Silent Summer
It’s natural to want to fill your life. But in a life-long attempt to fill my soul with the “right” things, I have recently become fond of silence and stillness.
Tickets
We unpack the McDonald’s breakfast we picked up on the drive from Brooklyn. My roommates used this as an effective bribe to get me out of bed at 5:45 a.m.
On a Roll…or a Hero
The kids at school refer to the local corner stores by their owners’ names, and I’m starting to think bodega owners are the true heroes of New York.
My Children
In September, I assigned a five-page fictional short story and Elinor took it upon herself to write a twenty-five-page story about a teenage girl named Sky who owns a mall.
Binary Sea
Don’t tell anyone this, but last year I dreamed of being in middle-of-nowhere-Michigan while wandering the beautiful streets of the El Barrio district in Barcelona.
In Defense of Self-Love
The more I practice self-love, the more I come to believe in its power. The more I make time to love myself, the more energy I have to love others.
The House on Dearborn Avenue
Dinner guests jumped out of their seats and looked around in fright but we shrugged casually, as if nothing had happened. “Oh, that’s just the Womp-Womp.”
Learn To Be Light
In a world where we are not free to create and relax at will, we must discipline ourselves so that these dangerous and noble things can be a part of our lives.
arts & leisure
home is where the Times is./pieces of yesterday, scattered sections of weeks ago–/a slice of October still sits in the living room./seasoned with eraser crumbs (crossword abandoned.)
Getting Middle Schoolers to Do What They Should Be Doing: Four Methods
I really cannot comprehend why it has to be this way. I can’t believe I wake up every morning and have to come here and deal with this. I can’t believe I stay up late into the night preparing a fun and interesting lesson and THIS is how you treat me! You should be ashamed!
Saturdays in Brooklyn: A Series of Snapshots
I invite him up to my apartment after our french toast so he can tell me if our apartment is crooked. (Water spilled last week and began running swiftly towards the front door.) It is.
Lena
Ultimately, it is Dunham’s writing that makes Girls so enjoyable. It’s cringeworthy. But it is also realistic. Her self-doubt mingled with entitlement is intoxicatingly accurate.
Boyhood
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.
And The World Spins Madly On
It was the pilot who brought us together. We couldn’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm and excitement. A shared laugh is more bonding than a shared complaint.
Bea
We listen to her stories of her young years there. It’s strange to hear older adults rave about the being the age you are now, and I am always unsure how to respond.
What To Do About Pigeons
So far, our best idea for getting rid of the pigeons involves gluing thumbtacks to the window ledge. We worry that we do not have enough tacks.
On Owning Lizards
I now understand this to be a painless and defensive maneuver, but at the time I was utterly traumatized. The tail continued to wiggle and squirm in the cage for several minutes.
Body Language
As I walk slowly and methodically through the neck-high water, my surfaced head in a thin cloud of steam, I attempt to eavesdrop on all of the conversations.
I Smell Horses in Slovakia/How to See Deer
When you are traveling with friends through rural Slovakia and your rental car gets broken into, you learn how to say “do piče.” It’s an expletive.
Retaining
My roommate wears a retainer as well, and this is comforting as it lessens the embarrassment of the dreaded “retainer lisp.”
Free Time
There is a freedom to being a child that I will never experience again. There is a freedom in being aware of time but not fearing it. There is freedom to not feeling guilty about doing nothing.
Riding in Cars with Boys
When I am tired of taking public transportation, I walk home from work. I follow a narrow sidewalk for one mile along a busy highway. Lately, I have begun fantasizing about driving—not of going anywhere per say, but of the familiar smell of a red Ford Taurus, the...
Harvest
Another kitchen sunrise in a land of bread but no bagels.
Croutons
On our Cultural Differences handout, there was no missing the only sentence written in all capitals: NOTHING IS STABLE. YOU CANNOT PLAN.
Superlative Syndrome
So I let baby calves with rough tongues suck on my fingers. I stopped caring about whether or not I was getting dust on my white shorts or cow manure on my shoes.
Cast Iron Love
I like Talia because she has a bumper sticker that proclaims, “The Day of Non-Judgement is Near” and she buys all her clothes from a thrift store. I once told her that I still found someone who once broke my heart irresistibly attractive. She told me, “There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty where it is.”
