On the third day the question of the bell arises. That morning Mina had brought over a baker’s dozen pamphlets detailing the touristic marvels of Mirana Seaside: seasonal dunes, salt marshes, sandspits. Dahlia’s lips curl and pucker with wonder at the glossy blue photographs and lovingly-written captions (“The birthplace of thousands of seagulls”, “Turn to [...]
My beloved readers (all six of you), I call upon you today to aid me in my quest. You see, dear and noble knights, I am currently at a loss as to what to write about, and I would like your input, if you would be so kind! Please choose your favorite blog post trend [...]
I am home alone, adding dollops of butter to a pot of Basmati rice. Some housewife chord has been struck in me during the fits of sleep, along with a bout of sickness. (here, “sickness” is defined as a state of mind caused by one-quarter stomach upset and three-quarters loneliness.) Rice pudding calls for one [...]
Today I discovered that one can tell an awful lot about a person by the way they do their sit-ups. Consider, for example, the bestial child who hammers his hips up and down in the most convincing rendition of childbirth (as performed by a male – bravo!) ever seen in a school room. Or the [...]
At her mother and Samson’s wedding reception, Dahlia steals candy buttons from gift bags and tells Auntie how upset she is at not being able to walk around the house topless any more. “Can’t do it with him around,” she says, licking her lips colored Yellow Number Five. “and even if I did, just look, [...]
During our morning snack break, the girls and boys of the eleventh and twelfth grades gather in the cafeteria. It’s not the one we eat lunch in, but a classier area meant for teachers, outfitted with a bar and coffee machine. For half an hour, after third period, the tiled linoleum, the tables and chairs, the glass [...]
When I get to class in the mornings I don’t stray farther than the two foot radius around my desk, and that only to deposit my book bag and take a solid, perfunctory glance around the room. Chalkboard, windows, door; this is my own little private universe, but the sun can be anywhere at all. [...]
I spent yesterday afternoon eating udon in my mother’s office. Afterwards my brother and I lie on the floor, surrounded by mannequins and furniture catalogs. Though my mother works in the design department, she is not involved in design; she does the innovative business shebang. Still, whatever an innovative business room looks like, it can’t be [...]
Someone needs to do for Emma what Nabokov did for Lolita. I am sorry, but I am no Janeite, and I hanker only for old Russian magic, Baba Yaga in a glade of silver birch, Count Leo in chalk blue and boots. Actually I am not sorry at all. Why is every Emma a Venetian [...]
There are three bookstores here in Valencia that I like. The first is our local Fnac (though only the lefthand corner of the upper echelon of any Fnac is dedicated to literary pursuits), the second a Mom & Pop place called KandA and the third the quaintly, if somewhat mundanely, named Casa del Llibre in [...]