Firestarter

This day, when the milk carton rips a little onopening, that hernia, not quite repaired, bites whenyou stand, the coffee, “Fogcutter” it says on the baglies or anyway overestimates and dogsgrayly humbled by sudden damp, grumblemelancholalia stops their frantic shrieks to murmursunworth a dart to the glass-fronted door, eventhe mail carrier FedEx UPS slinks boneless … [more]

Place of Refuge

“Spread out, ya knuckleheads!” Our drill sergeant barked at us in his normally cheerful tone. “One grenade’d get all y’all!” Murmuring alarm at the inevitable bloody future awaiting us, we shut up and spread out, thus facilitating getting dropped to the red, South Carolina dirt for a smoke session. The lesson held: crowding together equals … [more]

Get A Life

It’s a general article of faith in today’s GOP (and pretty much nowhere else in America) that women seeking abortions are slutty, adulterous murder bitches.

Card Carrying

What is the measure of a man?

Yellow Dog’s Ears

Pretty Wife and I were helping clean out a storage unit for beloved stepdad Paul when two sheets, one “NLQ” pin-printed in faded ink and the other handwritten, fluttered out of a box full of things to throw away. The ball point page is in my readily identifiable hand printing; the dot matrix page has … [more]

Whiteout

It’s held its color well, probably because it was an early shot in the fully artificial fabric wars. Ring-spun, so it’s breathable and doesn’t stick to me on a hot day like the seat cover from a 1960s sedan, the chest of it is proudly bespangled with the logo of a school I went to … [more]

Cheers, kid!

Dear Cougster: I don’t know what to tell young adults about their 21st birthdays, other than “don’t expect too much.” Like New Year’s Eve or bachelor parties, it’s often an occasion more gleefully anticipated than fondly remembered. Basically, if you get through it without hurting yourself too badly, scrawl it loopily into the “win” column … [more]

Borrowed Valor

It’s a joke and a cliché and the truest thing you’ll ever hear from us: “You weren’t there, man.”