27 Sep
I broke my foot a year ago, or at least that’s what Betty said in her e-mail. I believe her because she’s very good at remembering dates and marking them on the calendar. Anyway, it’s a year later, and my foot still hurts. It isn’t blindingly painful, and it isn’t constant. It’s always there, though, waiting for damp weather or non-orthopedic shoes to usher in the dull ache. (more…)
12 Nov
Yesterday was so challenging that I deemed 2:30 pm a perfectly acceptable time to finish off the wine from the other night. (It was happy hour on the East Coast, I reasoned. Here’s to you, New York!) This morning found me eating a lukewarm Sysco breakfast in a desolate hospital cafeteria. Later, my cab driver was a beret-wearing, fight-picking, bitter sexist assclown who tried to charge me double the fare. But do you know why none of this matters, aside from the pettiness of it all? (more…)
4 Nov
This morning I woke to the sound of a mosquito buzzing in my ear. It was 5:30 am, and I hadn’t fallen asleep until nearly two. I started the day off with the Times, rolled my eyes at David Brooks as usual, watched the sun rise, and hobbled down to the car-sharing pod to go to the doctor. (‘Cause that is my new thing, you know. Hanging out at hospitals. Can’t get enough!) (more…)
31 Oct
While writing a prescription on Wednesday, the podiatrist asked for my full name. After I told her, she said, “That’s a beautiful name.” It is, but it has always felt too regal for me. Besides, the meaning of Anne is grace, and I’m quite clumsy. If there were a name that meant “competent for the most part,” my parents should have chosen that one. But they didn’t. (more…)
29 Oct
This morning, I looked left and turned right. Going uphill seemed potentially daunting, especially after a weekend of luxuriously slinking into taxis, so I decided to take a different way to work. At the train station, I turned a corner and nearly collided into a man in crutches. We gave each other the sympathetic once-over and started laughing at our sad predicaments. He’d ripped a ligament and was due to de-crutch next week; we compared crutch tips. (zing!) When we hobbled out of the elevator to the lower level, we walked toward a bespectacled white boy who was about to sing to commuters. Funny sight, but he had the last laugh when he began singing the hell out of the Temptations. I caught his eye and he returned my smile while crooning on: “I know you wanna leave me…” That swirl of life, of strangers’ lives intersecting for a few flawless moments, made the day begin so beautifully. (more…)
Writers write. Lazers laze.
My mother is trying to get me pregnant.
The ideal city is one called Portberlyn.
Losing San Francisco’s man in black.
In which my mother assumes that “news” means elopement.
