The contamination, however, extended beyond the physical conditions. There were many things we did in high school that most people would readily identify as hazing.
All in Non-Fiction
A silver-haired woman with still-taut cheekbones smiles from the ad. A pitch for magic potions aimed at women with crow’s feet and creases. A woman like me, experienced in flutters of self-doubt and twinges of loss. Vulnerable to the seductive pull of junk science and sly text—serums with proven clinical strength, the latest in anti-wrinkle technology. Sweet-smelling fruit extracts to moisturize, rejuvenate, illuminate. Who doesn’t want to glow with renewed vitality?
I want to be clean. I want to be clean in the way that birds are when they molt, shedding their feathers to grow newer, brighter ones. A snake grinding against rough wood to slip itself out from its old skin, leaving it in its slithery path. A hermit crab, buried underneath the sand in the early morning, eating the exoskeleton that it sheds.
Growing up, I went to a private Christian high school that leaned heavily toward Southern Baptist fundamentalism, that was 95% white, that considered the law of God above all other laws, that stated, as per both Christian Bible and Judaic Torah, that the man was the spiritual and physical head of the household, all others subordinate unto him; he, of course, subordinate unto God. There was a specific moral code of “dos and don’ts” to which we were expected to adhere that included how to dress, how to interact socially with the opposite sex, what to believe and not believe, even what to think or not think.
“Officer Holmstrom, can I please talk to you a minute?” The voice was smooth like butterscotch, sweet and oversugared.
Inmate Gary Phoenix stood at his cell front, his figure barely illumined by the light of an underpowered reading lamp on the shelf above his single bunk.
On election night, November 7, 2016, when ABC Election coverage announced that Donald Trump took Florida, I actually went into the bathroom, closed the door, lowered the toilet lid, sat down, and cried. I know quite a few of us who did the same; we knew something we could not explain, something hitherto unprecedented had just happened. When North Carolina and Ohio went red and finally, Iowa, I wretchedly watched George Stephanopoulos, clearly nonplussed, ask his co-anchoring panel of pundits, “How could this happen when a solid majority of Americans said that Donald Trump wasn’t qualified for the job?”
INTERVIEWJohn Grochalski
"What Trump does angers me but never surprises or shocks."
In today’s society, we often take great pleasure in putting down our enemies. One especially fun way to do that is to compare them to despised or disgusting things. If a teacher is too strict, the he or she is like a boring BDSM master or mistress. If a roommate is lazy, then he or she is a useless pile of crap. Because both of my parents worked in education, my natural enemy is the Republican Party. And so, to get in on the fun, I will say that the current Republican Party is like Keyser Soze from the film The Usual Suspects.
Hi, other white guys. I know that we see each other all the time, but we don’t really talk about stuff, you know? Rock music, maybe, football, sure, but not serious stuff. I know that that sounds weird or like I’m going to hassle you, but it looks like a lot of us have made a mistake. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you a hard time about slavery. That was bad, for sure, but it’s not really my place to talk to you about that.
I grew up in a house full of guys. Throughout most of my adolescence there were not a lot of moments where the finer points of being a female were taught. Instead I learned the not-so-subtle art of being a boy, like jumping fences, hopping apartment building rooftops, and learning how to take the pain of rough housing.
Waiting for Godot, Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s two act play from the Theatre of the Absurd, is a quintessential primer to understanding politics under the Trump Administration.
Pets and a garden work wonders as allies through transitions. I don’t mean large ones, like a death or a move or a birth, though I’m sure they’re good during those too, I mean quotidian ones to which you’d think you’d be able to adjust all by yourself, but in fact, without soft allies, you don’t.
Look, I’ve been in and out of the newspaper business for going on a quarter of a century. I’m cool with that, I know I’m in a business going the way of coal-powered dodo birds, the telegraph, and professional jitterbuggers. If I’m the last one standing the day they stop rolling the presses, feel free to chisel it on my tombstone.
We wade in the middle of the still blue waters of Capo Caccia. Vivienne, who has taken a break from preparing lunch, tells me the story of the island’s most notorious brothers. She and her husband George have lived on their yacht in Bosa for the past fifteen years, and they have taken us out, Nick and me and three other couples, to spend the day exploring the island’s surrounding caves and capes. We are in unchartered territory.
The call was certain and unwavering.
I felt pulled to volunteer at a local homeless shelter. My friends and family started to wonder what I was doing because it started so randomly. I was always honest as to my intentions - to various degrees.
At the end of winter, I was looking to blow some money on something fragile and undemanding. I bought the Instant Back with my Diana camera because I knew no one had patience on St Denis street after 6pm. I wanted to be as happy as the faces on the instax mini fujifilm, rainbows and bears screwing without prejudice inside my hair. I wanted that. You said, Lomography is a scam run by straight, white, billionaire men and I said, how me something that isn’t.
Because the joys of intimacy with other men still enthrall me, I agreed to pick him up. Never mind that the thought of consorting with a man who’s engaged, however far away his fiancé resided, at first stood in stark contrast to the aphrodisiac of his body, hewn and handsome following years of playing varsity volleyball. This friend of mine was biracial, his face stubbled, chest shaved, curly hair cropped close to his ears with a legitimate six-pack to boot.
I was lucky because my husband, Jason, was alive. He was just constantly gone.
For Frederick, there was not a transition. He merely wanted to be who he was.
I’m at my counselor’s office. He’s in the same practice as my wife’s counselor, so she’s in there with her counselor as well. This is our first joint counseling session. It’s about three weeks since I was found out, what those in recovery call “discovery.” My counselor wants to share with my wife’s counselor where we are in the counseling process. He told me that they want to talk about our “situation” together in front of us, to make sure we are all “on the same page.” I. Am. Petrified. This is a potentially dangerous situation for my own well-being.