Back then I felt like there would be one thousand New Year’s Eves to my lifetime. It never occurred to me that they were limited. Rare, even.
The years were a deck of cards and I was convinced I was still holding all of them.
Simone Harris
I want to be the poet laureate of your phone.
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It’s hard to explain what it feels like to be ugly, in life, and then again on Tinder.
If you’ve never had something to begin with it’s hard to know what you’re missing, but if you’re raised by people who don’t think you’re missing anything, well, then, you’re not!
It’s rare seeing people left on the beach after the crowds go. Usually it clears right out. I’m retired so I live here, but most drive in from the city.
They go back sunburnt to their motels and take cold showers, put on lotion and lie naked in the dark before heading back out to dinner. That day, there was one last yellow umbrella.
“If ever we’re separated, stay off the main road but head north. Stay within forty meters of either side of it. Make sure you can feel it. The road.
I’ll call out to you, follow from behind and find you. I’ll catch up. We’ll go on together like that all the way to the end of the world if we have to. But we won’t.”
The night of my husband's Christmas staff party was the same night he asked if I would consider being in an "open relationship".
We were drunk. After my initial protest and surprise, he doubled-down and said he was "coming out" as polyamorous, even called himself queer.
I'm the only non-Italian on the crew. Three out of five of us are called Nick so now I just call everyone Nick, including myself.
It's a running joke, even with customers. It's the classic butcher name. "Hey Nick, can I get a pound of salami?" "Nicky, order me a nice brisket to feed forty for an intimate family dinner, capeesh?"
The house itself was less a house and more an animal.
Motherhouse Fragments Part 1
A lone waiter stands in a window.
The dining room’s empty except for the bus boy eating his staff meal at the bar. He’s been told not to. Behind everything you hear the kitchen preparing for dinner service.
When the robots began invading our homes for Obedience Inspections we discovered they were afraid of spiders.
A tiny manufacturing flaw.
Leila was selling essential oils. She invited all us girls over for a tiki party and gave everyone scalp massages.
Her husband stayed in the room with the baby and only came out to perform yoga for us.
A large crowd gathered in the street.
Okay okay okay, the billionaire said. I’ll stop trying to put a data center here if one person can pass three tests.
I was in bed, struggling to find a comfortable position, so I let my hand dangle off the side of the mattress,
despite the risk of it being held by someone below.
Lynn was a cashier at the grocery store where I shoplifted sometimes.
She saw me do it but pretended not to notice until one day she pulled me aside and said “Hey, I know what you’ve been doing, and it’s gonna get you in a lot of trouble.”