I’m going through what the scholars might call a mid-life crisis. When I was younger, my parents led me to think of the term as some kind of a joke. “Honey, Ray¹ bought a new Mercedes. What’s he need that
Most obituaries tell us nothing more than a chronological map of someone’s life, and a list of people the dead person knew. Everyone happens to be beloved by all who knew him, when this is the biggest piece of turdshit
People¹ always ask me where I get my ideas. Oh man, they come from everywhere! Dreams, strangers, the back of a bus that left me in its dust because I was too enrapt by a ladybug on a pole to
My drag name, if I ever need one, will be nothing if not Mary Brown. It might sound a little plain and spiritless at first glance, until you find out what it means, and what she represents, to me and
Another room of strangers, engulfed in a tense silence, reminiscent of a family gathering before the bitterness begins. The barely-audible newscast on the television angled down from the back corner, near the ceiling, is the clang of cutlery in the
Being surrounded by grocery-shopping crowds all day has given me a chance to truly discover who the general public is and what they’re doing here. All of these people are real, most you have seen in your travels, and one
Secretary-General of the United Rice Tribunal: Okay, so we’re all agreed. Malawi gets full rice, Mali gets bubkis. Gavel is pounded [he pounds the gavel at this point but announces it for the record and the deaf], and we can
Emily, Graham, Oscar and Tony walk into a bar. Every Friday evening, the party of four enters through the side door of The Academic sometime around seven, commanding the attention of any guest who happens to already be inside. Their
Oblangata is a Nigerian woman of untold age. She is loud and intrusive, tough but kind-hearted. Erin is newly married and five months pregnant with her first child. She absolutely adores Oblongata. O was Erin’s mother’s doula when she was
The beach sends me away with enmity, so I head inland. But the jungle, it’s not mine. I defensively contend I’m a visitor when I feel like an intruder. The disruption of my invasion is not overlooked by those I
