Long before GPS, when I got lost, I’d drive to the nearest gas station to ask for directions. At night, reinforced (possibly bullet-proof) glass stood between me and the attendant. It was a sure-fire tip-off that you were in a bad neighborhood. Sometimes, the clerk had a microphone, just ...
At 5:27 a.m., I woke up mid-dream. I remember opening my eyes and thinking, “Why would there be a pony in the living room?” I tried to make sense of it, to justify it, but the dream's details faded as I marched to the bathroom, disappearing into an ephemeral fog that lifted with each step. ...
In high school, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I took a drama elective. I have always had a flair for the dramatic. In our midterm was a speech: We had to choose and recite our favorite monologue. It could be anything. In retrospect, I should have picked something with a bit of humor to ...
My head looks like a war zone. It’s as if those little green Army men staged an attack on my face. Everything below my nose looks like the DMZ. This morning, someone said, “What’s wrong with your face?” I thought it was a setup for a joke, but I’m not in ninth grade, and my old ...
My Seasonal Affective Disorder always jumps into high gear on the last day of summer. I have often noted that Labor Day weekend is the season's three-day mourning period. It’s a wake for the last wakeboard ride. We go, instantly, from picnic to pumpkin patch. Yesterday, I drove past a ...
I don’t want to knock any successful Pittsburgh businesses, but Duolingo is stressing me out. That little green owl is on my back about not conjugating my verbs. Every morning there’s a red dot on my Duolingo app. I react to the bright-scarlet circle like it’s a red alert on a ...
