Unfair Advantage

Stacy Mitchell On How Amazon Undermines Local Economies

To think of Amazon as a retailer is to miss the true nature of this company. Amazon wants to control the underlying infrastructure of commerce.

Fever

I lie on the couch in the living room and feel a deep sense of shame, because I’ve increased our debt by getting sick.

Survivor

Do I need to go into what turns an eleven-year-old into such a stoic: embarrassed to be sentimental, determined to be detached?

The Lonely Girl’s Guide To The Cosmos

There isn’t really a reset button for life — a switch you can hit, after you’ve gone through something terrible, that lets you go back to the beginning and start over. But there should be.

Reverence

I bow to the pencil, the pencil maker, the tree that gave its wood, the graphite that fills its core, and the mind that conceived pencil. I bow to all the teeth and jaws that have chewed pencils out of boredom or nervousness.

The Garden Center

Daniela can’t stand Lisa. Exactly why, I’m not sure. I can see her criticizing Lisa, who is her boss, but Daniela’s anger goes well beyond mere criticism. I suspect her rage stems in part from their age difference.

Loving You Burns Like Shingles

My love for you is a sun inside my chest. / It burns like shingles, wrings tears from my eyes / like the hands of a tough old woman washing / clothes in a tin tub.