April 2012
1 post
He’s searching through his papers, rifling under the desk. His glass of scotch tilts and sprays droplets on his work. His hands shake. His coworkers tell him he needs rest, he needs to drink some water and eat something. He’s been doing nothing but drinking for days, while working. A car pulls up and they usher him into the backseat. “Rehab,” they said. As the cross a bridge and stall in traffic,...
February 2012
4 posts
The river is choked with floating concrete that rushes fast. You can drive a car on the river and get to where you need to go five times faster than on a highway. But it’s tricky navigation — hit a snag and sink and you have absolutely no chance of rising above the surface again.
It would have been easier to dig shallow graves to hide the bodies, but papermache-ing them into hollowed-out, still-standing trees was effectively gruesome.
We’ve just tied up the boat in the marina when the zombies attack. Before panicking, the ladies decide to sing a rousing selection of tunes from “The Music Man.” I decide to take my chances with the zombies and run out to face them. Curiously, they do not try to bite/kill me and I realize they are not zombies, but in fact are lepers. I thank them for not biting/killing me and...
Picnicking at dusk in Central Park. I have a remote control that turns the lights of the surrounding skyline off and on. People think aliens are coming.
December 2011
5 posts
That was one of the more awkward blind double dates of my life. Turns out we’d all been on a blind double date with each other just a day earlier… and we’d all gone home with each other. I excused myself and crept out of the restaurant. Feeling ashamed, I called my mother to tell her about the date. Found myself in front of a friend’s apartment building and thought...
Dad harrumphed into the room as I lay sleeping on the pullout couch. I knew he was looking for the half-and-half and as he poked around under a chair, I surreptitiously removed it from the side-table and hid it under my pillow.
Across the rolling prairie I could see craggy mountain rising under thunderous-looking clouds. As I got closer, I could make out a large cave at the foot of the mountain and stopped dead. Bears. Sure enough, I could see the enormous creatures milling about in front of the cave. I turned to get away before they saw me and realized I’d already been spotted by the bears I hadn’t noticed...
I found it impossibly awkward to carry two buckets up a ladder. One bucket filled with asphalt, the other with granulated sweat. Somehow, I reached the top and poured the buckets out into the bin. An angry voice yelled behind me, “DON’T MIX THEM!” Too late.
How in the world am I supposed to escort my date carefully home to Brooklyn with this bag full of used lightbulbs and still make it back to work by 5:30 a.m.?
October 2011
3 posts
I knew he was around somewhere as I paced the hallway. Suddenly one of the doors flung open and there he was, zinging his little buzzing flashlight do-hickey around, aiming at something unseen up in the corners of the doorway. He was prattling aloud about who knows what, paying me absolutely no heed, not taking his eyes off of the ceiling, skinny pin-striped arms and legs wind-milling about,...
Well, it’s official. I’m the worst house-sitter ever. My friends go away and what do I do? Lose their Spanish Galleon. Like, almost immediately. When I went out, it was parked out back, anchored ohhh 500 yards off the back of the house. And now? Gone. Totally gone. They’re gonna kill me. They even have a little wooden replica of it by the pool. Shit. Shit. What am I going to do?...
The sign clickity-clacked as the names, numbers and times flipped forward, another execution having taken place. My name was getting closer to the top. They made us watch - small, grainy televisions showing another young woman led into a cell, a pink pillowcase thrown awkwardly over her face. This cannot be happening. I closed my eyes, waiting and waiting through the unbearable pause until the...
August 2011
3 posts
I was in the library when the second earthquake rolled through. I really had nowhere to go as the ground rumbled and rolled and the shelves started falling, spitting books onto me. I grabbed a couch cushion and strapped it over my head as my father appeared and beckoned me to follow him. My mother was waiting outside, she wanted to go to a movie. I had some coupons but they were for the other day...
The Dragon Watchers
First day on the job and a little scared. She tells me not to worry, it’s really quite easy. All we do is watch for the dragons that exit and return to the caves. She opens a door behind us to a long corridor stretching in both directions, with matching doors on the other side of the hall. We are in charge of one set of doors and one Dragon. Currently our dragon is out. Dragons enter the caves,...
1 tag
June 2011
5 posts
Destruction: C anal Street
Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton, looking faded and inflated, were there—marketing their wares, making money hand over fist. Quit looking at your phone, they told me.
I lay on the side of the boat on my back, one hand clapping a straw hat over my face. I like looking at the starry sky of sunshine poking through the holes from under the crown of my hat. My other hand drifts along the tight guard wiring strung above me, my left leg hanging over the side, just under the surface. The drag of the warm water over my foot is instantly relaxing. There’s a bell...
I didn’t feel like I was that high up but it was too rocky to risk falling. I grabbed the child and handed him up to his father, waiting above. Then I looked up for help… to see him. “Oh, you want help now, huh?” He sneered. I tried to pull myself up without him but the ground crumbled alarmingly. I needed him. I hated him and I needed him. “Please,” I whispered...
I entered the library, expecting to be recognized. After all, it hadn’t been that long since the murder had happened. I had identified the murderer at the time but unfortunately he had gotten away. I approached the desk of a librarian, a woman I remembered well. She did not show any sign of recognition. I asked a young man shelving books if he remembered the events from a few years ago. He...
So there I was, perusing the goods in a back-country illegal cheese shop when I found him, stashed away in a secret room in the back, going through some sort of detox-situation, shirtless and wild and smeared in camembert.
“You were too good for me,” he said, panting.
“I know.”
April 2011
2 posts
I was on a date with a guy who wanted me to come over to watch a movie… but told me belatedly that he was really into “pedo-gore.” Don’t worry, guy totally got eaten by a bear-shark moments later.
Nobody imagined the series finale of How I Met Your Mother ending with a shooting massacre at their pub by the so-called Mother.
January 2011
1 post
True New Yorkers remember the days when ballerinas roamed 10th Ave, plying their wares in flesh-colored tights and floofy tutus to bored business men on their way home through the Lincoln Tunnel. 10 bucks got you a plié, 50 an arabesque, 100 a grand jeté. Bargaining was risky; nobody wanted a confrontation with an angry choreographer.
October 2010
1 post
My new job is pretty awesome. I managed to get invited to a Muppet Show rehearsal and brought my parents along. It was great… I mean, it wasn’t quite the same as a regular show since the Muppets were all in their street clothes, but I still enjoyed it.
July 2010
1 post
Subtlety is lost...
I was taking some sort of college course in a large room with other students. As per usual, I had no idea what the subject was nor was I prepared. And I certainly wasn’t ready for an awards show. I was looking around at the audience which consisted of various random celebrities as well as personal friends and realized you were sitting across the aisle from me. But try as I might, I...
May 2010
1 post
The man in front of me wasn’t walking very fast and I accidentally stepped on the back of his foot… twice. As I passed him, I told him, “Sorry about that,” expecting a “that’s all right” response. Instead, he yelled at me. Then continued to follow me down the street, screaming at me until I found a friend to save me and fend him off.
April 2010
1 post
It was the end of the Summer Olympics and the very last event: the waterslide luge. My tube was stolen so I grabbed another and ended up being the last contestant to enter the tunnel. Unfortunately, as the waterslide had been built inside an office building whose tenants were eager to get back to work, on each turn I narrowly avoided desks being reset, filing cabinets replaced. Just as I was...
February 2010
1 post
January 2010
3 posts
Tanya’s baby was adorable but I found it awkward to hold her. I’m usually pretty good with babies but this one was particularly screamy and slippery. Erin appeared and invited me next door to see her place. Relieved, I handed the baby back and followed Erin. I was suitably impressed. I had no idea that the ocean was just on the other side of the park and was greatly envious of her...
Kate M., wanted in connection with an exotic animal smuggling ring, was last seen headed west on Fountain on the back of a kangaroo.
I bet you have no idea I am one of the world’s leading authorities on the use of milk trains to attack the Nazis during WWII, did you?
October 2009
1 post
I remember thinking how clever it would be to make a cake like this statue as I scrubbed along the scales, suds streaming down the sharp fangs. When the giant reptile’s eye suddenly flicked open and focused on me, soapy water collecting on its snout, I tried to scream but it lodged in my throat. I frantically climbed up in the window, hoping the damn thing couldn’t jump. The bathroom...
September 2009
2 posts
I can’t say that I have prepared for this moment all my life. In fact, having no stand-up experience whatsoever, I was a bit surprised when I got the call from SNL that they needed to fill the last five minutes of the show. I hightailed it down to the satellite studio, which was entirely empty. I did my best and when the credits started rolling, I got on my phone to wait for the texts and...
The deer came tearing over the crest of the hill, the pack of wolves in hot pursuit. Would have been totally a Planet Earth moment, had they not all been in giant plastic hamster balls.
August 2009
1 post
His muscled back surfaced with each stroke — the grass rippling over his back. When he finished his last lap and came up for air, I knelt down in the dirt beside him and he whispered, “Come work for me.” Then he was off again, slipping beneath the topsoil.
July 2009
4 posts
There was some sort of sticky residue on the floor but we worked anyway, shipping the racks of dresses off to various places. The warehouse had a strange feeling to it. The manager told me it was a 16th century jail. A gorgeous dress passed me, swinging down the line, white with red cherries, ’50s style. I asked where it was going and the manager said, “Lollipop’s.” I...
I cannot reach you. I keep moving through the sheets, first a turn, a toss, a roll, crawling now through a bleak cotton landscape. Where are you? The sheets, tent-like, are rough on my skin, I’m underneath — crawling, crawling, slithering snake-like. I can feel the bed is still warm and I follow your heat. I realize I don’t even know who you are. Do I? It’s too far, this...
Oh, this is that “Very Special Episode” of “ER” when Sarah Palin falls into an open sewer. I love this one.
Tousled hair on the pillow was almost the only thing I could see of you. Your bed was filled with books. Piles and piles of books, some cascading down on your sleeping body, yet your face was peaceful. I reached for you and you smiled without opening your eyes, pulling me into your heat where I fit perfectly.
June 2009
3 posts
She squeezed her breasts which disappeared in her hands like those red foam balls magicians use and then make reappear behind your ear. Except hers reappeared on her chest when she let go.
It was very disconcerting.
Despite the fact that my stomach was sticking about 4 inches out over my pants, I still decided to take a pregnancy test. I stepped into a toilet stall but the door was too low and while I tried to figure out how to heave my awkward bulk into position to pee on the stick, it seemed like everyone I know was stopping by to talk to me - ex-boyfriends, friends I haven’t seen in five years,...
I could see the green tail sticking out from behind the flowerpot in the kitchen. Mom grabbed it and pulled forth a huge trembling iguana. She cuddled it up in a blanket and rocked it with a lullaby.
May 2009
6 posts
I know you. I know what the curve in your neck smells like when it’s damp with sweat. I know that freckle on your shoulder and the whorl of hair near your ear. I know the heat of your belly on mine, that tug of my hipbone, the suction between us. I know you.
Notes I took at 3 am on the back of an envelope...
Woke up to someone crying on the couch. It was me. But I was in bed.
I don’t know how that store was still in business after all these years. I had last been inside 20+ years ago. It only sold things no one wanted — and probably all the same things from when I was a child. A layer of dust covered everything and the flourescent lights hummed overhead, emitting an evil yellow-green noxious hue, giving anyone who stepped foot on the premises the...
Notes I took at 3 am on the back of an envelope...
Affair with G., Grammy yelling at me from upstairs window. Waves.
Revolutionary war tour.
“Great Wall” song and dance with lyrics for my parents.
When you invited me to the movies, I have to say I was pretty excited to spend time with you. I do apologize for the mishap while waiting in line. You see, I sometimes don’t know my own strength and I thought those guys who barged ahead of us would get the last seats. But it was unnecessary now, I realize, to have grabbed the guy who body-checked me into the wall and twist his arm and throw him...
She dove over the fire and into the water and I could see her white dress trailing flames and black smoke as she glided like an otter below the surface. I sank up to my knees in the soggy wet sand and worried.
April 2009
15 posts
Her face was a ruin. Rippling flesh, criss-crossing scars. Burned. I wondered what it was like to become a different person like that. To not recognize myself. Could it happen to me? Will it happen to me? She looked at me as though she could hear my thoughts. The doctors grasped her shoulders, restraining her, though they need not bother, she was resigned. They lowered a white plastic mask...