‘Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them’ (Thom Jones) I live with a dog-mad woman. She absolutely adores them, having surrounded herself with the beasts from an early age. First up were Brownie and Tiger, both sadly dispatched to the great canine beyond via the neighbour’s shotgun one evening, her father
When we were younger, my best friend, Dan, and I went snowboarding in the North Carolina mountains. It was so bright everywhere—the sky was this electric, herniating blue, and the sun was blinding off the snow. While we were riding up the Sugar Mountain lift, Dan became concerned that his face was getting sunburned, and
In some cases it seemed to me that feeling literally in pieces could be traced back to that sort of original fragmentation that is bringing into the world-coming into the world. I mean feeling oneself mother at the price of getting rid of a living fragment of one’s own body; I mean feeling oneself a
I live my life surrounded by books. My bookshelves are filled with literature written in different times and in different languages. Far less visible are the papers that I have written. Hidden in drawers and secret boxes lie piles of diaries, poems, reflections and fiction stories no one has ever read but me. Georg Orwell
All is Numbered. -Pythagoras I have an unhealthy relationship with numbers, garden variety numbers; Numerophobia, maybe you’d call it. I place enormous importance on the information they contain, their overt and covert messages. And despite the fact that numbers inevitably let me down, like friends who betray me, still I return to them, looking for
Another evening, another livid sky. I’m gazing out my home-office window at the horizon again. Cornwall’s towering clouds dwarf the shiny cotton balls that scud across the sky in my native eastern North Carolina. Backlit with electric danger, these massive clouds — slate blue grey and limned around the edges by the setting sun —
It appears that President Donald Trump wants white suburbia to vote for him, and he’s pushing out low-income housing in order to get that vote. “I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built
Officially, when we went on a road trip, I got out of the car and walked twenty feet from California to Nevada so he couldn’t be charged with transporting a minor across state lines. We thought this was hilarious. *** The one good grade I ever got in gym class was for modern dance. My
When I was 19, I secretly fell in love with a boy. He was 17. I first learned his body as I watched him walk across the campus green when he didn’t know I was looking—his curly dark hair, his camo jacket with all the pockets, his baggy jeans. I learned his face second, when
‘Consider This: Moments In My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different‘ (which from this moment on will be referred to as Consider This) is not just a book it is an investment. Chuck Palahniuk has produced a fabulous book about writing craft, which as a fan of Palahniuk I’m thrilled with, but as a
