Category Archives: Explorations

What they don’t tell you is that a sliver of glass, quietly, stilly sitting on the dirty corner of Mission and 17th , patiently waiting for you to fall on it, can cut your hand. It can draw blood, dripping … Continue reading →

I peer out the window, neck craning to see if it’s snow, or sand, or the prairie. The Sierra Nevadas give way to smaller mountain ranges, then rainshadow deserts, the great salt flats. The western Rockies like spikes, unsettled and … Continue reading →

When does an organized group of cells become organized enough to do something? Beat a heart? Synapse a brain? Wiggle a finger? When mike and I made the decision to harvest my eggs before starting chemo, I wasn’t really focused … Continue reading →

Tiffany and I are sitting in our diapers, topless, in the middle of west 5th street. It’s summer. There were popsicles involved, I think. Her lips were bright red. We poked and popped the tar bubbles on the street. It’s … Continue reading →

I was short of breath, lethargic. Maybe it was winter in Illinois. A particularly dark and blaring Arctic wind whipping down the chimney and snuffing out the flames. The mums on the back porch I neglected to put away for … Continue reading →

The sand was rubbing against my skin. Stuck there by a mix of sweat, salt, and sunscreen. My niece Mia was giggling, zig-zagging like a drunken sailor up the beach, wielding a net very unskillfully while the crab she hunted … Continue reading →

The switchbacks are dusty. Her eyes are bloodshot, the broken capillaries shooting flames. Her skin is starting to burn. Maybe it’s just the sun, friend and foe, or maybe it’s a tear from within. Can a person burn from the … Continue reading →

My relationship to my father was largely unexamined. A patriarchal figure who orbited my carefree childhood with BBQ and law & order, but was somehow gentle, emotional, easily hurt by words and betrayals. Some say his heart on his sleeve, … Continue reading →

Rural Arizona. Dry and dusty, scorpions and spiders. A bunch of early twenty-somethings living ten deep to a double-wide trailor, with only one phone to the outside world between us, few responsibilities, and many sun-drunk afternoons. Him:  an Israeli, lashes … Continue reading →