I hate the look, feel and sound of my mother’s crying. It’s not so much the implications as the act itself: ugly, rolling down in fat, butchered sweeps. She looks younger than ever when she cries, as much as twenty years younger. Perhaps I am so affected by her crying because it shows me the [...]
How absolutely perfect that my SAT test date (SATURDAY) coincides exactly with my menstrual cycle. Thanks, universe. TEST-TAKING HORROR STORIES IN THE COMMENTS: GO!
One of the greatest things about having a younger brother is his invariable cluelessness to all sorts of academic and everyday matters: “Who’s Hitler?” or “How do you fold a shirt?” I have the developed the habit of jabbering continually in his presence about some topic or another, and then stopping mid-way to ask “do [...]
On Wednesday the babies of Petrichor disappeared from three thousand four hundred seventy-two collective wombs. Fifty-four gynecologists told three thousand four hundred seventy-two women that, within forty-eight hours of each other, their fetuses had vanished completely and absolutely selfishly, without even a bloody stain to mark the divorce of organisms. The fetuses had ranged in age [...]
On Wednesday of last week the entire tenth grade was bused to the career fair. Wait, I think I should capitalize that, and perhaps add some inflection: CAREEEEER fair. WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIIIIIFE fair. For two hours, I entertained myself by collecting and color-coordinating pamphlets, filling in applications for a varied [...]
Aquiline nose inherited from somewhere sunny, dark sheep-like eyes inherited from somewhere thoughtful. A greenhorn, a white-shirt-collar. A “dale de comer” girl, feed her cereal, roll her name around like something vulgar. When done up nicely, something worth keeping.
“This is an Ivory Tower exercise,” she says, tying a bow with the drawstrings of his pants. He’s not sure what she’s referring to, or even what she means exactly. Guess that English degree was useless after all, he thinks, which is perhaps not the correct post-coital sentiment.
When she comes home, Etta’s mother spends five minutes organizing the shoes in the closet according to owner and frequency of use. She watches Channel Five news on the sofa for half an hour, drinking a quarter gallon of water with her 200 milligrams of bifidus bacteria. As soon as the infomercials come on, she [...]