Most read stories

Dinner with Sam Rockwell

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“I liked you best in Choke–you were sexy in a lazy, sort of ‘70s way.”

The Making of Mermaids

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You ran so quickly for a while no one could find you. Finally, you sent us a report. You had retreated to the sea, you had your legs stitched together, you became a mermaid and were applying to join the school.

Retire! Dance! Die! But First, Pass the Chocolate. Boomers According to Google.

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Born in 1954, I identify as a Baby Boomer. But what does that mean, really? Who exactly are we Boomers? And how does the world see us? I decided to perform a quick Google Search and find out. I typed in the phrase “Boomers Are…” Here's…

Eager To Please

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She didn't care for the taste. Slightly salty and sweet at the same time, but she let him come in her mouth just the same

Four Days before Thanksgiving, Boston to Colorado

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The daughter's trip, a travail, cross country; the painkillers were not the finisher mom needed—and the white sheets of the institution were too thin to provide her any comfort as she dreamt of swimming; a backstroke suspended over a waterless pool.Her father…

Home in Biloxi

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Her father stuffed years worth of stories into the phone, a sort of begging: how the new dog rode in the golf cart and retrieved lost Pinnacles; how the garage’s rent was too expensive; how the doctor gave him new pills and how he had lost weight and cu

Red Brick

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The child could hear frogs chorusing outside and she wanted to listen only to that. Inside her grandfather gasped for air and she tried to keep her eyes normal as he smiled at her and put the mask back on. She did not want him to see how much she felt like running…

Gunplay

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It was when the party hit a lull and a woman wearing too much rouge was going on about her parakeets that Tom decided to set down his bourbon glass and pull out his gun.

As Luck Would Have It

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For fifteen years Wendy waited for Harry to leave his wife. From time to time, there’d been ultimatums, break-ups too, but they never stuck. Now Wendy’s luck was about to change. It was Tuesday, Wendy and Harry’s standing night to be together. His wif

Live Sacrifice

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I don’t name the dog but the fish requires a name. Animals that do not get eaten must be named. The dog is still on the menu.

Saving Grace

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It essentially comes down to this: If you have nothing left but paper, all you can really use it for is wiping your behind if you’re in a jam.

The Oaten Hands

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His hands were like that when he was born. No one really understood why. Neither of his parents had any body parts made of oats. Neither of them had even eaten any oats the morning the conception took place. But sure enough, when Edwin MacGrain was born o

I Wrote a Book

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About halfway through reading some book that was supposed to be some really deep shit, I decided to write my own book instead.

The Pocahontas Forgiveness Goes Viral

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You generated coal light from your gait as easily as the new sun crawls through a sleepy forest, without worry over hot spillage, or who might be horribly blinded or grossly revealed or given visions in that rare moment of wet earth and…

Before and After

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My heart beat someone up the stairwell.

Falcon Street

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Marcy is two years older and got her period the summer before me. She thinks she’s a professor of everything, but she’s my best friend so I don’t say she’s being stupid or that her tangerine lipstick is smeared across her front teeth.

You, the Correct Other, the One I am Looking For

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You, the correct Other, the one I am looking for, you have exacting standards concerning where things must go.

Frankie & Jake are Married (another novel castaway)

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Frankie married me during my theory stage. I hadn’t known her long.

Luther Loves Lucy

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Luther Mishmash stood numbly in the yard, dumbly staring at the soiled pair of underpants flapping lazily in the breeze on the wash line. Grandpa had wet himself again. Tomorrow, at school, he knew he’d hear about it. Luther wasn’t sure which was more

The Earth Squeals

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Who knows how long I have been crouched here, tied down by kelp and thin vines, trading laments with animals? They all look terrified.

Sorbet in the Luminous Capsule

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Even in the brief flickers where your eyes and nose are visible you look gelatinous. Like a forgotten traveler suctioned to the side of an immersion tank. Am I sick because this bizarre spectacle is irresistible to me?

A Journey Within A Journey

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Cousin Rudy pulled up a cod / out of season / we were rigged for haddock, / it was dressed for the weather

In Dreams

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I always wanted to head on up to New York City and be taught by a decent painter, but as time kept on trucking, it became clear that that was just a big dream that would not shake out and I'd never be a real artist because I was shy of the money I'd need to stay up there in…

Almighty Pink Slip

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I fired God today. He wasn't showing up for work, slept through meetings, wrote ambiguous memos and killed too many innocents. Things just weren't working out.

I’m tired of being timid.

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“Later,” I say to the frisky crickets, verbal cash of the eggnog spa, spot of gum…

They Don't Call! They Don't Write! But at Least they Have a Dog Blog

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“I spent the best years of my life raising you, and now that you've grown, I never hear from you.” Sound familiar? That's the “Mom's Lament.” Mothers have been kvetching at their grown-up kids like this since the beginning of…

The Sad Giraffe Demographic

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...there’s one thing we’ve found, an untapped demographic.

Conjured love

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Love heals. Lovers know this from the start, Yet they may not know with certainty What love is. Not that it matters especially When they find the magic within the power Of unfolding lust, Of redemption, Of unmitigated joy. There's a mutual…

Born Too Soon: America's Hottest Teachers

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The teachers who get caught propositioning male students are always wholesome family women. This is why I have repeatedly called for regular round-ups of wholesome family women before another young man’s morals are corrupted.

America From The Outside

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You aren’t easy to explain, you Americans.