PARIS, FRANCE-
It’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m panicking.
I woke up with the worst pain in my abdomen.
To be more specific, it feels as though someone has reached inside me and is squeezing my innards as they attempt to rip them from my body. (more…)
LOS ANGELES, CA-
Money apparently buys happiness. According to University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener, very rich people rate their level of life satisfaction substantially higher than do their impoverished counterparts. Adds Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick in England: “There is overwhelming evidence that money buys happiness.”
The only remaining point of debate, then, seems to be: To what degree? And naturally, some people harbor serious doubts about the aforementioned notion, including yours truly. I’m not entirely convinced that money alone makes people happier. I think it’s much more complex than that. (more…)
SANDY, UT-
In October, my esteemed colleague My Little Pony wrote an informative and wickedly funny post here at TNB about using Chantix to quit smoking.
NEW YORK CITY-
I was a late bloomer. Drinking never appealed to me in high school. Maybe it was because I was shyand/or depressed. I was always filled with contempt for people around me who were loud, horsing around, unaware of the circumference of their waving limbs, bumping into me, stepping on my toes, totally unapologetic about having more fun than I was having- right in front of me.
However, after a long, calculated process of overcoming my shyness through various personal tests that I created for myself (I’ll go into these shortly), having settled upon and embraced Welbutrin as (more…)
SARANAC LAKE, NY-
I should have known this might happen.
I should have known those blissful days might end and nameless evenings of camp fires and star gazing would give way to a time with harsher edges. (more…)
COLUMBIA, MARYLAND-
Today is…dreary.
I woke up with my alarm and peeked out the roman shade to see what the world had in store for me.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
He climbs my stairs like Tigger, full of bounce and light.
I’m waiting in the kitchen drinking wine, the ceramic tile smooth and cool under my bare feet, the anticipation of him hot and prickly.
He grabs me roughly and we kiss until our lips throb. He gets a hard on, steps back for assessment purposes.
Nice, I say sincerely.
Like that? he asks.
Of course, I reply. It’s so difficult to find a guy with a big cock and a big vocabulary.
He spits out a laugh. Is that right?
THE QUEEN CITY, NC-
I’ve worked many jobs. I’ve pushed a broom through a supermarket. I’ve sold shoes. I’ve poured booze to old men and young men with the shakes. I was an English teacher.
But I’ve never been a porn star like Nick Manning.
LOS ANGELES, CA-
An open letter to Julie, the girl who dumped me right after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded:
Dear Julie,
We dated briefly in the fifth grade, and on January 28, 1986, you broke up with me. We were sitting in the Presentation Area, adjacent the library, and we had just finished watching the Space Shuttle Challenger explode. It ascended from the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, and seventy-three seconds later, the whole thing went up in a massive fireball, killing everyone aboard. The room was silent, and our teachers started crying. And then (more…)
THE DEEP SOUTH-
“You’ll love it,” said Simi so we went.
Past all the hand scribbled signs warning “NO EYE CONTACT” into the bowels of the dank dark building, crumbling brownstone and scrub buckets of dry ice strewn across checkerboard floors.
The freight elevator appeared through the fog, its iron maw gasping with a great and clanging racket to receive.
“Love it,” I sighed.
PARIS, FRANCE-
Waiting at a stop light the other day, I saw a bus stop and begin letting people out even though there was no bus stop marked at that corner.
A group of about 20 business people got off and began crossing the street in front of me. One by one they began to gain speed, until they were running en groupe to the other side of the street where they all made a right turn and continued to run, holding their scarves and hats against the wind.
Just as the light turned green I saw what it was they were all running toward. (more…)
U.S.A., THE PRESENT DAY, AND PLYMOUTH COLONY, 1621-
The wild tom
shakes his red comb:
he’d like to make this hen a mom.
BERKELEY, CA-
I finally bought a new computer.
The old one was giving me problems.
At any possible moment, and with increasing frequency, it would freeze and shut down for no apparent reason.
The Blue Screen of Death would pop up along with a ‘fatal error’ message.
Then the computer would refuse to reboot until it could rest for a few hours.
I patched and repaired and upgraded the six-year old computer as best as I could, but I had to face the fact that it was becoming obsolete.
It was time to go shopping for a new one. (more…)
WASHINGTON, D.C.-
I never got Alberto Gonzalez. The way he sat there, in those Senate hearings, and told the Senate Judiciary Committee that prisoner abuse wasn’t torture until it caused the failure of a major internal organ. It wasn’t so much that he said those words with a straight face, but that he did so without showing any trace of human feeling. To watch those hearings was to be both fascinated and appalled. Appalled at his words; fascinated he could say them with so little apparent care. (more…)
GRAND BLANC, MI-
Like almost everyone these days, I’ve been diagnosed as bipolar and with OCD. Big deal. It confers no status on me, has no effect on whether I consider myself a good or poor writer. Perhaps the OCD suggests a propensity for an intensity of thought, while being bipolar indicates a tendency to better understand the depths and heights of existence. On the other hand, I wonder if reality itself is not obsessive-compulsive and bipolar. In that case, and by that measure, those not bipolar and experiencing OCD are maladjusted. I am both honored and disheartened to discover myself normal.
CHARLOTTE, NC-
Life has been a bittersweet ride for Duane “Dog” Chapman. A life full of good ol’ boy drama. Failed marriages. Batches of kids. Jail. God-preaching and bounty hunting.
AMHERST, MA-
A few weeks ago I checked out a copy of “Happy Together” at my Hollywood Video store, and then when I went to return, found a shut store, with a notice announcing a close-out DVD sale.
I went to my Netflix and found that they now offer streaming video over the internet.
Around the same time, I found that I couldn’t buy The Office on iTunes anymore, as I had all last year. It was on the website, like most of ABC’s content is, though ABC both sells ads and makes its shows available on iTunes, at 1.99 a pop. It’s a tough call whose making more money there.
And then the WGA announced it was going on strike, and it all came together for me. (more…)
By R Kent
ARUSHA-
As my body flailed about under the water, like a crushed bug flushed down a toilet, I did not have the chance to think.
I could not hope nor pray, nor did my life flash before my eyes.
I simply waited.
Waited for daylight, which eventually came as my head broke the surface and I discovered I was still in the middle of the rapid.
Instincts took over, and I got onto my back, stuck my legs out in front of me and gasped for air before the next wave knocked me back under.
Just seconds earlier, I had been in the raft, along with the others, but now I was just so much flotsam at the mercy of the White Nile. (more…)
LOS ANGELES, CA-
Last night, my wife and I were watching a show about Bigfoot on the History Channel. They played the old, grainy stock footage. The classic Bigfoot tape. Super-8 at a distance. Bigfoot in the wilderness, walking into the trees.
“That tape is horseshit,” I said. “That’s a guy in a Bigfoot suit.”
“I know,” said my wife.
“It’s obvious,” I said.
“I think it would be fun to wear the suit,” said my wife. “I’d love to put it on and go walk around in the woods.”
“You’d get shot,” I said.
“I probably would,” she said.
“You’d bump into some hunters and that would be the end of you,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. (more…)
