When you live in the country, the battle against the dirt is formidable and eternal. The sources are endless: • The dirt road in front of the house becomes so dry and dusty in the hot, long summers of central Iowa, that it forms translucent clouds from the tires of cars and bicycles making their way to the nearest neighbors. The soles of Keds tennis shoes are stained terra cotta from the dust that never washes out after the miles […]
Growing up in the Castro made Halloween fun for reasons traditional and otherwise. The otherwise was entertaining in the same way a Simpsons episode was at that age: funny for a simple reason then, and a different, more layered reason years later. Certain details of my Halloween would have been unique to most five-year-olds: three women dressed up like a tampon, sanitary pad, and the box they came in, nuns with stubble, and more than one very tall Dorothy, the […]
When I was 28 years old, I had nine children: Geo, Raya, Percy, Lulu, Will, Ariana, Ty, Jase, Caleb. But, if I’m being honest, they weren’t children, or babies, or even fetuses. They were embryos, and they were frozen, but they already felt like our offspring. Have you ever wished for something so much, that the illusion in your mind becomes the truth? That was me—2012—wanting so badly to be pregnant, that I fell in love with our embryos. The […]
I awoke with Dena shaking me. “Kim! Kim! Get up! It’s our stop!” I was still half asleep on my bench seat on an overnight train. We had spent the day before in Frankfurt and then hopped on this overnight train to arrive in Prague the following morning. It was my first time in Europe—backpacking for two months with my friend Dena. I was 22 years old. Fresh out of college. Dena and I were taking this trip because we […]
It isn’t like peeling an orange. It isn’t like popping a walnut. Skulls are harder than I’d imagined. How long do I have, now? I’m still here, here enough to know this is wrong, but I love my wife and I love my kids and I want to hold onto those memories and for that I need a brain. Someone is coming closer, hesitating, slack-jawed. I scream at him, meaning to send him words like, “Back off! This is mine! […]
“Why aren’t you married?” That’s the number one question on a single woman’s hit list. Running close, in second place is: “Why isn’t a woman like you married?” The latter moves to first place if any of the following adjectives modify woman: smart, pretty, and wonderful. “Why isn’t a wonderful woman like you married?” Those complimentary words only underscore the absurdity of your situation. You’re such a catch but still at sea. Over the course of my extensive singlehood—I dated […]
The thing about scientific experiments is that you have to follow directions. You have to know the terminology and pay attention to detail. You have to pay attention. I don’t understand much about how to do the experiments in this class because I am not paying attention. I don’t really know that I am not paying attention, though, because I look right at the teacher when he’s talking, which is what you do when you’re paying attention, but it’s like […]
A dark theatre, mid play. Lights up on a cemetery in upstate New York. A young drag queen, Bitchina, enters studying a slip of paper. He finds the spot he’s been looking for. He speaks. “Oh, there you are. Hi, Mom. It’s Bitchi—William. Billy. I know I don’t look like myself. In fact, I think this is the worst I’ve ever looked. Or felt. Well almost. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come back. I would’ve brought you […]
So I am 19 years old and fucked up on mushrooms in my dorm room, and in the next hour I am going to call my mother to tell her that I found God. In the next few months, I am going to fail out of school. In the next few years, I am going to become the stunning display of skin and bones in front of you, but before that, I was 19 years old and fucked up on […]
