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Body and Mind
Sex in the In-Between
He looked hardy, and, God, I’m a sucker for hardiness. Show me a pocketknife and callused hands, and I’m ready to let you feel me up. His profile had a photo of him holding a giant golden eagle in Mongolia. Looking back, I can see it was partly the eagle I swiped right on.
April 2024
Happysad
Gobbling tortilla chips with gleeful abandon, I forget to chew, and one triangle catches in my throat. Instantaneous panic. Sudden, deep, mammalian fear.
April 2024Dear Woman Who Tried to Pick Me Up at a Hollywood Club in 1998
What if I’d said yes? Imagine I go home with you that night, / when I’m twenty, and when we wake up in the morning, / you ask, You know you snore? You laugh at my / nighttime retainer, which I’ll wear for the rest of my life, and say, You look hot.
April 2024
Occupation: Fool
Any comedian will tell you, losing an audience’s attention for even a split second can snowball. Handle it wrong, and you may die onstage like Elvis on the toilet, like Lenny Bruce beside the toilet, like William Howard Taft in a bathtub near a toilet.
April 2024
Two Guys Walk into a Bar
Kliph Nesteroff on the Evolution of American Comedy
But I’m talking about joke structure; you’re asking about the purpose of comedy as a whole. When my first book came out, people would ask me in interviews, “Why is comedy important?” I don’t know that it is. There are lots of people, believe it or not, who don’t care about comedy. And they can live to the age of eighty or ninety.
April 2024
Why Are These the Things We Worry About?
Teo and Jeff were driving through rainy Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on their way from Wisconsin to Texas, when Jeff got even more feverish. They stopped at a hospital called Reid Memorial, where the examining doctor thought Jeff might have spinal meningitis. The hospital admitted Jeff, then set Teo up in a separate room.
April 2024
Pink Suede Boots
Decades old now, / but the leather’s held up, and the curve / of the instep is still elegant. / I gave them away to my goddaughter, sixteen / and blossoming.
March 2024Bridge Kid
As I was dabbing up cookie crumbs, the toddler appeared at the top of the stairs, sucking his thumb and crying. Only then did it occur to me that the boys had not been back up in some time. I patted his damp hair and went to check on his brothers.
March 2024
Yard Sales
Hunting for bargains, letting go of possessions, emptying out a home
March 2024
