My father did consulting for years. Whenever he—or my uncle, also a consultant—began talking about work, I thought about their offices. They were small, poorly-lit rooms with terrible furniture, located in commercial parks off county roads. They were depressing. My … Read More
Well, after being bestowed with the MVC(Most-Valued-Cashier) by the Spectator, I felt compelled to return the favor by bestowing awards on my most loyal fans. After all, where would I be without them? So without further ado and without all the fanfare of large scale expensive award ceremonies that drag on for hours on end – I present the awards for 2005.
Gregg Gillis sits in the library of Terrace Club; a few minutes ago he was eating potatoes. He is of average height and has enormous white teeth. He speaks rapidly and giddily, as though school has just been cancelled.
‘Reading,’ as describing a certain activity of eye-sliding-over-page, with eye recognizing ink blobs corresponding (by means of whatever neural calculus) either (1) to something like second-order phonemes, and therefore to certain aural centers and therefore to speech-parts of the brain, which ‘articulate’ meaning to other parts, or (2) to something like second-order morphemes, and therefore to certain visual centers, and therefore to picture-parts of the brains, which ‘project’ meanings to other parts, or (3) to some combination of (1) and (2)[1]—well, ignore that or bracket it, because I have 1,000 words and a little over, say, ten minutes to argue for long and arduous works of literature, their import and glory—and, specifically, for the particularly long and particularly arduous recent novels of Roberto Bolaño and David Foster Wallace.
The first months of freshman year went by so quickly. I hooked up with the guy who became my boyfriend within days of arriving on campus, and my friends and I managed to garner the attention of what seemed like … Read More
I have written poems pomes (pennyeach) like pommes as in pommes de terre those roots with eyes— and now I write in my eyes, to my eyes à mes yeux which means in another light ‘by my way of thinking’— … Read More
My sister started her coming-out process in eighth grade. My brother and I were in seventh. She entered her final year of middle school feeling alienated and afraid, so when the girl next to her in homeroom showed up with a print-out of Sid Vicious taped to her binder, Steph seized the opportunity to make a friend. Her name was Anna. She was thirteen, wore rainbow-banded tights and sometimes smelled like cigarettes. Her screen name was “kind-o-kinky.” She was the first bisexual any of us had ever known.
The construction guys are wearing neon hoodies and eating grilled cheese sandwiches, Sprinkled across the lawn like lobster buoys — “Confetti thrown from heaven,” you’d call them When I was on the boat and couldn’t sleep. If I went back … Read More
I was seventeen. A senior second semester saturated with drugs, alcohol and bad decisions written off as “youth” had ended in a hospital bed on prom night, and, subsequently, in daily, forced AA meetings. I’d thought I was on top of the world: going to an Ivy League school, surrounded by friends, graduating top of my class.
