I was a Reactor Operator onboard the USS Los Angeles from 2001 to 2005. That means that I spent a majority of my time watching numbers on a panel in a tiny room hundreds of feet underwater. Since I got out, I’ve found that every time I bring up the boat (subs are referred to as boats, surface ships are ships), I’m asked the same general questions over and over. What’s life like on a Sub? Did your captain have […]
This piece was first developed with 2nd Story. I’m sitting in a navy blue sedan, across the street from Danny’s – the bar – and it is hot. Humid. Sticky. The air full of something that manages to smell like both brownies and piss at the same time. The kind of air that, no matter how many times you shower, leaves you with a thick layer of sweat and dirt that never seems to go away. My thighs are sticking […]
It was late summer of 2012. I was 24, and it was the first time I had a pap smear come back abnormal. The nurse practitioner who called to break the news and schedule a follow up procedure told me that these things are pretty common and that at one time or another, just about every woman at some point in her life has an abnormal pap, and it’s usually nothing to fret about. Regardless of what’s normal, I don’t […]
My children are adopted. Not because I’m the benevolent sort who goes around picking up street urchins in order to give them a good home, but because I totally sucked at getting pregnant. It started with an ectopic pregnancy that almost ended me and caused so much damage that I ended up getting fertility treatments for years, some of which involved my husband shooting me up with hormones. He was a dentist. Great with needles in the mouth, not so […]
I dunno about you folks but I don’t love giving blowjobs. The pushing, the pulling, the choking the gagging … all of that is annoying, but I have a darker reason. This reason is what I have come to call The Blowjob Incident. One summer day in June 2004 I boarded a Southwest flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. There were very few seats left when I got on. I plopped down next to a guy. He was doing the […]
It’s Thursday night in Lititz, Pennsylvania and Woody Clarke wants to see my pubic hair. I can tell because in the last hour he’s said some variation of “c’mon, show me your bush” at least three times, and my unwillingness to show him what I’ve got under there must be wearing him down because this last time, between sinking the 9 ball and the 13, he just pointed at my crotch and whispered, “She’s on fire! Let me see it.” […]
I leaned against the wall in the small hallway outside the door where my brother’s body was waiting. The wallpaper bordering the walls was covered in hideous intensely colored petunias in shades of pink and purple, and I wondered if it was intended to brighten my spirit. My parents were the first to view Steve’s body and my brothers and sister were growing anxious. Patrick paced in a small circle with his hands shoved deep in his khaki pockets, Molly […]
Are you sick and tired of friends and learning? Do you feel overwhelmed by the immense pressure of having your day planned out for you? Have you had enough of the selfless adults who dedicate their lives to your development in return for poverty-level compensation? Then have I got something for you. The new school year is here, kids, and it’s not going away. But what if I told you that there was a way to make less school? You’re […]
I kept my mouth shut and threw bananas. When I did this I made money. More money than I had made in my life. I was 22 years old, just out of college, working a summer job as a Teamster in 1980 making $10.33 an hour and didn’t want to do anything to lose this golden goose of a job or get my ass kicked. I was a laborer on Chicago’s South Watermarket working from 1 am to 11 am. […]
