(Originally posted with the title, "The Moon Is Like China," on August 23, 2014. The version below is a revision and, therefore, quite a bit different from the original.) One day, at some point in our childhood, my sister and I were riding in the car, and my sister, staring out the window, said, apropos … Continue reading Something recycled.
After her fifth or sixth miscarriage, my mother, resigned to the reality that a baby might not be in the cards, went with my father to the animal shelter and came home with a puppy. Without much debate they named the small, black-and-white ball of fur Happy, partly because the dog's mouth was shaped in … Continue reading Happy.
Because Christmas falls on a Wednesday this particular year, the boy wakes on Monday without any particular plans. On Sunday they had done their Sunday things – church and lunch at Nana’s house. On Tuesday they would do Christmas Eve things. Monday, the day in between, begins empty. It will be a long time, a … Continue reading Christmas, 1940.
The part of this that is a story, at the beginning, is mostly true and very short - hardly even a story, it's so short. But it's true nonetheless, in the important ways, and amended appropriately because it isn't mine. A number of years ago a dear friend was hosting Thanksgiving dinner. More specifically, a … Continue reading Babies, tarnish and dust.
This story will be less risqué than you might fear, or hope: I bought myself, sort of by accident, a purple lace bra for Christmas. We were out looking for stocking stuffers and standard Santa fare, my daughter and I, trying to get it all done in one single open-air-mall expedition because I quite hate … Continue reading Warning. (AKA “the year I accidentally bought a purple bra for Christmas”)
Twenty years ago this week, I met my children's father. Nineteen years ago this summer, my own father drank himself to death. The two events are related in a way, though not in the way you might be thinking. Unless you are thinking that my father finally let go when he knew both of his … Continue reading Paterfamilias.
It is time to divulge a secret about myself that very few people know: I'm a math geek. Not a Rainman, slay-the-tables-in-Vegas math geek, just a place-out-of-freshman-math-at-Princeton math geek. My dad was a math geek, and we used to have fun making up goofy algebra problems for no good reason other than to entertain ourselves. … Continue reading Order of operations.
