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Going Green
by Josh deLacy | Feb 6, 2016 | Washington
Ten-foot-tall green letters shout 21+ MARIJUANA to every northbound vehicle on Martin Luther King Jr Way. The arrow that runs beneath the letters points across the street to a stubby building marked by a green cross. 21+ Recreational Marijuana! hangs in the front window.
How to Shop for Groceries in New York, Or, First World Problems
by Alissa Anderson | Feb 5, 2016 | New York
You do not get anything frozen, because your refrigerator sits under your counter, and the “freezer” area of it does not actually freeze anything.
Where Is Home?
by Ben Rietema | Feb 4, 2016 | Placeless
The answer can act as a balm; even speaking the name can reseal the permanent connection to the fact that travelers are not always traveling,
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatheads
by Jacob Schepers | Feb 2, 2016 | Iowa
If you are reading this, congratulations. You received this from the past. You have the benefit of hindsight, recaps, twenty-four-hour news cycles.
Five Reasons English Rules the World
by Katerina Parsons | Feb 1, 2016 | Placeless
English’s hegemony is causing the rapid and irreversable death of less-spoken languages, and with the death of these langauges die rich histories and cultures.
Motherhood: Like Herding Cats
by Cassaundra Bell | Jan 31, 2016 | Placeless
I sighed dramatically. “Cooper is so independent, now. It’s like I have to beg him to come snuggle with me. Except for when I go to the bathroom. He always follows me into the bathroom.”
Dear You
by Joella Ranaivoson | Jan 30, 2016 | Placeless
Kintsukuroi: (n.) (v.phr.)
“to repair with gold”; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.
On Running from Goats (and Other Scary Things)
by Cristina Stavro | Jan 29, 2016 | Oregon
I hadn’t planned on landing in Bend, Oregon and instantly feeling like I had found home, but I did.
Orphan Day
by Bekah (Williamson) Medendorp | Jan 28, 2016 | Hungary
Caroline and I lock eyes over Bea’s back: “Jackpot!”
Heap of Ruins
by Brad Zwiers | Jan 27, 2016 | Placeless
Here, somewhere between the house of God, where God’s presence dwells, and a heap of ruins. Call on the name of the Lord.
Hard as Flint
by Nick Meekhof | Jan 26, 2016 | Michigan
DEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel stepped down too, probably because who wants to talk to the media, the public, the citizens of Flint, and the POTUS after your department “misinterpreted the water safety regulations?”
What I’m Doing Instead Of New Year’s Resolutions (And How It’s Going So Far)
by Ryan Struyk | Jan 25, 2016 | Placeless
So rather than make a list of tasks to chase this year, I made a list of people to be. This year isn’t going to be about performing a longer to-do list. It’s about becoming a different person.
The Crow, The Mole, The Hare, The Fleas, The Otter, and the Bumblebees
by Lauren (Boersma) Harris | Jan 24, 2016 | Placeless
One summer when the air was hot, / The sort of heat not soon forgot; / Beneath a heavy reddish sky, / A river and a lake ran dry.
See the Door?
by Michael Kelly | Jan 23, 2016 | Kalamazoo
She was writing on the whiteboard when the agreed upon time came. She turned around to find all nineteen students in the class at their desks, blankly staring at her with metal spoons pointed upward in our closed fists.
The Book Thief
by Matt Medendorp | Jan 22, 2016 | Placeless
Sometimes I imagine my own literary cross section. If years from now my brain were to be halved, splinters of Steinbeck and jumbled letters of Lewis would tumble out.
Sportsthings
by Gabe Gunnink | Jan 20, 2016 | Placeless
There is something gladiatorial about watching two players march onto the court before a roaring, royalty-studded crowd and knowing that only one will prevail
Binders Full of Men
by Mary Margaret Healy | Jan 19, 2016 | Placeless
Finally, I have reached the pinnacle. This is what we have been waiting for for so long. A world without men. A world ruled by women. No longer under the thumb of the patriarchy, we are free to keep our floral soaps by the sink.
Review: The Shannara Chronicles
by Ben DeVries | Jan 18, 2016 | Placeless
Shannara relies far too often upon chance encounters in forests—a kind of uncanny return, time and again, to the story’s protagonists.
Age / Beauty
by Geneva Langeland | Jan 17, 2016 | Placeless
Not long after my twenty-third birthday, I ducked into a restaurant bathroom and noticed something odd in the mirror. I squinted and leaned across the sink to confirm what I was seeing.
A Question in Cologne
by Andrew Knot | Jan 16, 2016 | Germany
Faced with what the Justice Minister called “a new dimension of organized criminality” (a stark departure from “relaxed”), Germany is asking itself questions.
Sorry
by Cassie Westrate | Jan 15, 2016 | Placeless
So lately I find myself trying, instead, to think less often about my insecurities and shortcomings, and to focus more on the person in front of me who is accepting me for who I am.
The Best “Oh My God” Moments in Music
by Will Montei | Jan 14, 2016 | Placeless
Frankly, if I didn’t have neighbors, I might open the door one morning and yell it into the sky. It might feel liberating, like skinny-dipping in the Pacific or popping a balloon.
Confessions of a Brontë Bluffer
by Catherine Kramer | Jan 13, 2016 | Placeless
So, in the immortal words of Usher and St. Augustine, these are my confessions. Fellow lit lovers, I have failed you.
Little Light
by Abby Zwart | Jan 12, 2016 | Placeless
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
New Kid on the Cubicle Block
by Elaine Schnabel | Jan 11, 2016 | Placeless
I’ve missed Saturdays. It’s been years since I had a proper one. In fact, it’s possible that I never have.
Seven (or Eight, or Nine)
by Katie Van Zanen | Jan 10, 2016 | Placeless
So there is some loss, too, in coming back, in confronting memory with reality, nostalgia with the irrepressible present, which is always other than I imagined it. I am other than I imagined at seven (or eight, or nine).
Settle
by Bart Tocci | Jan 9, 2016 | Placeless
I’m afraid that I’ll settle and never do anything I set out to do. I’m worried that life will slip by and I’ll be an old man saying, “If only I hadn’t settled for anything less than butterflies, I’d be a butterfly by now and not a caterpillar.”
Holding On/Letting Go
by Paul Menn | Jan 8, 2016 | Placeless
One popular New Year’s resolution is to get rid of all your useless stuff, to de-clutter your life. I’m not making that resolution.
Genesis
by Caroline (Higgins) Nyczak | Jan 7, 2016 | Placeless
When we feel overlooked, under-appreciated, or ignored, isn’t it intoxicating to feel seen? Isn’t it easy to love someone who really knows you for who you are and still loves you anyway? This is the appeal of God.
Tea and Tranquility
by Josh deLacy | Jan 6, 2016 | Japan
“...a rediscovery of the sacred in the immanent, the spiritual within the secular… it is our everyday world, not some other one, that, in the words of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘is charged with the grandeur of God.’" ~Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith We...
