We went to a wedding this weekend in the wine country.  I haven't had a salary in over 2 years and I work 18 hour days and not long ago my best friend's brain tried to explode out of her head and rampage around the country and… Read full post »

Recently my 17-year-old step daughter, a senior  in high school  who is as tall, beutiful and graceful as she is intelligent, talented and thoughtful, particpated in a certemony in her school in which different representatives of religions were asked to give a blessing at the start. … Read full post »

 If you've posted a story that fits into the  basket that includes  health care system, insurance, doctors, the need for heath care reform, and you are OK with the story getting wider distribution, please reply to this post in the comments section wtih a link to y… Read full post »

This morning I woke up early, like I been doing ever since I started doing the livestock chores. It's gettin to be high summer  now, and by seven it is warm enough to go without my shirt though I keep it mostly on nowdays just in case someone takes a notion… Read full post »

I want to be the one to wait for you when you are late. I want to be the one that rushes to you when you are waiting.  I want to be the one that smiles at the sight of you, searching for me in a crowded room. I want to… Read full post »

 Ching ching! I am not quite awake, aware it is close to time to get up but still with my eyes closed, drifting in and out of a dream-like state, so when I hear this sound and know on some level exactly what it is… Read full post »

I had a dream, the kind that happens just before you wake up. In my dream the phone rings, and I answer and it is you. 

You speak my name, your voice tipping up in a quesiton, and I know what you are going to say before you say it.… Read full post »

I remember when we met, you were walking through the plant and looked up and smiled at me and my face turned fire red and you said, concerend "Aren't you feeling well?" Unaware that I'd been watching you for weeks, and had even bought a dress in voodoo like anticipation… Read full post »

The place I'm from is settled mostly by French and German immigrants who pushed Indians off the land to farm it, a fact that is reflected in the town names: Millstadt, Germantown, Mascoutah, Cahokia,  Kaskaskia, and Belleville ("The Bee-yoo-tiful  Village! my dad would crow as we drove past… Read full post »

  She hands out business cards with a simple line drawing of her figure, what she thinks of as Pay Per Prick advertising. They always say the same thing.  What are YOU doing here, they always say. So certain their impersonal desire for her is opportunity knocking on her door, if… Read full post »

There was a time when education challenged us to be more, to reach higher than we thought we could, to dare failure because to think, and to succeed at thinking well,  was a noble human endeavor, the wellspring of soaring achievement as well as the source of our considered values, our… Read full post »

M: The fact that you never tried to speak to me about it tells me you weren't really a friend, anyway.

J: There wasn't anything to figure out. I was all about the work, all the time. Since you weren't, I guess your confusion is understandable.  Still irritating, though.… Read full post »

He went out into the barn’s slanty light. He contemplated the shotgun. Sat holding the check and feeling its physicality, thinking, the check will hold me.  It has to. 

Wanting only to go to town, watch the young girls with their tangerine breasts with sunflower seed nipple… Read full post »

 Small, I imagined me-sized houses. I always liked a story that featured a cozy cottage with a fireplace.  Even the witch’s house in the Hansel and Gretel forest didn’t seem frightening to me.  It was more like a consolation prize for having the kind o… Read full post »

Hey didja hear? 

What?

What?

What?

What?

What?

Barry, you said what twice.

That's cuz still don't know. WHAT?? WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO HEAR?

Calm down! Just that it's Neilpaul's birthday.

Oh.

I knew that.

Did not.

Did too.

So you're a dick.

Whattaya mean?

You knew it… Read full post »

 Whenever I think of trees, the first one that comes to mind is the tulip tree from the back yard of the house where I grew up, on Stevens Street.  The tulips were all near the top, so that in the summer the tree was a slim green goddess… Read full post »

Yesterday I was scrolling through my contact file, looking for a business acquaintance, and I came across  your name  and  everything inside of me went still.

You died not quite a year ago. But there your contact card sits, the same as it always has.  Every card in my file… Read full post »

1. One of the two of us will be last

2. You can only flush so many times.

3. There are some smells, like some fates, you cannot escape.

4. I can look away so long that I forget I am looking away.

5.… Read full post »

I want to know why we save up eulogies for after death, when by all rights they should be delivered before death, so that the not-dead-yet have a chance to feel good about themselves in a way that is not often available to most of us.  Funerals could become an occasion… Read full post »

I fell asleep with the phone in my hand, waiting for you to call.  I dreamed it was Christmas, and I was small, wearing the striped corduroy dress and red tights from the picture taken in Grandma's living room the year Uncle Harry got drunk and told everyone… Read full post »

1. Who was your FIRST prom date?

Tracy Tipton.  Tracy was my second high school boyfriend. He was this cute, funny outsider at school.  One day he pulled up a chair and sat near - not at - a table where I was with friends.  A big round loud table… Read full post »

The subject line of this essay is actually something I read by a columnist on Nerve.  It cracked me up, that anyone would really worry about anyone knowing and judging the music you prefer to listen to. I cut him some slack because he was in his 20s and… Read full post »

 Some of us OSers met up in San Francisco for dinner...

Here, the lovely, talented and hilarious Chef Cartouche descends on my kitchen....donning the sexy apron made for me by the Pretend Farmer