Sparrow

You Are An Awful Parent

Suddenly you have a crisis: You’re tired of parenting. You’ve had it with this kid. You would give her back, but there’s no one to give her to. It’s too humiliating to offer her up for adoption. I am a fucking awful parent, you think. And you are a fucking awful parent. Join the club. There are about 150 million of us in the U.S.A. at the moment.

How To Make Money In Your Car

Now, you might think, A car is too small for a convention. But this is true only of most conventions. There are some conventions that we never hear of, because of their smallness. For example, the Committee to Erect a Monument to Gerald Ford in Washington, D.C., could easily hold its convention inside a rather compact Pontiac. I encourage you to “think inside the box” (in this case, an extremely small box).

Eight Love Poems

We are all named / out of love — for / an uncle, a cousin, / a dead violinist. / Often we forget / the love in our names.

— from “Named”

I Was A Guantánamo Prisoner

I walked slowly up Mill Hill Road in Woodstock, New York. A rope tied my feet together; another bound my hands. A third rope, around my waist, was attached to the woman in front of me. A black hood covered my face. The rest of my wardrobe was an orange jumpsuit, like the ones worn by prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

Fighting CIS

Last night my mother told me, “We just got DSL” — a high-speed Internet hookup for the computer. As we talked, we discovered that neither of us knew what DSL stands for. (Subsequent research revealed that it means “digital subscriber line.” Of course, it is also “LSD” backward.)

Stupid Design

Fundamentalist Christians are leading a movement to teach “intelligent design” in our public schools, as an alternative to evolution. 

The Flood

It’s difficult to remember the sequence of events that led us here. Everything came so quickly. The first warning was when Perdita called, saying, “I hear they are evacuating people from Phoenicia.” Heavy rains and spring thaw were causing the Esopus River to overflow its banks.

Why I Am Not President

On January 19, 2004, the day of the Iowa caucus, I decided to run for president. Perhaps, in my tiny way, I reasoned, I can prevent America from becoming a Jesus-flavored neofascist empire. So I announced to the world (or, at least, to the portion of it that is on my e-mail address list) my candidacy for the Republican nomination. My campaign had begun.

Looking Like Osama And Other Confessions

Some lucky people look like Brad Pitt or Sarah Jessica Parker. It is my fate to resemble Osama bin Laden.

Secret Smoker

I first smoked in the spring of 1970, when I was sixteen years old. I found a pack of cigarettes in the hallway of my high school, the Bronx High School of Science. It was a box of Marlboros. I hesitated for a moment, then reached for it. The pack was more than half full.