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

It was a slow night at Casey’s. Less than a dozen people. He noticed her because of her drink – she was drinking something white. It  glowed palely in the shadowy corner where she sat.  When she lifted the glass to her lips her drink tracked against the dimness like… Read full post »

When you travel a lot for business and you talk to other people who travel a lot for business, there are a lot of stories that start like that one girl from American Pie, the one with the red hair that wasn't supposed to be as sexy as the Russian exchange… Read full post »

This weekend was our first family trip – me, the h, you, the half sister who lives in Miami. Or, as the flight attendant called us, mom and dad and their two girls.  That was fun to hear – my first time being referred to as mom. … Read full post »

She smelled him the moment she walked in the door.  It wasn’t as bad as yesterday, though.

Maybe I should leave, go out tonight. The thought streaked through her mind, comet-like, there and gone before she had barely registered it.  She was conscious only of… Read full post »

The new house had a pool.  On sunny days it sparkled like an uncut blue diamond, meeting the blazing eye of the sun glare for glare.  On overcast days it was a gray eye, glistening with unshed tears. In the winter, it glazed with a cataract of disuse. … Read full post »

So I'm reading Wired Magazine. And there's an article called The Big Book of BLogs, an article that features an interview with Scortt Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon, who's written a book about blogging "Say Everying: How Blogging Began, What' It's Becoming, and Why It Matters."

I read the interview… Read full post »

this picture taken an hour ago - lookit all the people!

 So I'm in New York for the long holiday weekend.   Manhattan. Today we did what we always do when we come to Manhattan - we walked.  We walked around midtown, we walked over to MOMA for the free day… Read full post »

Once, on a long business trip to Europe, my friend Sue suggested we take advantage of a KLM airline special, which allowed passengers en route from Munich to Houston to spend an extra day and night in the lovely city of Amsterdam.  KLM offered a free hotel room and/… Read full post »

OS Editors, you cannot put AIDS on my blog. 

I've  been a good OSer, never making waves,  posting my posts.

I don't complain when I don't agree with your EPs.

I don't complain when I see, for the thousandth time, Kaysong's effin sexiest men living post.

But AIDS… Read full post »