Higgins) Nyczak | Aug 7, 2014
When the main character proclaimed with confidence that the best movies of the year were The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express, we were the most tickled people in the theater. Oh, 2008.
by Josh deLacy | Aug 6, 2014
Maps do not mark nameless places. Guidebooks rarely print recommendations of ambiguous legality. So the frugal traveler must listen to vague rumors and offhand comments. Although they carry more risk, they also carry more potential than any official source.
by Alissa Anderson | Aug 5, 2014
We’re moving to New York on the 18th. My parents are helping us with the move, because what guy wouldn’t want to spend the week after his wedding on a road trip with his in-laws?
by Andrew Steiner | Aug 4, 2014
1. In childhood, run. In youth, laugh. In mid-age, accumulate. 2. In old age, weep. If the living could see Hades, they would not call it death. 3. Excess with open hand is charity; excess with open eyes is greed.
by Sabrina Lee | Aug 3, 2014
She shows us that it is possible to be a human squid and to play on a seahorse piano. She dances in impossible shoes and belts out that her ARTPOP could mean anything.
by Jacob Schepers | Aug 2, 2014
I will say that, even in the face of failure, that this reaching—and even the mere trying to reach—peels away at why and how poetry matters, at least sometimes, at least for some people.
by Amy (Allen) Frieson | Aug 1, 2014
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion. Inertia is why my sister’s cat sometimes runs into my leg when he tries to scamper down our polished-hardwood hallway.
