Like many Jewish grandmothers, my grandmother's measure of success for her granddaughters is babies. (For her grandsons, it’s a medical degree and babies.) This is nothing new. But for Grandma Eva, a great-grandbaby holds special significance. She reminds me of this fact often, in ways she thinks are subtle, discreet. That’s great that you got into graduate school/are moving to New York/landed a teaching gig, but what about boys? Work isn’t everything, you know. Her…
Run rabbit run. You. a defiant pulse of color on the whitewashed hallway— I think that I knew that you would leave eventually, and I think that it’s fitting that we would discard you silently and collect your traces like streamers the night after a sweaty school dance. Run rabbit run. in my head. you’re already walking away. Pointed nose, black hoodie you recede into a background of doormen and dog walkers and snow…
GILBERT: welcome to the neighborhood, mysterious stranger HELEN: thank you my greatest desire is to be left in peace and solitude I'm sure you will not think it rude if I – GILBERT: i don't understand HELEN: I personally prefer to live alone GILBERT: is this some sort of code HELEN: No I just don't like company GILBERT: WOMEN SUCH MYSTERIES AN ENIGMA WRAPPED IN A RIDDLE AND CLEVERLY SEWN INTO A PUZZLE…
The Victorian-livin' couple, I am not yet done talking about them:
Neither my husband nor I have ever had a cellphone; I've never even had a driver's license. On special outings when Gabriel and I go cycling together, I ride a copy of a high-wheel tricycle from the 1880s. Gabriel has three high-wheel bicycles, and he has ridden them hundreds of miles. On our vacation just last week, we
201 hours. Just over eight days. Working 9:00 to 5:00, it would take you five straight weeks to get to 201 hours. It's a lot of time -- the most precious commodity in this world, the one thing that can't be bought or sold or regained once lost. I am about to spend 201 hours watching a television show, one that I have already seen. Why? The X-Files, an iconic pop-culture phenomenon in the '90s, is returning…
“Write me an erotic story about Batman and the Queen of England. Bonus points if you get the Queen’s corgis in there somehow.” “Write me a story about a backpacker whose dying wish is a tiramisu cupcake.” “Write me a meet-cute about Cthulhu and a woman at a bar in the style of Charles Bukowski.” I say yes. Of course I say yes -- I’m the man sitting under the tree with a typewriter. In…
In my third year of law school, I began to remember things I had spent most of my life forgetting. My attention fractured into a thousand glass splinters, each one cutting. I was assailed with strange images. With the images came disconnection, as if I was watching what was in front of me on a screen. Then, incongruously, a pervasive sense of threat, the shadows of my apartment stalking me.
Dear Rora: I love you, and so I am letting you go. I love you no less in saying this; in fact, maybe I can love you more freely now that I can say that I am not responsible for you. I cannot help you. I am not even near brave enough to call you because I am afraid of the gaping silence at the other end of the line. I don’t know where you…
ah, Achilles, you must be careful against the wrath of the sons of Priam NEVER THEY WHO HAVE SLAIN PATROCLUS WILL DIE AT THE HANDS OF A NAKED MAN NAKED IS MY SWORD, MY GRIEF, AND MY BODY at least wear a helmet VERY WELL BUT NOTHING ELSE but if they shoot at anyplace on your body besides your head – THEN THEY SHALL BE SHOOTING AT A NAKED AVENGING SPIRIT…
There is a big profile of Bill de Blasio in Vanity Fair. De Blasio is right about the cops, wrong about lateness: Worse was yet to come: also in December, near the height of tensions, de Blasio told a press conference how, as the father of a black teenager, he had several times cautioned Dante to be careful when dealing with the police. “We’ve had to literally train him,” he said, “as families have…
Charlene Cheung's previous work for The Toast can be found here. This message and any attached documents contain information that may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not read, copy, distribute, or use this information. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply email and then delete this message. This message and any attached documents contain sentiments that the sender…
Previously by Lindsay King-Miller: If Carrie Brownstein Were Your Girlfriend “Teenage Girl Making Empowered, Thoughtful Choices About My Sex Life” “The Woman Who Didn’t Think Very Much About Food” “People Like You Have Consensual Sex With People Like Me Because Our Relationship Is Based On Mutual Desire And Healthy Communication” “(Car Pooling To Yoga Class On The) Pacific Coast Highway” “Jennifer’s Body Does Not Determine Her Value As a Woman” “Plump (Tomatoes From My…
