Anyway, without Mr. Little, my life would have been much more difficult after my father was arrested. It was difficult enough as it was. Mr. Little was my personal hero at a time in my life when I had very few people that I could look up to. The funny

The pen point sits motionless on the paper...

Irrational Obligations In honor of National Pi Day Any excuse for a circle, a way to pinch the day. They are calling it something like a celebration only with bigger words and too many numbers to count. We'll have to approximate the amount of joy …

There was a thing she liked to do in the pool—after running and sweating—and that was to exhale as much air as she could stand, then hold her nose and sink to the bottom and just look up at the surface of the water, the way the sun hit it, the way the liq

The woman took a small note card from her purse and wrote on it. She then stood, handed the card to the doctor, and said, “Call me.”

He followed me through the crowds at Grand Central Station. Wherever I went, there he was, half my height, dressed in the characteristic gold and maroon garb, with a paper cup of coffee in his hand. He must have sensed something about me. Th

beyond knowing that when it hits you, you've been very much run over, and flattened like a stack of cardboard pancakes. I've seen it all before, and it works all right I guess. But my oh my, my, my oh thank you Jesus, to…

Uzma and Luv are . . .

We played and had joy. As the seasons changed in that peripheral world, we did not feel it. We only saw the snow a bit, only felt the wind a bit, we were not really in it. We still kept ourselves busy. There was something that I did begin to notice. I cou

I might have avoided all of this trouble if. . .

Pictures of war correspondents from The Tribune, and colonial photographs in a fruit crate

Douchey Jake made me cry until my eyes puffed so much I couldn't see through them. I said hey look, to my friends who slept on the futon, don't I look like one of those dolls with the real fake eyelashes? The truth is I've been pretending I don't…

Uncles. Cousins. Enos. No matter how loosely a net is woven, eventually the strands come together again.

Nephew Joe, my old brother's son, came to fix our pipes. Strapping, strapless, hairless, tanned, he clinked with gold. He came out to us over the pipes... drip drip...I just wanted them fixed pronto. He took precious time. He cried...drip drip...I wanted him to stop. My…

felt as if someone had pulled me in by the belt, or grabbed me by a knot in the hair, and kissed me with fire-engine lips. I was happy. I was in love.