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Homeless

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blueberry tea and vodka on a Friday night

Thumb

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I’m trying to get this said, this piece of fact. If I am a person who can own something, then that something that I own is not me, not me as a person. I do not own my foot, my foot is my own. It’s like a whatsit, a semantic distinction I’m trying to

Anonymous Hackers

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A university student who triggers a flash mob in the heart of Silicon Valley to prove her hacking creds finds herself in deep trouble when the colorful members of Anonymous Hackers prove their hacking creds to her.

The Road

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My mother moved her things out of my parents’ bedroom into the attic guest room. When I asked where guests would sleep, my father said, “Matthew, don’t be an asshole.”

Far As You Want

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At a rest stop in Montpelier, they stopped to buy Cokes and gum from the vending machines. He was showing off, trying to jimmy one of the locks with a safety pin but it stayed locked and she laughed at him and he said goddamn, look at all a them Milkyways

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 40

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—Mazel tov, schmazel tov!

THANKS FOR TRYING TO RUIN MY DAY!

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If you work with the public, you're stressed. Unreasonable customers. Demanding bosses. Reduced staffing. I love my job, but the workload is tough and getting tougher. What can we do to keep our spirits up?Play Customer Appreciation! It's simple. Assign a point value…

The City of Lights

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Paris is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Uncle Harlequin

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My Aunt's husband liked to dress up like a clown

A Few Good Band Names

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Auto and the Grease-Pits Sugar Cube Full Frontal The Holy Grill Crazy Al and the Squirrels Talk Is Cheap Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cold Zippers Destiny Howl Epiphany Critter Cold Kneecaps Crepes Pulled Pork Baby Seals and the Club

Rising

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The coin, so little, the watch chain, the youth, the fading softening speech, each hand and finger, the panic modeled on your own eyes, the ashtray, certain stumps along the way, the long distance, the odd feather, the jazz rope gone,…

The Show Must Go On

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I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation

Streets of Gold

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I was beyond broke.

The Trapper Boy at Work, One Mile Underground

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The coal carts come and go like the seasons, never stopping.

Full Frame

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A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

Northeast of Eden (Memoir; Editor: Charlotte Curtis)

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Snakes have no eyelids, no hips, no lobby in Washington (some creatures do!) and little support at home.

How to Be the Most Hated Person on BART (London Tube, Tokyo Bullet, or Any Public Transit)

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The daily slog on public transit is a battlefield. Tensions are often higher than a presidential debate, but throw a wrench into the gears (or a tree branch onto the tracks) with any “severe delay,” and add in one or more of the below faux pas, and we’re

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 31

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I was always bi-polar. I didn’t realize it was a mental illness until my divorce lawyer had the court order a psychiatric analysis.

fish gut buckets

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The pier stretched out by where sharks came and men waited with beautiful dirty buckets that held strange and dangerous things, buckets with fish guts, buckets with blood, with character, buckets like prophets or a gritty desert walking saviour like Chris

Calling All Feathers, Do You Hear

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These little things, they are the hopes We were waiting for, they are everywhere. I made this one just for you. Call them feathers. Call them roses. You'll always See them if you need them. These Little things carry the good news…

The Ice Cream Mantra

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Chant the ice cream mantra. Prance the do dah day ballet. Trot the t-bone tango two-step. Dance the livelong day away.

A Scalar Boson a Day

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. . . the empiricism of the mechanical had wound tight into her, lessons her few calendars could never impart without aid from sundials, hourglasses, clocks.

Off Island

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There were only six passengers aboard the small ferry...

The World Explained

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This is why the earth revolves around the sun: refrigerator magnets.

Conversations

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That won’t kill me, will it? I asked. Maybe, the doctor said.

Reconstruction

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My favorite lie is that he'd escaped the South Tower before it collapsed. Smoke inhalation erased his way home. Mine's better than mother's version: a stranger hurled herself onto him. The truth is when they stopped search and rescue, mother told father, Go. Even dead, his…

Cornelius van Linjpleel's Contributions to the Study of Etruscan Tombs

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Cornelius van Linjpleel discovered and excavated for himself a lone Etruscan tomb not far from Populonia in 1898.

Darcy Eastland

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To him the younger women, contemporaries of the bride, all sounded as if they were breathing helium.

Thing To Do In Deptford When You're Dead.

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Velvet answered the door in a red leather dress that was made with just about enough material to make a wallet, and looking like a long limbed drink of water calling out to a thirsty man.

Odysseus as Superintendent

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No king of Ithaca, but of each/ whining, banging, dust–clouded island/ of focused, physical work